Apache OpenOffice is insecure
reddragdiva.tumblr.com
reddragdiva.tumblr.com
> they’ve known about this since april 2015 and haven’t fixed it. they have distributed over 8 million known-vulnerable copies of AOO since 27 april. (and the 143 million vulnerable before that.)
> the fix is, literally, remove one file from the installer. they haven’t got it together to do this in five months.
---
If the state of OpenOffice is really as bad as this person says, it would probably be a good time to try to roll LibreOffice back under the banner as the mainline (ala iojs -> node). IMHO one reason Libre never took off on Windows as much as Linux is the strange brand name, at least to non-participants in the great free software nomenclature war.
It's also a very common word coming from the romance languages, with English being the strange one that doesn't make a distinction between free as in beer or as in speech. And in spite of what you may think, free as in beer on Windows means freeware and that kind of software has really bad connotations, hence the distinction is kind of necessary even from a branding perspective.
And btw, Occam's Razor applies: if LibreOffice has less success than OpenOffice on Windows, that's probably because there's no Sun anymore to promote it.
If your friendly neighborhood computer nerd, like me, tells them to check out "Lee Bray Office", first they think that's a dumb name, and then they fail to find it online.
In the geek niche, yeah, LibreOffice is fine. Outside of that, it's a disadvantage.
(Doesn't help that the product was slow and buggy for a long time either, so for a lot of users, it became, "oh, it was that crappy Microsoft Office knockoff".)
Personally, I avoid "office suites" in general like the plague and hence don't have much of a horse in this race, but "LibreOffice" has always struck me as a name that rolls off the tongue in approximately the way a refrigerator would roll off a flatbed truck.
Its too bad there's so much FUD and arguments going back and forth between the LibreOffice and OpenOffice communities. I wish the OpenOffice devs would just support LibreOffice and make it a much better product and really competing with MS Office.
URGENT: get the hell off Apache OpenOffice, it’s insecure and not worked on any more. LibreOffice is better in literally every way.
See: http://community.apache.org/newbiefaq.html#NewbieFAQ-Howarep...
Some key parts of that:
* "How are projects managed in The Apache Software Foundation? ... Apache Projects work because people like you participate constructively within them!"
* "How do I get user support for an ASF project? Everyone active in ASF projects is here as a volunteer, nobody is paid to provide support here. ... Remember that Apache committers are generally working as volunteers on Apache mailing lists."
Projects survive on volunteerism. Apache doesn't support the projects themselves.
However, that does not mean they are fully unobligated.
In the Code of Conduct: http://www.apache.org/foundation/policies/conduct.html it states that those in all spaces managed by ASF strive to:
"7. Step down considerately. Members of every project come and go. When somebody leaves or disengages from the project they should tell people they are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where they left off. In doing so, they should remain respectful of those who continue to participate in the project and should not misrepresent the project's goals or achievements. Likewise, community members should respect any individual's choice to leave the project."
Based on that there could be grounds to have them stop hosting Open Office or any other project if it has become a liability because their committers have disengaged. If you want to get involved, write the president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Gardler and tell him about this at: president@apache.org
However, what it means to be disengaged is up for debate. You might also suggest that Apache reconsider the expectations they set of project owners.