LibreOffice 4.0 and the Power of Branding (Hidden Truths Between OpenOffice and LibreOffice)

Interesting article that they have published in humans, where its author, our friend Jacobo hidalgo does the translation of another article called LibreOffice 4.0 And The Power Of Brands de Keith Curtis.

LibreOffice 4.0 and the Power of Brands

Translation by Jacobo hidalgoArtículo original  de Keith curtis

LibreOffice 4.0 was released last week, and news reports and social media activity were massive, more than any previous release of LibreOffice u OpenOffice, with better coverage than many of Microsoft's well-funded presentations. Numerous links were posted around the usual sites linuxtoday.com, But also TechCrunch, VentureBeat, TimeMagazine, etc. A good amount of the opinions were from people asking what the differences are between the two versions. Some with basic questions such as whether or not it can be imported into LibreOffice the documents of OpenOffice.

LibreOffice presents your new name and community to the world. All major Linux distros are already warned but many Windows and Mac users do not understand what is happening. People even become passionate about names for emotional reasons. Brands are powerful. If you were in a remote village in India on a sunny day, you would like to have a Coke to quench your thirst if that was the only one with letters you would recognize. Even people who like to travel and try new things might not want to risk something that looks charred, used to taking water baths with funny characters when they are tired, hot and thirsty.

In the software realm, the considerations are different but related. Many are afraid to try new things because technologies often come and go. People have been burned with Farmville, Zune, Tweetdeck, iTunes, Nvidia, Comcast, AT&T, Sprint, Sun, Adobe, Gnome 2.x, Microsoft, IBM, etc.

Some look down on the bases of the LibreOffice / OpenOffice code because its user interface is clumsier than Microsoft's Office, but many who spent time on it saw how it handled their files, it has many functionalities, and it is generally stable, fast, portable and free. People became drawn to "OpenOffice" during the hours they spent expressing their creative ideas. Many associate greatness more with the name than with the people who developed it. This makes it difficult for people to test LibreOffice.

If you were to explain to OpenOffice users that Oracle fired all programmers before leaving the brand to Apache, and that their new team is legally unable to accept changes from LibreOffice, they may find that they must test the newcomer. That legal restriction does not currently appear on the Apache website. It would also be a useful warning if they listed all the functionality that LibreOffice lacks. The current full list is already mind-boggling (4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3), and they are just getting started (Easy hacks, Gsoc).

The biggest issue to consider is opportunity cost. Instead of enhancing the existing OpenOffice brand, the community is forced to build a new one. That's especially unfortunate because there are so many people at LibreOffice who contributed to OpenOffice, and who made it the valuable brand it is today. Since Apache OpenOffice is unable to accept changes from LibreOffice, the brand is being misused. And instead of incorporating resources, Apache is playing catchup, requiring a lower license for this code, and lower tools.

Because Apache OpenOffice is branded, and a handful of employees working full time on its code, they can always find ways to report good news and give the illusion of progress:

"There have been 35M downloads, which saves the world $ 21M per day" "Who wants to help with the wiki?" "We now have 6 new workitems labeled Easy Bugs" "Can someone dig up the documentation for our format SDF? " "It would be great to find someone to package OpenOffice into Fedora and give users a choice" "We found 50 new volunteers to help with Q&A in our recent call for help." Etc.

This was an exchange that took place during the interesting talk by Michael Meeks at Fosdem 2013

Question: I don't know if I'm the only one, but I would like to see peace between LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. Is there any progress?

Michael Meeks: Ok, well, I think there are many opportunities to share code. We offer the code under a license that Apache can incorporate, at least in its released binaries, so I think there is room for that. And, I think you should go and ask them. I'm not really interested in talking much about it. I could say something rude.

People in the Linux community are aware of the situation, but many do not realize that LibreOffice can do very little to improve things. LibreOffice can't prevent new forks from being created, and no one inside was threatening to fork. LibreOffice couldn't stop Oracle from handing over the brand to just anyone. LibreOffice couldn't stop Apache from creating a project that doesn't accept your code. LibreOffice can't help but get new people confused when they see Apache, OpenOffice, and a nice website, without realizing that this is basically the "Project mascot" of an IBM employee.

It seems like people inside Apache could do something, but many of them enjoyed the idea of ​​having two "Cores". They see themselves as the ones above with the most open license, and LibreOffice is free to take whatever code they find useful. Unfortunately, they don't see that as these base codes diverge, this becomes more difficult. LibreOffice no longer uses the SDF localization format. So between the confusion, and the illusion of progress for a flow of money, we could be here for a while. IBM has been around for about 100 years. Maybe they're happy to wait until everyone is dead and wish the next generation of LibreOffice reps to be friendlier with their plans.

[...]

You find comments stating that they would like to finish the fork. If only they had the wisdom before they created one. However, they seem to have no ideas of what is next. More wisdom is still needed.

LibreOffice is doing very well for such a young team. The free software community is taking leaps and bounds and improving code in many ways. However, the community could easily use the billions of dollars to hire more people to work full time and to train volunteers. Perhaps the biggest concern is the lack of people who understand the code for the Writer layout, which is the most complicated piece in the entire suite. The code and the people are valuable, but the people who understand the code are even more so.

Note: I write about LibreOffice / OpenOffice because I don't like to see the brands and wasted volunteers


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  1.   Cristianhcd said

    I feel that it is an excuse to say that the product is not of quality, at least since start office the later versions have always advanced, but at a snail's pace, and each time they say that it will be excellent, and I hit my head, and it's not just compatibility.

    1.    migel said

      If you don't like it, don't use them and that's it

      1.    cristian said

        I don't use it genius
        I prefer to use the gnumeric and abiword, and when I need more office really

    2.    Phytoschido said

      Well, what a pity that you consider that those of us who collaborate with LibreOffice look for "excuses" like this one. The work is getting done, believe me (or not).

      1.    marianogaudix said

        Do you know any books to program with the VCL Libraries? Or do you know someone I can ask how to program with the VCL Libraries?
        I was talking to Michael Meeks, he told me that they don't have a VCL library API.

        My mockups are useless if I don't write them with the VCL libraries.

        I learned to program by looking at the GTK 3.6 and Vala APIs, etc.
        But I can't learn if I don't have an API or someone to help me with simple code examples with VCL.

        1.    Phytoschido said

          api.libreoffice.org, documentation.libreoffice.org and opengrok.libreoffice.org, kendy (on IRC) can help you. Additionally, caolanm has added support for creating Glade dialogs that LibO can use.

  2.   Jacobo hidalgo said

    Thanks for posting it here. Very happy that the article can be read by more people.
    Regards,

  3.   Andrés said

    Is it really relevant that openoffice improvements can be included in libreoffice and vice versa. Or said uglier, that they copy the code mutually?

    It would be interesting if they have a compatibility basis, for example, that the extensions are compatible between both suites, saving the process of programming for both.

    But it seems good to me that both advance along different paths in terms of interface and functionality, so that each user can work with what suits them best.

  4.   Holic said

    But if the libreoffice people started working on the project before it was bought by oracle, if they were fired it was a matter of double interest, you can't work on two opposite projects at the same time.

  5.   Luis Armando Medina said

    I think OpenOffice was a great product and with a brand that earned a reputation by heart, the moment that everything went to waste was with the purchase of Sun Microsystems by Oracle and the strangulation of the project. For me LibreOffice is the essence of what OpenOffice was and by getting rid of Sun / Oracle it has more freedom and dynamism in its growth as a product and brand, this is seen in the improvements that have been seen in the latest versions where it is see a more professional, functional and much more stable product. I have seen version 4 and it seems far superior to any previous version, including the OpenOffice versions that are still stagnant. This is the culture of free software in action and an example to follow as a project and a success story.

    1.    Helena said

      I agree with your comment version 4 is great and superior to openoffice (own experience, no offense) openoffice is a thing of the past said in some way, libreoffice is the suite that free software can use and the common user can happily use

    2.    staff said

      +1

    3.    Joaquin said

      It is a pity that because of company policies, a growing product stops or falls apart. Luckily LibreOffice was born as another option. This demonstrates the community's commitment to keeping the project alive and continuing to provide a good office suite that serves so many of us.

  6.   kondur05 said

    It is a silly fight that in the end will not give benefits to us users. That gives me to compare open office with nokia .. suspicius ...