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

[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

[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.

3,000 bug fixes

[Trashcan Romeo]

How many to go?

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.

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.

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++.