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The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

simonwillison.net

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Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#201

Post by bonesss »

airstrafer wrote: post #179
dist-epoch wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, they are ahead of this. Satya said some time ago that they expect soon to have more agents using Microsoft software than humans, and are working on transitioning their focus from serving humans to serving agents. https://www.news18.com/business/satya-nadella-announces-micr...

This sentiment is also why Microsoft crushed earnings this quarter. Their AI play is to create corpo-slop AI middleware, which sits between AI models and enterprise applications. Sure, others can go and build harnesses which can generate MS office documents, but MS is already doing it, and conveniently such harnesses will come with everyone's existing Microsoft 365 subscription. The analogy is IBM. Just like IBM help…

> The software will suck and will not really innovate, but it will make a ton of money

Microsoft’s goal isn’t to provide high quality software that outperforms other software, their goal is to provide an obvious and reasonably proximate answer to clueless execs trying to check things off of a procurement list so that existing contracts can snowball and competition is excluded.

We, collectively as a global species, really lost out when MS wasn’t divvied up in their anti-trust trial. Office as its own corporate entity would be in a radically different place right now, as would their enterprise customers.

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#202

Post by mastermage »

j16sdiz wrote: post #164
xvilka wrote: post #135

Would be nice if they donate to LibreOffice then, to improve the support of various MS Office features in files, as well as comparison/diffing features. Win-win to everyone.

As much as I would hope they would... I don't think that's in character for sam altman.

Sam "Its only Open until it does not benefit me anymore" Altman

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#203

Post by pdantix »

enraged_camel wrote: post #136
isityettime wrote: post #78

The new app is an unbelievable mess. Settings are senselessly organized, too. The whole thing has this aesthetic slickness and then underneath it's like the people who make it have never even used it. It's not surprising that it's pulled in absolutely massive dependencies, although I'm not sure it's the wrong call on some operating systems. LibreOffice is pretty tried and true.

The thing that blows my mind about it is that they straight up copied Claude Code and tried to frame it as some sort of incredible accomplishment. There are no new ideas, no insightful UI/UX paradigms, no killer features. They say money can't buy taste. The ChatGPT/Codex app is proof that it cannot buy creativity either.

which is really funny/sad when you see openai staff doing victory laps whenever claude code copies one or two small codex features like /goal.

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#204

Post by Maken »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #188
mksaunders2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true at all. Donations are the biggest source of income for The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice, and have been used to pay developers who've joined the team in recent years: * Michael Weghorn (accessibility) * Jonathan Clark (language and scripting support) * Neil Roberts (scripting improvements) * Dan Williams (macOS support and general UI improvements)

How much do they pay them?

They don't disclose individual salaries but you can check their annual reports [1]. About 1M € among all the developers.

[1] https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#205

Post by Maken »

Razengan wrote: post #115
isityettime wrote: post #78

The new app is an unbelievable mess. Settings are senselessly organized, too. The whole thing has this aesthetic slickness and then underneath it's like the people who make it have never even used it. It's not surprising that it's pulled in absolutely massive dependencies, although I'm not sure it's the wrong call on some operating systems. LibreOffice is pretty tried and true.

And when you go to their forums it says "This forum is not for discussing the ChatGPT App..." ..like excuse me? Where the fuck else would we post feedback about it?

Just tell ChatGPT what changes you want in the next version.

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#206

Post by small_scombrus »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #173
dumberquestions wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing that "would be nice" doesn't entail that they have to.

What does donation does for open source? Surely it wont come close to pay talented developers who create it. For cloud cost, there are few companies already giving generous free tier for open source. The only thing that donation could pay for is marketing e.g. events and meetups.

> The only thing that donation could pay for is marketing e.g. events and meetups.

You do realise there's an insanely large gap in-between "everyone is a volunteer" and "everyone is full-time staff", right?

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#207

Post by vb-8448 »

doc_ick wrote: post #141
vb-8448 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A full implementation/rewrite of something like word, which is pretty complex and the quantity of edge cases is insane, in a relatively short amount of time, months, is very hard. If they succeed with AI it will be huge: it's basically not possible to do it today with humans, no matter how many people you put on the job.

I would agree a full rewrite of word which is very complex and take quite a bit of time. It would be impressive of AI to make a 80% rewrite, though I fully doubt it would cover the 100% rewrite (disregarding long term support as well). Why do you think it’s impossible for humans to rewrite word, especially even humans made it in the first place?

I think it's not possible with humans in a relatively SHORT amount of time (let's say 1 year).

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#208

Post by waysa »

nomel wrote: post #101
simongg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apache POI

I don't think that's anywhere near equivalent. That's for reading and writing Microsoft Office docs. It has no office functionality . LibreOffice has a full API, for example to run calculations on spreadsheets [1]. The goal of bringing in dependencies is so you don't have to duplicate the functionality, in this case, crafted over decades of effort. [1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/SDKGuide/C...

POI can run calculations. [1] That doesn't make it a full office suite but it does a lot.

[1] https://poi.apache.org/components/spreadsheet/formula.html

Re: The ChatGPT/Codex app bundles a full copy of LibreOffice

#209

Post by alpineman »

xvilka wrote: post #135

Would be nice if they donate to LibreOffice then, to improve the support of various MS Office features in files, as well as comparison/diffing features. Win-win to everyone.

It's like that scene in the Simpsons when Bill Gates comes to buy out Homer:

"You don't think I got rich writing a bunch of checks, do you?!"

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