Apache Software Foundation Celebrates Two Decades Of OpenOffice

[bug77]

I would rank Apache software foundation on top of all open source foundations by importance but they do have a few weird duds among their projects, OO being one of them. I guess there must be sufficient support from the board to keep OO a top level project and not retire it, but I wonder why that is.

Remember, OO is not Apache's doing. The project landed in their lap only after Oracle held onto it long enough for it to become irrelevant.
But like you, I couldn't tell why they don't put it to greener pastures either.

[DKJones]

Me too thought so. However...
... I looked at the number of downloads and I faced a different story.

1) The AOO site says "...With more than 300 million downloads, Apache OpenOffice..." [1], AOO exists from 2011 so we are talking about ~30M of downloads for year, ~2.5M for month.
2) The Open Office site[2], says that OO 4.1.7 was downloaded 1.6M times in a 1 month.

The other side, says something similar:
3) LO 6.0.1 was downloaded ~1.6M times in two weeks -> ~3.2M for month. [3]
4) In this link [4], LO stated that it was downloaded 120M times in 6 year (2010 -> 2016), this mean again ~1.6M of download per month.

The above numbers are a very roughly estimation; so the real numbers may be half or double of the numbers above; however my point is that despite the appearance the number of download of LO and OO are roughly the same and these are in the order of 1-3M per month.

My opinion is that if OO had gave its brand to LO, the world would be better.
Despite that, OO is definitely a live project because 1M of downloads per months cannot be ignored.

[1] https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/...on-celebrates3
[2] https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/1...n-downloads-of
[3] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/...6-0-stats-far/
[4] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/...e-the-numbers/

In terms of software development, though, it is dead. And those 1-3 million downloads a month for LO presumably don't include the number of downloads from all the various Linux and BSD distros - the users of which will presumably be running LibreOffice (or SoftMaker) instead, because (a) they can, (b) they're maintained and (c) they're better.

I could (indeed I have) download Unix V6 or V7 or even First Edition, and 3 million people a month could do the same, but even if 3 million people a month download them and install them in SIMH or some other virtual machine, it doesn't mean that First, Sixth and Seventh Edition are alive and kicking; in fact, even when I do it they're mostly dead, as I tend to run them now and again, out of curiosity, and not because I can compile or run KDE or Firefox on them.

If those OpenOffice installations are all in active use, great, but it does demonstrate that LibreOffice wouldn't necessarily have to be an up-to-date drop-in replacement for MS Word to be popular.

[kreijack]

It IS! It IS dead!

Me too thought so. However...
... I looked at the number of downloads and I faced a different story.

1) The AOO site says "...With more than 300 million downloads, Apache OpenOffice..." [1], AOO exists from 2011 so we are talking about ~30M of downloads for year, ~2.5M for month.
2) The Open Office site[2], says that OO 4.1.7 was downloaded 1.6M times in a 1 month.

The other side, says something similar:
3) LO 6.0.1 was downloaded ~1.6M times in two weeks -> ~3.2M for month. [3]
4) In this link [4], LO stated that it was downloaded 120M times in 6 year (2010 -> 2016), this mean again ~1.6M of download per month.

The above numbers are a very roughly estimation; so the real numbers may be half or double of the numbers above; however my point is that despite the appearance the number of download of LO and OO are roughly the same and these are in the order of 1-3M per month.

My opinion is that if OO had gave its brand to LO, the world would be better.
Despite that, OO is definitely a live project because 1M of downloads per months cannot be ignored.

[1] https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/...on-celebrates3
[2] https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/1...n-downloads-of
[3] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/...6-0-stats-far/
[4] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/...e-the-numbers/

[miquels]

It IS! It IS dead!

No, no, it's .. eh .. it's resting!

[matsukan]

Apache the dead's projects house

Indeed yes, full of legacy software which should erase to bit heaven.

House of dead projects.

[jntesteves]

I have always thought of the Apache Foundation as a software cemetery. People transfer the rights of their software to Apache when they want a cozy place for their software to die and rot peacefully.

[andre30correia]

Apache the dead's projects house

[RahulSundaram]

Really? 'Cause every time I see any Office discussions not tied to Linux office suites, everyone mentions LibreOffice. I haven't seen/heard any non-Linux user talking about OpenOffice in years.

Go beyond personal anecdotes and look at why LibreOffice wants Apache to hand over the name. If the brand didn't still have a lot of value to them, they wouldn't be asking. On the other hand, look at why Apache foundation insists on keeping OpenOffice even though it doesn't have any major active development and not declaring it dead and moving on, handing it off to TDF. Again, the brand has value

[cl333r]

Congratulations! Hopefully in 20 years LibreOffice will be a decent alternative to MS Office.

[Vistaus]

Also while you may not be aware of it, plenty of people especially Windows users tend to know about the OpenOffice brand a whole lot more still.

Really? 'Cause every time I see any Office discussions not tied to Linux office suites, everyone mentions LibreOffice. I haven't seen/heard any non-Linux user talking about OpenOffice in years.