OpenOffice.org Declares Independence From Oracle, Becomes LibreOffice 648
Google85 writes "The OpenOffice.org Project has unveiled a major restructuring that separates itself from Oracle and that takes responsibility for OpenOffice away from a single company. From now on, OpenOffice's development and direction will be decided by a steering committee of developers and national language project managers. Driving home the changes, the OpenOffice.org project is now The Document Foundation, while the OpenOffice.org suite has been given the temporary name of LibreOffice."
Probably the best thing to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome News for Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Now no one will take OpenOffice... err... I mean LibreOffice seriously and continue using Microsoft Office unabated.
Oh no! (Score:1, Insightful)
When I see names of this kind I know that the project is now dead.
Re:It's all in the name (Score:5, Insightful)
Tensions between the open source community and Oracle, a big proprietary software company, can hardly be called infighting in the OSS community.
Re:It's all in the name (Score:2, Insightful)
Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then. Well done OSS community. Shot itself in the foot with infighting again.
Sadly, I have to agree. Add to that the fact that it appears half the population doesn't know how to pronounce "libre" or even what it means and it's hard to see how this change can help rather than hurt.
Why do open source projects pick stupid names? (Score:4, Insightful)
LibreOffice? Seriously? What a horrid name. We're not French and the percentage of the population that understands what Libre means is nil.
There's a reason we're all geeks and not in marketing. However, we all have friends who have a bit savviness when it comes to creativity. Quit being a geek and ask for help.
This is no different than the Diaspora project. Even if that project had the technical side working, it'd still fail because the name is so stupid. You can't compete against a product named "Facebook" when your name is "Diaspora".
Re:Why the new name? (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather than idiotic, the name LibreOffice is simply dumb. I'm not even sure how to pronounce it. But I guess dumb is a step up from idiotic.
Weird sounding name (Score:1, Insightful)
Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then. Well done OSS community. Shot itself in the foot with infighting again.
More importantly, by choosing a name that lots of English speakers won't even know how to pronounce, they've isolated themselves even more. They'd have done better if they'd chosen an abstract name like "Firefox" or "Apache."
Lee Bray Office? Sounds like an evangelical preacher's fundraising department.
Sounds good (for now). Please live up to it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Document Foundation:
Please live up to it, and make OOo (or LO) kick some ass. We need you!
May the force be with them!
Re:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a good chance Oracle owns the OpenOffice.org name.
Good. They can have it. Who ever heard of a piece of software being named after its website?
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like how it [didn't] die when transitioning from "StarOffice" to "OpenOffice.org"?
Re:bad name (Score:3, Insightful)
It's temporary--this is pretty common. A new name will be created to clearly demarcate that a Change Has Happened, and then a real name is sorted out over time.
Re:Why the new name? (Score:3, Insightful)
They might be forced to change it. I think they were cleverly trying to avoid naming it FreeOffice. How about a slight change to 'FreedomOffice' ? 'Free' makes you think it's not worth much, i.e. a cheap watered down version of something better, but with 'Freedom' i get the connotation that i'm being freed from something... Just a thought.... Juuuuust a thought.
Re:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
What's really sad is that if Oracle were to come back with "You can have the name for one million dollars" the LibreOffice people wouldn't be able to come up with the money. Chump change for Ellison, deal breaker for OSS.
I think the monatary amount would be beside the point. If Oracle said that they could have it for $1000 I would tell them to turn it sideways and shove it up their asses. Oracle has basically given the finger to FOSS so why deal with them at all unless they are truly willing to give up something of value?
Personally, I think LibreOffice should pick a new name, totally redo the icon set and then have the big three push it like crazy. I think the biggest problem with LibreOffice is that it's ugly. Sad, but true.
Re:It's all in the name (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, really. It was either this, or see the project get scrapped and a new, proprietary "OracleOffice.org" get released a few weeks later. I'm glad to see open source resisting becoming assimilated and crushed because a major backer got acquired.
Re:Open Office, the scarlet A? (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't intending to change the software...at least not initially.
From LibreOffice's FAQ:
Q: So is this a breakaway project?
A: Not at all. The Document Foundation will continue to be focused on developing, supporting, and promoting the same software, and it's very much business as usual. We are simply moving to a new and more appropriate organisational model for the next decade - a logical development from Sun's inspirational launch a decade ago.
***
I think this is the community's way of trying to push Oracle into releasing the name to them.
I doubt very much that Larry Ellison will let go of it due to name recognition (name recognition is worth $$$ from a marketing standpoint).
Just my $0.02.
-JJS
Re:It's all in the name (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that's bollocksed up what little name recognition it had then
Sure, but what's the alternative?
Oracle actually is the malevolent cartoon devil that people here will make Microsoft/Apple/Google/whatever out to be depending on what day it is.
Horrible name (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Weird sounding name (Score:1, Insightful)
Leebray Zeebray? I don't get it.
Re:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet it is not at all uncommon for even large and well known businesses to re-brand and change the name of either the business or the product. Norwich Union -> Aviva, Charmin -> Cushelle, to quote two relatively recent examples.
Had to be done. (Score:3, Insightful)
It had to be done. Open Office (and MySQL) are too important to be entrusted to Larry Ellison. Already, a few parts of MySQL, such as the Windows GUI client, are no longer reliable.
("LibreOffice", as a name, though, has to go. The open source community sucks at naming.)
Re:Why do open source projects pick stupid names? (Score:2, Insightful)
To tell the truth, I never minded having it called "OpenOffice.org" because no-one ever bothered to say ".org." On the other hand, you've got a good point that the names are stupid...but the names of the components. You've got Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, and Draw. These are, respectively, noun, contracted verb or noun, verb, contracted noun, and verb. Could we even be less consistent? We'd have to create a new component that was named with a preposition, participle, or conjunction...for example a mail component called Into, Mailing, or And.
I hope that this new start lets even something so basic get fixed.
-Gareth
Re:Risk and Opportunity (Score:2, Insightful)
2. REALLY hoping someone can make an OpenOffice fork/port/whatever that makes full use of the Qt toolkit. Instead of just getting the look of native widgets (which is what I understood efforts to date had been doing?) actually use the real Qt widgets and let the Qt toolkit handle that part of things. Probably requires major reworking of OpenOffice, but moments like this tend to be good times to take new directions like that. Let Qt do what it does so well and handle the cross-platform GUI widgets, and focus on the Office stuff.
More to the point, it would be nice if it was componetized to the extent that the backend document and data code were cleanly separate and callable from UI code. Then new interfaces could be done in whatever you like and the backend code could be used alone for things like document conversion servers.
Death-- or revival? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's all in the name (Score:5, Insightful)
You win the "Poor Analogy of the Day Award". Twice. (Do you even understand what's being discussed?)
YouTube is still called "YouTube"; there was no change of name that would suggest instability to a casual observer.
OpenOffice.org was not renamed when it was taken over by Oracle; it is (apparently) being renamed in an attempt to wrest it from Oracle, which is a sign of instablity.
Re:How "official" is this? (Score:3, Insightful)
SOME would say better? Is there any rational basis for ANYONE to claim MySQL is better than PostgreSQL in ANY meaningful regard?
Re:It's all in the name (Score:5, Insightful)
There are thieves in your area. Are they part of your community? Only in a very broad sense of community. Generally, community refers to a group of people with shared ideals, cooperating. Submitting patches to FOSS is one thing. Submitting patches to FOSS for the good of the community, without an ulterior motive, or at least with your vision of how it might be useful sharing a large subset with others, is another thing.
Re:The 63 k question && answer from the FA (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't they just buy a chip manufacturer? SPARC?
Re:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us find Oracle being in the name to strip all credibility, much like Microsoft.
Re:Why do open source projects pick stupid names? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree LibreOffice is a stupid name, almost as stupid as that open source FaceBook "Die As Poor As", but lots of stupid names are big now. TWAIN (Technology Without An Interesting Name) only went away because USB came along, not because of its name. GNU's still here. And WiFi; God what a stupid, ignorant name. Whoever named that obviously was thinking of "HiFi", which was short for "High Fidelity". The "wi" makes sense, but where the hell did the "fi" come from? What about "Bluetooth", I mean, WTF? Who thinks that idiocy is in any way clever?
How about iPad? I had to wear one overnight after my iSurgery. Or WiMP for MS' media player?
We're not in marketing because you have to take an IQ test to be in marketing. Anything higher than a 90 and you fail, few here could pass that. Who here would make a slogan "we build excitement" for basic transportation; what, the brakes are bad and the handling sucks?
Why not just call the damned thing "Free Office"? People LIKE free. Maybe it's because so many people worship the almighty dollar and equate "free" with "worthless".
To go along with GNU (Gnu's Not Unix) I vote INMO -- "It's Not Microsoft Office". Naw, that'd never work...
Re:Horrible name (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's all in the name (Score:4, Insightful)
They have been invited to join the efforts as an equal contributor. Hopefully they will. They just aren't going to be permitted to actually run the project. Yes, many large companies have contributed to Free software while also producing commercial software, and that's fine. That's not the same as actually RUNNING the project effectively. That requires a particular management culture that Oracle just doesn't seem to have.
I stopped using OOo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's all in the name (Score:3, Insightful)
Submitting patches to FOSS for the good of the community, without an ulterior motive, or at least with your vision of how it might be useful sharing a large subset with others, is another thing.
corporations who submit patches purely in their own interest are just as valuable to the OSS community as contributors who do it altruistically. look at the amount of contributions from corporations - to say linux - who do it purely because they need the improvements.
Re:Laudable goal, but can it work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Performing rigorous QA is "bureaucratic obstruction?" What are you smoking?
Ever notice how a lot of software out there just fucking sucks? Crashes all the time, trashes your data, and makes you pull your hair out? Do you think the situation would improve if only we could find those mythical perfect developers who never make mistakes? Or might it have something to do with... the fact that nobody TESTS their shit anymore?
I'm really baffled at how ANY developer could have a beef against QA. For crap sake, they are taking responsibility for the quality of the product! If something goes wrong you can point your finger at them and deflect the blame! And you want to call them useless bureaucrats? They're covering your ass!
*Shakes head in disbelief*