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back to article Oracle re-commits to ODF after OpenOffice divorce

Oracle is spinning its participation in a forthcoming Open Document Format (ODF) event as proof of its continued commitment to the OpenOffice.org community. On the eve of the ODF Plugfest in Brussels, Belgium, the database giant has announced that it will participate in the two-day event, which starts on Thursday. The …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Umm, no!

    I would definitely not put Microsoft Office at the top of the list of those software products supporting ODF. Come on, let's face it! ODF is the pebble in Microsoft's running shoes. Even spelling the three characters will give Microsoft an unbearable nausea.

    As for Oracle's take on this, I'm confident (at least for now) they will wholeheartedly support ODF

    ODF is good because no one should be forced to purchase a specific OS and application just to be able to view/modify the information in a file. I stand by this declaration because as opposed to the software which I am entitled to use the way the vendor license permits me, the information I put in those files belongs solely to me, forever. I'm paying the software vendor for the permission to use its product not for him taking over my data.

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  2. Daniel B.

    Seems like some people fail to remember OO's history.

    OpenOffice is actually 'StarOffice' under a new name. Sun bought StarOffice, therefore they owned StarOffice. OpenOffice was the 'free' version of StarOffice, but Sun had the majority stakehold on it because they owned it. The real problem is that Oracle isn't as nice as Sun, and now the open source community is pissed. :(

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    1. Magnus_Pym
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Ex - effing- zacktly

      That is what open source is all about. It is not liable to the whims of a single corporation or individual. If someone who appears to have nominal control an open source project does something that other don't agree with then the whole project can be copied to a new version and work can carry on as before. No fuss, no re-writing, no law suits. User are free to choose the version that best suits their needs.

      Compare and contrast with recent unpopular changes to Word (ribbons, docx etc).

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Wrong emotion....

      Hmmmm... From what I've read I don't think people are so much "pissed" at Oracle as they are fearful. Unpredictable hostile actions against the community make using products under their control akin to working with a psychopath. The GPL allows the community to remove the problem.

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  3. David 141

    Documents are so 90's

    Just let documents die already.

    Spreadsheets still have some uses, but documents are like stone age tools compared to email, forums, blogs, wikis etc.

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    1. gimbal
      Reply Icon
      Alert

      @David 141 : Congratulations

      Your comment so epitomizes the desire for the death of literature, you must truly deserve some kind of a prize. If your comment was in jest, let the prize be awarded in light of that.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Documents are so... permanent.

      Let us know how this works out for you when the blog you need is no longer available, no one is reading the forum where you post your question, and the Wiki is so full of misinformation from spin-doctors that it is essentially useless.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      Eh?

      Ok, no problems, I'll just print of that wiki. Ahhh.

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    4. david bates
      Reply Icon

      So how

      is your post NOT a form of document?

      And how are your email, forum entries, blogs and wikis created, if not by something that is, by any other name, a word processor?

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  4. gimbal
    WTF?

    Hmmm. Skeptical.

    I still don't know how Oracle may try to justify that their practices have driven off some real brainpower behind Java, right around the time of the acquisition. Until they may resolve that, I will continue to hold any further decisions by Oracle in only a doubtful perspective - on the downside of genuine skepticism.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

    Hey oracle. Don't you get it? We DON'T trust you. Never have, never will. Now give us "our" OO trademark back ;)

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  6. Martin McNulty
    Unhappy

    Committed to ODF?

    So that's why they stopped offering the ODF plugin for Office for free and started charging $50 a time for it? (Or $90 with a minimum order of 100 licenses for the 'Enterprise' edition).

    Great support for interoperability there, guys.

    http://technofriends.in/2010/04/21/odf-plugin-for-microsoft-office-is-no-more-free-priced-at-90/

    2 1
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      #Committed

      Yep, way to kill a file format no-one particularly wants anyway outside of standards fetishists. We don't even pay $90 a seat for MSO.

      0 1
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Grenade

      blah blah blah

      It costs money to make it, and if you're stupid enough to use ms office, then you should pay for that pleasure.

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  7. majickal
    Terminator

    2 cups of Libre please ;)

    I will most certainly downloading Libre as soon as the Beta tag disappears.

    Best of luck to the LO dev team, I hope this all comes together as planned, I will be supporting the move and I hope others will follow suit.

    Terminator? Hover to see ... to me.

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  8. Matt Hawkins
    Megaphone

    Jump To LibreOffice?

    At the moment I'm running OpenOffice 3.2. I won't download LibreOffice until it is better than OO.

    The race is on ...

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OO

    Love Open Office.

    I try and get as many people using it as I can to show them that they can do the same thing with OO instead of shelling out money to MS every few years.

    MS has an advantage with getting it into the schools so kids would know only their products. OO really should push harder on that front, people go with what they know.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LibreOffice

    Shit name.

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    1. No. Really!?
      Reply Icon

      Agreed

      I was talking with the Director at of my clients, who has OpenOffice heavily deployed, about the split. When I got to the LibreOffice name, she made a face and told me to stay with OpenOffice until there was a compelling reason to change.

      Maybe someone will offer a distro of LibreOffice that just re-skins it in a better name. OpenDoc Office anyone??

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    2. Eddie Johnson
      Reply Icon
      Unhappy

      Yes

      >Shit name.

      Especially if they go with the final little "o" that was often used to emphasize the .org, OOo.

      Just go to the LOo and download it for free.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Word processors are so 90s

    TeX for the proverbial win! Anon because I'm being a dick.

    4 0
  12. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Dear Oracle...

    Die.

    Yours sincerely,

    The FL/OSS Community

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  13. lucmars

    LO hello

    I hope that LO would be better and less heavy than OO.

    Beside that, what happen to VirtualBox ?

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    blogs and wikis

    David 141, good to know next time I have a dump of numerical data from an air pressure censor I don't need to whack it in a spreadsheet (Excel or OOo Calc) and then plot a nice graph.

    Instead I will post it to facebook and maybe write a blog entry.

    I am sure comments from my facebook friends like "whoa dude, too much information LOL ;)" will more than make up for the lack of a performance graph for engineers to use in their design calculations.

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  15. Baggypants
    FAIL

    Go-oo

    Am I the only person who is viewing Libre Office as a cynical opportunistic rebranding of Novells Go-oo.org project which Red Hat, Canonical et al are already part of? Go on Reg, your supposed to be journalists. Journal this.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      bedfellows

      Agree with this, Novell have been making their own head of steam for a while, unwilling to contribute back into the OOO.org community and it seems now they've got some interested bedfellows ....

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