Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-sourceoffice productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of bharathealthcares.com and the designated successor of IBM Lotus Symphony.^[5] It is a close cousin of LibreOffice and NeoOffice. It contains a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation application (Impress), a drawing application (Draw), a formula editor (Math), and a database management application (Base).^[6]

Apache OpenOffice's default file format is the OpenDocument Format (ODF), an ISO/IEC standard. It can also read and write a wide variety of other file formats, with particular attention to those from Microsoft Office&#;&#; although unlike LibreOffice, it cannot save Microsoft's post Office Open XML formats, only import them.^[7]

Apache OpenOffice is developed for Linux, macOS and Windows, with ports to other operating systems. It is distributed under the Apache License.^[4] The first release was version , on 8 May ^[1] The most recent significant feature release was version , which was made available in The project has continued to release minor updates that fix bugs, update dictionaries and sometimes include feature enhancements. The most recent minor release was version in September

Difficulties maintaining a sufficient number of contributors to keep the project viable have persisted for several years. In January the project reported a lack of active developers and code contributions.^[8] There have been continual problems providing timely fixes to security vulnerabilities since ^{[9][10][11][12]} Downloads of the software peaked in with an average of just under , per day compared to less than 50, in Q2 ^[13]

History[edit]

After acquiring Sun Microsystems in January , Oracle Corporation continued developing bharathealthcares.com and StarOffice, which it renamed Oracle Open Office. In September , the majority^[14][15] of outside bharathealthcares.com developers left the project^[16][17] due to concerns over Sun's, and then Oracle's, management of the project,^[18][19] to form The Document Foundation (TDF). TDF released the forkLibreOffice in January ,^[20] which most Linux distributions soon moved to,^{[21][22][23][24]} including Oracle Linux in ^[25][26][27]

In April , Oracle stopped development of bharathealthcares.com^[28] and laid off the remaining development team.^[29] Its reasons for doing so were not disclosed; some speculate that it was due to the loss of mindshare with much of the community moving to LibreOffice^[30] while others suggest it was a commercial decision.^[31] In June Oracle contributed the bharathealthcares.com trademarks^[32] and source code to the Apache Software Foundation, which Apache re-licensed under the Apache License.^[33]IBM, to whom Oracle had contractual obligations concerning the code, appears to have preferred that bharathealthcares.com be spun out to the Apache Software Foundation above other options or being abandoned by Oracle.^[34][35] Additionally, in March , in the context of donating IBM Lotus Symphony to the Apache OpenOffice project, IBM expressed a preference for permissive licenses, such as the Apache license, over copyleft license.^[36] The developer pool for the Apache project was seeded by IBM employees,^[37] who, from project inception through to , did the majority of the development.^{[38][39][40][41][42][43]}

The project was accepted to the Apache Incubator on 13 June ,^[44] the Oracle code drop was imported on 29 August ,^[45] Apache OpenOffice was released 8 May ^[1] and Apache OpenOffice graduated as a top-level Apache project on 18 October ^[46][47][48]

IBM donated the Lotus Symphony codebase to the Apache Software Foundation in , and Symphony was deprecated in favour of Apache OpenOffice.^[42] Many features and bug fixes, including a reworked sidebar, were merged.^[49] The IAccessible2 screen reader support from Symphony was ported and included in the AOO release^[5] (April ), although its first appearance in an open source software release was as part of LibreOffice in January ^[50] IBM ceased official participation by the release of AOO ^[51]

In September , OpenOffice's project management committee chair Dennis Hamilton began a discussion of possibly discontinuing the project, after the Apache board had put them on monthly reporting due to the project's ongoing problems handling security issues.^[52][53][54]

A timeline of major derivatives of StarOffice and bharathealthcares.com with Apache OpenOffice in blue

Naming[edit]

By December , the project was being called Apache bharathealthcares.com (Incubating);^[55] in , the project chose the name Apache OpenOffice,^[56] a name used in the press release.^[1]

Features[edit]

Components[edit]

Fonts[edit]

Apache OpenOffice includes OpenSymbol, DejaVu,^[57] the Gentium fonts, and the Apache-licensed ChromeOS fonts Arimo (sans serif), Tinos (serif) and Cousine (monospace).^[58][59]

OpenOffice Basic[edit]

Apache OpenOffice includes OpenOffice Basic, a programming language similar to Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Apache OpenOffice has some Microsoft VBA macro support. OpenOffice Basic is available in Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress and Base.

File formats[edit]

Apache OpenOffice inherits its handling of file formats from bharathealthcares.com, excluding some which were supported only by copyleft libraries,^[58] such as WordPerfect support. There is no definitive list of what formats the program supports other than the program's behaviour.^[60] Notable claimed improvements in file format handling in include improved interoperability with Microsoft's format Office Open XML (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX)^[61] &#; although it cannot write OOXML, only read it to some degree.^[7]

Use of Java[edit]

Apache OpenOffice does not bundle a Java virtual machine with the installer, as bharathealthcares.com did,^[62] although the suite still requires Java for "full functionality."^[63]

Supported operating systems[edit]

Apache OpenOffice was released for x86 versions of Microsoft Windows XP or later, Linux (bit and bit), and Mac OS X or later.^[64]

Other operating systems are supported by community ports; completed ports for included various other Linux platforms, FreeBSD, OS/2 and SolarisSPARC,^[65] and ports of for Mac OS X v–vPowerPC^[66] and Solaris x^[67] It was also being ported to eComStation (OS/2 new trademark/successor).^[68]

Development[edit]

Apache OpenOffice logo

Apache OpenOffice does not "release early, release often"; it eschews time-based release schedules, releasing only "when it is ready".^[69]

Apache OpenOffice has lost its initial developer participation. During March &#;&#; March it had only sixteen developers; the top four (by changesets) were IBM employees,^[38] and IBM had ceased official participation by the release of ^[51]

In January , the project reported that it was struggling to attract new volunteers because of a lack of mentoring and badly in need of contributions from experienced developers.^[8] Industry analysts noted the project's inactivity, describing it as "all but stalled"^[51] and "dying" and noting its inability to maintain OpenOffice infrastructure^[70] or security.^[9]Red Hat developer Christian Schaller sent an open letter to the Apache Software Foundation in August asking them to direct Apache OpenOffice users towards LibreOffice "for the sake of open source and free software",^[71] which was widely covered^{[72][73][74][75][76]} and echoed^{[77][78][79][80]} by others.

The project produced two minor updates in , although there was concern about the potential bugginess of the first of these releases. Patricia Shanahan, the release manager for the previous year's update noted: "I don't like the idea of changes going out to millions of users having only been seriously examined by one programmer &#; even if I'm that programmer." Brett Porter, then Apache Software Foundation chairman, asked if the project should "discourage downloads".^[81] The next update, released in November , included fixes for regressions introduced in previous releases.^[82]

The Register published an article in October entitled "Apache OpenOffice, the Schrodinger's app: No one knows if it's dead or alive, no one really wants to look inside", which found there were code committers at the time of publication, compared to in ; this was a change from the sustained growth experienced prior to The article concluded: "Reports of AOO's death appear to have been greatly exaggerated; the project just looks that way because it's moving slowly."^[83][84]

Security[edit]

Between October and July the project had no release manager.^[85] During this period, in April , a known remote code execution security vulnerability in Apache OpenOffice was announced (CVE), but the project did not have the developers available to release the software fix. Instead, the Apache project published a workaround for users, leaving the vulnerability in the download.^[9] Former PMC chair Andrea Pescetti volunteered as release manager in July ^[86] and version was released in October ^[87]

It was revealed in October that had been distributed with a known security hole (CVE) for nearly a year as the project had not had the development resources to fix it.^[88]

was known to have security issues^[89] since at least January , but fixes to them were delayed by an absent release manager for ^[90] The Apache Software Foundation January Board minutes were edited after publication to remove mention of the security issue, which Jim Jagielski of the ASF board claimed would be fixed by May ^[11] Fixes were finally released in October ^[91] Further unfixed problems showed up in February , with The Register unable to get a response from the developers, although the existing proof-of-conceptexploit doesn't work with OpenOffice out-of-the-box.^[12]

Releases[edit]

Oracle had improved Draw (adding SVG), Writer (adding ODF ) and Calc in the bharathealthcares.com beta release (12 April ),^[99] though it cancelled the project only a few days later.^[]

Apache OpenOffice was released on 8 May ^[1][] It differed from the thirteen-month-older bharathealthcares.com beta mainly in license-related details.^[] Notably, the project removed both code and fonts which were under licenses unacceptable to Apache.^[58][] Language support was considerably reduced, to 15 languages^[1] from in bharathealthcares.com ^[] Java, required for the database application, was no longer bundled with the software.^[62] , released 23 August , added five languages back,^[92] with a further eight added 30 January ^[]

Version was released 23 July ^[] Features include merging the Symphony code drop, reimplementing the sidebar-style interface from Symphony, improved install, MS Office interoperability enhancements, and performance improvements.^[][] added nine new languages.^[93]

Version was released in April Various features lined up for include comments on text ranges, IAccessible2, in-place editing of input fields, interactive cropping, importing pictures from files and other improvements.^[] (released 14 August ) fixed critical issues in ^[] (released in October )^[] was a bugfix release, with improvements in packaging^[8] and removal of the HWP file format support associated with the vulnerability CVE^[] (September ) had updates to the existing language dictionaries, enhanced build tools for AOO developers, a bug fix for databases on macOS, and a security fix for vulnerability CVE^[] contained security fixes.^[89] Version was released in December , containing bug fixes.^[97][]

Distribution[edit]

Apache OpenOffice weekly downloads since

As a result of harmful downloads being offered by scammers, the project strongly recommends all downloads be made via its official download page,^[] which is managed off-site by SourceForge. SourceForge reported 30 million downloads for the Apache OpenOffice series by January , making it one of SourceForge's top downloads;^[] the project claimed 50 million downloads of Apache OpenOffice x as of 15 May , slightly over one year after the release of (8 May ),^[] 85,, downloads of all versions by 1 January ,^[] million by April ,^[] million by the end of ^[8] and million by November ^[]

As of May (the first million downloads), 87% of downloads via SourceForge were for Windows, 11% for Mac OS X and 2% for Linux;^[21] statistics for the first 50 million downloads remained consistent, at 88% Windows, 10% Mac OS X, and 2% Linux.^[]

In distributions, Apache OpenOffice is available in Gentoo Linux^[] and the FreeBSD ports tree.^[]

Derivatives[edit]

Derivatives include AndrOpen Office,^[][] a port for Android, and Office for iOS, both ported by Akikazu Yoshikawa.^[]

LibreOffice also used some changes from Apache OpenOffice.^[] In , % of new commits in LibreOffice came from Apache contributors;^[] in , only 11 commits from Apache OpenOffice were merged into LibreOffice, representing % of LibreOffice's commits for the period. LibreOffice earlier rebased its LGPLv3 codebase on the Apache OpenOffice source code (though it used MPL v2, not the Apache Licence) to allow wider (but still copyleft) licensing under MPL v2+ and LGPL v3+.^[]

Older versions of NeoOffice included stability fixes from Apache OpenOffice,^[] though NeoOffice and later versions are based on LibreOffice ^[]

References[edit]