Is OpenOffice Drifting Dangerously?

by Sam Dean - May. 25, 2010Comments (1)

Dana Blankenhorn notes that OpenOffice.org is "drifting," which certainly seems to be true, although we've pointed out that it is definitely still kicking. Without a doubt, now that Oracle has swallowed up Sun Microsystems and is, by default, the new steward of the world's most popular open source suite of productivity applications, there are questions to be asked about the future of OpenOffice. There are some bright spots, though.

According to Blankenhorn, organizations all around the world are taking steps to move OpenOffice forward, as questions arise about who else will:

"The latest evidence, from my friend Roberto Galoppini in Rome, is word that the Free Software Foundation has felt moved to create its own list of OpenOffice.org extensions, on its LibrePlanet wiki."

Blankenhorn notes that "someone equally clever needs to get command of OpenOffice.org." It's possible that an organization other than Oracle may have the best intent and the most to bring to OpenOffice.

I have to agree with our own Joe Brockmeier, though, that OpenOffice isn't going anywhere just yet. As he correctly notes, OpenOffice has a much deeper feature set than, say, Google Docs, which tends to get positive buzz all of the time.

OpenOffice continues to be a viable alternative to expensive software productivity suites based on proprietary code, and it's also worth noting that it has been forked into open source versions that many people favor. OpenOffice won't crumble overnight, no matter what Oracle's final intent for it is.