So if there were no OpenOffice or other free alternative, what would you do at home? Nothing? Or pay for MS Office? The fact that you use OpenOffice at home rather than MS Office shows that it is an adequate substitute for your home use.

Perhaps, but as the map in the TFA shows, the users of OpenOffice are not all (or even predominately) in English-speaking countries. So some aid for the non-native speaker is thoughtful.

Every year or so Microsoft and the BSA roll out an updated report on the financial cost of software piracy. They make a similar argument, that someone who uses a pirated copy of MS Office would have otherwise bought an MS Office license. So they estimate the loss to the economy as # pirated copies * retail price of MS Office.

So it is interesting, and a bit of poetic justice, to apply that same logic to show the value of open source in the economy.

Certainly one could quibble with the exact figures, but it does show that the impact of open source is huge. But we already knew that, right?

Amen. That is the way to gain moral authority from civil disobedience.

This is a false dichotomy. Something can be both cyber crime and civil disobedience. In fact, that is exactly what civil disobedience is supposed to be. It is not being loud, or annoying, or marching or protesting. Those things are basic 1st Amendment rights.

Civil disobedience, on the other hand, is intentionally breaking a law that is considered unjust or immoral, in order to draw attention to the injustice. Think of Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, etc. But note that none of them would break the law and then complain about being charged with the crime. In fact, that was the whole point, being caught, and getting attention.

But is it really accurate to say that 100% of Ubuntu installs are used for document editing? And that 0% prefer LO to Abi or KOffice or Calligra or Google Docs or anything else? Those are optimistic assumptions, don't you think?

That's why I focus on download numbers. Someone who intentionally downloads clear has the intent to use the product.

So if you want to know relative usage numbers, then focus on an apples to apples comparison that makes sense, like the number of Windows downloads.

But both projects claim that 80%+ of their downloads are for Windows users. So you can't really escape the numbers. Apache has then 80% of 20 million Windows downloads in *4 months* whereas LO has 80% of 20 million Windows downloads in *2 years*.

Similar for Mac at around 15%.. No doubt that LO has the advantage on Linux desktops. But all reports indicate that is 3% or so of the desktops. Even 100% of 3% is still only 3%, That doesn't look like a growth play to me,

You can see the details here: http://www.openoffice.org/stats/

I find it interesting that Apache gives the details to support their download numbers while LibreOffice merely waves their hands and makes claims.

Who is "we"? Here's what I see:

Apache OpenOffice claims 20 million downloads of OpenOffice.

LibreOffice claims 20 million downloads of LibreOffice.

So they are equal, yes?

However, take a closer look. Apache had its first release just back in May, so they have 20 million downloads in *4 months*. Compare that to LibreOffice's 20 million downloads in *2 years*.

You bet on the faster horse. The one with the little head start was just passed.

Blasting it out indiscriminately, like spammers do, has a very low conversion rate. It looks like Facebook is going for a more targeted model based on what it can gleam from user profiles. But it all comes down to cost per conversion. $500 could be cheap, if your post is promoted to the right audience. This remains to be proven, of course. But I wouldn't automatically say that the price is too high.

Microsoft claimed 750 million users of Office back in 2010. LibreOffice claims 25 million. OpenOffice claims 100 million. Add in WordPerfect, Symphony, Google Docs, etc., and LibreOffice would struggle to make 1%.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/about-that-1-billion-microsoft-office-figure-/6555

I've been using OpenOffice.org for years. I just want it to work. I don't care so much about the bickering about whose license is better. So it is good to see the code land at Apache, a foundation with a decade of experience running open source projects. I think the move to Apache shows a seriousness of purpose and a focus on producing a solid product and growing a open source community free from corporate domination.

And in the end, the question is not how this compares to LibreOffice. That is a non-question considering that their market share is a round-off error. The real question is how Apache OpenOffice compares to Microsoft Office, and what will they do to make it something that users will prefer. Free is nice, I don't question that. But debating who is free and who is libre and who is more free, etc., misses the point entirely. Users have work to do, and generally don't care about licenses. If they did then 90%+ would not be running MS Office.

So good news. I've upgraded. But the big question is, "What next?" And maybe, "How can we help?"

And of course, that makes your wonder. If LibreOffice truly has 300 developers, and has been working on this code base for 18 months, and started with all the Go-OO code, as well as all the unintegrated Oracle patches and the OOo 3.4 beta, then what the hell have they been doing?

With that starting point, that amount of lead time, and 300 developers, they should be rocking our world with their dazzling features. 300 frickin' developers and the best they have is, "uh, I turned a modal dialog for word counts into a modeless dialog". Really? That is an embarrassment. Either they do not have anywhere close to their claimed 300 developers, or they have the least productive 300 developers known to man.

I'm putting my bet on the 30 developers who do a lot with little, over the 300 that only draw charts about their own superiority to cover up their lack of actual achievement in 18 months.

Actually, I do think the Ohloh numbers are biased. A project that uses distributed version control, like LibreOffice, and accepts patches from contributors that way will show one result, but another, like Apache, that uses Subversion and accepts patches via email, will see something else.

Essentially, depending on your patch policy you may not have any non-core contributors acknowledged in your version control.