LibreOffice forks

users
#1

and then there's ...

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost (1874–1963)

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

#2

And there's ...

"When you come to the fork in the road, take it!"

Yogi Berra

#3

Hi :slight_smile:
Effectively yeh it was just a name change and updating/recreating the
infrastructure. A bit like when Star Office became OpenOffice.

Of course Star Office is still floating around somewhere but it doesn't
bear much resemblance to LibreOffice or even OpenOffice. So it can't
really count as a fork any more and may not even be usable at all these
days.

One major difference wrt the poem is that it's fairly easy to uninstall
either OpenOffice or LibreOffice and install the other. Of course
LibreOffice has more functionality now so you might miss those features but
the files should open and be very usable.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

StarOffice was the version of OpenOffice that Sun sold to paying
customers and so was almost exactly the same as OpenOffice. I first
came across StarOffice on OS/2 before it was bought by Sun.

#5

Hi Tom,

...

Of course Star Office is still floating around somewhere but it doesn't
bear much resemblance to LibreOffice or even OpenOffice. So it can't
really count as a fork any more

StarOffice never was a fork, OpenOffice forked off it and then LibreOffice forked off OpenOffice. In other words it is the 'new' thing which is a 'fork' and the 'original' stays the original:).

Werner

#6

I thought Sun created OpenOffice when they open sourced StarOffice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice

#7

Maybe then StarWriter -> StarOffice -> OpenOffice then were just 'renames', I thought they were forks too, and only LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice.

Werner

#8

Hi :slight_smile:
Quite! :slight_smile:

So which is the 'new' thing?
* Old existing code-base that still has remnants from a decade ago
* core community of people who have been working with it, again some
dating back to a decade ago (presumably from early childhood judging from
some of the photos of some of them)

That's the 'new' one right?

Someone sent me and my boss a new image to use as a wallpaper. He started
using it first. Then i used it. Then he deleted his and started using
something else. So my wallpaper is the 'new' one right?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#9

Hi :slight_smile:
Yes.

That is one of the weird things about computers. When 2 copies are made of
a thing it can be impossible to identify one as being "the original".

It's also possible to have weird cases where "the original" is the one that
has least of it's 'original' qualities left and "the newer one" retains
more of the qualities of "the original" than the one people seem to claim
is the original. ie it's time to have new terms, such as "fork" and to be
clear about what those terms mean and what they don't mean.

In this case there is a question about whether LibreOffice really is a fork
or whether it's an off-shoot or "child" or some other term that already
exists. It makes no sense to redefine what "fork" means.

If LibreOffice is a fork then it describes it as having equal weight, with
maybe some pros and cons to each prong. Both being able to lay claim to
being the original and both also able to be seen as something else.

If it's not a fork then it fits neatly into descriptive words that already
cover such eventualities. A thesaurus will have tons of such terms because
similar processes have happened since the first cell division occurred.
But with computers, as with biology, we have a concept that is outside of
normal experience and one that is difficult to explain.

Lets call a spade a spade. If it's not a spade than don't call it one
[shrugs]

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#10

"Tom Davies":

Of course Star Office is still floating around somewhere but it doesn't
bear much resemblance to LibreOffice or even OpenOffice.

That's not true. Most of LO code is leftover from Staroffice days, including German variable names and comments.
Most of the functionality (and bugs) are identical between them too.

#11

Hi Tom,

Definitely don't want to redefine the term 'fork' as used in software development, it is well defined here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)

I was responding to your comment in this thread.

"Of course Star Office is still floating around somewhere but it doesn't
bear much resemblance to LibreOffice or even OpenOffice. So it can't
really count as a fork any more and may not even be usable at all these
days."

Which I thought was confusing - so I responded with:

"StarOffice never was a fork, OpenOffice forked off it and then LibreOffice forked off OpenOffice. In other words it is the 'new' thing which is a 'fork' and the 'original' stays the original:)."

But I should have said:

StarOffice which later became OpenOffice and then LibreOffice forked off OpenOffice. In other words it is the 'new' thing which is a 'fork' and the 'original' stays the original:).

I think we flogged this to death:)
Werner

#12

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahh, nice bit of comedy there!
Thanks for making me laugh :slight_smile:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#13

so stick a fork in it?

F.

#14

Someone remind me. . . .

What were all of the "popular" forks off from OpenOffice.org?

I remember a European one [EuroOffice?], a Mac one [NeoOffice?], and OxygenOffice. I know there were others. Many "died" on their own for lack of supporters or developers, while others [so I heard] had their project developers come over to LibreOffice and stop developing their "forked" projects.

Anyone know of a good list and what became of these forks?

Well, in my opinion, LibreOffice is the best fork of the lot.

#15

I remember a European one [EuroOffice?], a Mac one [NeoOffice?], and
OxygenOffice.

* EuroOffice, which is alive and well on the Android platform;
* NeoOffice, which is alive and well on the Mac os x platform;
* OxygenOffice: Merged into LibO;

I know there were others.

* RedOffice: Shut down in 2011;

I know of others, but don't remember details.

Anyone know of a good list and what became of these forks?

Outdated, but the most comprehensive list I can find:

* https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/DerivedWorks;
* https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Solutions;

jonathons

#16

There was IBM's Symphony, but it was rolled back into OpenOffice, IIRC.