Goddamn Me, Changes

1999 - 2011 Open Office

Well, well, well. A software suite I've used during my Windows and Linux days is over. Open Office first appeared online around 2000. Yeah, it wasn't fancy, perfect, or whiz bang intuitive, but it was a cheaper alternative to what was/is out there, and in my opinion a better version of a straight forward program to write with. I believed at that time that code/programs shouldn't cost a years salary, and some doctorate to install/use. Open Office will always be fondly remembered to me as I used this exclusively as my writing program. I wrote in my (then) journal, fancy resumes, cover letters, and endless edits with college homework assignments.

My last big project came with the Jazz in American Culture course back in fall of 2009. There was so much work that went into that assignment, the biggest drawback though and this became a real thorn for me was the cross platform ability to save from the .odt, to a .doc format. Saving in .odt meant the file size was tiny, going into a .doc format was three times the size, and often would balloon if pictures were placed. All the edits in the world wouldn't compact the file size, so this was becoming very concerning.

I should also qualify that Open Office was also pretty pissed off about the XML document standard Microsoft was sexing the industry up around 2006/2007. Thus making Microsoft's ability to be the big penis waver much more apparent. What is XML? XML is a standard to which only and specifically Microsoft can enforce for any documents being used, written, modified in their Word suite.

This essentially played very foul with other word programs because if one used (ex.) Open Office and wanted to save it in the XML standard, you weren't allowed to. Its also where the EU governing body was ignored to the case of a unified cross platform exchange of many document writers i.e. Open Office, Word, and Pages, etc.

Microsoft's tactics of trying to pay for votes towards a one only standard of file format somewhat fell on its ass. Microsoft decided they were going to institute the standard anyways and ignored any criticism levied. So here we are in 2011, I still don't use Word, and won't. Its a nice platform for it what does, but I prefer free.

When Sun MicroSystem's bought Star Office 1999, which was then turned into Open Office project. From 2000 onwards Open Office was developed by partnerships with Novell, Red Hat, and the open source project. Open Office gained a lot of core supporters, including myself. Open Office enjoyed some flexible development (I think), but Sun MicroSystem's was bleeding money from its network division, and by 2006 they were having trouble keeping the ship afloat. Three years later Oracle buys Sun MicroSystem's for 7 plus billion dollars. 2009 would see the end to the Sun MicroSystem's brand name, and replaced with the name Oracle. I have mixed feelings about Oracle, some of them relate back to the 90's when Oracle was trying a paywall service to the operating system environment.

As of today Open Office is gone. Oracle killed the project because of difficulties with the open source community. All I gather is that the operating profits for Oracle didn't include Open Office, and Oracle's own admission (In My Opinion) was they were going to kill off anything that wasn't profitable for their company.

The open source community fought Oracle, from what I can tell weren't going to cede the main reason for free software, and thunderously became a point of contention with the programmers. Though Open Office is gone, LibreOffice is the new kiddo, but I feel like it might take a little work to get this going because of the fallout of the XML standard. Some people aren't going to want to learn another program, the learning curve is really steep once you start taking into account how much will be changed. Heck, most office productivity programs are eventually going to be tethered to a cloud based writing program. It'll be interesting to see where this goes. I for one, will miss the oOo name. Just had a nifty ring to it.

Thanks for reading.
B.