When the Document Foundation split off from OpenOffice to develop LibreOffice they had support from everyone who counted except IBM - waiting to see what happens and Oracle - who said nothing. An invitation was extended to Oracle to join in and help with LibreOffice but given Oracle's stance on matters open source this didn't really seem likely. So we were left to hope that perhaps the fork was more like a regrouping and we wouldn't have to deal with two major open source office suites. 

Now it looks as if any hope of making up is even more unlikely. A Computer World blog reports that Oracle's public relations emailed response to the question reveals that it feels that it has the upper hand with OpenOffice - a well known "brand" and a big community of users. The email reveals that Oracle is happy about the fork as it might "help advance OpenOffice and the Open Document Format" and doesn't see any need to work with the Document Foundation.

Reading between the lines it seems clear that Oracle feels big enough to push OpenOffice development and become the one true OpenOffice which users know and trust. Given the resources and head start that Oracle has with OpenOffice it is going to be tough to win just on quality alone.

Ubuntu have made the first useful move to support LibreOffice by including it in their next version - is this going to be enough?

Further reading

New bid for freedom by OpenOffice

www.openoffice.org

LibreOffice.

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