OpenOffice.org has long been one of very few options available to anyone looking for a non-web based alternative to Microsoft’s Office suite. OpenOffice.org will open Office files, without the need for any of that pesky pay business. The issue now is that people who’d grown accustomed to OpenOffice’s layout are now finding it’s changing to one that looks more like Microsoft Office.

The problem stems from what OpenOffice.org calls Project Renaissance, which has basically just been an attempt to revamp the look and feel of the application. The problem is that it looks an awful lot like the Office 2007 interface we all know and love, which isn’t going down well with long time OpenOffice.org users at all – it seems the user base has long since grown accustomed to the interface.

The main complaint coming from OpenOffice users is that the “ribbon” interface introduced for Microsoft’s Office 2007 is that it requires an awful lot more mouse-time, which naturally gets you away from where you need to be most of the time (for us writers, at least).

The real problem with news like this is that the move towards a ribbon could be a very positive one for most users, but those users who are most likely to write something about it will be those who dislike it. Moreover, given the fact that this is an application that will (certainly) attract people who either enjoy or work writing things, you can imagine the way the backlash will lean… verbose.

Either way, you can check out some of the responses to OpenOffice.org’s new interfact at the OpenOffice.org blog, here.