OpenOffice.org To Be Given Back To the Community 219
An anonymous reader writes "Oracle has stated they will give back the OpenOffice.org productivity suite to the community. Edward Screven, Oracle's Chief Corporate Architect, said the company intends upon 'working immediately with community members to further the continued success of Open Office.' Because there was a 'breadth of interest in free personal productivity applications,' the company believes the OpenOffice.org project would be 'best managed by an organization focused on serving that broad constituency on a non-commercial basis.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Translation: They couldn't "monetize" it. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Translation: They couldn't "monetize" it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation: They couldn't "monetize" it. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Likely Oracle is looking to make a much greater internet push and rebuilding some of the damage done to it's public image by seeking to monetise it's purchase of Sun, will be aided by rebuilding the OpenOffice community and maybe even donating the domain Sun, to humanities efforts in space.
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Lack of vision (Score:2)
Even if they can't monetize it in the short term, OpenOffice is admitted (if in private) by MS to be a threat.
MS Office is the way that Microsoft enforces it's synergy/monopoly in the "enterprise": office apps + server apps.
Oracle needs to have a counterstory to MS Office easily accessing SQL Server data. It's not enough to just focus on Oracle DB.
Not exactly a "mass brain drain'. (Score:2)
More "mass brain guillotineage"
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Yuh. My first thought was "wow, that many people left for LibreOffice?"
let me translte for ya (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, more like "wah! guys! please come back! we promise we won't spite the community!"
This doesn't mean shit unless they change the bylaws [groklaw.net] which give oracle complete control over openoffice with the ability to nullify the community basically.
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also, yes, this is a different product listed, but the same scenario.
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Why would they need "the community" when most of the actual paid developers are still at Oracle. The people who left were mostly auxiliary people who were easily replaceable.
Re:let me translte for ya (Score:5, Interesting)
I question a 1% difference is "so much better" (Score:5, Interesting)
why is LibreOffice already so much better than OpenOffice ever was?
Listen, I tried open office from 1.04.
It wasn't quite there yet.
But as of 3.00 I went to OO and had no need to look back.
I even had a large series of Word 1998/2000/2003 documents which would not work in Word 2010 and 2007. No explanation-no error message - they just hung.
I loaded them into OO (which I'd used since as early as 1.04 to fix broken Word documents which crashed word by loading and resaving them) and the problem was apparent. The bounding boxes on the artwork was overlapping the tables. These did not display in Word so it would have been nearly impossible to fix.
So.. I bit the bullet and converted my 100 page document from Word to OO. It took about 8 hours. I got to learn about what the "little grey lines" meant and about styles. I figured out the replacement for techniques like "styleref".
So then I converted my next 130 page document. It took 2 hours.
Then I converted all the rest of my documents- each taking under 2 hours.
Bonus? They printed MUCH faster than in word. Seriously- these things were taking 15 minutes to print in Word before they became unusable- now they printed in seconds in OO.
Libreoffice-- well it's different (not necessarily better- it does some new things OO doesn't- OO does some new things LO doesn't.). I'm okay with EITHER since either will load my OPENDOCUMENT format documents.
I'm no longer LOCKED IN to word. I no longer have to pay HUNDREDS of dollars for new versions every 3 years.
I've gotten in to Openoffice draw and created lots of maps and pictures and have developed a basic tool set of objects I can use in the documents.
I've gotten into Openoffice Calc and written a starfleet battles damage allocation program (complete with sound effects) which I can port to Excel if I ever felt the need to.
In business- I'm forced to use Word, Excel, Powerpoint. I *still* (after 12 months ) am struggling with these new interfaces. I'll be fine then I want to do something that used to be easy and it's very hard. I waste a few hours trying to find out where the hell they moved the command in Word.
And when I use word, I look for OO features which are not implemented in word and it's jarring since Word is supposed to have everything including the kitchen sink.
Libre office, Open office. They are both excellent and SUFFICIENT programs even if they cost up to $75. But they don't- they are free.
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For me, the lack of a good grammar checker is a serious issue.
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For me, the lack of a good grammar checker is a serious issue.
Fully agree! That's why I wouldn't spend a fiver for Microsoft Office. OpenOffice also cannot, but at least it cannot for free.
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You are writing 100 page documents and you were using word or open office?
LaTeX is what you need, handles typesetting for you nicely and everything.
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Libreoffice-- well it's different (not necessarily better- it does some new things OO doesn't- OO does some new things LO doesn't.)
This is wrong as far as I know. Libreoffice is the latest OpenOffice with Go-OO fixes and some plug-ins merged in. Go-OO was made during a time when developers were getting frustrated that OO development was stagnating and they weren't being allowed to include improvements and fixes. So they made them available elsewhere, at go-oo.org [go-oo.org]
LO will continue to fork, but for now, it's OO with bug fixes and improvements. They even used the same version number, 3.3 [wikipedia.org], because "The Document Foundation and most of
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Okay- I had the impression there were minor differences however you are correct.
Libre is a fork of OO and has these notable additions.
* SVG image import
* Lotus Word Pro and MS Works import filters
* Improved WordPerfect import
* Dialog box for title pages
* Navigator lets you unfold one heading as usual in a tree view
* "Experimental" mode
You have issues that need addressed... (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps your rant applies in *your* world, but it certainly doesn't apply in mine. The company I work for has been using OpenOffice.org quite happily for years. It does everything we need to do. We've integrated it into a majority of our workflows. We've felt no loss from not having either Microsoft Office or even Windows. Yeah, we're a double conundrum. We're a long-term successful business who doesn't use Microsoft Office or Windows. And we're not even a remotely IT-related business, nor are most of our employees computer experts.
In short, I think you are completely full of it.
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As for Oracle? The lesson here is, and I'm sure I'll get hate for pointing it out, but the lesson is FOSS is "free as in worthless" if you are a corp because you actually buy nothing for your money. they should have waited until Sun flatlined and picked it up for a song and ditched the FOSS and kept the IP copyrights and patents. Because as Libre Office proved it doesn't matter how much you pay for something if the FOSSies get their panties in a wad it quickly becomes not worth the effort. From what I saw oracle didn't do a damned thing different than sun before them, but because Sun was the "good guys" and Oracle was "One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison" it didn't really matter.
That's true whenever you buy a business where a large part of the value is goodwill. If you annoy your customers or employees too much then they will walk and the value is gone.
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That would ignore the fact that most of the critical code has already been written, and LibreOffice was getting it for free. Add in the fact that all of the distros are tossing out OOo, and it was just a matter of time until OOo would be a dead project.
Maybe Oracle realized that if they keep the community engaged, there may be rewards to be developed. Maybe they could even hold out hope for a Firefox like surge by the open source project, but if it happened while they were at odds with the outside community
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Yes, it's quite easy to make it the case that one's official line is mostly developed by one's own employees if one choses to incorporate one's own employees' contributions over outsiders' contributions. This is precisely why the Go-OO/LibreOffice fork formed and is precisely why when Oracle changed its rules to be even more restrictive than Sun was there was enough of a push that people wanted LibreOffice to be the official fork.
In short, trying to deny "the community" as an important part of OpenOffice's
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Why would they need "the community" when most of the actual paid developers are still at Oracle. The people who left were mostly auxiliary people who were easily replaceable.
"Why would they need "the community" when most of the actual paid developers are still at Oracle. The people who left were mostly auxiliary people who were easily replaceable."
Because they're about to fire all the actual paid developers at Oracle. The only thing that Larry hates more than not having totalitarian asshole control is paying money and not having totalitarian asshole control.
And, realistically, Libre/OpenOffice will then suck. It's too big and complicated for people who don't have full time jo
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Sure. There's support and there's support.
How many paid full time developers & testers (working at standard salaries for skilled professionals, which is on the order of ~80,000-130,000 USD salary p.a.) working on Libre/Open Office?
a) before Oracle fires all of theirs
b) after Oracle fires of all of theirs
This isn't a rhetorical question. But I'd bet that the ratio of (b) / (a) is under 0.3.
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Tons of developers from oracle's openoffice have already been jumping ship to libre office, so really, not at all like you protray on that.
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Be that as it may: that's good news. OpenOffice is a well established (and well chosen) name it will be good to have it back for the OSS community.
OpenOffice is a decent name, but who the fuck names a software program with a web domain (i.e., OpenOffice.org [wikipedia.org])? Ugghhhhh.... That's one distinct and major advantage LibreOffice [wikipedia.org] has in my mind. It may not be as obvious a name, but at least it doesn't appear to be run by a bunch of weirdos at first glance...
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Who the fuck names their development platform after a TLD [wikipedia.org]? Ugh.
Read between the lines (Score:4, Interesting)
It actually says: the code is a mess and we don't have any customers that would even remotely consider using it. So there, have it back and get off our lawn.
Re:Read between the lines (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect it's more a "what do we do with a brand name with a collapsing value and no product?"
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Brand name? "OpenOffice, the thing that was tainted by Oracle."
Outcry (Score:2)
Too much outcry from the community? Wasn't worth it after LibreOffice? (despite the stupid name?)
Re:Outcry (Score:5, Interesting)
Heh, no kidding. Every time I see it in dselect (shut up, I'm old), I think "What's lib reoffice, oh wait, that's libre office".
-l
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You do realize that now that you've shown it, everyone who has read this comment is going to read it that way? You've just scarred many /. readers for life!
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I think more like, "We're not going to make any money off this, so why bother keeping it? Let the kids have their toys."
LibreJava (Score:2)
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Yeah, Google is already working on that one, sort of... :)
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Too late Oracle Bye Bye (Score:5, Interesting)
I have already uninstalled and deployed LibreOffice across our 500 client org.
I will not keep bouncing about.
We now fully back LibreOffice and will continue to do so. We will not backtrack back to OO until the next time Oracle change their mind.
Bye Bye Oracle.
The OpenOffice name/brand (Score:5, Interesting)
Please, let's keep LibreOffice brand (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if Oracle gives OO.org brand to the comunnity, I think it's a great opportunity to stick with LibreOffice and leave behind all karma associated with the OpenOffice age.
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The ODF could use the opportunity to make both brands available. That way they can use the momentum of OO.org and the freshness of LO. They can put the current name on some configuration file somewhere, and distribute the rest of the code unchanged.
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Why not just take the best of both worlds and go with the short and sweet name: Office
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Well, I think it should be called "SweetOffice"!
(because it's an office suite; get it!
er, never mind, I'll go away now)
give it away, give it away now. (Score:2)
This is how Oracle supports open source? we don't/won't pay to support it so we 'give' it back to the community.
Given the options this is the lessor of two evils, they could have let it die internally.
Too late. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've already switched to LibreOffice.
Oracle Lost (Score:2, Interesting)
They are trying to take the Document Foundation and Libre Office brands now.
Do not fall for Oracle's scam. Back LibreOffice and the Document Foundation.
Show Oracle how we play the game. Kill Oracle Open Office by not using it.
Let them keep their oO.o fork (Score:2)
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Actually AC, we can put a Gamer mentality on it. We can use both, and note here and there where the two programs don't render the same to watch out for MS style rendering tricks. Then treat it like it is "on loan". Slurp the good code out of it and include it into LibreOffice (if it hasn't already) before they take it away again.
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To be fair, one of the things the Libreoffice peeps have done is started going to town on the "this is awful/redundant code, can you help us rewrite it" thing, complete with one of the nicest ideas I've seen, http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks [documentfoundation.org]
Basically, a list of stuff that needs doing, but they don't necessarily have time for, but is easy enough that a beginner/lower level coder can do the grunt work. Eases people into working with a big project.
LibreOffice has better icons (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing I though when I installed it was: woah, these icons look awesome!
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I agree, the original OpenOffice icon, especially on OS X, looks very nice - the sweeping line separating the two shades of blue and the two stylised birds. It's one of the icons that I "keep" in my Dock, unlike some truly ugly app icons that are only there when the apps are running that I launch from the Apps springloaded folder.
I wanted to loved LibreOffice but the name and icon are... suboptimal. I think this makes me shallow, but I like my UI to look good, especially if I am staring at it for long perio
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1. Open Applications folder
2. Select OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice, "Get Info"
3. Click on OpenOffice.org icon in top left of its panel, hit command-C to copy
4. Click on LibreOffice icon in top left of its panel, hit command-V to paste
5. Drag LibreOffice from Applications menu to dock.
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I did that for all the original Creative Suite 1 apps, with a modified community-created set of icons, since the original ones were awful. The ones for the new suites (which I don't have) are similarly pretty terrible.
CS1 (PS, InDesign, Illlustrator) still sit on my dock with the much nicer community icons to this day.
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Woah (Score:3)
Who are you, and what have you done with Oracle?
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No, no problem about what you made to Oracle. We just stopped you to tell the address of Congress; it's over there.
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Tod and Ryley: They pushed us, so we had them Replaced.
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Must be delayed April 1st. Sony is actively promoting rooting their android phones [hackaday.com] and gives you a simple method of doing it too
what a coincidence.. (Score:5, Funny)
the story before this one was "Students Build Life-Sized Trojan Horse For Class Project"
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A no win Battle (Score:5, Interesting)
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In that case OO.org will simply disappear into obscurity. Sure, for a while name recognition will keep in going, but in the end it's toast. I've got some other big projects on the fly, but likely in June I'll be moving the thirty workstations we have running OO.org over to LibreOffice, mainly for OOXML support (though it's still far from perfect). Once we're down that path, there's no way in hell I'm going to move back to OO.org, even if they roll in the GoOo features, simply because I've got better thin
Someone at Oracle just had an "oh crap" moment (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is how it got expressed. LibreOffice people, just keep doing your thing. You don't need corporate control.
Clingy Ex-Husband (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, it feels like a clingy, manipulative ex-husband. "This time I'll change", etc., etc.
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Oh Dave, I'm so sorry, how will I be able to thank you? Mmmmm, nck nck nck nck nck... yessss, nck nck nck nck.
Get Oracle out of here! "No, wait, wait, let'm finish. "There will be peace in the middle office suite...."
and a couple stories down about a Trojan Horse (Score:2)
Maybe there's a patent or two they are holding behind their backs which have recently obtained from Novell. boo!
LoB
Sounds like .... (Score:2)
Its a trap (Score:2)
I don't trust Oracle. Give me one good reason why we should?
Jenkins / Hudson (Score:2)
I wish they would've taken this approach with the Hudson CI server rather than fragmenting the community.
http://jenkins-ci.org/content/about-jenkins-ci [jenkins-ci.org]
Go fuck yourselves. (Score:2, Troll)
Best thing about LibreOffice... (Score:3)
Google Trends -- Openoffice vs Libreoffice (Score:2)
Google Trends --> http://www.google.com/trends?q=openoffice%2C+libreoffice&date=ytd [google.com]
Screen Cap: Openoffice vs Libreoffice --> http://i.imgur.com/7hY4G.png [imgur.com]
Too late (Score:2)
OpenOffice is that things that's tainted by Oracle.
Is there anybody not switching to LibreOffice?
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Its really is time to fork Gnome [tinyurl.com]
Join the effor!
Could not someone at slashdot write a small script to blacklist url's that have been flagged troll? I'll do it if you pay me a slave wage...
Re:Forsks work aren't they (Score:4, Insightful)
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You dont have to blacklist the URL. Just strip all url's from any post tagged as TROLL.
Should take care of the issue.
Agreed, I like my -1 Goatse mod idea but your idea would work.. How about instead of stripping the link totally it just strips the html link bit out and leaves the text so if someone wants to see a gaping hole they still can manually copy/paste.
At least they aren't Anonymous... (Score:2)
...Goatse posters would just give Anonymous a bad name.
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Or Slashdot should just auto re-write all urls from shortening services (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/6gabfug [tinyurl.com] becomes http://slashurl.com/tinyurl/6gabfug [slashurl.com]) and then give you an intermediary page where the url is expanded to show the real source.
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Could not someone at slashdot write a small script to blacklist url's that have been flagged troll? I'll do it if you pay me a slave wage...
Could? Sure. Should? Every GNAA post would be linking to the BBC or Google or Slashdot itself just to get them blacklisted. Some sort of manually put together blacklist would be feasible for sites that do actual damage (but not for crap like Goatse - everyone on the planet must be bored of it by now but it's hardly going to hurt you)
I think you give the fucktards too much credit. Firstly it wouldn't have to prevent a user from clicking it, maybe just a friendly warning. Second why do we, the "tech coward" ever need to link using tinyurl.com. Thirdly I think it could be done in a way that would avoid the problem you note.
Honestly it would make a fun project that could be marketed to other forums... Yes Slashdot overlords you could get a larger bonus this year if you force your tech slaves to get on this... I assure you we are talking 7
Re:Goatse (Score:4, Funny)
but not for crap like Goatse - everyone on the planet must be bored of it by now but it's hardly going to hurt you
Are you sure about that? Some people may have been scarred for life.
A -1 goatse mod would be a start.. but nooooo change is bad unless it slows down the site or is shiny...
Re:Goatse (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is all.
No that is not all.... IT'S A TRAP!!!!
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Goatse warning.
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Here's the page source.
Wouldn't this be like a vulnerability? Doesn't seem to work on Opera though.
var yBase = screen.width / 2; .2;
var xBase = screen.height / 2;
var delay = 10;
var step =
var currStep = 0;
var Xpos = screen.width / 4;
var Ypos = screen.height / 2;
var j=0;
function start() {
window.resizeTo(500,500);
movew0w();
}
function movew0w() {
for ( j = 0 ; j
The above fine work of art is © the Goatse guy.
Thanks
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The people actually using those products often are not the people choosing those products for use.
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I admire your persistence, but what happened to your perineum?!
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You should try Libreoffice then, they forked it just after Oracle took over Sun, and merged it with the interoperability patches that Go-oo.org had been using.
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Aye, it is Oracle that is hoping to keep their embrace, so that one day "soon" they may be able to extend. We all here for the most part know what the last e is, I think.