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[isthisthingon]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/15/oracle_letting_openoffice_go/

Among the ideas Oracle had lined up for OpenOffice under its control: a call to rewrite it using the closed-source JavaFX language for interface development that nobody cares about but Oracle.

 

When the Sun deal closed, we came across Oracle people nosing around open source events actually trying to track down people inside companies responsible for working on OpenOffice so they could make contact.

 

Bubye!   

[perkiset]

It's not clear, meanwhile, whether the Document Foundation has a future when OpenOffice is back in the open. Much will depend on what kind of governance model Oracle releases OpenOffice under. Also, too, whether Oracle will – as is likely – retain the OpenOffice trademark, which would mean that it would retain the ultimate form of control over what changes go into OpenOffice.

Indeed. I hesitate to believe that there'd be lots of people willing to jump all over updating it if Oracle wants to own the marbles but have everyone else do the work ... and yet have no real say on where it goes.

I THINK it sounds like good news.

[isthisthingon]

I think this is just the most recent step where Oracle realizes it can't simply buy "open." People have been leaving OpenOffice in droves, like myself, and switching to LibreOffice. LibreOffice has many of the people from OpenOffice who actually know the code base. So I'd imagine either Oracle will see OpenOffice begin to use LibreOffice's latest code changes moving forward or continue to watch as OpenOffice withers into obscurity. If the former, then LibreOffice will dictate the continued openness of the open office code base.

LibreOffice is essentially the very same thing with different branding and a real open community behind it.

The closed players seem repeatedly slapped in the face for thinking they can buy open street cred. Apple is an exception I believe since as water-tight closed as all of their code is they still manage to maintain a community of folks who are satisfied that at least some of the code was open at some point. Oracle, Microsoft and other closed players seem to violently repel FOSS enthusiasts. IBM has taken decades to turn their ship around and actually has much support from FOSS people these days, ironically.

[isthisthingon]

http://www.libreoffice.org/

[perkiset]

Cheers ITTO, nice one.

[nop_90]

I will check out libreoffice
The python interface to openoffice is so out of date, it not funny