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How Should OpenOffice.org Fix Itself?


OpenOffice.org has established itself as the free alternative to Microsoft's Office suite—but not necessarily the better alternative. Now the project heads are breaking off and starting LibreOffice. It's a great chance to remake the project. So, what should they prioritize?

The consensus among commenters, here at Lifehacker and elsewhere, is that OpenOffice.org's suite of tools get the job done for those who just need to write, throw together a basic spreadsheet, or put together a presentation. Beyond that, there are compatibility issues with Microsoft Office's features, a fairly dated-looking interface, and individual headaches involving all of the project's little nooks and corners.

But with a fork of OpenOffice.org opening up as LibreOffice, separated from Oracle and backed by the likes of Google, Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu maker Canonical, and others, it's a chance for the office suite to reinvent itself. If you had a say, what would you ask them to focus on? We put some common concerns in the poll below, but feel free to provide your own answers and explain them further in the comments.

OpenOffice.org forsakes Oracle, forms new foundation and fork [ZDNet]