LibreOffice 4.1 Released 157
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."
3,000 bug fixes (Score:4, Interesting)
paying the bills (Score:5, 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
Java to Python (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Open Source (Score:4, Interesting)
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: LibreOffice & Apache OpenOffice merge (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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.