[mindcrime]

The Document Foundation could make a groveling blog post apologizing for 10 years of development on a fork of OpenOffice.

Nobody is asking for any such thing. But, ya know, what might be nice would be a blog post saying "Yes, we've kinda been dicks about this whole thing for the past 10 years, and we want to put aside any differences and animosity, and not have an acrimonious relationship between the two projects. And let's talk about what ways we might be able to collaborate despite: (see below)"

They cannot offer the code of LibreOffice as the copyright to the code belongs to the individual contributors and the licenses are not compatible (in that direction).

Yes, we're all aware. However, nothing stops individual contributors from choosing to dual license their code, and I suspect a subset of LO developers would (surely they're not all completely ideologically driven) if the project as a whole made a point of seeking a congenial relationship with AOO. And even if code isn't shared from LO to AOO, there are other ways the projects could collaborate for mutual benefit. Although, to be fair, that would have been more true 10 years ago...

Why won't Apache point people to a more up-to-date office suite rather than continue to peddle an old legacy system?

Why does any project choose to continue to perpetuate itself? LibreOffice have, as you all have pointed out, the larger and more active development community, distro support, etc... why must the insist on this There Can Be Only One mindset where the only satisfactory outcome is the death of Apache OpenOffice?

I know there are historical roots behind this whole conflict, and I wasn't around for the earliest parts of it, so maybe I'll never understand the details. But that's why I say, "after all this time, you'd think..." Surely people aren't still bearing grudges even now, over shit that happened like a million years ago (in computer industry years).

[josteink]

That's lots of "yes, however, why, what about, etc", except the one true question which should be answered:

What value is Apache OpenOffice providing to anyone, anywhere right now?

Why should we have to expend mental effort to even acknowledge that it still exists, and still is where LibreOffice was 6 years ago, if even there?

I don't think anyone has been willing to answer that in a clear, understandable, objectively irrefutable way. There's been lots of posts like yours though.

Sometimes it's OK to called obsolete things by their true name. And Apache OpenOffice definitely deserves that name by now.

[mindcrime]

Why should we have to expend mental effort to even acknowledge that it still exists,

So why are you expending mental energy on it? Why does any of this matter to LO people at this point? LO has everything now, if you believe the prevailing narrative: the nicer, newer, shinier office suite, the developer mind-share, the press adoration, etc., etc. But somehow that isn't enough. It feels like one of those deals where somebody gets divorced and gets EVERYTHING they wanted, but their former spouse gets to keep the dog that they picked out, took care of, and loved... and the one who got everything burns with righteous hatred over the fact that their spouse got the one thing they cared about. Not because they want the dog (hell, they hated that stupid dog)... no, they just can't share any happiness, or warmth, or love. The other person must be miserable, for some reason.

I don't think anyone has been willing to answer that in a clear, understandable, objectively irrefutable way.

Nobody is asking you to spend any mental energy on this. Somebody on the LO side chose to engage on this subject, chose to write this "open letter" and chose to continue spewing spite, hatred, and indignation. If you want an "answer" maybe ask a different question: why do the LO people refuse to let go and move on?