Microsoft Office alternative Openoffice highly likely to facing closure.
OpenOffice, which provides free offerings of similar programs to the likes of Microsoft Office programs such as Word and Excel, could be set to retire due to a lack of manpower.
The company’s head has warned that “retirement…is a serious possibility” within the very near future.
OpenOffice, which has millions of users worldwide, is maintained by a community of developers working for free to keep it running, however recent events has caused this pool of talent to shrink dramatically.
Many jumped ship to LibreOffice, a similarly free Office alternative that has gained popularity by releasing updates more frequently since its launch.
The situation was also not helped earlier this summer when OpenOffice revealed details of a possible security flaw, and instead of issuing a fix, urged users to switch to Microsoft’s alternative or LibreOffice.
In a message to the OpenOffice mailing list, volunteer Vice President Dennis E. Hamilton revealed that “limited capacity” was restricting the project’s ability to sustain itself in “an energetic matter”.
He added, “I cannot prediction how this will all work out. It is remiss of me not to point out that retirement of the project is a serious possibility.”
Hamilton also then detailed how a shutdown could happen, which would include how the project’s code would remain securely stored in case of future interest to resurrect it.
Despite being somewhat more costly than its free alternatives, Windows 10 continues to go from strength to strength as Microsoft pursues its aim of having the software installed on a billion devices worldwide.
The company also recently ended its year-long free upgrade promotion earlier this summer.
Microsoft will now charge you $119 – or £99 – for a full version of Windows 10 Home.
Meanwhile, Windows 10 Pro will set you back $199 or £130.
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