There seems to have been many things that people forgot about when following the previous thread (https://lwn.net/Articles/699047/ and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12411747), which I hope to relate here:
1. The whole issue was an open and honest DISCUSSION. Many people took this as an indication that AOO was dead. I fear that my own response to Dennis' post on-list went a bit too far in reinforcing that (mis)belief but the lack of (perceived) developer energy was the basis for the whole discussion. Dennis did not say "AOO is dead, what should we do" but rather that the AOO community should discuss, as a contingency plan what a retirement would look like.
I may plan or discuss my funeral (or final wishes), but that does not mean I am dead or dying. :-)
But think about this: what other project would be so open and candid? Such openness, and the true appreciation that discussion be done in public is a core part of the Apache Way. It's also a core part of what open source work.
2. Because of this "publicity", the AOO has been overwhelmed by lots and lots of offers of support, which have been graciously and thankfully accepted.
3. People have also forgotten that choices, even in FOSS, are a Good Thing. LibreOffice is very successful, and they should be congratulated for their success. But certainly there is room for other players in this game, and certainly room for one (or more) that are under a permissive license. The thing is is that they don't have to be clones; they can have different audiences, different "missions" so-to-speak.
4. It is sad when we in the FOSS community degrade ourselves to simple, base license-wars. There are good, solid reasons for permissive, weak copyleft and strong copyleft, and I've contributed to them all.
IMO, what's next for Apache OpenOffice is what the Apache OpenOffice community decides; it sounds as if this whole kerflunkle has served as a kick-in-the-arse to the AOO team: they see how important AOO still is to numerous people, and they have loads of new volunteers offering to help. A 4.1.3 release is forthcoming so that is good news and a step in the right direction.