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 Channel Futures

Open Source


What’s Next for Apache’s Open Source Office Suite, OpenOffice?

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • April 23, 2015

Times appear to be tough for the development team behind Apache OpenOffice, the open source office productivity suite that is popular on Linux, and runs on Windows and OS X as well. They're so tough, in fact, that some observers are questioning whether the project will soon fold.

Times appear to be tough for the development team behind Apache OpenOffice, the open source office productivity suite that is popular on Linux, and runs on Windows and OS X as well. They’re so tough, in fact, that some observers are questioning whether the project will soon fold.

Bruce Byfield at Datamation asked this week, “Is OpenOffice Dying?” His question was prompted by the working (emphasis on “working”—all statements are still tentative) copy of the latest board report from the project. Among other challenges for OpenOffice, the report points to “practically no development” taking place.

If that’s the case, it’s no surprise. OpenOffice began bleeding developers, and users, to LibreOffice, a fork of the original OpenOffice code, shortly after Oracle took the reins of OpenOffice following its January 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Oracle’s decision in 2011 to wash its hands of the project and donate the OpenOffice code base to the open source Apache Foundation did little to reinvigorate the flagging endeavor.

Now, although OpenOffice remains a viable productivity suite that is fully compatible with Linux, the majority of mainstream Linux distributions ship with LibreOffice by default. And although we don’t have hard data, we suspect that most Windows- and Mac-based users of open source office software—which fills a popular niche, since OpenOffice and LibreOffice are perhaps the only free, enterprise-quality alternative to Microsoft (MSFT) Office—today opt for LibreOffice, too.

Since few people appear to be currently using OpenOffice—and because the core functionality of the office suite is still pretty similar to that offered by LibreOffice—it’s unlikely that too many people are worried about OpenOffice’s present conundrum. LibreOffice is not going anywhere anytime soon, which means Linux users have no cause for concern.

Still, as one of the longest-standing open source productivity apps, and one that played a major role in making desktop Linux viable, OpenOffice is a venerable project. Indeed, its history stretches all the way back to 1985 (when I was still merely an idea!), and it has been open source since 2000. If it folds, it will be one of the first big-name open source apps to do so—even if few people notice as they continue happily chugging along on LibreOffice.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Open Source

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3 comments

  1. Avatar markh April 24, 2015 @ 10:05 pm
    Reply

    Openoffice already died when
    Openoffice already died when everybody left and created libre office….apache should have done the right thing when oracle gave it to them and put it down out of its misery.

  2. Avatar David Brown April 26, 2015 @ 3:13 am
    Reply

    If a project can be forked,
    If a project can be forked, couldn’t the two branches be rejoined? Ever since Oracle donated the OO project to the Apache Foundation, there seemed to be no real reason for OO not to be merged back with LO.

  3. Avatar David Gerard April 28, 2015 @ 1:54 pm
    Reply

    On Windows userbase: AOO
    On Windows userbase: AOO still has a significantly higher rate of downloads for Windows than LO does. (I base this claim on the projects’ own assertions as to download numbers, but see no reason to question these numbers.) The “OpenOffice” brand remains remarkably strong even as the product lacks development progress.

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