WTF is "Oracle Open Office?"

Today, I got spammed by one of the biggest software companies in the world. Fucking FOUL, that is.

As of a year ago, Oracle owns Sun Microsystems. Neither of these companies is extremely important to work-at-home, low-budget lifestyle folks like me, that is unless you program in Java, OR unless you use OpenOffice.org, the free/open source alternative to Micro$oft Office.

Well, today, I got an email which ostensibly came from Oracle. First off, I didn't even know about the Sun buyout, but that has nothing to do with the fact that I have no business being on any Oracle mailing list. But secondly, the subject header of the email instantly had me saying "Uh, WHAT THE FUCK?" Because the subject said two things that just about made my head explode: "Oracle Open Office," and something about ... me ... spending MONEY? For ... software?

I'm vaguely familiar with this concept, honest. I think I've done it once or twice. But no fucking way is this ever happening, and if you can't tell by the way I'm writing about it, it's got my head spinning a bit.

The first line of the email's last paragraph is the real fucking kicker:

Buy now at the Oracle Store and save an additional 15% off the already low price.

The already low price is zero, motherfucker!

Oh, but it gets even better. A quick Google took me to the homepage of this "product."

Please note that Oracle Open Office is the new name for StarOffice and StarSuite. StarOffice was previously sold as Sun's office productivity suite with StarSuite being the Asian language version of StarOffice. This name change has no effect on the functionality of StarOffice or StarSuite.

No, will you bastards please note that OpenOffice.org hasn't been called StarOffice for about the better part of a decade; and it's an open source community project owned and sponsored by your subsidiary which includes the labor of many, many unpaid volunteers from across the world! This would be like Red Hat suddenly emailing me offering me a 15% discount on Fedora Linux.

Oh, the public backlash on this bullshit is going to be fun to watch.

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