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Apache OpenOffice Releases Version 3.4
An anonymous reader sends word that Apache OpenOffice 3.4 has been released (download). This is the first release since OpenOffice became a project at the Apache Software Foundation. The release notes list all of the improvements, the highlights of which The H has summarized:
"According to its developers, Apache OpenOffice (AOO) 3.4.0, the first update since OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 from January 2011, now starts up faster than its predecessor and introduces a number of new features such as support for documents secured using AES256 encryption. The Linear Programming solver in the Calc spreadsheet program has been replaced with the CoinMP C-API library from the Computational Infrastructure for Operations Research (COIN-OR) project. As in LibreOffice 3.4.0, the DataPilot functionality has been renamed to Pivot Table, and now supports an unlimited number of fields. A new 'Quote all text cells' CSV (Comma Separated Values) export option has been also added to Calc. Other changes include improved ODF 1.2 encryption and Unix Printing support and various enhancements to the Impress presentation and Draw sketching programs."
Good. We need a free software office suite untainted by the GPL.
Which office suite are we supposed to be cheerleading for here at slashdot? I though it was LibreOffice
Nobody Cares
I already switched to MS Office and I'm quite happy with it.
No, it's Calligra. :P
This should really be from the I'm-not-dead-yet! department
Anybody want my mod points?
The question on my mind as I read this, and I think many here would agree, is "so what makes this different from or better than Libre Office, now that Oracle has alienated a significant portion of OpenOffice's users and developers?"
Yeah, diversity is good, but I'd like to see this project tout its advantages if they think there be any.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Horribly out of date vs. LibreOffice - see the comparison - missing a ton of filters, barely interoperable with Microsoft Office, etc. etc.
If it is a win not to have GPL included user don't care: they click through agreements instantly without reading anyways. Lots of companies helping LibreOffice too - RedHat, Intel, Ubuntu, Google and other. Why bother waste time with Apache deadproject place ?
I've been using OpenOffice.org for years. I just want it to work. I don't care so much about the bickering about whose license is better. So it is good to see the code land at Apache, a foundation with a decade of experience running open source projects. I think the move to Apache shows a seriousness of purpose and a focus on producing a solid product and growing a open source community free from corporate domination.
And in the end, the question is not how this compares to LibreOffice. That is a non-question considering that their market share is a round-off error. The real question is how Apache OpenOffice compares to Microsoft Office, and what will they do to make it something that users will prefer. Free is nice, I don't question that. But debating who is free and who is libre and who is more free, etc., misses the point entirely. Users have work to do, and generally don't care about licenses. If they did then 90%+ would not be running MS Office.
So good news. I've upgraded. But the big question is, "What next?" And maybe, "How can we help?"
Picking Apache "because they know how to do this OpenSourc-ey thing" is like buying IBM because it never gets you fired - a pointy-haired boss decision of cluelessness. It meanwhile looks like the folks at LibreOffice know how to build nice communities just alright.
Nonsense. With an application that high up the software stack, deliberately cutting you off from using half of the free software ecosystem is just silly - or guess why Apache is shipping OpenOffice _binaries_ with weak copyleft code included ... ;)
Microsoft claimed 750 million users of Office back in 2010. LibreOffice claims 25 million. OpenOffice claims 100 million. Add in WordPerfect, Symphony, Google Docs, etc., and LibreOffice would struggle to make 1%.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/about-that-1-billion-microsoft-office-figure-/6555
So, how long until Oracle sues them for using Java? :p
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
I've got a great reason that I'm downloading openoffice right now for. It's this issue. In a nutshell, many moons ago Excel changed their selection rules behavior for no explicable reason and every other spreadsheet on the planet has been copying their behavior. When you call the developers on this, like the guy who submitted this bug report, the developer response is "everyone else does it this way so I won't change it". If Libreoffice is going to strive to be the best clone of Excel that it can, why would I use it? Given the choice, I'll just use Excel. Maybe the Apache version of OO.org still has some distinct behavior instead of just being a clone of something else.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Does it have the one innovative feature that I need? No.
I guess anyway.
To be honest, its hard to get excited when there are 2 competing groups using basically the same code-base, targeting the same audience... Seems like such a waste of talent.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Dead Man Walking.
Well then, the 10 people still using OpenOffice will be able to update... I mean, LibreOffice is faster and their template site works. Plus it does not have that Oracle logo...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I read the license in the GNU website. I understand some of the differences b/w GPL2 and GPL3: can anyone explain what changes from LGPL2 to LGPL3?
There are a few reasons that corporations have anti GPL policies. One is that when the license is put in front of their legal departments, many of them, from a reading of the license, and also from the well known fact that so many others have read it that way, conclude that if a GPL software is combined w/ software under any other license, the combination becomes GPL. People may argue that point here, but the fact remains that there isn't a consensus that when combined, the license of one doesn't affect that of the other.
There is another thing @ play here - the FSF. Organizations like the OSI are interested in promoting the philosophy of open sourced software, and they do so working w/ software companies and factoring in their interests as well. As a result, more companies are only too happy to work w/ them. With the FSF, otoh, there is this obsession w/ 'software freedom', and nothing illustrates this better than a look @ what's changed when going from GPL2 to GPL3. While GPL3 is compatible w/ more licenses than GPL2 was, certain aspects, such as termination clauses and expanded scopes of what's covered. For instance, in AGPL2, all that was there was that users of a web application would be able to receive its source: in AGPL3, coverage is expanded to all network-interactive software, so it will 'also work well' for programs like game servers i.e. force them to distribute their source code as well.
But one of the biggest problems w/ the FSF is the perception that it's business hostile - one that's richly borne out by its treatment of TiVo, in a way that it's actually used that company's name as a slur on one of the policies it deems unacceptable. Under GPL2, while it was necessary for a provider to provide the source code, it was not necessary that the provider should provide an unlocked box so that the user can modify the code and run it himself. In TiVo, which uses Linux to run the various STB functions, it makes sense that the company not allow its customers to alter the contents of the firmware, and thereby potentially damage the box and making it unusable for themselves or anyone else. So Tivo supplied the box w/ the OS locked - maybe put into an OTP or some such mechanism. GPL2 didn't consider this problem, which is why TiVo is GPL2 compliant, but GPL3 does. GPL3 forces a company that locks down its GPL3 software i.e. provides the source code, but provides the product on something that can't be altered, to to provide the recipient with whatever information or data is necessary to install modified software on the device. And it uses the word 'TiVoization' to describe this 'problem', as though the company was guilty of heresy in the religion of St IGNUtius.
This is why no company whose executives have a brain will touch the GPL, particularly GPL3. Let's say a company - a competitor to TiVo - were to come up w/ a similar box. They too would need to lock down their firmware, so that customers can't accidentally render the box unusable. But if they are forced to provide some customers w/ ways to unlock the box so that they can install their own firmware then, who takes care of the liabilities? As it is, it's a freeloader society where people who do such things are more likely than not to go back crying to the manufacturer when the altered thing doesn't work and they want to restore the last known good configuration, and while the EULA may have freed the vendor of any liability, fact remains that to avoid any negative publicity, most companies actually would do what they can to fix it. Given that reality, it makes sense for such companies to prevent customers from tinkering w/ their set top boxes. The reasons could be not just the above, but maybe the service provider doesn't want the customer to unlock the STB and set it up so that it can start receiving free (as in gratis) channels from Australia, Russia, South Africa and Mexico, or domestic unsubscribed channels not in the paid plan. It would not be difficult to convince the OSI that an STP is different from a
I can't say which I find less encouraging and less trust-inspiring, the fact that the support for writing StarOffice 5 binary formats (sdw, sdc, sda, etc.) has been dropped per se, or the circumstance that such a significant change has been introduced quietly and without even being mentioned in the release notes.
Did they hope nobody would notice, perhaps assuming that users of StarOffice binary file formats would have all died of old age by now?
Not all have, though, and some do even remember that StarOffice 5.2 used to have a feature set which OpenOffice and LibreOffice, more than ten years later, still do not completely replace, which is why some still keep their StarOffice 5.2 setup (working perfectly well on Windows 7 x64) alive, some alongside whatever else they may be using these days, some (like myself) even as their primary office application suite.
I just never thought about it THAT way! You are so right!
My car isn't a car, it's a TDUPR (transportation device using public roads). Lock it Down! No modifications!
My house isn't a house, it's a PDIN (person domicile in neighbourhood). Lock it Down! No modifications!
My job isn't a job, it a GEAS (gainful employment aiding society). Lock it Down! No changes!
Can't be rendering anything unusable; the companies have said so.
Wait a minute -- you nearly had me. We have a word to describe this. Facism. No, wait, its TIVOIZATION!
Can be efficient, though.
If the point of tivoizing was to prevent negative publicity -- didn't work that well, did it?
Tivoization! Everyone knows what it is, and WHO invented it. (well, maybe they didn't, but I'll give them the credit)!
Take THAT publicity.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Your company (which includes you) won't touch GPL. The tradeoff is, as you mentioned, a much increased development effort.
Not the fault of the GPL -- that is simply a license specifying tit for tat (in a nutshell).
And it's RIGHT -- I see many interesting parts in closed source programs, and I can't leverage them, or touch them. Completely out of reach. So, you can't take GPL baubles.
Tit for tat. It WORKS, bitches!
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
WhOracle is probably understands that they screwed up, now. I wonder if they got money for trying to divide the community?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
THe difference between LGPL and GPL is only one thing. . . dynamic linking. The thing is, it's still an open legal question as to whether the prohibition on linking is legally enforceable. If it's not, then GPL and LGPL are the same.
The question arises because it's not legally clear that dynamic linking creates a derivative work subject to the terms of the GPL. I might, or it might not, who knows?
...isn't it? Since that function has never worked (in OpenOffice or LibreOffice).
Perhaps the Apache Software Foundation will start to prioritise some of the things mainstream users want/need rather than focussing on fancy features whilst leaving the boring functional stuff to rot.
But this is not security through obscurity. It's security through non-alterability. Essentially, the company puts its code - GPL or not - on a read-only device, such as a mask ROM/OTP (which is often another cost reduction measure - when the code has been demonstrated to be ironclad, and doesn't need any changes for that model, then instead of putting it on flash memory, a vendor has a mask made and puts it on ROM, and this result is cheaper than using flash. Equivalent of this is a company doing a hardware design on FPGA and going into production w/ that, and when its volumes hit a critical mass, it makes an ASIC out of it and thereby lowers its cost of production.) So should GPL be modified to state that read-only devices cannot be used to host GPLed code?
Your other point about the disclaimer is valid, but in reality, it has never stopped people from asking for support anyway, and the company involved providing it in order to avoid any negetive publicity.