OpenOffice (Apache OpenOffice) is due to shortage of developers

We gathered together the software necessary for work such as word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, mail clientOffice suiteOne of the open source "OpenOffice (Apache OpenOffice)Although there is, now it is clear that the project is on the verge of termination due to lack of developers. (* After that, it was decided to continue.) See the postscript at the end of the article)

[DISCUSS] What Would OpenOffice Retirement Involve? (Long)
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/openoffice-dev/201609.mbox/%3C008d01d204a9%24bd37caa0%2437a75fe0%24%40apache.org%3E


OpenOffice, after years of neglect, could shut down | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/openoffice-after-years-of-neglect-could-shut-down/

OpenOffice could shutter due to lack of volunteer developers
https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/04/openoffice-retirement-plan/

The predecessor of "OpenOffice" is an office suite called "StarOffice" developed and sold by a company called StarDivision in Germany. Sun Microsystems acquired StarDivision in 1999, the first milestone "Build 638c" was released on October 13, 2001, the first official version was released on May 1, 2002. At this time, the software name was "OpenOffice.org", the abbreviation "OOo" was used.

The tide has changed in 2010. In January of this year, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, Oracle decided to manage the OpenOffice project. In version 3.2.1 released in June 2010, a logo change accompanying the transfer of the developer was made.

However, some developing members withdrew as not being able to continue development under Oracle management. Newly launched "The Document Foundation", as the next version of OpenOffice "LibreOffice"forkThen, on January 25, 2011, the first stable version "LibreOffice 3.3.0" was released.

On the other hand, Oracle released a statement that project management is preferred by non-profit organizations and in June 2011 transferred the copyright of "OpenOffice.org" trademark and source code to the Apache Software Foundation. Subsequently, those based on this source code were developed as "Apache OpenOffice (AOO)".

In this way development of the two software programs can be progressed separately, but in addition to regular updates twice a year LibreOffice repeatedly updated it at a rate of once a month AOO was an update at twice a year twice a year from 2012 to 2014 and once a year in 2015. In addition, immediate patch releases will not be done when security vulnerabilities are disclosed in July 2015, and "using LibreOffice or Microsoft Office" is recommended as a countermeasure. The patch for this vulnerability was released in late August 2015.

In this situation, Mr. Dennis Hamilton, Vice President of AOO, said that developers with talents and talents enough to promote the development of AOO will soon appear and will not join the project Although it is shown as a possibility to the last, it suggested "end of Apache OpenOffice project".

The problem is that there are still many users. The major Linux distributions that used OpenOffice.org as the default office suite were switched over when LibreOffice was born, and it is said that the number of active users of LibreOffice is over 100 million people. Meanwhile, the name "OpenOffice" has been used for a long time, so AOO's name recognition is high, and there are a large number of users, mainly Windows and Mac users. The number of downloads since May 2012 is 160 million times, and it seems that it has been downloaded 29 million times even in 2015 alone.

Although the opinion that developers should not finish the project yet has appeared, Mr. Hamilton does not seem to think that AOO's future is bright, and now it seems that LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, Google Documents, It might be wise to find out the transfer destination.

2016/09/27 16: 15
On the official blog, development continuation for the time being announced. Also, v4.1.3 which corrected the highly urgent vulnerability is scheduled to be released soon, and v4.1.4 which made more corrections is supposed to be abandoned afterwards.

Stop the lazy season, start changing: Apache OpenOffice
https://blogs.apache.org/OOo/entry/stop_the_lazy_season_start