Intel Joins LibreOffice 176
New submitter dgharmon writes "The month of February is a month to remember for the LibreOffice project. They formally incorporated the foundation in Berlin, released 3.5 with major changes and now Intel is joining the foundation as a member. Intel will also make available the LibreOffice for Windows from SUSE in Intel AppUp center. Intel AppUp Center is an online repository designed for Intel processor-based devices."
LibreOffice! (Score:3, Interesting)
FTW!
(fuck Oracle)
OK, so now can we start making it usable? (Score:1, Interesting)
1) Trying to update it. The updater complains about the quickstarter still running and it exits. It doesn't tell you what that is, or how to turn it off, or even present you with the choice of turning it off. So now what do I do? Any answer other than "Libre Office messed up the update process" is why Apple has too much money while the open source geeks are perceived as smelly losers.
2) Try to use Writer as anything more than a notepad? Forget it. I loaded our company's template that uses heading styles. It already had four headings which Writer numbers automatically 1 2 3 4. Fine. So I add another heading, expecting it to be "5". Is it 5? Of course not. Writer numbers my new heading as "2" with not a damn thing I can do about it. Does no one check the code for basic things here?
3) Try to use the export as PDF? You better check that PDF because if you think that in 2012 we are 20 years beyond WYSIWYG, think again. Export as PDF exported a mess with every single letter replaced with various-sized dots. Jesus wept, my Commodore 64 running GEOS outperforms that. And don't you DARE say there's something wring with my system becasue using a PDF print driver worked flawlessly.
So Intel, what are you gonna do about this?
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OK, so now can we start making it usable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps you'd have more luck paying Microsoft for the privilege of dealing with compatibility problems version to version (or even same version, diff desktop).
Your three complaints don't quite go far enough to suggest it truly is an "unusable mess". You're bitching that it didn't work with your companies custom template? And PDF export didn't work for you. I've exported to PDF many times without any problems. Maybe what your exporting is the problem (perhaps another custom template your company uses)?
I have deployed both Office 2k3-2k10 and Open/LibreOffice at businesses. User complaints were pretty much even. No one has the perfect office suite out there. Being a free software product, LibreOffice is pretty damn good.
Instead of whining about how free software developers have failed to provide you with free software that works exactly as you require, why not work with them to solve them?
How carefully did Intel think about this? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been watching Intel since the 1970's, and I've been impressed with their technical skill and business judgment. I didn't like what the Wintel duopoly did for computing/science/culture, but it made Intel rich. When Andy Grove canned employees at Intel Supercomputing for using Apples, I took it to mean that he believed that his company's future was tied to Microsoft.
Do you think the decision to join LibreOffice was made at the highest level at Intel? If so, I think it is an important shift.
Re:OK, so now can we start making it usable? (Score:4, Interesting)