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Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

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Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#311

Post by JohnFen »

criddell wrote: post #34
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 s…

> Flatpak (and similar schemes) with strict sandboxing should be the only distribution method for user applications.

I think I understand this stance, but really, I would consider this to be a terrible outcome. If that's the direction things are going, I really need to stop procrastinating my move away from Linux entirely.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#312

Post by JohnFen »

toyg wrote: post #304
b112 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lets them focus on more enterprise-y features and improve overall security. Such a minor amount of work saved, if any, and it's all for cost savings, with a reduced user experience. Yup. Redhat as IBM. Modern IBM has fallen so far, and could never, ever create or originate something like redhat. So buy it, they did, and now legions of managers preen, and describe how to "improve" redhat, each cutting, shaving cost…

As much as I might dislike IBM, Canonical is doing the same thing. Many established distros are pushing containers for very practical reasons - they shift significant amounts of packaging work from distros to developers. It's annoying but it makes sense.

But the packaging work is most of the value that distros give. If they aren't doing that, why do we need distros at all?

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#313

Post by pnpnp »

pmoriarty wrote: post #265
raverbashing wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wayland/HDR etc is much more important for those who need it than using LibreOffice (which still will be available) when there are plenty of online solutions that work fine

They work fine if you don't give a shit about your privacy.

X is horrible from a security perspective. It has heaps of baggage from back before that was a concern.

Maybe Wayland isn’t it, but a replacement would definitely benefit everyone.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#314

Post by lostmsu »

jahewson wrote: post #181
kaba0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not particularly happy with Flatpak - I still think it mixes up two things (packaging, sandbox), and is not particularly good at the former. Nix actually solves the former issue, and does so splendidly. I would much rather see better sandboxes for linux.

Nix is great conceptually but after 20 years of boiling the ocean, I would call the experience difficult and erratic, not “splendid”.

Dang, I was about to turn my considering trying Nix into practice.

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#315

Post by toyg »

JohnFen wrote: post #312
toyg wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I might dislike IBM, Canonical is doing the same thing. Many established distros are pushing containers for very practical reasons - they shift significant amounts of packaging work from distros to developers. It's annoying but it makes sense.

But the packaging work is most of the value that distros give. If they aren't doing that, why do we need distros at all?

> If they aren't doing that, why do we need distros at all?

- To set up system daemons in a sane way. You're not going to containerize systemd.

- To set up and maintain desktop primitives. You're not going to containerize Wayland or audio systems.

- To integrate all these containers in a decent manner. Flatpak and its ilk have limitations that will have to be smoothed over by distros.

Will that mean a consolidation, since differences over packaging become less relevant? Maybe. I'm pretty sure we will still have significant differences between The Way RedHat Likes To Do Things, The Way Debian Likes To Do Things, The Way Canonical Likes To Do Things etc etc

Re: Red Hat dropping support for LibreOffice

#316

Post by redprince »

tredre3 wrote: post #263
redprince wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a program that reads unstrusted binary blobs When opening any office files from unknown or untrusted sources is something you feel you have to do, you're probably well off isolating that operation and thus limit the blast area. For people working exclusively on their own files or with trusted colleagues, that is pretty much a non issue.

Why do you keep moving the goalposts? First you say that people should just audit the code if they don't trust it. Then you say if someone wants to read untrusted files they should just spin up a virtual machine? So I need to spend thousand of hours reading libreoffice's and its dependencies' code, and then I still need to run it in a virtual machine when I read untrusted files (in case there are bugs that could be e…

> First you say that people should just audit the code if they don't trust it. Then you say if someone wants to read untrusted files they should just spin up a virtual machine?

Because of an intended functionality of many of those file formats, which makes them quite dangerous when coming from untrusted sources: Macros.

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