The Apache Software Foundation
Blogging in Action.

Over 200 million downloads of Apache OpenOffice

Apache OpenOffice continues to enjoy the user's valuation.

Recently the new record mark of 200 million downloads was reached. The downloads are managed by our partner SourceForge .

The high demand of the most current release 4.1.3 - that was released in October - is an acknowledgment of the previous work and a great motivation for the future.

The ongoing trust of our users is also a thankful expression to all people who put their personal spare time and effort into the project and software.

But of course there are more ways to distribute Apache OpenOffice. The most common one is to download the binary packages from one of the many mirror servers. But also printed magazines with an included DVD are possible, you can get it from your neighbors, friends, coworkers, it's part of free software collections, and many more ways we can think of.

You don't need a permission or even registration to use or copy Apache OpenOffice as it is free and open source software. However, this makes it also difficult to get meaningful numbers of actual users. It's not measurable if a download stands for a single user or an installation in a larger network.

Furthermore it's not known if Apache OpenOffice was downloaded the first time or it's an update for a previous installed version. Much more interesting to know is that the statistics show a steady download of 100,000 every day.

It's safe to say that Apache OpenOffice has one of the highest user base in the world of free software projects. And for this we want to say Thank You!

Posted at 08:04PM Nov 28, 2016 by marcus in General  |   | 

Announcing Apache OpenOffice 4.1.3

12 October 2016 - Apache OpenOffice, the leading Open Source office document productivity suite, announced today Apache OpenOffice 4.1.3, now available in 41 languages on Windows, OS X and Linux.

Apache OpenOffice 4.1.3 is a maintenance release incorporating important bug fixes, security fixes, updated dictionaries, and build fixes. All users of Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2 or earlier are advised to upgrade.

Main improvements include:

• Key security vulnerability fixes
• Support for new language dictionaries 
• Numerous bug fixes, including installer and database support on OS X 
• Enhancements to the build tools (for developers)

A complete list of the issues fixed in this release can be found at https://s.apache.org/t0wh

For a complete list of available languages and language packs see: http://www.openoffice.org/download/

Details of new features and enhancements in this release are described in th Release Notes.

Those interested in the source code can download it at http://s.apache.org/Bsr.

You are encouraged to subscribe to the Apache OpenOffice announcement mailing list to receive important notifications such as product updates and security patches.  To subscribe you can send an email to:  announce-subscribe-AT-openoffice.apache-DOT-org.

You can also follow the project on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Posted at 09:46PM Oct 12, 2016 by marcus in General  |   | 

Apache OpenOffice in 2013: a year in review

 2013 has been an exciting year for the OpenOffice project and community.

 Click on the picture below to start a slideshow with highlights from 2013. A text-only version is under the picture.

• January: Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 is released in 8 additional languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Polish, Basque, Asturian and Scottish Gaelic) thanks to the work of new translation volunteers.
  OpenOffice supports 120+ languages, but only those that are 100% translated and maintained are officially released.
• February: OpenOffice comes back to FOSDEM, one of the most popular Free and Open Source Conferences in Europe, with a dedicated devroom and a stand.
• March: Apache OpenOffice starts integrating improvements from IBM Lotus Symphony, a previous fork that is now closed and donated to the Apache Software Foundation.
  The integrated improvements bring better compatibility with Microsoft Office documents.
• April: It's time for a radical improvement of the OpenOffice user interface.
  The first major change in years, the Sidebar, is done by the Apache OpenOffice "dream team" in Hamburg in close cooperation with hundreds of other community members.
  The code, distributed under the Apache License 2.0, is promptly reused by other projects.
• May: After a long selection process that saw over 5000 votes cast, a new logo is selected for OpenOffice 4. The winning proposal is submitted by community member Chris Rottensteiner, from South Tyrol.
• June: The social media presence of Apache OpenOffice grows.
  The Facebook fan page at https://facebook.com/ApacheOO has about 40 new fans per day and reached the 10,000 fans milestone in 2013.
  The official Twitter account at https://twitter.com/apacheoo has more than 2,000 followers.
• July: Apache OpenOffice 4.0 is released.
  OpenOffice 4.0 features an innovative new Sidebar user interface, additional language support for 22 languages (including 3 new languages), 500 bug fixes, improvements in Microsoft Office interoperability, enhancements to drawing/graphics, performance improvements, etc.
  The full list of improvements is available on the project's community wiki.
  Apache OpenOffice 4.0 is downloaded at an impressive rate, about 1 million downloads per week.
• August: The official repositories for Apache OpenOffice Extensions and Templates are refreshed.
  The updates bring to the two community sites get a nicer search functionality, social media sharing features, better spam control and many other improvements.
  The sites offer more than 750 extensions at http://extensions.openoffice.org and more than 2,800 templates at http://templates.openoffice.org
• September: The Apache OpenOffice Forum reaches 60,000 registered users.
  The official forum at https://forum.openoffice.org is the most used channel for user support, averaging over 100 posts per day and accumulating over 270,000 posts about Apache OpenOffice and all derivatives.
  The Forum and Wiki benefited from a number of infrastructure improvements in 2013, thanks to the Apache Infra team.
• October: Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1 is released. It is a maintenance release which fixes critical issues and improves the overall quality of the application.
  General areas of improvement include: additional native language translations, bug fixes, performance improvements and Windows 8 compatibility enhancements.
  The full release notes are available on the project's community wiki.
• November: Apache OpenOffice successfully integrates support for the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and IAccessible2 interfaces.
  Support for these interfaces enables screen readers and other assistive technologies to work with Apache OpenOffice, which in turn enables greater productivity by OpenOffice users who are blind or who have low-vision.
  With the new accessibility support OpenOffice becomes even more attractive for use by governments and public institutions, like the administrative region of Emilia-Romagna, in Italy, that recently announced a migration to OpenOffice.
• December: Apache OpenOffice reaches 85,000,000 downloads.
  According to the statistics provided by SourceForge, that hosts the official downloads, the English version is the most downloaded one, followed by French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Russian.
  The Apache OpenOffice porting page at http://openoffice.org/porting lists other versions, such as a portable version for Windows, the PrOOo-box software collection in German, and AndrOpen Office, an Android port of Apache OpenOffice available since June 2013.

Posted at 01:48PM Dec 31, 2013 by pescetti in General  |  Comments [2]  | 

OpenOffice Grandfather's Private Thoughts

I sent out a similar email to our mailing list before Christmas and before I took a short break to relax with my family and friends. But it's maybe worth sharing with a broader audience here on the blog.

Let me first tell you something about me (Juergen Schmidt=jsc) and to explain the title of this blog. I have been involved in the OpenOffice project since the beginning and have worked on the source code before when I started to work for StarDivision in 1997. So I can for sure argue that I am one of many grandfathers of the OpenOffice project and that the last year or better the last 16 month were not the most brilliant in the long and successful history of the OpenOffice project.

A lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication led to confusion by our users and before we start in a challenging new year I would like to share some thoughts with you about the last months, my private expectations, and my wishes for the next year.

Oracle's announcement to stop their investment in OpenOffice.org was a shock for me. Well the reason is obvious, I was paid by Oracle and worked on this project. The people who know me from the past know that I am a 100% OpenOffice.org guy and I always appreciated to work on this project and together with our community. I always felt as part of the overall community. I know the reasons that were responsible for the LibreOffice fork and the split of the community and I have to confess that I can understand it. But I didn't like how it was done. If Oracle would have done this step 6 month earlier I am sure we wouldn't have this fork and we wouldn't have this split of the community. We would potentially still have the go-oo fork which was the foundation for LibreOffice but that is something different. Anyway it is as it is at the moment and we will see how it moves forward in the future.

The grant to Apache was at least the appropriate signal that OpenOffice.org as a project will never die. The brand is too big and too important, the opportunities around the product and the overall eco-system are great and I am very sure that the project will continue and will be hopefully shining brighter than before.

But a lot of work was and still is in front of us. We had to deal with a lot of things in parallel where other derivative projects didn't had to deal with at least not in public. We had to migrate the whole OpenOffice.org infra-structure to Apache and had to ensure that it worked. I think we were very successful here and have migrated nearly everything we need from a technical perspective.

Our mission was to migrate as much as possible of the available stuff on www.openoffice.org and at least save it for later use. I think we did it! Thanks to all who made this possible. And we can concentrate in the future on some structural and conceptual redesign of the main portal page www.openoffice.org to provide the information to our users that they need to find the product, to find more information like help, discussion forums, and to find the way in the community if they want to do more etc.

We couldn't simply use the code as it was and could continue with the development as in the past because of the different license. A huge challenge that is still ongoing and where I had many problems at the beginning. It is not easy to explain why you remove something and replace it with something new that provide the same functionality but is under a more appropriate license. It's simply boring work and no developer really likes it. But is a prerequisite for Apache and in the end it is better for our eco system because the Apache license is much friendlier for business usage as any other open source license. As an individual developer I don't care too much about all the different open source licenses, as long as the work I do is good for the project and in the end for our users. But I learned that the Apache license can be a door opener for more contributors and more engagement of companies. I think that is important and I am confident that it will help to drive our project forward.

And not everything is bad. With the IP cleanup we really cleaned up many things and Armin's replacement for the svg import/export is the best solution we ever had for OpenOffice and with the biggest potential for further improvements. All this is really motivating for the future!

Well we had a lot of noise and communication problems on our mailing lists and I think we missed transmitting the message that OpenOffice.org has found a new home under the Apache foundation and we have missed communicating the progress we have made in the pubic. We can do much better in the future! And I am looking forward to working with all of you on this communication part in the future. We don't have to be shy, we work on a great project with a great product and we should have enough to communicate and to share in the public (not only on our mailing list but on all the modern and very useful media like Facebook, Google+, twitter, ...)

For the next year I expect that we find our way to guide and control our project a little bit better. I expect our first release early next year and hopefully a second one later in the year where we can show that we are able to drive the project forward and that we are able to create and establish a vibrant and living community.

I wish that we can gain trust in the project and in the Apache way and that it is a good move forward. Our users simply want the best free, open source office productivity suite and they don't care about the different licenses. Enterprise users would like to see a huge and working community with the participation of a lot of different companies or at least their employees working on the project. We all know that such a huge and successful project can only work if we have individual community members as well as full-time community members. Important is the WE and the TOGETHER that makes open source projects successful.

I heart voices and read emails where people said that Apache is not able to manage such a huge end user oriented project with all the necessary things. A strong statement, isn't it. At the beginning I have to confess that I also had doubts and wasn't sure. But as I have mentioned in an earlier post on our mailing list, I have seen and got the necessary signals over time that Apache is willing to listen and is open for changes as well if they make sense for the overall success of our project and if these changes are aligned with the overall Apache principles. And I think that is fair enough for all.

The move to Apache is a big challenge for all of us. Apache had many very successful projects but none of these projects has such a huge end-user focus like OpenOffice. And of course OpenOffice is no small or new project. No it is one of biggest and most successful open source projects ever. And the migration was and is not easy. But we the community can do it, we as individuals, everybody can help and we together will do it!

And the Apache way and the Apache license have proven in the past and with many successful projects that it is a good way and a good license to achieve this.

For our users I wish that press people will do a better job in the future to research facts and stories better or if they prefer to write articles based on first-hand information that they contact the Apache OpenOffice project directly. We are here and can help with information! That will definitely help to avoid further confusion about the future of OpenOffice.

Enough from me for now and I hope that I haven't bothered you with my private thoughts. I wish you all a happy new year, enjoy these days, take your own break too, load your batteries for our next challenge in 2012.

Regards

Juergen

Posted at 05:55PM Dec 27, 2011 by jsc in General  |  Comments [2]  |