LibreOffice 5.0 Released

New submitter ssam writes: The Document Foundation has announced LibreOffice 5.0, the tenth major release since the launch of the project, bringing new features including Windows 10, Android and Ubuntu touch compatibility, superior interoperability features, an updated UI, and lots of under the hood improvements. For people still running OpenOffice it is probably time to move over.

Comments

OpenOffice vs LibreOffice

[Maddog Batty]

So what is the story between the two? I know that LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and that some/most/all of the devs moved to LibreOffice.
Is LibreOffice now far enough ahead to say forget about OpenOffice?

Re:OpenOffice vs LibreOffice

[TemporalBeing]

So what is the story between the two? I know that LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and that some/most/all of the devs moved to LibreOffice. Is LibreOffice now far enough ahead to say forget about OpenOffice?

LibreOffice is moving on its own. They do fix some things ahead of OpenOffice, but they also continue to borrow code from OpenOffice. Licensing-wise, they're more limited than OpenOffice is so the code-sharing is not a two-way street, they take but they can't contribute back.

Personally, I still prefer OpenOffice. I recently accidentally opened up-to-date LibreOffice Calc on Kubuntu 15.04 and the interface was just horrid.

Re:OpenOffice vs LibreOffice

[Anonymous Coward]

libreoffice is the wusses that jumped ship when oracle bought sun and inherited openoffice. oracle didn't have a plan for openoffice and kinda messed up project management during the short time it held the project. oracle then donated the name, trademark, and code to apache foundation who continues work on openoffice, and has also received donated code from ibm (symphony) to incorporate into the project. if they would have stuck it out for a little while longer, libreoffice would not exist, and openoffice under apache's leadership would be better overall than either the current libreoffice or the current openoffice.

libreoffice is OBSOLETE, the reason for the fork NO LONGER EXISTS. the developers that turned tail and ran at the first sign of trouble under oracle's leadership should have disbanded their project and joined apache the moment they received the code.

instead, they'll essentially steal every bit of code they can from apache openoffice while continuing their own project, while apache, who migrated openoffice to their own free license and policies, cannot swipe libreoffice code for their own project (while maintaining the apache licensing).

i support apache's project. they have a 20 year history of open source project development (their history dates back to 1995 and the beginnings of apache server).. libreoffice is a baby by comparison, made by people that have proven to have hissy-fits and run away at first sign of trouble. i don't trust them, i trust apache and have since their earliest years.

Re:OpenOffice vs LibreOffice

[TemporalBeing]

Have you considered that it would've taken lots longer for oracle to give up the code, if the devs had stayed? And it might've not happened at all. Of course you haven't.

If Oracle had managed the project at all instead of just not saying anything LibreOffice probably wouldn't exist. Most in the community jumped because Oracle wasn't saying anything - period.

Now, if Oracle had done something other than what it did, then OpenOffice would probably be in a state similar to MySQL. May be LibreOffice would exist, but not likely since there was no OpenOffice equivalent of Michael Widenius.

Not to mention that at the point where oracle gave the code, there was lots and lots of done for libre office.

The devs that continue just worked on a lot of technical debt. But they did so at the expense of any future integration with any OpenOffice related project because of the license changes and the fact that they were pretty much guaranteed that the licensing used by LibreOffice would prohibit contributions back to OpenOffice regardless of what happened.

Sure it'd be nice to be able to combine the effort, but licensing does not allow that.

IIRC, that was purposeful, and also a side-effect.

I don't have anything against open office, but i'm not going to change from libre office until open office is not only to the par with libre office, a lots better than libre office.

Fair enough. I prefer OpenOffice over LibreOffice. To each their own.

But seriously, your description of libre office people running at first sign of trouble is complete bullshit. You are a douche, there's no way around that fact.

Well, it wasn't really a "first sign of trouble". It was a lack of trust in Oracle, lack of any communications from Oracle, etc - there were numerous and valid reasons for it. That said, the LibreOffice community also has its own issues in that respect. I participated in the early community building and dropped out when it was clear what kind of community was being formed - and it wasn't what was being advertised. May be that's changed; I don't know - but I'm still not really interested in LibreOffice seeing the product they've put out, I personally find it inferior to OpenOffice.

Re:OpenOffice vs LibreOffice

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough. I prefer OpenOffice over LibreOffice. To each their own.

Here's the deal though. This is not actually a concern. Hard drives are big these days. You can use both. It is not a cost issue. Both are free.

From an end-user standpoint, few people care about licensing. They care about functional, stable, secure, and free. Both open and libre are cross-platform, and functional, stable, secure, and free - and have portable versions as well. You don't even have to install them. Just grab a portable version of each. Your registry doesn't get touched. All required files exist in a folder tree on your hard drive. Their formats cooperate. Their formats cooperate across operating systems.

Anybody that still buys Microsoft Office is a fool. Buying an Office 365 subscription is like going to a gypsy flea market, alone, unarmed, in an India shanty town, if that were possible, wearing an Armani suit. You are about to get marketed to, and likely ripped off harder than you knew possible.

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/libreoffice_portable

The only benefit of doing a full install in Windows is the installer will auto-associate file-types. This affects your fragile-ass registry database. You can manually associate the file-types as you use them if you need to. There is no need for full installs. You can just extract the software to a folder using the self-extracting archive it comes in (the .exe) and create a shortcut on your desktop to the binary. You can also add shortcuts to your SendTo and just shoot files to the binary via context menu.

There should be no versus here. Pick which one you like or both. In Linux/BSD you will not have to worry about your precious little registry getting hosed because there isn't one. Windows is weak, but a lot of good apps from Linux have portable versions and even full installers in Windows now. eg. VLC, open/libre office, etc.

Everything runs better in Linux. Cyberspace is practically all Linux now. Windows is death knell. Microsoft Office can die of proprietary format cancer too.

You can grab portable versions from their actual websites as well. That portableapps.com site is very good if you never used it before. You can use their suite app if you want to but you don't have to. I just linked their self extracting portables for the additional heads up. Surely a lot of you already knew, some didn't.

Re:Question for user community

[MagickalMyst]

"Massive pile of shit? Word 2010 usually starts in 2 seconds."

But it is still a massive pile of shit.

Re:It's a word processor

[steelfood]

That's because MS Word and L/OO Writer are not word processors anymore. They're WYSIWYG document creation tools, i.e. they attempt to combine text input, text management, and document layout into one tool.

Besides which, word processors aren't feature complete yet. Even advanced text-only word processors like Textpad and Notepad++ are constantly adding new features, and has a leg up on Word/Writer on things like search and cursor movement.

And with persistent connectivity, there's a whole new layer of features for everyone to add.