Apache announces Openoffice is now an official project

THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION (ASF) has announced that Openoffice is now an Apache Project.

The ASF said that Openoffice, which will be known as Apache Openoffice.org (incubating), will be developed under the organisation's "meritocratic process informally dubbed The Apache Way". The statement comes after a week in which there were fears that the Openoffice.org project would hit the buffers.

Early last week Openoffice.org issued a distressing press release titled "Open-Source Software Defends Itself Against Looming Shut-Down", essentially asking for donations. The contents of the press release were just as blunt as the title, saying, "In order for OpenOffice.org to continue to be professionally developed, Team Openoffice.org will have to rely on donations."

Since Oracle acquired Sun there have been lingering doubts about whether the company would continue to support Openoffice, which until recently was seen as the primary competitor to Microsoft's Office suite.

Oracle's wavering led to a fork of Openoffice called Libreoffice being established with many developers jumping to the new project. Libreoffice has since had a successful first year, with many Linux distributions replacing Openoffice with Libreoffice. Eventually Oracle announced that it would hand Openoffice to the ASF, though by that time the damage had been done.

The ASF's statement mainly tried to reassure Openoffice developers and users that "The Apache Way" can still result in a successful project. It also hinted that donations would be welcome, but stopped short of getting out the begging bowl.

While the ASF should be commended for helping Openoffice, Oracle's actions have all but ruined any chance the project had of remaining the chief competitor to Microsoft's Office. Luckily for users, Libreoffice seems to have picked up the baton and run with it. µ