After Oracle killed OpenOffice.org development and donated the code to Apache in 2011, IBM seeded the project with developers. But contributor interest evaporated to LibreOffice, and Apache OpenOffice has been effectively moribund since 2014, with critical security issues going unpatched for over a year.
Apache OpenOffice is a full office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, database, formula editor) written primarily in C++ and Java. It uses the OpenDocument Format (ODF) natively. The codebase originated from StarOffice, acquired by Sun in 1999. Under Apache, it was relicensed from LGPL to Apache License 2.0, enabling permissive reuse but preventing incorporation of copyleft code from LibreOffice.
The story of Apache OpenOffice is really the story of Oracle's fumbling of OpenOffice.org — and IBM's attempt to keep a permissively-licensed alternative alive against all odds. When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, they inherited OpenOffice.org along with Java, MySQL, and VirtualBox. Oracle's heavy-handed approach to open-source governance quickly alienated the OpenOffice.org community, leading most active developers to found LibreOffice under The Document Foundation in September 2010.
By April 2011, Oracle had given up. They stopped OpenOffice.org development and laid off the remaining team. But rather than letting the code rot, Oracle donated it to the Apache Software Foundation in June 2011 — reportedly at IBM's urging. IBM had contractual interests in the code and preferred that it live under Apache's permissive license rather than LibreOffice's copyleft LGPL. The relicensing from LGPL to Apache License was a deliberate strategic move: it meant LibreOffice could take code from Apache OpenOffice, but Apache OpenOffice couldn't take code from LibreOffice.
The project entered the Apache Incubator on June 13, 2011, the code drop was imported on August 29, 2011, and it graduated as a top-level Apache project on October 18, 2012. The initial developer pool was largely IBM employees, and the first major release under Apache — version 3.4 — arrived in May 2012.
But Apache OpenOffice was swimming against the current. LibreOffice had already captured the community's energy, the Linux distributions' default installations, and most corporate deployments. IBM's developers did the majority of the work through 2015, but as IBM's interest waned, so did development. The last significant feature release was version 4.1 in 2014. Since then, the project has managed only sporadic bug-fix and security releases.
By 2024-2025, the situation had become dire. The Apache Software Foundation flagged OpenOffice's security health as "amber" and then "red," with multiple unfixed security vulnerabilities over a year old. Developer mailing list traffic dropped 65% in a single quarter. In August 2025, Apache let the US trademark registration for OpenOffice.org lapse. The project technically exists — version 4.1.16 was released in November 2025 — but it is a dead project walking.
Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems, inheriting OpenOffice.org
LibreOffice founded by departing OpenOffice.org developers under The Document Foundation
Oracle stops OpenOffice.org development and lays off remaining team
Oracle donates OpenOffice.org code to Apache Software Foundation; relicensed under Apache License
Apache OpenOffice graduates as a top-level Apache project
Version 4.1 released — the last release with significant new features
Apache Software Foundation flags OpenOffice security status as 'red' with year-old unpatched vulnerabilities
Apache lets the US trademark registration for OpenOffice.org lapse
Apache OpenOffice's primary impact has been negative: its continued existence confuses users who don't realize that LibreOffice is the actively maintained successor. The OpenOffice brand retains enormous name recognition, and the website still receives millions of downloads — many from users who would be better served by LibreOffice.
The project also serves as a cautionary tale about license strategy in fork wars. IBM's insistence on the Apache License ensured one-way code flow: LibreOffice can incorporate Apache OpenOffice code, but not vice versa. This asymmetry, combined with LibreOffice's stronger community, made Apache OpenOffice's decline almost inevitable.