OpenOffice and LibreOffice have to unite?

Developers of free software packages Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice should join forces for a joint project that can still compete with the widespread proprietary competitor.

This idea was expressed by Daniel Brunner, head of the IT department of the Swiss Supreme Court, in a speech at the LibreOffice conference a week ago in Bern.

Brunner believes that the merger of the two projects will allow more organizations to implement free software. Now we have to check the document in both office suites, but after the merge, the hypothetical OpenLibreOffice will become the only standard.

The Supreme Court of Switzerland, where Brunner works, is one of the largest government structures in Europe, which has translated the workflow into free software. For many years, it has been using the office suite OpenOffice, it is installed on about 460 computers. Brunner says it would be nice to take advantage of the advanced document filters that LibreOffice has.
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The strategy adopted earlier stipulates that the state budgetary organization should use only free software. Three months ago, a strategy was added. Now there is another requirement: free software must be independent of the vendor, that is, the organization must be able to freely change Linux distributions and office suites.


Document management in the Supreme Court of Switzerland

Comparing the two free packages, Brunner sees its advantages for everyone. OpenOffice is more stable and accessible on mobile platforms, and LibreOffice brings together a larger community of developers, they release more interesting innovative features for the office suite.



If OpenOffice and LibreOffice merged, the proprietary competitor would have to be very tight, Brunner said.