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LibreOffice 4.1 Released

Posted by samzenpus on from the check-it-out dept.

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."

6 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    2. Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    3. Re: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Re:3,000 bug fixes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  3. paying the bills by Almost-Retired · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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