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Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

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Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#211

Post by jamroom »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #204

Why does Open/LibreOffice matter anymore? This is a sincere question. I'm well aware of why OO was a big deal circa 2000 when I was using it (if I'm getting the dates right). I cannot figure out why it matters anymore, or why it will matter in 10 years. Back when every year was going to be the year of "Linux on the desktop" the linchpin was MS Office. That's because we didn't have the million different SaaS products…

It matters if you have years of documents that you still need to be able to view/edit. Not everyone wants to upload these documents to an online service (i.e. google docs), so having a free option that is not tied into any monthly subscriptions is nice. Sometimes it's just nice to keep things local and not have to rely on the "cloud".

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#212

Post by the_duke »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #197
bArray wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal experience, when I first tried Open Office it ended up being a clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. In all honesty, after writing my own simple manual editor for PDF, I really don't envy the task of making something compatible with multiple other formats. It would be nice to see the project archived or completely released to t…

> ... clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. That's exactly why i am using Open/Libre office; at some point Microsoft Office got such a complicate UI (ever since they pushed the ribbon bar - that's when they kicked me in the teeth) that i am unable to use it - the alternative uses a much less complicated UI so i am with it. Does the MS Office…

Am I alone here in actually liking the ribbon?

I almost never use any MS Office product (Latex for serious writing, R for statistics, ...) but when I have to because of a client or whatever, I find the Ribbon to be convenient for a non-power user.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#213

Post by jonknee »

jamroom wrote: post #211
ryanmarsh wrote: post #204

Why does Open/LibreOffice matter anymore? This is a sincere question. I'm well aware of why OO was a big deal circa 2000 when I was using it (if I'm getting the dates right). I cannot figure out why it matters anymore, or why it will matter in 10 years. Back when every year was going to be the year of "Linux on the desktop" the linchpin was MS Office. That's because we didn't have the million different SaaS products…

It matters if you have years of documents that you still need to be able to view/edit. Not everyone wants to upload these documents to an online service (i.e. google docs), so having a free option that is not tied into any monthly subscriptions is nice. Sometimes it's just nice to keep things local and not have to rely on the "cloud".

So open them in LibreOffice?

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#214

Post by bArray »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #197
bArray wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal experience, when I first tried Open Office it ended up being a clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. In all honesty, after writing my own simple manual editor for PDF, I really don't envy the task of making something compatible with multiple other formats. It would be nice to see the project archived or completely released to t…

> ... clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. That's exactly why i am using Open/Libre office; at some point Microsoft Office got such a complicate UI (ever since they pushed the ribbon bar - that's when they kicked me in the teeth) that i am unable to use it - the alternative uses a much less complicated UI so i am with it. Does the MS Office…

"Does the MS Office UI conform with the Windows UI guidelines ?"

Definitely not. The ribbon style and circle menu are a different design universe entirely. I agree that moving things around was annoying.

"As for 'unreliable' - i can't share this perspective; LibreOffice works for me; didn't have any problems with OpenOffice either - before i switched to LibreOffice. I switched because LibreOffice is supposed to have better support."

The unreliability for me was a mixture of not such great support and occasional crashing. Libreoffice was much better.

I originally moved from Microsoft office because I got tired of pirating the latest version. It was a hassle because of the time to download (I had a slow connection) and the risk of viruses each stage. The move to Linux was the final nail in the coffin for me.

As time has gone on I have come to appreciate open software, which again makes Windows (or Apple) not an option for me.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#215

Post by Scarbutt »

jonknee wrote: post #213
jamroom wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters if you have years of documents that you still need to be able to view/edit. Not everyone wants to upload these documents to an online service (i.e. google docs), so having a free option that is not tied into any monthly subscriptions is nice. Sometimes it's just nice to keep things local and not have to rely on the "cloud".

So open them in LibreOffice?

GP was referring to Libre too.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#216

Post by riboflava »

david-given wrote: post #135
jnbiche wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's always been too buggy, by which I mean, obvious visible UI bugs immediately after installation. Really? I've installed Mate on ~10 computers, and have never run into UI bugs. I run Mate, my two kids run it on their computer, and I'm sometimes on that one helping them with school related stuff. Never run into UI bugs. I don't doubt that there are such bugs, but in my experience they're pretty rare (unless the p…

Not even slightly, sorry. It was a year or so ago. I'll certainly give Mate another try the next time I upgrade him.

Another potential option is to throw Compiz in the mix after you have Mate up and running. Though that may make things more buggy than less, at least you can justify it with eye candy. :)

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#218

Post by antisthenes »

the_duke wrote: post #212
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. That's exactly why i am using Open/Libre office; at some point Microsoft Office got such a complicate UI (ever since they pushed the ribbon bar - that's when they kicked me in the teeth) that i am unable to use it - the alternative uses a much less complicated UI so i am with it. Does the MS Office…

Am I alone here in actually liking the ribbon? I almost never use any MS Office product (Latex for serious writing, R for statistics, ...) but when I have to because of a client or whatever, I find the Ribbon to be convenient for a non-power user.

I love the ribbon. It brought the most used functionality to the front where you don't have to navigate a text menu to find.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#219

Post by loeg »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #204

Why does Open/LibreOffice matter anymore? This is a sincere question. I'm well aware of why OO was a big deal circa 2000 when I was using it (if I'm getting the dates right). I cannot figure out why it matters anymore, or why it will matter in 10 years. Back when every year was going to be the year of "Linux on the desktop" the linchpin was MS Office. That's because we didn't have the million different SaaS products…

I still use LibreOffice for my day-to-day word processing and (limited) spreadsheet needs. I'd greatly prefer for it to continue functioning well.

Re: Contemplating the possible retirement of Apache OpenOffice

#220

Post by CopperWing »

okket wrote: post #120
jimjag wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"End users play no role any more? Good luck with that." In what parallel universe do you get that conclusion from that thread?

My last remark was too snarky and out of context, I am sorry. You want both projects to merge again with OO being the 'core' and LO the 'user interface'? Sounds intriguing, but are both code bases still compatible enough for that? Would this not be more effort than gain? What is obvious is that the AOO project cannot support, at the present time, being an end-user focused effort. I would suggest we focus on not being…

OpenOffice and LibreOffice are already "merged". In fact in the past years, after the fork, LibreOffice developers regularly tracked OpenOffice source code repository and merged all the useful changes they could find, by either picking the original code or re-implementing it their own way.

In addition to that they also completely overhauled and simplified the build system, removed tons of dead code and translated German comments which where there since StarOffice, replaced Java components with equivalent ones written in C/C++, are in the process of switching from GTK2 to GTK3 (mandatory to get Wayland support in Linux), etc. Doing so they made the LibreOffice source code base sustainable on the long term and lowered the difficulty entry level for new contributors, while apparently OpenOffice buildbots are not even able to rebuild their software since last year...

The only useful asset which remains to OpenOffice is the trademark.

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