Apache OpenOffice Downloaded 50 Million Times In a Year 155
An anonymous reader writes with this quick bite from the H: "Just a few days after the one year anniversary of the release of the first version of OpenOffice from the Apache Foundation (Apache OpenOffice 3.4) on 8 May 2012, the project can now boast 50 million downloads of the Open Source office suite. 10 million of those downloads happened since the beginning of March. In contrast, LibreOffice claimed it had 15 million unique downloads of its office suite in all of 2012."
Re:Marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet, merge projects. Use LibreOffice as the new base and port whatever optimizations and enhancements OOo has over. Now that Oracle has washed their hands of OOo there is no "philosophical" reason not to do it.
I prefer LibreOffice over OOo myself, but I prefer either one over the user-hostile ribbon interface of Microsoft Office where it has been turned into a game of hide-and-seek.
Re:Good Job (Score:3, Interesting)
OpenOffice brand was already damaged by Oracle and I believe by giving it to Apache they wanted to continue the damaging effect of the way they handled to community.
Why not give it to LibreOffice? When they realized they where wrong and it was time to dump the code, why give it to Apache? Why not give it to the people already doing development, previous community members?
I think OpenOffice while it may have been downloaded more times its LibreOffice with the uptrend, with the following.
Re:It is a shame that OpenOffice gets the nice nam (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I say "OpenOffice" anyway when I mean LibreOffice.
*concerned stare* ...that's very interesting.
It has more currency with less technical people and those who never update, and only occasionally does it prompt a concerned stare when someone actually knows the distinction.
Speaking as a LibreOffice user and contributor, I am impressed that the OpenOffice name is so well known these days. I remember a number of years ago when *nobody* knew the name "OpenOffice" ("Is that some kind of template pack plugin thing for Word?"). It's very interesting to hear that now the name is well known enough that technically-minded users use the OpenOffice name to refer to both LO and AOO. Brand recognition is really quite strong!
Questions for you:
Maybe we could just go back to calling it StarOffice?
Well the binary is still called "soffice" :-)
Rob Weir, is that you? (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather convenient Slashvertising, comparing total downloads for AOO with unique downloads for LO.
AOO has been too busy removing functionality (my personal favorite: the wpd filter), having a license inquisition, and taking potshots at LO to get much done.
Here it's now almost 2.5 years since OO 3.3, the last Oracle version, and the latest AOO version has no significant advances over OO 3.3-- instead it's got reduced functionality. In the meantime LibreOffice 4 has come a long way.
Don't know why anybody bothers giving press to OO anymore.