Development status Moribund | Written in C++ and Java | |
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Developer(s) Apache Software Foundation Initial release 3.4.0 / 8 May 2012; 4 years ago (2012-05-08) Stable release 4.1.3 (October 12, 2016; 4 months ago (2016-10-12)) [±] Repository svn.apache.org/viewvc/openoffice/ | ||
Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of OpenOffice.org and integrates features and improvements from IBM Lotus Symphony. Apache OpenOffice is a close cousin of LibreOffice and NeoOffice. It contains a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation application (Impress), a drawing application (Draw), a formula editor (Math), and a database management application (Base).
Contents
- History
- Naming
- Fonts
- OpenOffice Basic
- File formats
- Use of Java
- Supported operating systems
- Development
- Releases
- Distribution
- Derivatives
- References
Apache OpenOffice's default file format is the OpenDocument Format (ODF), an ISO/IEC standard. It can also read and write a wide variety of other file formats, with particular attention to those from Microsoft Office (although unlike LibreOffice, it cannot save Microsoft's newer XML formats like DOCX, only import them).
Apache OpenOffice is developed for Linux, macOS and Windows, with ports to other operating systems. It is distributed under the Apache License. The first release was version 3.4.0, on 8 May 2012.
In January 2015 the project reported a lack of active developers and code contributions and that they were "still struggling in involving new volunteers who can independently work on big developments". After ongoing problems with unfixed security vulnerabilities through 2015 and 2016, in September 2016 the project started discussions on possibly retiring AOO.
Despite the problems with development, the software continues to attract a large number of downloads, approximately 100,000 per day, a similar number to that of LibreOffice.
History
After acquiring Sun Microsystems in January 2010, Oracle Corporation continued developing OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, which it renamed Oracle Open Office. In September 2010, the majority of outside OpenOffice.org developers left the project due to concerns over Sun's, and then Oracle's, management of the project, to form The Document Foundation (TDF). TDF released the fork LibreOffice in January 2011, which most Linux distributions soon moved to, including Oracle Linux in 2012.
In April 2011 Oracle stopped development of OpenOffice.org and laid off the remaining development team. Its reasons for doing so were not disclosed; some speculate that it was due to the loss of mindshare with much of the community moving to LibreOffice while others suggest it was a commercial decision. In June 2011 Oracle contributed the OpenOffice.org trademarks and source code to the Apache Software Foundation, which Apache re-licensed under the Apache License. IBM, to whom Oracle had contractual obligations concerning the code, appears to have preferred that OpenOffice.org be spun out to the Apache Software Foundation above other options or being abandoned by Oracle. Additionally, in March 2012, in the context of donating IBM Lotus Symphony to the Apache OpenOffice project, IBM expressed a preference for permissive licenses, such as the Apache license, over copyleft license. The developer pool for the Apache project was seeded by IBM employees, who, from project inception through to 2015, did the majority of the development.
The project was accepted to the Apache Incubator on 13 June 2011, the Oracle code drop was imported on 29 August 2011, Apache OpenOffice 3.4 was released 8 May 2012 and Apache OpenOffice graduated as a top-level Apache project on 18 October 2012.
IBM donated the Lotus Symphony codebase to the Apache Software Foundation in 2012, and Symphony was deprecated in favour of Apache OpenOffice. Many features and bug fixes, including a reworked sidebar, were merged. The IAccessible2 screen reader support from Symphony was ported and included in the AOO 4.1 release (April 2014), although its first appearance in an open source software release was as part of LibreOffice 4.2 in January 2014.
In September 2016, OpenOffice's project management committee chair Dennis Hamilton began a discussion of possibly discontinuing the project, after the Apache board had put them on monthly reporting due to the project's ongoing problems handling security issues.
Naming
By December 2011, the project was being called Apache OpenOffice.org (Incubating); in 2012, the project chose the name Apache OpenOffice, a name used in the 3.4 press release.
Fonts
Apache OpenOffice includes OpenSymbol, DejaVu, the Gentium fonts, and the Apache-licensed ChromeOS fonts Arimo (sans serif), Tinos (serif) and Cousine (monospace).
OpenOffice Basic
Apache OpenOffice includes OpenOffice Basic, a programming language similar to Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Apache OpenOffice has some Microsoft VBA macro support. OpenOffice Basic is available in Writer, Calc and Base.
File formats
Apache OpenOffice inherits its handling of file formats from OpenOffice.org, excluding some which were supported only by copyleft libraries, such as WordPerfect support. There is no definitive list of what formats the program supports other than the program's behaviour. Notable claimed improvements in file format handling in 4.0 include improved interoperability with Office Open XML, although it cannot write Microsoft's newer XML formats like DOCX, only read.
Use of Java
Apache OpenOffice does not bundle a Java virtual machine with the installer, as OpenOffice.org did, although the suite still requires Java for "full functionality."
Supported operating systems
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.0 was released for x86 versions of Microsoft Windows XP or later, Linux (32-bit and 64-bit), and Mac OS X 10.7 or later.
Other operating systems are supported by community ports; completed ports for 3.4.1 included various other Linux platforms, FreeBSD, OS/2 and Solaris SPARC, and ports of 3.4.0 for Mac OS X v10.4–v10.5 PowerPC and Solaris x86. It was also being ported to eComStation (OS/2 new trademark/successor).
Development
Even though Oracle had improved Draw (got SVG), Writer (got ODF 1.2) and Calc in their 3.4 beta release, they cancelled its development only a few days later. Months later they announced that stewardship of OpenOffice development would be transferred to the Apache Software Foundation.
Apache OpenOffice does not "release early, release often"; it eschews time-based release schedules, releasing only "when it is ready". This contrasts with the approach of LibreOffice, which puts out feature releases roughly every six months and bug-fix updates twice a month.
Between October 2014 and July 2015 the project had no release manager, following the retirement of Jürgen Schmidt from the role. During this period a known remote code execution security vulnerability in Apache OpenOffice 4.1.1 was announced (April 2015), but the project was unable to develop and release the software fix. Instead, the Apache project published a workaround for users to perform to make the software immune to the problem, and had to leave the vulnerability in the download. Former PMC chair Andrea Pescetti volunteered as release manager in July 2015 so that work on the 4.1.2 release could commence. Version 4.1.2 was released in October 2015.
Apache OpenOffice has lost its initial developer participation. During March 2014–March 2015 it had only sixteen developers; the top four (by changesets) were IBM employees, and IBM had ceased official participation by the release of 4.1.1. In January 2015, the project reported that it was struggling to attract new volunteers because of a lack of mentoring and badly in need of contributions from experienced developers. Industry analysts noted the project's inactivity, describing it as "all but stalled" and "dying" and noting its inability to maintain OpenOffice infrastructure or security. Red Hat developer Christian Schaller sent an open letter to the Apache Software Foundation in August 2015 asking them to direct Apache OpenOffice users towards LibreOffice "for the sake of open source and free software", which was widely covered and echoed by others. It came out in late 2016 that 4.1.2 had been distributed with a security hole for nearly a year as the project had not had the development resources to fix it.
Releases
Not only was development slowed by the changes of stewardship, but the first release devolved because the Foundation removed code and functionality for licensing reasons.
Version 3.4 was released on 8 May 2012. Apache OpenOffice 3.4 differed from the thirteen-month-older OpenOffice.org 3.4 beta mainly in license-related details. Notably, the project removed both code and fonts which were under licenses unacceptable to Apache. Language support was considerably reduced, to 15 languages from 121 in the last Oracle OpenOffice.org version. Java, required for the database application, was no longer bundled with the software. 3.4.1, released 23 August 2012, added five languages back, with a further eight added 30 January 2013.
Version 4.0 was released 23 July 2013. Features include merging the Symphony code drop, reimplementing the sidebar-style interface from Symphony, improved install, MS Office interoperability enhancements, and performance improvements. 4.0.1 added nine new languages.
Version 4.1 was released in April 2014. Various features lined up for 4.1 include comments on text ranges, IAccessible2, in-place editing of Input Fields, interactive cropping, importing pictures from files and other improvements. 4.1.1 (released 14 August 2014) fixed critical issues in 4.1. 4.1.2 (released in October 2015) was a bugfix release, with improvements in packaging and removal of the HWP file format support associated with the vulnerability CVE-2015-1774. 4.1.3 (September 2016) had updates to the existing language dictionaries, enhanced build tools for AOO developers, a bug fix for databases on macOS, and a security fix for vulnerability CVE-2016-1513.
Distribution
As a result of harmful downloads being offered by scammers, the project strongly recommends all downloads be made via its official download page, which is managed off-site by SourceForge. SourceForge reported 30 million downloads for the Apache OpenOffice 3.4 series by January 2013, making it one of SourceForge's top downloads; the project claimed 50 million downloads of Apache OpenOffice 3.4.x as of 15 May 2013, slightly over one year after the release of 3.4.0 (8 May 2012), 85,083,221 downloads of all versions by 1 January 2014, 100 million by April 2014, 130 million by the end of 2014 and 200 million by November 2016.
As of May 2012 (the first million downloads), 87% of downloads via SourceForge were for Windows, 11% for Mac OS X and 2% for Linux; statistics in the first 50 million downloads remained consistent, at 88% Windows, 10% Mac OS X, 2% Linux.
In distributions, Apache OpenOffice is available in Gentoo Linux and the FreeBSD ports tree.
Derivatives
Derivatives include AndrOpen Office, a port for Android.
LibreOffice also takes some changes from Apache OpenOffice, and in 2013 acknowledged 4.5% of new commits in LibreOffice 4.1 as coming from Apache contributors. LibreOffice also rebased its LGPL version 3 codebase on the Apache OpenOffice 3.4 source code (though it uses MPL v2, not the Apache Licence) to allow wider (but still copyleft) licensing under MPL v2+ and LGPL v3+.
NeoOffice includes stability fixes from Apache OpenOffice.