I just found out now that there is a whole one year since former Oracle’s OpenOffice became officially (source code included) an Apache Softer Foundation member project (my bad that for this whole year I didn’t came up to this knowledge…).
BUT … since one year is long enough for this kind of actions I want to ask … why there’s been no effort to reunite the teams that keeps LibreOffice and OpenOffice ???
Oracle is no longer in control of OpenOffice, so the initial reason for establishing LibreOffice is no longer standing up, isn’t it ??
So … why do they still exist in these 2 forms (and let’s face it, these 2 office packages are basically identical, right ?)
Don’t you all think it’s time to let aside any (eventual) personal feelings and make it, again, one single OpenOffice ? (let’s face it, LibreOffice it’s not even such an inspired name anyway … )
I suppose the team that now is under Apache Software Foundation is not that bad, or evil intended as you may have considered when they were under Oracle rules, so … what happened this year that didn’t make you reunite ??
I really don’t see and understand any competition BETWEEN OpenOffice and LibreOffice, but rather Openoffice+Libreoffice AGAINST that evil empire of Microsoft/MS Office … What’s the point, still, with this current separation ?
There are too many reasons (some quite hidden): ideological (the Apache license is more liberal and allows private companies to take the code and return nothing), personal (previous aggravations, personal status and ego) and geopolitical (OpenOffice is more US centered while LibreOffice is more Germany/Europe centered).
EDIT: I’m not affiliated in any way with either project, so this is my personal opinion.
IMHO now AOO and LibO are quite dispersed in their functionality. This became especially evident after LibO 3.5 release (AES-256 encryption algorithm, ODF 1.2 support, new filters in Writer, new functions in Calc, msi installers, …) And more differences are expected in LibO 3.6 (Corel Draw filters). Estimated availability of LibO 3.6 - August 2012. AOO have made their own achievements, and not all of them are combined with new features LibO. If even to try incubate LibO, the same amount of time would be spent to do so (about a year or more). During incubation there will be many current problems and there will be no rapid development.
LibO developers are working to integrate features of AOO. More info http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2012/06/03/new-and-changed-features-experience-and-test-them-now/ in comment #2