

Apache OpenOffice Brand Refresh Project - harrylove
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Apache+OpenOffice+4.0+Brand+Refresh+Project

======
lutusp
I know this may fall on deaf ears, but couldn't you people join forces and
create ONE open-source office suite? We now have LibreOffice and OpenOffice,
and history tells us this trend can only get worse over time.

I'm waiting with trepidation for the moment when the LibreOffice and
Openoffice document formats become mutually incompatible. When that happens,
Microsoft will win again -- not by being better, just by being bigger and by
not splitting into competing fragments.

~~~
aroman
You do realize these two projects _were_ together, right? LibreOffice forked
off from OpenOffice in 2010. And for, at the time, good reasons.[1]

[1] imho

~~~
smnrchrds
The reasons they forked were good at the time they did it. They knew Oracle
doesn't play well with open-source and they needed to be proactive. They
didn't want to let Oracle kill OpenOffice the same way it killed OpenSolaris.

But now that OpenOffice intellectual property including trademark is
controlled by the Apache Foundation, not Oracle, I don't see any reason why
they shouldn't reunite and collaborate.

~~~
chris_wot
Because:

a. The LibreOffice guys have, for the past several years, built up their own
infrastructure and community,

b. The LibreOffice devs have done significant work on improving OpenOffice,

c. Because the cultures seem very different, and there are AFAIK, a number of
people in the Apache OpenOffice project who don't get along with the members
of the LibreOffice project.

I'm contributing to the LO project now, and I have to say it's an awesome
community to be working with.

------
buster
What's the reason to use Apache OpenOffice over LibreOffice, again?

~~~
SEJeff
It isn't GPL/LGPL basically

~~~
atonse
That's the main reason? So is their goal to ever have more users, or to just
devolve into these developer arguments that 99% of users seriously don't care
about?

~~~
SquareWheel
The main reason is because it's in active development by the open source
community.

~~~
benatkin
You just described the main reason to use LibreOffice.

~~~
SquareWheel
Well, that's what I was aiming for.

------
adrianhoward
It's not a request for a brand refresh.

It's a request for a new logo.

My internal designer is sighing and shaking his head.

------
onemorepassword
Glad to see the OpenOffice has it's priorities straight now that it's
operating under the flag of Apache. Maybe they should just give up on the code
altogether and just become a branded fork of LibreOffice.

~~~
runn1ng
Funny thing is, Apache can't even merge the changes back into OpenOffice,
because their projects use Apache license, while LibreOffice is (I think) GPL.

------
lignuist
It would be nice, to create the logo with OO itself, but there is an issue
with that: recently I created an infographic with OO, which worked
surprisingly well, but when I tried to export the graphic, I ran into serious
issues. Every exported vector format looked differently, so for instance in
the pdf version the gradients were messed up. Exporting to bitmap was also
odd. For example it rendered the red spellchecker markers into the image...

I would prefer to see such issues solved first, so that we can create the logo
in OO itself.

~~~
chris_wot
Can you log a bug to the LibreOffice guys? Upload the original document, and
an example of the PDF that's not been exported well.

<https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/>

------
currysausage
"Although text in the logo is optional, any font used must be a free and open
font. eg. SIL Open Source Fonts."

Yeah, right. Good luck finding a free and open high-quality font for branding
purposes.

"Volunteers can use existing branding as a starting point or start entirely
afresh."

Given that brand recognition should be about the only reason why new users
download OO instead of LO, starting "entirely afresh" sounds like an excellent
idea.

~~~
runn1ng
There are TONS of great open fonts available at
<http://www.google.com/webfonts> . The main purpose is for embedding into
websites (as obvious from the name), but it is also possible to download the
source files directly.

I am occasionally doing graphic design and I found Google Web Fonts a very
useful resource for open fonts.

~~~
currysausage
Tons of fonts? Yes. Tons of great fonts? Nope. (A few, sure.)

------
evolve2k
Core strategy behind this move: Take one full grown pig, Add lipstick

------
progrock
Where did the gulls come from anyway?

