Where Do I Go Now That Oracle Owns OpenOffice.org?

eldavojohn writes "So I noted that there was better support for my processor in the latest BIOS for my mainboard. After downloading the update, there was a .doc file containing flashing instructions. No matter, I have OpenOffice.org installed on this machine and just opened it up. And, as should be no surprise, there was an Oracle logo splash screen while OpenOffice.org 3.2 started up. At my job, I've had a less than favorable history with Oracle that I'm not going to get into — rather let's just say I never want anything to do with them again. Including installing any of their software on my machine. So I'm facing a dilemma. I've looked into the forked LIbreOffice but that's still in beta and I'm a little wary of depending on that. Has anyone used LibreOffice (it's installing as I type this) extensively? Does it handle complex Powerpoint files okay? Is there some alternative out there that I'm completely overlooking for open source? Can anyone convince me that there's no reason to fear the Oracle OpenOffice.org? Will it remain the de facto standard? Will it eventually lock me into a commitment with Oracle? If you get by without one of these heavyweight monster editors, what do you use and how do you handle doc, ppt, (etc.) extensions?"

Comments

Write to the manufacturer

[gilesjuk]

Ask them to stop using Word documents for instructions.

Ask them to use PDF or HTML.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[neumayr]

Hehe, yeah.
Meanwhile, at some water cooler in some province of China:
Exec1: Some random guy who at some point bought _one_ of our mainboards, making us around 0.1 cents of profit, who may or may not buy more of our products, asks us to change our process.
Exec2: *rotfl*

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Yvan256]

If it's a document that will need to be edited by someone else, then I can understand using Word.

But for a document intended for end-users, it's surprising they didn't use PDF.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Anonymous Coward]

And after, that stop acting irrationally. Sure, ignore Oracle products if you wish, if you ask me that's a good thing. However, refusing to use a FLOSS computer program just because it's written by Oracle (btrfs), or just because it has the Oracle name on the splash screen (OpenOffice.org) is simply stupid. Yes, Oracle are going to fuck up OpenOffice.org, and yes, we're moving to better alternatives (LibreOffice), but there is no need to rush, unless you want to help with writing bug reports. Unless you plan to do just that, jumping to install LibreOffice before distros switch is irrational and stupid. It's too early to worry about that.

OpenOffice.org is not a product, it's a computer program, that happens to have a Oracle splash screen on it. You aren't buying it, and the code is still virtually unchanged since the acquisition by Sun, so you can't claim that by using it you're supporting Oracle in any way. RELAX.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Spad]

Then get them to email the PDF to you, but make sure they include a message to let you know what it is, something like:

"Here's the file you were after, hope it helps"

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I'd agree if a) PDFs were easily convertible to other formats, b) they rendered at something a bit snappier than "as slow as they possibly can and still have anyone read them," c) were easily editable, d) weren't the current favorite attack vector for malware writers.

Seriously though, there's no valid reason that manuals must be displayed exactly as they would in printed form. All I need is the information. Put it in a .txt file if there aren't any images or complex formatting required, or put it in HTML if there are. Fuck a bunch of pretty and uniform, I want useful.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't think PDF was ever intended to be an editable format, that's trying to pound a square peg in a round hole. It's supposed to be a distribution format. The fact that the format offers script execution is pretty baffling.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[neumayr]

Enter Stockholder1
SH1: Schooling our barely educated, almost unpaid throwaway workers, who are thusly void of any intrinsic motivations to do any good at their job, will cost money. Given our employee turnover rate, a lot of money. We will need to keep the processes simple, any change will only be approved if it simplifies the process. You should know all this. Exec3, GM, you're out.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[PopeRatzo]

CEO:

"We don't make our money from selling profits, we make it from buying companies, stripping the assets, laying off the workers, borrowing to the hilt, going bankrupt and doing it all over again. So fuck you guys and your "worrying about customers, employees, docs, pdfs, etc".. Don't you know we are living in a post-productivity world? It's all about the churn now, and by the way, I've just churned your asses, and security is going to be escorting you all to the front door".

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel sorry for those who are more concerned with removing "evil" software than getting any useful work done. To those who refuse to run effective software on the theory that dire consequences will happen in the future I merely note that we're all dead in the future anyway.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Com2Kid]

Because Adobe keeps threatening to sue Microsoft if that feature is added.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[oldspewey]

PDF's principal raison d'etre is distribution for printing. It's used as distribution for on-screen viewing which is definitely round peg in square hole.

I seem to recall that way back in the day, PDF was pretty much exclusively a screen viewing format, while Postscript was used for print distribution. I certainly don't recall ever reading anything from Adobe suggesting they believe PDF is inappropriate for onscreen use - in fact they offer several ways to lock files so they can only be used onscreen.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Dogtanian]

The fact that [PDF] offers script execution is pretty baffling.

No, it's not. Adobe need to keep adding new features to the format (whether they're a good idea or not) in order to give them an excuse to sell people newer versions of Acrobat and the like.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[turbidostato]

"I visited some technical factories in China earlier this year and they have gotten to the point where they know they have a high, high turnover rate. The average worker jumps ship in 18 months to get a much, much higher salary."

This means nothing but that those companies will need to be much less labour intensive. To-date, due to very low wages they chose man labour against automations every day; luckily for them (and for companies selling these kinds of automations) they have a big and obvious path for optimization by automation (in some cases you can find the same kind of factory that currently uses 1000 workers in China totally automated in Japan with just 2 or three workers).

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Macgrrl]

PDF (Portable Document Format) was supposed to be effectively 'on screen postscript' to allow you to view content in a platform independent format which would render identically on any system.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[TapeCutter]

The guy who writes the prospectus and annual reports.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[n9hmg]

Let me translate: pull your panties out of your slit and use what works. Sure, Oracle's going to start making nonsensical tie-ins with their main products. They haven't done it yet, and even when they do, it'll just be irrelevant wasted efforts, not harming the functionality you need. My old boss had a hissy fit and decided there would be no more IBM products in the company, ever. The existing products got starved (TSM shall have no more tapes when we're keeping everything forever and doubling the data under management every 6 month) and their failure under that pressure was used to justify the irrational personal decision. Are you that guy?

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[Mongoose Disciple]

it will increase our market target by 10% which is the penetration for Linux on our products

Wait, what has a 10% penetration for Linux?

And nothing in the server world counts, because no one's hooking a monitor to those machines and trying to read a PDF or a .doc.

Can we at least pick semi-realistic examples?

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[acnicklas]

....I've just churned your asses...

Sounds kinky.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[dominious]

EXEC 4:

Guys, we are all right here at the water cooler btw. Why are we texting on /. and not talking to each other instead?

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

Don't you know we are living in a post-productivity world? It's all about the churn now,

Speak for yourself. Maybe you are living in a post-productivity USA, but that's not "the world". Meanwhile, my country of residence is making its money by selling machinery and cars to the rest of the world. And I'd bet that countries like China, that actually produce stuff and sell it to countries like yours, would equally disagree.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[turbidostato]

"Can we at least pick semi-realistic examples?"

They *are* more than semi-realistic examples on two hands:
1) The general idea is that execs shouldn't laugh at a proposition of changing their procedures; they should make the numbers and see if the change holds water. Does it seem semi-realistic enough?
2) Increased sellings of SIL-based server-class motheboards coupled to the time when they released their drivers sources to the main kernel line.

And then, for an anecdote, I buy preferentially both computers and components weigthing high their known commitment to Linux support (and that means tens of thousand dollars).

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[ultranova]

There may exist some such people, but I submit to you that they're removing themselves from the gene pool because anyone who's that completely rigid about such a ridiculous thing has almost no chance of producing offspring that will survive to adulthood.

"Use .doc format or your children won't see adulthood."

Isn't that going a bit far, even for Microsoft?

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[PopeRatzo]

Excuse me, Happy McFun, but did you not read the half dozen posts before mine?

Jesus Christ, your "country of residence" may have come a long way in the production of cars and heavy machinery, but apparently you've got a ways to go yet in the subtlety and satire department.

But don't worry, you can always learn from all the books, movies, and music we export to you.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

but apparently you've got a ways to go yet in the subtlety and satire department.

Actually we are pretty famous for our complete lack of humor.

Re:Write to the manufacturer

[h4rm0ny]

Germans. Nice people. Get a bit over-excited sometimes.

Be Patient

[WrongSizeGlass]

Wait for LibreOffice to be released a stable build and then leave OpenOffice behind. Until then you'll just have to use it and keep in mind that the only thing Oracle did for OO was buy Sun, they didn't write any of the code.

Re:Be Patient

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

LibreOffice still depends on Java, which is also Oracle branded. OpenJDK doesn't release binaries, and Oracle still controls OpenJDK anyway. So Oracle seems pretty unavoidable right now.

Re:Be Patient

[vux984]

You mean except for all of the actual executable code being Oracle's?

Except for it being opensource so its not, and it was managed by Sun which is not Oracle. Oracle bought Sun, rebranded OpenOffice from Sun to Oracle (as should be expected) and that's about it.

Switching to LibreOffice should be the same as the original Sun OpenOffice except rebranded by the Document Foundation, and they are patching in enhancement by RedHat and Go-OOo that were never accepted by Sun.

Re:Be Patient

[jopsen]

I think some of the LibreOffice developers do have dreams about removing Java dependencies, after all it's only a very small part of LibreOffice that requires Java... My point is that with LibreOffice you're on the right path... Rome wasn't built in one day, and the alternative to Sun OpenOffice.org isn't going to be built in one day either...

Re:Be Patient

[Cley Faye]

No, not really. Some advanced stuff might still need Java, but I've installed LibreOffice recently on a system with no JRE at all, and aside from some complaint on the first launch, it's now working fine.

Re:Be Patient

[jopsen]

And if you don't want to wait download go-oo
All the Go-OO patches should have been merged into LibreOffice and the Go-OO project is discontinued (e.g. developers are now hacking LibreOffice).. But if you insist on having something that is called stable, as opposed to running the LibreOffice beta, go a head a download latest Go-OO release (http://go-oo.org/)...
But remember to upgrade when LibreOffice releases a stable!

Re:Be Patient

[Taxman415a]

Currently Libre Office may still be dependent on Java, but it is a specific goal to reduce Java dependence in the future. I consider that a good thing and a realistic approach.

Re:Be Patient

[Mr. Underbridge]

Or just use LibreOffice now. I did it the day they released it, and have noticed no usability or stability problems at all, personally. Or at least no more than usual for OO. It'd be different if we were talking about a server, but this is just office software on a personal machine. Roll the dice!

Re:Be Patient

[rtb61]

Apparently not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-oo and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice indicate there are several differences. Also libreoffice is based upon version 3.3 of open office plus Go-oo enhancements hence the beta.

The reason to start steeping back from the Oracle version, is they are likely to push Oracle Office cloud and make Open Office undesirable to get more people to their cloud lock in. Of course if you are already heavily into Oracle cloud lock in, bonus, if not then transitioning to libreoffice makes sense.

You can also give http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Symphony a shot as the current version is based upon open office. Interestingly enough software development is done IBM China Development Laboratory, located in Beijing, so there is very likely to be a huge surge in the number of users in the not to distant future.

The advantage of open source is made very apparent as a result of Oracle machinations, choice. Of course what will be the macro language in the future will also be an interesting question, Ruby would be nice.

Re:Be Patient

[icebike]

LibreOffice is stable. It was a fork of a stable OOo, and I've seen no problems at all.

I cut over to it from OO and everything I need it for (documents and spreadsheets) work just fine. Even those that are sent to me from Word users.

Why fret about the Beta designation when it is just a stable as the version it was forked from?

Re:Be Patient

[jojoba_oil]

You can also give http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Symphony a shot as the current version is based upon open office. Interestingly enough software development is done IBM China Development Laboratory, located in Beijing, so there is very likely to be a huge surge in the number of users in the not to distant future.

I wouldn't be so sure about that one. I'm thinking that IBM based development of Symphony in China as a measure of cost reduction, not because they are targeting a Chinese audience. Further, even if their target is a Chinese user-base I don't think Symphony will take off there; things like linux-based Ylmf OS (which is developed by a Chinese company for a Chinese user-base) have trouble gaining traction. China already has Kingsoft WPS Office which is free for personal use. (The English version is a 30-day free trial.) The only Chinese I know that don't use Kingsoft WPS Office are the ones doing graduate study in the US. They're using bootlegged copies of Microsoft Office instead.

Re:Be Patient

[magus_melchior]

Yes, and if Oracle turns its sights on LibreOffice, LO will just toss the Java-dependent bindings and rework them from another platform (and most of the core binaries will still work-- the wizards and such will have to be rewritten, though).

Meanwhile, such a horribly ill-motivated act will prompt other large-scale projects to come up with plans to migrate away from Java, because if Oracle squeezes LO, they'll squeeze anyone else using Java for free or for profit.

Re:Be Patient

[oldspewey]

I think the real question here is: if Microsoft were to somehow buy LibreOffice, how many heads would simultaneously explode around the world?

Re:Be Patient

[bball99]

LibreOffice is unstable on OS X... crashes regularly under 10.5.8

Re:Be Patient

[paulkoan]

Gentoo has a "java" use flag for openoffice - and presumably if this is turned off, openoffice will be built without java. And presumably libreoffice would be built without java if the same use flag was disabled. And presumably this removes any java, rather than what is already identified as optional.

So presumably java isn't a dependency unless you use a binary that has java enabled as one.

Presumably.

Re:Be Patient

[KlaymenDK]

O_o Oh?

Re:Be Patient

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC 'cos I work for the place.

You do NOT want Symphony. It's based on a much earlier release of OO.o and is for some reason shipped without Draw and a few other bits. WTH would you _remove_ apps from a _free_ suite??!? If that weren't enough, the branding has really ruined the experience.

In fact, you may want to step around anything from Lotus at all. They/we/it (not me!) are also building a wiki system, and some of the design choices are just ... mind-bogglingly archaic (no per-page permissions, no versioning, ...).

Re:Be Patient

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they keep the Java API. One of the biggest things about OpenOffice is the easy accessibility from Java. Hope they don't lose that since that's the only competitive advantage they have over MS Office. Definitely doesn't require Java to run and do normal office tasks. It's a real good balance right now, please don't break it...

Rant mode on. Seriously guys, "Libre" Office. That is the DUMBEST product name I've ever heard. Did anyone give it any thought at all? I'm not going to be able to convince anyone to give it a try with that horrendous name. Argh. Rant mode off.

libre office

[Anonymous Coward]

just go where 90% of developers have allready gone: http://www.documentfoundation.org/download/

Should be fine...

[rwven]

Seeing as libreoffice is just a fork of openoffice (they're probably almost identical in code right now), you can probably rely on it just as much as openoffice now, and possibly even more in the future.

Re:Should be fine...

[bieber]

Yep, at the moment using either one should be more or less the same thing. Just because the copyright changed hands doesn't mean the code became magically tainted.

Re:Should be fine...

[hedwards]

For now. They're in the process of merging in a lot of code from the Go OO.org folks. Should make for better compatibility with MS Office.

Re:Should be fine...

[camperdave]

Have they gotten close to having an equivalent program for OneNote yet?

Re:Should be fine...

[John Hasler]

That just means that the kernel maintainers don't want any bug reports from you since you are running a kernel that contains code that they do not have access to the source of. When you install a closed-source driver you become dependent on the supplier of that driver since only they have have full access to the source code for your kernel. If you trust that supplier that's cool but the kernel maintainers can't help you.

Re:Should be fine...

[Beelzebud]

Heh I wasn't sure if that was something exclusive to Slackware or not, but it's funny to hear that the standard Linux kernel spits out that "kernel taint" message. I see it in Slack, but they must have filtered it from Arch.

It always cracked me up because I would always think to myself "Yep, tainting my damned kernel with a driver that actually has good 3D performance." :D

Re:Should be fine...

[hairyfeet]

But he specifically asked about .doc, .ppt, etc, and I thought LibreOffice was gonna seriously push "free as in freedom" in their fork? Because as we have seen in the past with the way RMS reacts to .doc and other MSFT formats if they truly go for the "free as in freedom" manifesto it really wouldn't surprise me to see in the future any attempt to open a .doc met with "This format takes away your freedoms. Please ask the person who gave this to you to respect freedom and send an ODF".

So while I agree that ATM OO.o and LibreOffice is virtually the same, have they said ANYTHING about MS Office compatibility on their roadmap? How much effort is someone who is pushing ODF gonna invest in supporting a MSFT format? Because like it or not if the office suite can't do MSFT formats for a good 90% of the population who have friends or coworkers using MS Office it'll be useless.

Re:Should be fine...

[airlied]

if you weren't slow, you'd have done some research, and worked out the taint name is used for a lot of things and predates the binary drivers.

But I suppose being an idiot isn't your fault, probably genetic.

Re:Should be fine...

[neumayr]

Huh. Some guy on slashdot, one who thinks intelligence correlates with genetics no less, thinks I'm an idiot. I will cry myself to sleep tonight.

Re:Should be fine...

[u17]

He's not just some guy, he's David Arlie. He's done work on Xorg stuff, including the nouveau driver. You should be honoured that he called you an idiot, especially since it's his second comment on Slashdot, after the first posted in 2005.

I'm not getting into the argument, just thought I'd point it out, considering that he is kind of a public person in these circles.

I'm guessing his dog must have died and he had to vent, taking these factors into consideration.

Re:Should be fine...

[Kjella]

Considering one of the things they did was pull in the go-oo patches that include better docx support, I doubt that is the big fear. It's mostly only RMS that think closed source lock-out is a way to promote freedom.

Re:Should be fine...

[Taxman415a]

So while I agree that ATM OO.o and LibreOffice is virtually the same, have they said ANYTHING about MS Office compatibility on their roadmap?

Yes, see the latest announcement. It specifically mentions VBA macro support, which is even dirtier than just supporting MS formats. At the same time the announcement mentions reducing Java dependency which is probably a good thing. Java probably wasn't integrated by Sun to fulfill a real need, but as a Java marketing method.

Re:Should be fine...

[jonwil]

Considering that even Microsoft has trouble supporting VBA (i.e. the lack of VBA in various versions of Office on Mac), I wish the LibreOffice people luck in their efforts :)

Re:Should be fine...

[camperdave]

OneNote is far more than a notepad app for tablets. It is partway between a paint program and a word processor, and a wiki, and a presentation manager, with audio and video imbedding, spreadsheet and screen capture functionality thrown in as well. It has whiteboard sharing capabilities allowing for group collaboration. If you don't understand what OneNote is, then please refrain from making pathetic and worthless recommendations.

Re:Should be fine...

[rwven]

Not intended != Not suitable.

Re:Should be fine...

[Lord of Hyphens]

OneNote is a extremely useful piece of software, and the primary reason I keep an Win7 VM around. It easily qualifies for "best tool for the job". Nearest piece of work I've seen is Jarnal (pen input) and/or Tomboy (wikiish notes). The handwriting recognition and math functionality is top-notch (realizing that the handwriting subsystem shipped with Win7).

Re:Should be fine...

[Mongoose Disciple]

He's not just some guy, he's David Arlie. He's done work on Xorg stuff, including the nouveau driver. You should be honoured that he called you an idiot, especially since it's his second comment on Slashdot, after the first posted in 2005.

So what you're saying is... he's not just any pompous windbag going off on some random guy on a messageboard with the kind of insult most of us outgrew in the 7th grade, but a specific pompous windbag with some kind of claim to nerd street cred in a particular nerd subculture going off on some random guy on a messageboard with the kind of insult most of us outgrew in the 7th grade?

That's informative, but I still don't think the aforementioned random guy should feel honored. You've got somewhat odd criteria for choosing your objects of worship.

Re:Should be fine...

[arashi no garou]

You know, I'm not taking sides here but I feel the need to point out something too. It doesn't matter how high in the geek celebrity circle someone is, calling another person an idiot because they aren't aware of the facts, in itself indicates a juvenile mentality. Calling someone ignorant, on the other hand, would not only be more correct, it would be less childish and offensive to boot, and would allow for a reasonable request to become educated on the matter.

Yes, Mr. Arlie is an Xorg driver genius, but he has yet to do more than call names and pick a fight here on the Slashdot grade school playground.

Grow up, guys.

OO / Libreoffiec

[Arimus]

For now would have thought Libreoffice's support for Powerpoint etc would be on a par with OO as the fork is based on the 0O 3.3 code base...

Antiword

[Neil Hodges]

As long as images aren't an issue, you could use Antiword to convert it into a (somewhat) styled text file. That's what I did when I ran into the same thing with BIOS updates.

Microsoft Office

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want to deal with Oracle. Then buy Microsoft Office. You never said you didn't want to deal with Microsoft too.

Re:Microsoft Office

[Yvan256]

And if you don't want to deal with Microsoft either, you can buy a Mac mini and iWork!

Re:Microsoft Office

[CajunArson]

Obviously this is a joke but... I just got done editing a file using Office 2007 SP2.... on my Arch Linux box using Crossover. Office 2010 isn't supported yet, but I have a feeling it will be in the first half of next year. I also use Openoffice on a daily basis for making drawings with OODraw. I did a master's thesis and all my law-review related work in OOWriter. Unfortunately, right now I need MS Office for compatibility since my daily use involves ping-ponging documents back & forth with other people using track changes.. an area where OO still sorely lags even using the ODF document formats.

Re:Microsoft Office

[coerciblegerm]

If I had points I'd mod you insightful. While the OP doesn't state it, I would assume that MS would be off the table, given that Larry Ellison is trying to be Bill Gates. But, if it's solely an Oracle problem, Office has nothing to do with that.

OP does state it, quite clearly in fact: " Is there some alternative out there that I'm completely overlooking for open source?"

Unless Microsoft recently released the source code to their office suite this option has been pretty clearly disqualified. RTFA.

Re:Microsoft Office

[AnonymousClown]

Have you ever heard of LaTeX and subversion? Just checking...

He probably has....but everyone else he works with probably hasn't nor are they willing to spend all the time on the learning curve to use it.

Re:Microsoft Office

[rwa2]

Hey! Remember before there was Word and even Linux, we used to use WordPerfect under DOS? They're still around!

Anyone actually use it and have crap to say about it? ^_^

Re:Microsoft Office

[vhfer]

Ya. WordPerfect Office 12 is the standard around here for our roughly 200 employees that use PCs. The other 1000 are on vehicles most of the time and don't use any software.

Then we have a few people that interact a great deal more with other companies, local government and etc. For them we have to buy license of Microsoft Word, because abovementioned external parties continue to mindlessly send us stuff in Word format, often @#%$@#%&^%$#*& .DOCX format, and the users aren't happy with Word Viewer, Catdoc, or other tools. Worse, many have to send docs to other agencies who insist on a proprietary format from a monolithic single-source vendor.

WordPerfect mostly works ok and about 30% of my users don't realize they aren't using Bill's program. It has a few issues. There's a piece of code that sits in memory after you print until you're done until you exit WP. After printing the second doc with complicated images and layout, that piece tends to lockup and take 100% of the cpu. It never finishes what it was doing. So we just kill that piece, don't even exit WP, and life goeth on.

I love "reveal codes." Why don't all wordprocs have that? Untangles some really twisty little problems, especially when my users import docs from another source, edit it, and the result is a tangled mess.

You want to know the funniest part of this? As part of the support team for this, I have to assume when users call and say they are having a problem with "Word" that they mean "WordPerfect:" because that's what they all call it.

Try Google Docs

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Google Docs or Zoho. Google 'em.

Re:Try Google Docs

[icebraining]

Google Docs

Not exactly Open Source as the submitter asked for.

Re:Try Google Docs

[SpectreBlofeld]

It's possible the submitter requests open source because he doesn't trust running closed source software on his machine, which would make Google Docs kosher, as it's 100% web-based.

It can't be that different already, right?

[tenchikaibyaku]

Does it handle complex Powerpoint files okay?

Heh. How different would LibreOffice have managed to become in like the month and a half it's been split from OpenOffice.org?

About stability, I think most of the changes that have been integrated so far has already been somewhat tested by being included in distribution patches or similar, but I admit that I probably don't really know enough to make much of a statement.

Re:It can't be that different already, right?

[Lennie]

The first thing they did is add all the patches that where already in used by the folks from http://go-oo.org/ . These are all the patches that the Linux-maintainers has created/collected but where never accepted by the OpenOffice maintainers, which is actually quiet a lot. Because the acceptance process is so slow.

Re:It can't be that different already, right?

[HiThere]

Well, given licensing, etc., there *could* be an immense change. I don't think there has been, but that's not a given. Particularly with Oracle talking about putting out a non-free version of the JVM. (That's one thing I thought was totally standardized.)

Given the recent news, I can understand being hesitant to trust anything with Oracle's name on it, or around it. This despite my being quite willing to trust similar products with Sun's name on them.

OTOH, I don't feel any pressing need to switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice. I'll want to do it soon, but I don't see any reason to do it immediately. I did, however, scrap all plans for doing the project I've just started in Java. I'm currently considering a bunch of alternatives. At the instant Common Lisp is leading the pack, but it could easily change before next week. Lisp, however, is looking better than C or C++, because it has garbage collection and a standardized way of handling utf8 files. Python could do the same thing, but it's slower. Go is still beta, and it has lousy documentation. Etc. Also, I may have occasion to write some self-modifying code, and that's easier in Lisp than in most compiled languages. (Yeah, scheme. But Scheme doesn't support classes in any standard way. And there aren't many r6rs schemes out, and all the r5rs schemes support utf8 in non-standard ways. [They've got to. It's not a part of the standard.])

I suppose I could check things like Haskell or OCaML, but I find it hard to wrap my head around them. Erlang *is* a possibility, and maybe I should look into it more carefully. Last I checked it didn't have any GUI capability, and the default database wasn't large enough. (Maybe I could partition things, or use Mnesia instead of the built-in methods.) That would mean using C FFI's, but I'll need to do that with Lisp anyway...and multiprocessors *are* becoming more common...

Close your eyes while logo is displayed

[Anonymous Coward]

LibreOffice has the spanish word "libre" in it. I can't use that either because I strongly condemn the actions during the Spanish Inquisition.

Java, OpenOffice, MySQL are all GPL or better and no one can change that.

The point of Open Source is...

[Lord Byron II]

...that you can use whatever software you like. If you were happy with the last Sun release of OpenOffice, then download and use that instead. It should be fine for a couple of years* and by then it should be clear which OSS office software is appropriate for you.

*It's not uncommon for Microsoft to go several years between releases of MS Office, so two years with Sun's last OpenOffice release isn't unreasonable.

LibreOffice relies heavily on Java,

[countertrolling]

and as such it remains vulnerable to potential legal attacks from Oracle which now owns the Java technology...

Disaster awaits if something isn't done about this...

Re:LibreOffice relies heavily on Java,

[Lehk228]

if oracle takes legal action against distributors of software written in java, they may as well close down java.com and close up their database business while they are at it, nobody would trust working with oracle owned properties for anything of any consequence

Re:LibreOffice relies heavily on Java,

[Spad]

they may as well close down java.com and close up their database business while they are at it, nobody would trust working with oracle owned properties for anything of any consequence

Give them time, they seem to be working on it full time at the moment.

Re:LibreOffice relies heavily on Java,

[Lennie]

They don't care about all those users, they just want money from Java-users. They don't care if they loose or piss off the smaller users, the really big enterprise users can't switch in 10 years time anyway. That is where the money is, usually banks and other big companies/institutions.

Lotus Symphony

[garglebutt]

Latest version of Lotus Symphony is yet another fork and it has the best Excel compatibility of all the ooo variants. It is free but not open source however (look at SISSL license conditions).

Re:Don't be launching VirtualBox either.

[TheRaven64]

and throw it in a barrel of quicklime

There was a bit of dust on my screen next to the l, so that looked like you said he threw it in a barrel of quicktime. Somehow, the sentence still seemed plausible, it just looked like you'd confused CEOs...

Ratonale?

[Stan Vassilev]

At my job, I've had a less than favorable history with Oracle that I'm not going to get into — rather let's just say I never want anything to do with them again.

I'd like to think people who deal with technology are rational, so if in your dealings with Oracle you have learned of some objective reason why people should avoid OpenOffice.org now, I believe you should share it, if your contract allows.

If there's no objective reason, then quite simply keep using OpenOffice.org and keep an eye on the situation between Oracle and LibreOffice.org.

In our daily lives we use the services of companies that have wronged us by means of poor policy, or unprofessional employees, but if we took a hard stance every single time and dropped everything, even at no clear alternative, society would not last for long.

If you live in US, did you stop using oil fuel and oil based products (i.e. basically almost everything around you) when the BP oil spill happened? I guess not.

Oracle Logo ?

[denisbergeron]

Your problem is the Oracle Logo... go to gnome-look.org and find a new splash screen that suit you.

Re:The problem is what it pulls in

[tuppe666]

One of the first reactions of the split between Libre/OpenOffice is the dependency on Java is being reduced.

The MrBabyMan of Slashdot?

[harlows_monkeys]

If you weren't a Slashdot celebrity, that ridiculous submission would have been rejected as whining over a complete non-issue. Grab the OOo source, and build your own copy that doesn't display the Oracle logo. Problem solved. (Or just look away when the splash screen appears).

oblig

[Madster]

LibreOffice has the spanish word "libre" in it. I can't use that either because I strongly condemn the actions during the Spanish Inquisition. [...]

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition...

Don't worry about it

[steveha]

All Oracle did was buy Sun. There isn't some sort of magical evil contagion that instantly infected OpenOffice.org; the software is no different than it was before the sale.

Now, Oracle could potentially direct OpenOffice.org development to go down the path of evil. They could change the license under which OO.o is distributed to an unacceptable one. They could do all sorts of things! But they haven't had time to do it yet, and by the time they get their evil ducks in a row, LibreOffice will be up and running.

Little-known fact: many (most?) Linux distros are already shipping a non-pure OO.o. There is a collection of patches that were never part of the official OO.o, called Go-oo, and distros have been shipping Go-oo instead of the pure Oo.o.

I fully expect LibreOffice to merge all the Go-oo patches, leaving us with two office suites: Oracle OO.o, and LibreOffice. And I think it is very possible that the community will line up behind LibreOffice and leave Oracle OO.o completely irrelevant and unloved. (Consider the situation with Xfree86 and X.org. In that case, the switchover happened in a stunningly short period of time.)

The worst-case scenario is that Oracle adopts some license that keeps LibreOffice from merging Oracle patches, and then Oracle funds a development team to make giant improvements to Oracle OO.o; then the community might have to choose between the free LibreOffice and the Oracle offering. But even there, I am not actually worried. The current state of OpenOffice is usable. Even if Oracle poured huge resources into OO.o development, what could they really offer to tempt us away from LibreOffice? A toolbar with giant icons? A dancing paperclip? Meanwhile, if all that LibreOffice does is simply to fix bugs, improve speed, and rewrite to end Java dependencies, I for one would be completely happy.

If you use OO.o on Windows, just don't take any updates until LibreOffice is ready, and you will be fine. Or better yet, simply start getting your installers from the Go-oo web site. If you use Linux, you almost certainly can simply trust your distro to do a good job of keeping your office suite relatively evil-free.

Oracle may be evil, but they aren't magically evil. Don't worry about this.

P.S. After writing this post, my 'o' key on my keyboard is overheating. I'd better not use it for a while or it might stp wrking.

steveha

Re:Don't be launching VirtualBox either.

[Just Brew It!]

Yeah, I'm a little worried about the future of VirtualBox. AFAIK there isn't a viable fork yet (the VirtualBox equivalent of Go-oo).

No Oracle at all?

[nurb432]

I guess that means no java for you either :)

Re:Go-oo

[PhilHibbs]

Go-oo have announced that they are going to close down their project and support LibreOffice, but in the mean time until LibreOffice comes out of beta Go-oo is a viable choice if you want a stable release with no Oracle logo.

Re:counter domain name still available

[The Wild Norseman]

According to network solutions, nooo.org is taken.

But noooo.org is available!

Be careful, though, when typing noooo.org into your browser because noooooo.gov is owned by Lord Vader and he's a stickler when it comes to protecting his domain.

Re:Open Office a de facto standard?

[Alex Belits]

OOXML is a documented standard, ISO/IEC 29500.

lol

Make it a pic of your cat instead.

[stickystyle]

I'm not usually the one to post these types of 'fix it yourself' OSS comments...

Download the source
replace oracle logos with something else
compile
problem solved (profit?)..

Use Koffice...

[sleepy_weasel]

I quit using OO.org when I found Koffice. Koffice builds much faster for me in OpenBSD, and it can open the microsoft formats, and export to PDF, which is what I use it for anyway. I used LibreOffice on my windows box, as Koffice is not easily available (it requires a beta version and using a KDE installer that didn't work for me on windows 7).

Koffice has just split!

[IYagami]

http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=128782551919625&w=2

"Dear fellow members of the community,

As you might be aware, after months of discussions, it has been concluded that
the best solution is to split the community.

However, the split is going to happen at application level. The maintainer of
each application will be asked to consult his fellow developers to decide in
which group, A or B, the application will lived. The other group is free to
fork the application under a different name. It is also possible for the
developers to change the application name and ask that the current name is not
used by any of the group. This can be used as an opportunity for a fresh
start.

Currently, to the best of my knowledge the groups are composed of the
following applications:

Group A: KWord
Group B: KPresenter, Krita, Karbon, Kexi

Since the license give the right for a fork, I can already mention that Group
B will come with a fork of KWord, under a name that has yet to be decided.
Group A is free to fork any application of Group B under a different name.

Maintainers have until Sunday October 31th to decide with which group to go.
Applications that have not choosen a group will have to be renamed by each
group.

The KDE e.V. board will be asked to decide what happen to the KOffice name,
the KOffice website, the KOffice mailing list, KOffice.org, KOffice wiki and
the KOffice bugzilla product. The recommendation from members of the CWG is to
retire the name KOffice altogether, which will allow both side to start on a
fresh start and leave the past behind. Then the application maintainers and
developers of each group will have one week to find a new name for their
suite, and move to another place in the KDE subversion tree and to rename or
remove the applications that are in the other group.

In the meantime, I am suspending the KOffice release process, meaning that I
will release Beta 3, but that the date for the following release is undefined.
The reason is that I do not feel confident that the splitting will happen in
time before the RC1, and I do not think it is a good idea to ship a RC release
that will get different applications than the final release. If the splitting
takes more time, I will proceed with one more beta. I also advise each group
to ensure that they have a release coordinator.

I will urge readers of this letter to:
1) refrain discussion around the splitting outside the mailing list, or to do
so in private conversation
2) acknowledge, that at this point there is no sense in trying to place the
blame anywhere, we just have to accept the fact
3) remain civilised and polite in this difficult moment

--
Cyrille Berger Skott"

Re:Koffice has just split!

[makomk]

That's a very cryptic mailing list message - presumably deliberately so - but this reply appears to be fairly accurate about the missing details. Basically, Nokia wanted to use the core of KOffice in the office application on their Meego mobile platform, so they created their own fork that massively restructured KOffice and changed its APIs. Apparently they then tried to use their fork to ram in patches that the KOffice developers had rejected. Some of the other developers weren't happy about this state of affairs, but Nokia have so much pull inside the KDE community that they basically have to be accomodated.

Re:Koffice has just split!

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is full of FUD. As the KOffice marketing dude, let me clear it up.

It's true that the KOffice community is splitting up. Right now it looks as if group A is going to be more or less one person, and group B the rest of the community. I won't write any more about that and I'll let you speculate freely on it.

Nokia has *not* forked anything. At the point when the feature freeze came along before the release of KOffice version 2.3, Nokia wanted to continue developing some features. As good citizens in the community this is being done in a work branch in SVN. In the mean time the team working within and together with Nokia does both lots of bugfixes and some new features. All the bugfixes go directly into SVN trunk, and the new features go into the work branch. This is how it should be.

Once KOffice 2.3 is released, the new features in the work branch will be individually presented to the community for review. If the community accepts the feature, it will go into trunk, and if not it will be reworked until it's accepted.

This said, It's not impossible that team B (being almost all of the previous KOffice community) will continue to work from the work branch as the new trunk, but then it can be regarded as the community accepting the new features.

Inge Wallin
KOffice developer

Re:Ah Yes, There's the Familiar Acerbic Sting ...

[thepotoo]

For what it's worth, there are those of us (myself among them) who genuinely appreciate your articles and comments. Sorry if we're less vocal about our thoughts than the trolls, but please keep up the good work.

Re:Open Office a de facto standard?

[darkonc]

Unfortunately, OOXML doesn't follow the ISO standard, even though the standard was based on OOXML and was arguably the result of Microsoft corrupting the ISO process. There are, to my knowledge, no reference implementations of ISO/IEC 29500 -- not even from Microsoft.

Re:Abiwords, gunumeric, and dia

[howlingfrog]

Not just open-source. Gnumeric is the best spreadsheet out there, period. As of recent versions, its numerical accuracy and featureset leave all other spreadsheets in the dust, along with some well-known statistical analysis suites.

Don't forget the user "education" factor

[LostMyBeaver]

Every Linux user will typically bitch about how now they have to open a Word doc... then... whether using OpenOffice, AbiWord, KWord, Google Docs, Office in VMWare, Office in Remote Desktop, office in Citrix application sharing, Office in Wine, doc2pdf etc... will simply open it.

If you're a Linux guy that's bought a motherboard and IS UPGRADING THE BIOS... then let's assume for the moment that you can figure out how to open up a Word document.

If you can't, then please pack the motherboard, return it to the store and go to Brookstones and buy a new toy to play with instead, like a 100Mhz, 64meg Android device.

Re:Go buy Microsoft Office

[muckracer]

> They have an MS-Office for linux now?

Yeah. Emacs!

Don't just use software; use common sense...

[Lewah]

If what you have now works for what you're doing, use it.

If something better comes out that tickles your fancy, install the shiny.

If you're not contributing to the project and directly involved in the squabble between Oracle and The Document Foundation, then why in the hell do you care? It's not /that/ hard to install new software on your OS is it?

Let Oracle screw it up (like they always do), and then jump ship like everyone else; otherwise, get in the mix and start helping make the alternative better.

In my opinion, this thread is moot.

Just instructions? Could be worse

[GameboyRMH]

A lot of mainboards can only have their BIOS updated through a Windows utility, and so far I've never seen one of these utilities that works in WINE. Some mainboards can only be configured with a Windows utility (most Toshiba laptops for instance, but if you bought a Toshiba laptop that's just the beginning of your problems...)

So don't use that version, then?

[neminem]

I hate the look of Skype 4. I hate the look of Skype 5. So I'm still using Skype 3. I just got a new computer; apparently Win7 x64 doesn't get along with the final release of Skype 3, so I went back to oldversion.com and grabbed the penultimate version instead, which worked.

I liked AIM back in the day, but they kept adding more ugly bloat and more ads everywhere, so at a certain point I just stopped letting it upgrade. I'm still running an AIM install from about 2004, and guess what? It still works great. I still have Office 2003 installed, too (with the compatibility pack to view 2007/2010 docs). Boom, no more ugly screen-realestate-eating ribbon. You can run XP's no-ribbon paint and wordpad in Win7, too - just copy the executables over from a different computer.

My point is, companies try to convince you that the only proper way to use their software is to upgrade every time they release a new version, but sometimes "upgrades"... aren't. So why not just use the pre-Oracle version you liked, until LibreOffice is up to your standards?