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IT World: "IBM is indeed dropping production of its Lotus Symphony office suite, ending a five-year run on the Microsoft Office alternative."
InternetNews: From the 'Goodbye Lotus Symphapache open officeony' files:
Developer World: "In its new role as steward of the OpenOffice.org open source office suite, the Apache Software Foundation expects to offer an Apache-branded version of the package for developers in 2012."
Thinkcloud writes "In an open letter, the Apache Software Foundation has made its plans for OpenOffice clear, including an Apache-branded OpenOffice suite targeted at developers coming next year." From The H: "The ASF says it does not want to force any vision on the ODF community noting that 'it is impossible to agree upon a single vision for all participants, Apache OpenOffice does not seek to define a single vision, nor does it seek to be the only player' in the large ODF ecosystem. Instead, it wishes to offer a neutral 'collaboration opportunity' and notes that its permissive licensing and development model are 'widely recognised as one of the best ways to ensure open standards, such as ODF, gain traction and adoption.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.
IT World: "Thursday's story about the future of OpenOffice.org garnered an interesting response from the Apache Software Foundation."
Linux and Open Source: "Citing its success with other donated projects, the Apache Software Foundation vowed to protect OpenOffice.org and prevent fragmentation."
Apache: OpenOffice.org is now officially part of the Apache family.
The H Open: "...the differences are already so great that it will now be hard to exchange new code between the two projects."
Delimiter: OpenOffice set for adoption down under?
Wazi:With the release of a new version of LibreOffice this month, it's a good time to look at the two major open source office suites, LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org, to see what advantages each offers, and which is a better bet for end users.
Wazi: Do you want to see your name on the front page of a book? It's easier than you might think.
FOSS Force: "Along with that sigh of relief, however, red flags began to fly in the FOSS blogosphere because IBM had a hand in Oracle's decision."
Consortium Info: Poor OpenOffice.
ZDnet: Don't write off OpenOffice for LibreOffice quite yet. IBM is donating all of its IBM Lotus Symphony office suite code to the new Apache OpenOffice.
The H Open: "The Brazilian government has signed a letter of intent to work with both The Document Foundation and the Apache OpenOffice.org community to develop the Office Suite platforms maintained by both communities."
The H Open: "The splits and controversies around LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org have highlighted a number of issues concerning the licensing and corporate governance of open source projects and communities."
IT World: "Rob Weir argued this week that forked communities are not a zero-sum game, and that the success of OpenOffice.org will not mean the death of LibreOffice. He's right and he's wrong."
Simon Says...: "The best thing end-users can do is ignore OpenOffice.org at Apache until the dust settles, and switch to LibreOffice instead."
Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog: "The tone on the mailing lists and public statements suggest to me that Apache members are generally non-plussed about the donation, as though it is something they are dutifully accepting rather than anything they're excited about."
FSF: "When OpenOffice.org moves to a non-copyleft license, there's a ready replacement for people who want a productivity suite that does more to protect their freedom: LibreOffice."
IT World: "Former Microsoft developer-turned-free-software-advocate Keith Curtis has outlined his thoughts on why it would be a bad idea to make OpenOffice.org an incubator project stewarded by the Apache Software Foundation."
Linux User & Developer : Oracle's donation of the OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation does no favours for the users or developers of open office suites,
Datamation: OpenOffice fork continues to move further away from Oracle with new release. Is there any chance the two projects will ever come back together?
Netstat -vat: umm what about LibreOffice?
ZDnet: "Oracle abandoned OpenOffice, but now it seems, thanks to IBM, that it may live on with another organization."
eSecurityPlanet: Oracle still providing security updates for OpenOffice.org
The H: "Since 2003, the number of exploitable vulnerabilities has fallen considerably in Microsoft's Office suite."
OSTATIC: "After last Friday's Oracle announcement that they were going to move OpenOffice.org to a community-based project everyone wondered what would be the result concerning The Document Foundation and LibreOffice. Would there be a reunification?"
Since Oracle has decided to give OpenOffice back to the community, a lot of people wondered if there would be some sort of re-unification with the ex-Oracle and the Document Foundation run by a lot of the original involved folks. The latter has released a statement saying, "the development of TDF community and LibreOffice is going forward as planned, and we are always willing to include new members and partners. We will provide as many information as we can with the progress of the situation. We are currently making every possible effort to offer a smooth transition to the project." Read more of this story at Slashdot.