From: nunojsilva@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 2025-12-16, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:   
      
   > Lawrence D'Oliveiro  wrote:   
   >> On 12 Dec 2025 06:37:51 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:   
   >>> Others prefer software that does try to clone commercial offerings,   
   >>> like LibreOffice, though.   
   >>   
   >> Not sure what "commercial offerings" it is trying to clone,   
   >   
   > M$ Office and all the commercial Office suites that were common   
   > when OpenOffice.org, which was forked into LibreOffice, started.   
      
   According to Wikipedia, it started in *1985*. Might not have been open   
   source then, but that's when it started, it didn't appear from a vacuum   
   in the moment it was open-sourced.   
      
   Wikipedia also says in the infobox that Microsoft Office is from 1990,   
   but IIRC this one started as a collection of different tools Microsoft   
   acquired, so might predate that.   
      
   > The first paragraph on the Wikipedia page even states it:   
   >   
   > "Sun open-sourced the software in July 2000 as a free alternative   
   >  to Microsoft Office, and released OpenOffice.org version 1.0 on 1   
   >  May 2002."   
   >  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org   
      
   That does not imply it was created to replace MS Office. Or that it   
   copied MS Office.   
      
   It's actually more likely that it followed the menubar and buttonbar   
   trend of UIs in a larger universe of products, and looking at some   
   screenshots of earlier versions it already has some distinct features   
   like the sidebar?   
      
   >> given that Microsoft is going all-in on AI and the cloud, and   
   >> LibreOffice is not.   
   >   
   > Well I don't know what modern M$ Office is like, but   
   > Open/LibreOffice is definitely similar to M$ office versions in the   
   > 2000s when it started.   
      
   It. Did. Not. Start. In. The. 2000s.   
      
   > There were already other individual   
   > open-source programs for the separate "office" tasks, but they had   
   > quite different interfaces and limited file format compatibility.   
   > OpenOffice cloned the commercial office suite design which made   
   > people more comfortable to switch, but also imported a lot of   
   > design approaches I don't like personally, and more development   
   > work which might encourage the developers to "go begging". The   
   > individual programs still exist though, so I still use them, just   
   > with occasional pain trying to convert document file formats.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Nuno Silva   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)