First, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Second, this.
As I commented during an April 25 installation of Oracle Java, and yet another attempt by Oracle Java to con me into installing the ask.com toolbar and making ask.com my default search provider,
It's gotten to the point where I delay updating my Java because I get sick of this.
I was performing some early morning updates on my netbook today, and I decided to bite the bullet and update Java again. After doing that (and again successfully avoiding the ask.com malware), I figured that I'd REALLY bite the bullet and update OpenOffice, which I hadn't updated for two reasons.
First, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Second, my OpenOffice, like my Java, is also provided by Oracle.
(Some of you can see where this is going.)
So I began my update of OpenOffice from version 3.3 to version 4.01, and I noticed that the new OpenOffice no longer had Oracle branding, but instead had Apache branding.
After the update completed, I did some research to find out when OpenOffice ceased being an Oracle product and became an Apache product.
It turns out that this happened back in May or June of 2011.
In a statement issued this morning, June 1st, Oracle's Luke Kowalski, VP of Oracle Corporate Architecture Group, stated that the company was going to "contribute the OpenOffice.org code to The Apache Software Foundation's Incubator. The company then claims that Oracle is doing this to "demonstrate its commitment to the developer and open source communities. [By] Donating OpenOffice.org to Apache gives this popular consumer software a mature, open, and well established infrastructure to continue well into the future. The Apache Software Foundation's model makes it possible for commercial and individual volunteer contributors to collaborate on open source product development."
Bla bla bla.
So, to recap, because of various things, include fear of bloatware, I waited OVER THREE YEARS to update one of my products. A FREE product. While this worked out just fine for me, it's probably not the optimum solution for product providers.
A little tip for free product providers - if you want people to get the latest versions of your products, you have to have them WANT to get the latest versions of your products.
Oh, and I am not trendy.
