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Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

lwn.net

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Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#31

Post by tlamponi »

chrismorgan wrote: post #21

This LWN article makes the matter supremely confusing. The linked mailing list post is way better and clearer and it would be good to get this submission changed to it: https://lwn.net/ml/fedora-devel/20230601183054.12057.45907@m... Key excerpts: > … the LibreOffice RPMS have recently been orphaned … > … will contribute some fixes upstream to ensure LibreOffice works better as a Flatpak, which we expect to be the way…

Well your excerpts aren't really clearing up all confusion IMO, but even the original message is somewhat confusing too:

  >> … will contribute some fixes upstream to ensure LibreOffice works better as a Flatpak, which we expect to be the way that most people consume LibreOffice in the long term.
Here you left out the part that they'll do that only until older RHEL releases, that still have LibreOffice support are EOL:

  > We will continue to maintain LibreOffice in currently supported versions of RHEL (RHEL 7, 8 and 9)
  > with needed CVEs and similar for the lifetime of those releases (as published on the Red Hat
  > website). As part of that, the engineers doing that work will contribute some fixes upstream to
  > ensure LibreOffice works better as a Flatpak, which we expect to be the way that most people
  > consume LibreOffice in the long term.
I.e., they don't plan to fix anything besides issues w.r.t. the (only older?) release branches supported by RHEL And while they first hint that only RPMs packages are affected and implicitly suggest that distribution via Flatpack is the way forward (yuck), they then contradict that part by telling that they'd find it OK if a volunteer picks up LibreOffice support for both, RPM and Flatpack, up again in Fedora. I.e., reading that it seems that they don't plan to actually support the Flatpack distribution either? Or is this a Fedora specific Flatpack repo?

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#33

Post by Gigachad »

chrismorgan wrote: post #21

This LWN article makes the matter supremely confusing. The linked mailing list post is way better and clearer and it would be good to get this submission changed to it: https://lwn.net/ml/fedora-devel/20230601183054.12057.45907@m... Key excerpts: > … the LibreOffice RPMS have recently been orphaned … > … will contribute some fixes upstream to ensure LibreOffice works better as a Flatpak, which we expect to be the way…

This is probably how things will be moving. It doesn't make sense for every single distro to maintain customized versions of user level applications now that we have one package that works everywhere.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#34

Post by criddell »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #30

Flatpak will be the recommended way to get / install LibreOffice on RHEL and Fedora. In https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fe... it states: "the engineers doing that work will contribute some fixes upstream to ensure LibreOffice works better as a Flatpak, which we expect to be the way that most people consume LibreOffice in the long term." Install instructions are already written: https://acces…

I think this is a small step in the right direction.

IMHO, Flatpak (and similar schemes) with strict sandboxing should be the only distribution method for user applications. If I install LibreOffice, I want to be asked for permission before it tries to access my microphone or location or other sensitive resources.

If you want to give that application access to everything your user has access to, that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be the default.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#35

Post by phkahler »

inefficient wrote: post #27
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #19

How much have RH been contributing to LO? They warn that it's a lot of work. It would have been interesting to know how much ... is this a sign that RH can't afford to run their business? People are saying 'well, easy enough to install it from elsewhere' but surely the point is a major Linux company are no longer willing/able to support a principle business application. I'm assuming that support also included bug-fix…

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason has more to do with the number of users. I haven't used LO in some time, but back when I only used linux, I never found it to be a particularly pleasant experience. It definitely looks better now that I'm looking at it, but I switched to using google docs back at university. If RH find it to be a lot of work that is supporting very few users, then it doesn't have to say anything…

>> If RH find it to be a lot of work that is supporting very few users, then it doesn't have to say anything about their solvency. Just a spreadsheet cost calculation.

A Linux distribution is more than the sum of its parts. Having out-of-the-box ability to read MS office docs is a huge deal. Nobody wants to fuck around installing something extra to read a defacto standard document format.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#36

Post by steve1977 »

bipson wrote: post #3

I think most commenters on lwn are misunderstanding this gravely. RHEL not supporting LibreOffice doesn't mean you can still install it, right? It just means RH won't offer support for it? Also does not mean you must use Flatpak to use it, does it? Am I missing something? If it does make sense business-wise, it's their call. I'm pretty sure they know their userbase and did the math. I also prefer efforts put on Wayla…

It does mean that it won’t be in RHEL‘s package repositories anymore, as far as I understand.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#37

Post by steve1977 »

hannob wrote: post #5

When IBM bought Red Hat this was the kind of thing I worried might happen: That Red Hat might stop supporting the Linux Desktop. I have no idea how their announcement makes any sense. They want to improve workstation experience by... not offering an office application any more? Like, what do you even mean by workstation?

Workstation usually means a high powered system for one user (at a time) where you would run things like CAD, 3D tools, mathematics or science software etc.

So a focus on professional graphics features certainly makes sense.

A (relatively) low powered system just for productivity software and web browsing would usually be called a desktop.

At least some point there were actually different variants of RHEL for workstations and desktops.

https://access.redhat.com/discussions/3772571

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#38

Post by sysstemlord »

tentacleuno wrote: post #32
sysstemlord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and with a bad prompt also. It misses the point as if it's not possible to run Libre Office on RedHat anymore.

Thanks for being honest.

You're welcome but it makes me think that you think I'm the one who wrote it

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#40

Post by microtonal »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #19

How much have RH been contributing to LO? They warn that it's a lot of work. It would have been interesting to know how much ... is this a sign that RH can't afford to run their business? People are saying 'well, easy enough to install it from elsewhere' but surely the point is a major Linux company are no longer willing/able to support a principle business application. I'm assuming that support also included bug-fix…

is this a sign that RH can't afford to run their business

I think the desktop team probably has limited resources. Many of their business customers don't use LibreOffice, but Google Docs etc. So they'd rather invest resources in parts of the ecosystem that benefits their customers, like bringing Wayland on par with macOS and Windows when it comes to HDR support, etc.

Seems like a very sensible decision to me.

People who want LibreOffice can always install the Flatpak.

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