F20 Self Contained Change: Apache OpenOffice

[Jaroslav Reznik]

= Proposed Self Contained Change: Apache OpenOffice =
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ApacheOpenOffice

Change owner(s): Andrea Pescetti <pescetti at apache.org>  

Add Apache OpenOffice [1], the free productivity suite, to Fedora. 

== Detailed description ==
Apache OpenOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org) is an extremely popular free and open-
source office software suite.

Donated by Oracle to the Apache Software Foundation in 2011, it is now 
developed and supported by a thriving community; it graduated from the Apache 
Incubator in October 2012 and it is now an Apache Top-Level Project.

Apache OpenOffice 4.0, due in the last decade of July 2013, is a major update. 
The two new versions (3.4.0 and 3.4.1) released in 2012 under the Apache 
guidance totalled 60 million downloads so far, not counting mirrors.

To be clear, this proposal is about merely adding Apache OpenOffice: it doesn't 
affect existing office suites included in Fedora and it doesn't require that 
Apache OpenOffice is made the default office suite in Fedora.

== Scope ==
Proposal owners: 
Packaging is the main issue here. The default OpenOffice build process produces 
RPM packages, but there are major changes to be done to obtain a set of RPM 
packages and matching SRPMs suitable for inclusion in Fedora.

Version 4.0 produces packages based on the current product name: this allows 
to avoid name clashes with older versions of OpenOffice.

The OpenOffice sources have been updated to allow a clean build with the default 
tools shipped with Fedora 19.

The change is isolated, except some possible packaging overlap with LibreOffice, 
see below.

Other developers:
This issue was widely discussed for Fedora 19 too (the feature was then 
postponed to Fedora 20 since OpenOffice 4.0 was rescheduled to be released after 
Fedora 19).

The /usr/bin/soffice and /usr/bin/unopkg executables/symlinks are still a 
problem since (in the Fedora packages) they would conflict between LibreOffice 
and Apache OpenOffice: it is recommended to fix it in the LibreOffice packages too. 
As discussed on the mailing lists, applications that programmatically spawn an 
OpenOffice/LibreOffice process may benefit of the "soffice" symlink when they need to 
locate an OpenOffice/LibreOffice installation. On the other hand, the current 
upstream LibreOffice packages do not rely on a "soffice" symlink.

Anyway, some coordination will be needed, as already envisaged by FESCo for 
Fedora 19, to ensure a smooth user experience. The impact on the system as a 
whole is believed to be limited enough for this change not to be considered a 
"system-wide change".

Release engineering: N/A (not a System Wide Change) 
Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change) 

[1] http://openoffice.org/