Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Would you please explain how to become an openoffice developer?

Thank you.

I was frustrated with the lack of basic features in OpenOffice Calc that have been around in Excel for about 15 years so I went to follow the instructions to join the developer community.

My plan was to actually code up a whole bunch of basic features that were missing from Calc.

As I got further in the "get involved" process, I noticed that barely anything had been done for almost 10 years.

That's when I googled "Is OpenOfficer still being developed ?" and discovered the awful truth. It's basically almost abandonware.

I then did some more googling ... and downloaded LibreOffice.

I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that it had all the features I had been pulling my hair out looking for in OpenOffice (especially support for XLSX, DOCS, and PPTX formats) - and a whole lot more.

I am not interested in any politics on the original split between Apache OpenOffice and ODF LibreOffice, or why OpenOffice keep pretending that they have a product worth downloading when it it is now totally out of date - except perhaps for people who have never used any commercial office package.

But I will say that it seems crazy that a very small group of people are holding on to the illusion that OpenOffice is "the latest / most powerful OpenSource Office productivity Suite" when it is literally being maintained by a handful of people, while LibreOffice is clearly a genuinely active OpenSoucre Office suite getting new features all the time.

Warren (Australia)
(> 40 years IT Development experience)

WarrenOz wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 8:31 pm My plan was to actually code up a whole bunch of basic features that were missing from Calc.

Just a single post and nothing information about these missing functions you wanted to develop?
I remain sceptical about this testimony

Bonsoir Bidouille.

I am sorry for your scepticism - especially towards a new member here like myself who had been trying to use OpenOffice for 3 years, but am frustrated once you get above some of the basics. (And I have over 40 years IT experience so it's not as if I am unable to adapt to new UIs , systems etc)

But to try and allay some of your scepticism, here is a quick list of some of the things that I wanted to add into Calc :

1. Ability to have SUBTOTAL ignore hidden rows, ie SUBTOTAL(100 + function number;<range>)

2. Remove duplicates from a list of values (ie <range>)

3. Support for Right-Justified cells with Indent.

And as I already mentioned, key in my list of frustrations (things that I didn't necessarily have the time or expertise to try and address) was the lack of support for XLSX, DOCX, PPTX etc formats.

I was also considering whether I could enhance both the Calc Function-Wizard to have some more specific validation of parameters (eg the input options for <function> in SUBTOTAL(<function>,<range>) for example.

I am not a great fan of the fact that for that specific function (SUBTOTAL), you really need to use the Help button link to actually check the options - that's OK for people like me who are mainly familiar with the function numbers , but not for newbies who really don't know.

Speaking of the Calc Help, I would say that it looks like it needs a serious upgrade / rework. It doesn't look like it has changed much in many, many, years.

And as I also said, I was actually starting down the road to contributing to some of these areas.... until I discovered that the development effort has slowed to a snail's pace since 2013 (based on a detailed analysis I did of the entire OpenOffice Bugzilla database... after that year fixed defects and enhancements have been under 100 almost every year except 2017.

As I said in my previous post, I have no axe to grind against individuals, nor any connection or history with whatever happened 10 years ago in the OpenOffice community.

But I do hope that at least you will see that there is no reason for you to be sceptical.

I am just one user (who happens to have >40 years IT experience) posting my own personal perspective, and I hope that it helps somebody.

Warren (Australia)

WarrenOz wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 3:12 am the lack of support for XLSX, DOCX, PPTX etc formats

From my POV, it makes no sense to be able to export in these formats. This has encouraged Microsoft to continue with OOXML to the detriment of ODF.

WarrenOz wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 3:12 am And as I also said, I was actually starting down the road to contributing to some of these areas.

Vicious circle (or popular adage "the snake biting its tail"): if nobody contributes, development inevitably slows down.
With 40 years' experience, I'm not telling you anything new.

You will be better off contributing to LibreOffice. The most important problem with development of Apache OpenOffice is probably its very liberal software license policy. It boils down to: you can grab the Apache code, improve on it, and publish it with your own, stricter license. As a result, Apache can't re-use your improved code. More importantly, if you submit code to the project, it's published with that license. Then somebody can copy your code, include it in their project and possibly even charge money for it, and you can't get their project in return.

I never saw the point of competing forks of an open source office suite, btw.

Bidouille wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 9:35 am From my POV, it makes no sense to be able to export in these formats. This has encouraged Microsoft to continue with OOXML to the detriment of ODF.

+1.
At least ODF made MS have a similar format (OOXML), that is something that can be explored in case of issue. It was not the case with former closed formats (.doc, .xls...). Using AOO/LO as a substitute of MS Office to produce MS Office files (OOXML) would lead to frustration since the features are not exactly the same (or managed the same way).
Now that you can buy cheap and genuine activation keys for MS Office, the decision should now be only on the expected use of the suite.

floris v wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 11:35 am I never saw the point of competing forks of an open source office suite, btw.

+1.
Now that it is obvious (since several years) that almost all the devs moved to LO, it remains unclear why AOO remains.