Proposed F19 Feature: Apache OpenOffice

[Andrea Pescetti]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> * What benefit does this package have over LibreOffice, to justify carrying
>    2 packages doing essentially the same thing?

They are indeed two productivity suites, but they are evolving in 
different directions. There's a "Features" link in the proposal
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ApacheOpenOffice
that lists unique features of OpenOffice 4.0, including the new user 
interface (sidebar), the new accessibility support (a key factor for 
adoption by institutions), interoperability enhancements and performance 
improvements. Again, the proposal is not saying or implying in any way 
which of the two is better, and this might vary by user, or even by 
single task.

> * OpenOffice is a huge package and a big strain on our build system (Koji);
>    IMHO, having 2 versions of it would be a gigantic waste of resources.

This might be a legitimate technical concern. Honestly I didn't think 
that OpenOffice could be too big for Fedora, but I didn't see any 
limitations in the Fedora guidelines.

> * [...] Apache OpenOffice is the fork Oracle created to remove control
>    over the project from the community

These are opinions and belong to the past anyway. Again, this is not an 
educational thread about Apache OpenOffice; but a quick look at the 
current OpenOffice website http://www.openoffice.org/, blog 
http://blogs.apache.org/OOo/ and mailing lists 
http://openoffice.apache.org/mailing-lists.html is enough to understand 
that OpenOffice is an actively developed product managed by an active 
community (and also that the community is open, welcoming and very 
collaborative with other projects, even though these factors may count 
less in the current discussion).

> PS: I wonder if there's any connection between this feature and the MariaDB
>      feature (or rather, Oracle's negative response to it).

No connection at all. But anybody who can even think of this possibility 
should really get some up-to-date information about OpenOffice: the 
Apache graduation process isn't easy, and there is a huge difference 
between the project that graduated as an Apache Top-Level Project in 
October 2012 and the project that started incubation at Apache in June 
2011. Is it totally unconceivable that Oracle or the MariaDB feature can 
influence the OpenOffice project as it is today: actually, I wasn't even 
aware of the MariaDB discussions on this list when I posted the 
OpenOffice proposal.

Regards,
   Andrea.