[bee_rider]

Based on that table it looks like “LibreOffice the name” ejected “LibreOffice the software development project” basically. Although, it isn’t really a corporate takeover, right? There was one company that was doing most of the work, now they’ve been ejected.

So why not just fork it under a new name.

[fn-mote]

> So why not just fork it under a new name.

Again? Sigh. Isn't that how we got LibreOffice in the first place? (From OpenOffice.)

[bee_rider]

I don’t think LibreOffice ever really took over the mindspace of OpenOffice anyway. Maybe they can a more distinct split will give it a more independent identity.

Since Collabora already has an online version, maybe they should fork completely and call this offline version something that implies independence. So, I suggest: SolOffice. Haha.

[alexgieg]

I checked the numbers. OpenOffice reports about 230,000 downloads a week. LibreOffice, in contrast, reports about 1,000,000 downloads a week. Those are both direct downloads from their respective websites, thus not counting Linux distributions, in which the default office suite is LibreOffice. AFAIK, no distribution comes with OpenOffice as its default; it's always LibreOffice.

I also checked Google Trends for the last 3 months, comparing LibreOffice vs OpenOffice. The first is searched on average 4.7 times more than the latter, which tracks with weekly download numbers.

From those numbers, I'd say it's pretty clear the name "LibreOffice" won quite decisively over "OpenOffice". OpenOffice is still used a lot, but nowhere close to LibreOffice, especially when we add Linux distributions counts.

[nobodyandproud]

You have to ask yourself how does a dead project yield 230k downloads a week?

OpenOffice is by far the better name and has a potential brand recognition that LibreOffice never will.

[ryandrake]

> I don’t think LibreOffice ever really took over the mindspace of OpenOffice anyway.

It was really a terrible name if you're going after normie office workers. Nobody outside of open source people knows what "Libre" means or even how to pronounce it.

[tomstockmail]

They already have their version, it's called Collabora Online/Office.

[yomismoaqui]

Freeoffice as the next name? Seems like they are exhausting them quickly.

[mook]

I believe OpenOffice is so dead that the name is available again? That would be kind of hilarious, though probably untenable.