If you work in computing and are even tangentially familiar with the open source software movement, chances are you've heard of OpenOffice at some point. For a decade, the OpenOffice Foundation provided the world with a free alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Office suite, and if its programs weren't always as polished or quick to launch as Microsoft's, the price tag made up for it. The document suite's long term future, however, may be in doubt as evidenced by its small developer base and anemic release schedule.
Apache OpenOffice's (that's the current name of the software suite) woes go back to 2010, when Sun was acquired by the database company Oracle. In the wake of that acquisition, a majority of OpenOffice's developers jumped ship and went on to create a new fork of the old OpenOffice codebase, dubbed LibreOffice.
In June 2011, Oracle handed over the trademarks to OpenOffice over to Apache, which re-launched the product as Apache OpenOffice, or AOO. Since then, LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice have both competed for market share and users, but it seems as though the bulk of the work is happening on the LibreOffice side of the equation. A recent code analysis(Opens in a new window) demonstrated that there are more than 250 active developers working on LibreOffice from a small group of companies, while OpenOffice has just 16 developers listed and 60% of them work at a single company -- IBM.
Apache OpenOffice (v4.0)
A recent report(Opens in a new window) prepared on the state of Apache OpenOffice shows that the organization is having a difficult time. While mailing list activity remains robust, there are few mentor for would-be developers and there's currently no release manager. We won't quote directly from the document, as its currently listed as a work-in-progress, but interested readers can find it here.
Between the lack of code commits and the challenges facing the AOO developers, it's possible that we're seeing one organization withering on the vine after another has largely supplanted it. Brand recognition for AOO remains strong and the number of downloads, while off sharply from its onetime peak, is still significant.
The bigger question is whether the software community needs two open-source forks of the same source code. From all appearances, it doesn't. Writing for Datamation(Opens in a new window), author Bryce Byfield criticizes AOO as being out-of-touch and sounding arrogant when it talks about the need to collaborate with other groups, as though it hasn't been largely supplanted in the market. I can't speak to that, but a lack of developers or product versions when you're chief competitor is cranking them out like hotcakes isn't a great PR tactic.
Before people torches, grab pitchforks and come for me, let me make it clear -- I'm agnostic when it comes to AOO vs. LO. I've used both before, but I prefer Office 2010 to either. That doesn't mean I'm rooting for either project to fail -- in fact, I'm very glad that end-users can choose to use an office suite they didn't have to pay for, particularly with Microsoft's move towards subscription services. I'll never, ever pay Microsoft a monthly fee to use an Office suite -- and that means I may well move to an OSS product at some point in the future.
