LibreOffice 4.1 Released

An anonymous reader writes "The latest major release of the LibreOffice office suite has just been published, including an experimental improved sidebar based on the work of Apache OpenOffice, embedded fonts, better Microsoft Office compatibility (improving their exclusive capability in the free software world of not only being able to read but also write .docx and .xlsx files) and many further Improvements."

Comments

LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[Anonymous Coward]

LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice should just merge in to one open source office suite.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[MetalliQaZ]

LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice should just merge in to one open source office suite.

Based on the history of the creation of the LibreOffice project, I think that would never happen.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[Anonymous Coward]

LibreOffice already does this pretty much every release!

The licensing for the two allows LO to take any of Apache's changes that they'd like (and they frequently do!), whereas the reverse would require Apache to change the OpenOffice licensing.

Honestly though, as long as they both support the same file format, having two separate suites isn't a bad thing.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[SteveFoerster]

Isn't it great that we have 300 different Linux distros? I bet that's why it was so successful with desktop consumers (in confusing them I mean).

Yes, it is great that we have so many choices. The problem getting Linux onto most users' desktops hasn't been that there are so many options. Usually when it comes to "Linux on the Desktop!!!!" there's only been one main distro getting buzz at a time, most recently Ubuntu but going back at least as far as Caldera back in the late '90s. So I don't think brand confusion is the issue here.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[marcello_dl]

> It's keeping it there after an update crashes everything and the user says, "Screw that, I'm going back to Windows because it works."

Said no debian user ever.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[lister king of smeg]

odd in my experience it is windows updates that break stuff. I haven't had a linux update break anything yet.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...the creation of Libre Office came about because Oracle was being their usual dickish selves, I doubt you are gonna see that same attitude anywhere in the Apache foundation so that isn't the problem. The problem is that Apache is more of a BSD license and Libre is GPL, no point in starting up THAT old flamewar so lets just say they agree to disagree and move on.

Now that said I think we should all give the Libre Office team another year and a half before we even start judging their work, because frankly Sun left that code in pretty damned bad shape and when you are talking about a project THAT size? Well its gonna take a good while just to clean out the cruft and straighten out the messes. Considering the short amount of time they have had it its already getting better, its just a shame the LO guys can share improvements with the Apache guys but due to license incompatibilities I just don't see that happening.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[jimicus]

Linux on the desktop has a whole heap of problems. Updates are one of them (particularly when your OS has an average life expectancy of 6-12 months), but there's no shortage of others.

Off the top of my head:

  - An easy way to install drivers for peripherals. If your printer/scanner/MFC isn't supported out of the box, it's potluck if the manufacturer has produced anything. If they have, then it's potluck how well it works. Compare and contrast with Windows, which has Windows update and besides, nobody is about to produce hardware without Windows drivers.
      - Yes, I know you can hold peripheral manufacturers responsible for a lot of that. Guess what? That cuts precisely zero ice with Aunt Tillie.
  - An approach to desktop experience that is religion-driven rather than results-driven. Part of that is because of patent law (cf. Fraunhofer's MP3 patents), part of it is because of some sort of insane desire to re-invent the wheel every few years (precisely how many sound subsystems has Linux had over the years?).
  - A blind spot to anything that doesn't work very well. Anyone who's tried to do anything beyond a very vanilla setup knows all about this.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[blackest_k]

You make it sound as if there is just one version of windows and the fact is driver support for peripherals can be problematic.

As an example I have a mint condition card reader from pny which does compact flash and smart media and a printer with card slots that can't handle anything over 128 meg so I plugs it into my linux box and find only the cf side is recognised no problem thinks me i'll just use it with windows instead no biggie was I wrong the only drivers are for 98se not xp, not 2000, vista, windows 7, or 8.

That may be an extreme example and the problem solved by linux being able to mount the card via mass storage device using the printer as a mass storage device.

However whilst on the subject of printers you may also run in to issues of limited functionality in later versions of windows, manufacturers tend to target a particular windows version and while my old ink jet will work in windows 7 with an inbuilt windows 7 driver, border-less printing is only available in XP. meanwhile in linux hplip got an update last week.

Theres also downgrading issues too or are you too young to be familiar with the problems of buying a laptop with Vista and trying to install XP.

Clearly not everything is supported in Linux but also equally clear Windows is a range of operating systems with varying levels of support for particular hardware. Incidentally you may have missed the fact libre office is available on Windows too.
     

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[Microlith]

Linus Torvalds gives more care about religious dogma than designing an OS that works

Not only is this ridiculous hyperbole, it's hyperbole that isn't even remotely true.

since the vast majority of the public are NOT what I call "FOSSies" and do not give a rat turd about GPL purity Linux goes nowhere.

Actually, it's why the silly FSF-approved distros will go nowhere.

not even the other free as in freedom OSes like BSD and Solaris

Coincidentally, the BSD kernels have moved nowhere near as fast. And solaris is not "Free as in Freedom," Oracle cut it off so at best you have the kernel from Solaris 10 - an OS that was closed source for ages.

You have MAYBE 400 guys working with Torvalds and qualified to write and debug low level systems drivers, following so far?

Not when you're blatantly pulling bullshit numbers out of your ass.

Now add in the fact that there is probably a good 10,000 new devices coming out per quarter MINIMUM and a good 100,000+ drivers that are ALREADY in the tree....see the problem yet?

10000? I doubt that. But the difference is that they know that they have to support Windows, so they write Windows drivers (it's the advantage being a monopoly gets you.) Of course, the drivers in the tree don't need -constant- maintenance. And virtually every one of them who is qualified as an owner, most of which are employed by the company that produced the device.

But what do we get when we point this out, and what I'm sure to hear here? We don't need no steekin ABI and then you expect

Well:

- You link to "tmrepository," a site pretty much the geek equivalent of Stormfront, just about as twisted in upon itself, irrational, ignorant and hateful.

- The stable ABI argument is nonsense because you then bind yourself to whatever the closed source vendors are using. You are hamstrung for the sake of a bunch of driver writers who refuse to cooperate for no good reason and you don't dare fix it for fear of breaking some proprietary driver the vendor hasn't updated in years.

> The primary reason it's bullshit is because if you're so insistent on being proprietary, you target a specific distro's kernel, say, RHEL 6.3 or Ubuntu 12.04. Upstream is an entirely different beast, but given your ignorance I would assume you know nothing other than what the hate-filled people at "tmrepository" have cherry picked to mock.

> Conversely, what you're saying is that the Linux team shouldn't do it their way, they should do it a different way. One that gives 100% of the benefit to proprietary vendors and zero benefit to vendors that actually cooperate and upstream their drivers.

- You're in over your head in making this argument and resort to CAPS, name calling, and constant vulgarity while completely failing to present anything resembling a convincing argument.

Nvidia is the only company it seems willing to blow that much money supporting Linux

Yeah, they're the only company pushing a binary driver that actually puts money into supporting Linux. It's not like driver development is free, it costs money to support Windows too. Interestingly, Nvidia also has lots of customers on Linux, so unsurprisingly they invest in the drivers and make sure it works.

Whereas with my employer, we work and push directly to the kernel, in addition to supporting the specific kernels of select distributions. Net result is that the driver is better than it was before we released it - not that there was anything special about it before. I suspect the same is true for most drivers.

But here we are again, another unsupported, empty, emotional spew from hairyfeet about things he doesn't actually understand.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[LinuxIsGarbage]

I have to agree with it, and although my username would suggest otherwise, I would love to run Linux full time, it's some of this basic stuff that breaks with updates that keeps me away. It's the "lets create another sound API instead of fixing the broken stuff" and "Lets reinvent the UI instead of fixing the broken stuff" that keeps me away.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[blackest_k]

The hardware list is just a list, the situation with printers has improved greatly over recent years. I'm currently downloading an update to hplip a week after installing the previous version. That covers HP printers, I'm in the market for a new inkjet and Canon seems to be the best option. Canons been contributing to open source drivers since 2009 obviously I do google for linux support for each model i am considering and I haven't found an issue yet with canon.

Most current generation printers are better than ever many with built in duplex supporting air print, eprint card readers pictbridge some even collect webpages for you or create collages from that days facebook pages.
Epson is another leading brand which is quite well supported too, although I no longer favour Epson since every Epson i have had has failed with blocked jets. Brother supply Linux drivers for their printers. I used to use a Brother label printer for own branded products Libre office was grand for that job too. Samsung laser printers are supported by Samsung on Linux.

So the situation used to be that printers could be a bit hit or miss on Linux with third parties reverse engineering drivers. Now the major manufacturers work to produce drivers in house or in combination with outside developers. The advent of Smart Phones with cameras has produced a demand for printers which work with android and ios and the printer manufacturers are responding with printer models that work directly with the smart phones and tablets.

It is no longer a windows dominated market when it comes to printers some of the most demanding users are using macs , macs use cups as does Linux its pretty much a certainty that if Apple has support so has Linux. One fairly big name with no linux support for Inkjets is Lexmark which is getting out of the printer market. Worth noting with the laser printers even Lexmark had to support Linux.

I have to admit I have never seen this printer list you mention, I've always just googled Linux or ubuntu and the printer model but the reason it hasn't been updated is probably because there is little need for it any more.

If you print a lot you buy a laser printer, if you want high quality prints its really a choice of the big 3 Epson, Canon or HP. Canon do pretty decent printers for around â40 upwards depending on features and the thing is thou they make a lot of variations there are a limited number of print engines. Which makes supporting them with multiple operating systems a lot simpler. I think canon are the strongest in the market currently, HP seem to suffer with build quality issues from the customer reviews i've read sometimes doa or not long after.

If you have an unsupported printer on linux these days you can find a better replacement for less than the cost of replacement cartridges. Seriously a canon 2250 retails for â50 which has around â27 worth of ink in it, doesnt support apple or android directly but it is using the same engine as the 3250 which does and has a duplexer built in. Meanwhile you could have a dell which has to have dell ink at around â60 which have to be ordered from Dell you might as well throw out the Dell...

Unfortunately with printers having the razor blade model there is nothing to be gained buying a second hand printer even a reasonably good one as Canon practically give them away for nothing. You want â30 - â50 for your old inkjet with no ink its not going to happen and because of the weight ebay is a waste of time for buying a printer since you can usually buy new cheaper.
   

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[dbIII]

Printers that can understand postscript are dirt cheap now so the simple answer is not to buy a crappy printer that is cheaper than dirt. I'd say give it only a year or three and people will be insisting on printing from their phones, so instead of hoping that there is some sort of driver just get something that just about anything from an Atari ST onwards can print to.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[Rutulian]

What peripheral drivers would you like to install? What is it about Linux that prevents you from installing them? Is it because they are not available? That would be the manufacturers fault. There really is no excuse for this. The facilities for producing userspace drivers for just about anything have been available in Linux for a long time. Manufacturers don't have to open source or submit them to upstream repositories, but they do have to write them. If they don't...who's going to write it for them? And no, just because it is bad for Aunt Tillie does not mean it is a fault with Linux, anymore than the D-Link DWA-130 not working on OS X is a problem with Apple.

(precisely how many sound subsystems has Linux had over the years?)

Uh, one: ALSA since the 2.6 kernel. I will agree that certain desktop distributions (I'm looking at you Ubuntu) like to beta-test and screw around for no apparent reason resulting in breakage, but you can easily install a Linux desktop and have the sound work out of the box with no messing around. For a period of time that wasn't Ubuntu, though.

A blind spot to anything that doesn't work very well. Anyone who's tried to do anything beyond a very vanilla setup knows all about this.

Define "work well." I mean we all have our own standards. Some things are just irritating because it may be bad scrollbar behavior, or something, but not everybody is bothered by these sorts of things. It's easy to criticize Ubuntu for the things they miss or break (because these irritate us the most) and forget the good things they have contributed (they were the first distribution to make a proprietary driver installer for the desktop, for example). I don't know, it's not perfect, but I've never used a desktop, Linux or otherwise, that was.

Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge

[colablizzard]

Windows _just_ works. I began using Linux Mint a few months ago for learning. And I find it harder and harder to find latest software packaged for it, they all expect me to be on the latest release. With a release every 6 moths, that is not very good at upgrading, I think a lot of people would like to be on Windows. Where XP users (10+ yr old OS) are happily installing 99.99% of all available software in the latest versions without a hitch. Of course, I am on Win 8 with ClassShell start menu. That is the max customization I need. AND nothing has broken due to me installing the start menu, and I know nothing will. Windows has one of the BEST backward/forward compatibilities I have every seen for any OS. (Seen Solaris, Linux (RHEL/Ubuntu) and Windows of-course). Any decently written software from 15 yrs ago will still install and run. Without requiring a exponentially increasing, cascading list of dependencies. On linux, if you are not on the latest version of the OS and are installing the latest version of the software, they will require specific versions of components where you have a newer version of the same and installing both simultaneously requires being a IT equivalent of a Gymnast.

3,000 bug fixes

[Trashcan Romeo]

How many to go?

Re:3,000 bug fixes

[NotFamous]

To Infinity and Beyond!

Re:3,000 bug fixes

[Synerg1y]

including an experimental improved sidebar

Infinity sounds about right...

Re:3,000 bug fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the LibreOffice Bugzilla, 2937, if you don't count NEW bugs.

Re:3,000 bug fixes

[steelfood]

You need to consider that it's a suite of applications, with each one at a different level of maturity.

Three thousand would seem like a big number. Except if you break it down, it might (hypothetically) be a hundred in Writer, a hundred in Calc, and two thousand in Base. And, I wonder how much of these are behind-the-scenes fixes, like changing exception handlers to do something useful instead of logging and then throwing the exception away.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Open Source

[CritterNYC]

LibreOffice is free to take everything OpenOffice releases under the Apache license and release it under GPL/LGPL 3.0 of their release. Unfortunately, OpenOffice can't do the reverse without switching their license.

Re:Open Source

[Bill_the_Engineer]

OpenOffice has paid developers. The license allows the sponsor companies to make their own commercial versions with unique features as a way to get a return on their investment. Think Eclipse not XFree86.

LibreOffice is a derivative of OpenOffice. It has features and bug fixes unique to its distribution. LibreOffice uses the GPL to protect their return on investment and not to specifically harm OpenOffice. I'm sure there are some people in LibreOffice that do think that way, but I think LibreOffice needs OpenOffice more than they care to admit.

Re: Automatic Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it just "apt-get upgrade" to update?

paying the bills

[Almost-Retired]

Having this done by a group of volunteers is nice & all that.

BUT!

These folks need to travel and smooze with others, both for the publicity, and to keep the ideas about how to do something fresh. Who knows, maybe one of them will put in that killer feature we've all been waiting for?

So when you are done downloading it, take the time to donate, so maybe the 5.0 release can afford a bigger cake. The one I saw in the pix was about 5% of the size of the one it would take to feed all the volunteers a celebratory piece of cake, maybe even with a scoop of ice cream on top. IMNSHO, speaking as a retired person living on SS, I dropped the card to say thanks. Surely the working folks who will make better use of this than I ever will, can better afford to pull out the card?

I would firmly suggest that others do the same if we want to see a 5.0 or higher release. Nothing kills a volunteer operation quicker than not being able to pay the bills.

Cheers, Gene

Java to Python

[RoccamOccam]

If I'm reading the new features page correctly, they appear to be seeing some pretty sizable code reduction in the utilities where they are replacing Java with Python. To avoid misunderstanding, let me point out that I am aware that only a few parts of the project were coded in Java and the bulk is in C++.

Re:Ribbon

[Alex Vulpes]

I understand that LibreOffice has compatibility issues with MS Office formats, and this can make LibreOffice a poor choice in many professional environments. However:

It's hard enough dealing with the differences between MS Office 2010, Office 2011, and Office 2013. God forbid if someone wanted to use Office 2008.

If, by your own admission, MS Office has trouble being compatible with itself, should LibreOffice really be blamed for running into problems here?

Two criticals things still missing

[hobarrera]

There's two really critical (IMO) things that the LO devs keep missing:

- Loading time: Libreoffice is the only application which takes time noticable time to load - anything else just pops up instantly. There's even a progress bar. That's too 1999. Only games take that long (or more) to load.
- OS integration: Why is the look and feel so slightly alien on my desktop. I've set it to look gtkish, but it still looks alien, the icons have are different from the ones in my .gtkrc-2.0, and most text can barely fit the controls (since they don't seem to resize along with the text, which does respect DPI settings). All this makes me feel like I'm using something totally alien to my desktop, and I feel the need to get done with it and close it ASAP.