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The future of Open Office.org is at risk

gnome.org — In a healthy project we would expect to see a large number of volunteer developers involved, in addition - we would expect to see a large number of peer companies contributing to the common code pool; we do not see this in OpenOffice.org.

Who dugg this? Made popular Dec 27, 2008

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  • phreak79, on 12/27/2008, -12/+249That would be a terrible shame as its the only real alternative to MS Office.
  • daengbo, on 12/27/2008, -9/+173OO.o has been sick since it was opened: Sun has never relinquished control enough to make it a viable OSS project. The code was always too ugly to allow casual commitments. Any code committed to the project had to be dual licensed.

    The sad fact is that OO.o took years away from the attempt to get a better solution.
  • jadenton, on 12/27/2008, -29/+168OpenOffice is just a mediocore product. Its cluncky, ugly, and has a bit of a learning curve compared to other office products. It offers no killer features to take the sting out of a swtich from another product.

    The world needs a free office product, and OO.org offers the most complete solution. But it doesn't have the "spark" needed to unseat MS.
  • ThantiK, on 12/27/2008, -3/+116Another potential title for this article: The future of Open Office is forked.
  • ramsinks.com, on 12/27/2008, -12/+78It will still be around for sure.
    It's nice giving my clients two choices, either $300 or free. Most like the free one just fine.
    All my Macs and PCs use OOo. I see no reason to buy something (unless you just really need Pub or Outlook)
  • ShyGuy91284, on 12/27/2008, -8/+71I can't argue with most of your points, but the learning curve doesn't seem any worse than trying to switch to the latest versions of Office.
  • spyres, on 12/27/2008, -8/+68Meeks, the author of this "article", is an employee of MS partner Novell who has posted up this ***** before. He's selling people on his patent encumbered fork to kill off Openoffice.

    He's simply not credible. ***** him.
  • toptopics, on 12/27/2008, -2/+58iwork is not free
  • peters1023, on 12/27/2008, -12/+67boo on ianything.
  • LarsonLE, on 12/27/2008, -63/+112I currently use OpenOffice and I even have the disks for MS Office, it's just that I like OpenOffice more :D.
  • cfizzo, on 12/27/2008, -3/+51i hope you're joking about iwork
  • Rubuntu, on 12/27/2008, -22/+68OPENOFFICE.ORG IS NOT AT RISK PERIOD.

    This is Meeks working for Microsoft's partner Novell and working their own agenda. The fact is Openoffice.org is stronger now than ever before.......
  • Stonekeeper, on 12/27/2008, -7/+53Something is sounding my alam bells here, and perhaps it's entirely unjustified. This is essentially coming out of the Novell camp which is my first alarm. The second is the fact that it's pimping Novell's version of OO.o: http://go-oo.org/ I believe this version has some MS entanglement, so draw your own conclusion about that.
  • KIERANMULLEN, on 12/27/2008, -4/+47He will be buried becuase he is comparing apples to oranges. Free illegal software versus Free Open Source Software. If you had to pay full price for it which one would you choose?
  • Dongvid, on 12/27/2008, -6/+49Well there's always KOffice. It makes progress consistently and I like all of the applications it has to offer, like Karbon, a vector graphics app. Oh, and now it's cross platform (though still beta).
  • primate666, on 12/27/2008, -5/+46If OpenOffice goes down, another will come up. If the demand for opensource is strong, a strong opensource program will always last and be backed up.
  • hardeep1singh, on 12/27/2008, -4/+39Stop joking, we're talkiing about REAL solutions here..
  • laserdog, on 12/27/2008, -4/+39On the bright side, its UI stays consistent.

    I know half a dozen friends who absolutely hate MS Office because each version moves all the buttons around, changes defaults (e.g. the change tracking in 2k3). Also, it's backwards compatibility with it's own versions is spotty at best.

    I finally got my wife to try it after she spent 30 minutes trying to open a 2k powerpoint file in Office 2007.

    Oo opened it like a champ.

    Neither is prefect, but in my experience, one makes me curse a whole lot less.
  • cfizzo, on 12/27/2008, -7/+39why pirate office install discs (assuming that's how you're getting it free) when all i really need is simple word processing and spreadsheet capabilities. OO.o is a much smaller download.
  • duke, on 12/27/2008, -12/+44Fact of the matter is, that the "office suite" was pretty much perfected and polished roughly 10 years ago, and since that time, any "advancements" have been pretty much limited to dicking around with the UI and cross-platform compatibility. OO is no more (and no less) viable now than it was 5 years ago. Any office suite will do what you need it to do once you get used to it, and the only reason MSO is dominant is that the people who spec it don't want to have to deal with workers who are too stupid or too lazy to cope with non-dominant UIs. The current version of OO is fine - it's OK to stop now. It will never become a killer app and will never de-throne MSO, and there's really no point in polishing it further.
  • Ewingo401, on 12/27/2008, -3/+33I never knew there were so many haters of OO.o. While its certainly not a perfect office suite, it IS a viable alternative to MS Office for people who want something very comparable at no charge. I'm willing to look past minor short comings to save a few hundred dollars.
  • boson3, on 12/27/2008, -4/+34Take article, substitute "OO" with "Java". Same problems.
  • cfizzo, on 12/27/2008, -1/+31what are you talking about?
  • spyres, on 12/27/2008, -2/+32You're absolutely right. The Novell guys are pretty clear in that they essentially want people to use their patent encumbered version.So you get FUD articles like this one.

    Meek's is selling people on his encumbered fork and we've seen articles like this from him in the past. He's simply not credible.

    As for those who claim that the new version 3.0 has no "killer features", well how about the ability to load and edit pdf's? Some very nice improvements have been added for anyone willing to take a minute to actually try them out.

  • inactive, on 12/27/2008, -4/+29how the hell is ms office free?
  • techdever, on 12/27/2008, -5/+29the weakest link is always the end user; sounds like you have file permission problems, you should probably secure your windows better.
  • regeya, on 12/27/2008, -0/+22'As for those who claim that the new version 3.0 has no "killer features", well how about the ability to load and edit pdf's?'

    I wasn't aware of that; thank you.
  • binaryloop, on 12/27/2008, -7/+29I'm not buying this either. This is another attempt by Microsoft to come through the backdoor. Remember the Microsoft strategy: embrace, extend, exterminate. They've already 'embraced' open source by admitting that it is a threat. They tried to 'extend' it by making patent-protection deals (read: extortion) with companies like Novell, Xandros, Linspire, etc. and now they want to exterminate projects like OO.o by convincing developers to fight amongst themselves and work on alternatives like Novell's go-oo.org. Don't believe ANYONE who works for a Linux or OSS company deals with Microsoft. They aren't out to help OSS. Microsoft wants to control it and kill it (regardless of what they tell you in their press releases). This is a classic trojan horse.

    If you're really worried about OO.o then go and sign up to participate in the project http://contributing.openoffice.org/ or donate some money: http://contributing.openoffice.org/donate.html
  • haikuFU, on 12/27/2008, -3/+25The project is HUGE and complex. If someone wants to contribute code or fix a bug, there is a steep learning curve.

    Once the project is on Subversion, Sun should buy a few new Macbooks and have a "contest" on who can fix the most bugs over the course of a month or so.
  • Thomaschaaf, on 12/27/2008, -18/+39I really love MS Office 2007s UI. The old clunky design just doesn't make it comfortable enough for me. If OO would redesign their UI and may be bring a bit innovation with it I would take a look at it
  • zeazzz, on 12/27/2008, -23/+43If you have disks for MS Office and are still using OpenOffice then you are clueless. There is nothing wrong with MS Office, and the only reason people would use OpenOffice in the first place is because they don't have access to MS Office.
  • breakingrocks, on 12/27/2008, -0/+18My biggest qualm with iWork is the support for MS Office files and other file standards other than its own. It sucks. Openoffice on the other hand does it tremendously well, in a way anyone familiar with Office can get used to and it's completely FREE!
  • BobTheTaco, on 12/27/2008, -1/+18Hey! I have three eyes too! OO.o
  • cheekymonk3y, on 12/27/2008, -6/+21wow, 33 people have dugg you down so far (34 up) because you said you prefer to use open office over MSoffice when you have both.
  • skyshock1, on 12/27/2008, -3/+18KOffice, StarOffice, Abiword, GNUmeric, Google Docs....
  • ShoggothDreams, on 12/27/2008, -0/+14It's his pithy way of saying "of course it's pirated".
  • benologist, on 12/27/2008, -1/+15Judging by the numbers people prefer pirating software.
  • jaytek13, on 12/27/2008, -2/+16The "learning curve" argument of Windows users... It's easy to forget about the learning curve for products you've been using for years, but it's still there, even if you try to deny it.
  • bhavinp, on 12/27/2008, -34/+47Yeah cause its slow as *****. If I had the choice between OOo and Office, I would choose to work with Office, it's much faster.
  • inactive, on 12/27/2008, -1/+14I don't know why writing documents has to be so complicated..
  • cheeseplease, on 12/27/2008, -5/+17OO.o used to be very slow (startup time that is) but has become a lot quicker.
  • ShrimpCrackers, on 12/27/2008, -5/+17I use ThinkFree Office which is pretty much free for everyone as AVG is a free antivirus.

    But yes Open Office needs an overhaul. It's just ugly.
  • irisblaze, on 12/27/2008, -2/+13Open source projects are not making enough commercials, or ads, OpenOffice really saved my day the other day, it's true that MS office has much more features, but OpenOffice featuring important functionalities that are missing from MS office by default like, exporting to HTML without all the crappy MS tags they add to the html pages, or saving as PDF, OpenOffice supports more formats, and honestly I think the extra features that MS office has over OpenOffice are useless, at least for me...
  • darkNiGHTS, on 12/27/2008, -11/+22Microsoft Office is much better anyway, the UI makes much more sense. Also, you should try Office 2007 with the ribbon interface, it really is that much better.
  • cheekymonk3y, on 12/27/2008, -5/+15So what? He is stating his personal opinion on which software he likes best. This is a thousand times more lame than 360/PS3 fanboys or linux/mac fanboys digging each other down.

    Boo hoo, he likes something else more than your chosen software, i guess that must trigger a "BURY BURY BURY" switch in people's minds. I don't understand any of it.
  • ZippyV, on 12/27/2008, -5/+15Since you are the first person I have ever seen who has this problem, I suspect the problem is with you or your computer.
  • MrJagil, on 12/27/2008, -1/+11This will be a real shame. I'd much rather download something legaly for free, than having to pirate Word/Pages... i am a pirate, but only out of necessity...
  • jerrycan, on 12/27/2008, -1/+11I'm such a non demanding user for office suites, I've found google docs has everything I need plus the convienance of working anywhere including offline whenn google gears is installed. never looking back unless Google takes it away....
  • porl, on 12/27/2008, -2/+12jerrycurley: "Sorry, but it is not even a matter of opinion."

    yes it is. stating that it is not does not change a thing.

    perhaps i am not sane, but *I* prefer openoffice to microsoft office any day. sure there are still a few areas that openoffice needs some improvement, but i could certainly say the same about microsoft office.

    i don't believe mine is the only valid opinion, but i certainly believe it is valid.
  • inactive, on 12/28/2008, -1/+11Comparing Google Docs to Office 2007 is like comparing Power Wheels to a Porsche.
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