If you download Apache OpenOffice 3.4, or browse our website, you will notice that we have a rebranding effort underway.    I'd like to offer a few thoughts on what happened, why and what will be coming next.

When the OpenOffice.org project came to Apache, it started in the Apache Incubator, where all projects new to Apache start.  Here we worked on various tasks to integrate the project into Apache, from licensing, policy, process and cultural perspectives.    Previous posts have discussed the site migration work and the IP review/cleanup tasks.  Another task for the community was to adapt to the Apache branding policy.

Apache projects, under the umbrella of the Apache Software Foundation, share a common website, a common license, and are part of a common larger community of developers and users.  To reinforce this, all Apache projects, and their products, use the naming pattern "Apache ___", such as Apache Hadoop, Apache Subversion, Apache POI, etc.

Possible conforming names that the community discussed and considered included:

  • Apache Open Office
  • Apache OpenOffice
  • Apache OpenOffice.org
  • Apache ODF Office

 A vote was held, and "Apache OpenOffice" won.  A new logo, based on a design by Michael Acevedo, was selected, and that is what you see our website now.

Former OpenOffice.org logo

New Apache OpenOffice logo

Updating the website and the code to use this new branding will take some time.   The Apache OpenOffice 3.4 release, for example, still has some places where it refers to "OpenOffice.org".  We hope to have this rebranding completed in our next major release.

Note: You will still continue to see references to OpenOffice.org in the context of older release.  For version 3.3.0 and earlier it is still proper to refer to them as OpenOffice.org, since they are pre-Apache.  But all new work at Apache will use the name Apache OpenOffice.