What will happen to OpenOffice.org now?

[kio_http]

Now that libre office is almost here and the developers of OO have shifted to it, what will Oracle do with Openoffice.org?

[NightwishFan]

Not sure however I am interested in Libre Office. Notice the branding has sort of a Fluxbuntu thing going on?

[kio_http]

Not sure however I am interested in Libre Office. Notice the branding has sort of a Fluxbuntu thing going on?

Yes, but fluxbuntu is quite dead now!

[slackthumbz]

Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and other distros have all publicly stated that they will switch to LibreOffice. I expect that pretty much the entire OSS community will follow suit and with that kind of support the development will continue at a rapid pace. Oracles OpenOffice will fade into obscurity and die quietly. This is all pretty much inevitable considering how badly Oracle has alienated the the FL/OSS community.

[alexan]

Now that libre office is almost here and the developers of OO have shifted to it, what will Oracle do with Openoffice.org?

now it will be doomed..the same way gNewSense doomed Ubuntu...


mmh, no wait...

[NightwishFan]

Yes, but fluxbuntu is quite dead now!

I was just commenting on the colors. :)

[kio_http]

Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and other distros have all publicly stated that they will switch to LibreOffice. I expect that pretty much the entire OSS community will follow suit and with that kind of support the development will continue at a rapid pace. Oracles OpenOffice will fade into obscurity and die quietly. This is all pretty much inevitable considering how badly Oracle has alienated the the FL/OSS community.

Not if Oracle plays the joke of forking and rebranding Libre Office every time they make a new release.:mad:


I was just commenting on the colors. :)


Or OpenSuSe after all go-oo.org started by novel will be merged into Libre Office.

[slackthumbz]

Not if Oracle plays the joke of forking and rebranding Libre Office every time they make a new release.:mad:

I don't think even Oracle are that petty (don't quote me on that though ;))

[m4tic]

I quit the download, its really slow, I couldn't wait 50min.

[Oxwivi]

IMO, OOo can just die, LibreOFfice are all we need for a great open-source office suite on Linux.

[samalex]

I haven't tried LibreOffice yet ... other than not being under Oracle what advantages does LibreOffice have over OpenOffice? I've used OOo for years and love it, but I'd definitely be game to switch camps since Oracle will redoubtably hose OOo as they're doing most of the other projects they got from Sun.

[john77eipe]

Never tried LibreOffice. How is it? What makes it different from OpenOffice? (ignoring future support)

[NightwishFan]

Rather than bother to look for an Ubuntu way to install, I just ran a fakeroot and converted all the RPMs to Debs. If I break my system that way I can always reinstall. (Love data backups :) )

[Half-Left]

Oracle just might make a bigger success out of OpenOffice yet, though at a price.

[NightwishFan]

Installing the alien packages(rpm converted to deb) worked great. No dependency issues or anything. The only problem I noticed was it complained for me to install a JRE like 6 times, but it seems to work fine.

(I do not recommend you try this of course as the unofficial offical ubuntu forums NightwishFan, I have my reputation to uphold of course!) :)

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/6327/libreoffice.th.png (http://img841.imageshack.us/i/libreoffice.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[lukeiamyourfather]

My guess is OpenOffice will become a commercially supported product from Oracle and re-branded to something else like "OracleOffice" or similar. For those asking what the difference is between the two, at this point there isn't much difference since LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice (i.e. they share a lot of the same code).

[Glenn nl]

I read this somewhere but forgot, is new stuff from the upcoming openoffice also going to Libreoffice?

[ZarathustraDK]

I don't think Oracle will change the name of OpenOffice, too much brand value in that one. Annoying because it will only serve to confuse the "open" terms out there.

On the brighter side I'm looking forward to see LibreOffice flourish; as I understand it, the devs were highly encumbered by corporate bs, and at the same time prevented from forking because of the risk of fractioning the community. This council-fallout they had was the last straw apparently; they made the break, the community went with LibreOffice, Oracle went with the name (at least that's what the silent whispers of teh 'netz has echoed so far).

It could be far worse, with a good chance of it being quite a good thing. OpenOffice/LibreOffice is THE productivity-suite in F/LOSS-terms (as in "the full package of tools", I know there are other very good singular tools out there, peace ^^), I doubt it'll need backing, financial, developmental, or otherwise.

[CraigPaleo]

There are debs offered on the site they just don't have huge button images for them.

32 bit (http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/3.3.0-beta2/deb/x86/LibO_3.3.0_beta2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)

64 bit (http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/3.3.0-beta2/deb/x86_64/LibO_3.3.0_beta2_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)

Once you've downloaded it:
1. Extract the file to ~/Desktop
2. Rename the folder to libreoffice
3. Open Terminal and enter this command:


sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/libreoffice/DEBS/*.deb

Then enter the following command into Terminal:


sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/libreoffice/DEBS/desktop-integration/*.deb

It went without a hitch for me!

[kio_http]

There are debs offered on the site they just don't have huge button images for them.

32 bit (http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/3.3.0-beta2/deb/x86/LibO_3.3.0_beta2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)

64 bit (http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/3.3.0-beta2/deb/x86_64/LibO_3.3.0_beta2_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)

Once you've downloaded it:
1. Extract the file to ~/Desktop
2. Rename the folder to libreoffice
3. Open Terminal and enter this command:


sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/libreoffice/DEBS/*.deb

Then enter the following command into Terminal:


sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/libreoffice/DEBS/desktop-integration/*.deb

It went without a hitch for me!

Nice signature you have :)

[Stan_1936]

Libre Office is in Beta2.

Right now, it is NOT a direct replacement for Open Office.

In the future it will be the SAME as Open Office which, from my experience, is simply not up to snuff. I've had numerous formatting issues and unneccessary font effects(type or style-bold, italic) that show up when opening a MS Word created document in OpenOffice Word.i.e. my opinion? it is NOT a DIRECT replacement from Microsoft Office. Sorry.

I don't get the point of this comparison RIGHT NOW....extreme futureproofing at its best, I guess?

[john77eipe]

lukeiamyourfather@ thanks.

If both are similar, why would one care to switch to other. :confused:

[NightwishFan]

Thanks alien worked for me but native debs are the best I suppose. :)

[irv]

There are debs offered on the site they just don't have huge button images for them.

32 bit (http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/3.3.0-beta2/deb/x86/LibO_3.3.0_beta2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)

64 bit (http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/3.3.0-beta2/deb/x86_64/LibO_3.3.0_beta2_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz)

Once you've downloaded it:
1. Extract the file to ~/Desktop
2. Rename the folder to libreoffice
3. Open Terminal and enter this command:


sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/libreoffice/DEBS/*.deb

Then enter the following command into Terminal:


sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/libreoffice/DEBS/desktop-integration/*.deb

It went without a hitch for me!
I have downloaded this twice, and there is no DEB directory in the Archive. I downloaded the 32 bit version.
Edit: Sorry I do have it, I tried the download from the wrong site. When I tried your link it was there.
Again Sorry.

[tadcan]

lukeiamyourfather@ thanks.

If both are similar, why would one care to switch to other. :confused:

Libre office has separated itself from Open office recently with the intention of going in a new direction that was not possible with either sun or oracle at the helm. The expectation is that a office suite run for the people by the people will produce a better product then open office.

So what people are expressing now is a faith in the open source movement to take the code and create something better. Therefore people are changing over in support.

[john77eipe]

Oh. So it's like what happened to JDK. JDK and JRE were not exactly open source initially. But after 2007 or so, Sun initiated OpenJDK.

[beew]

Libre Office is in Beta2.

Right now, it is NOT a direct replacement for Open Office.

In the future it will be the SAME as Open Office which, from my experience, is simply not up to snuff. I've had numerous formatting issues and unneccessary font effects(type or style-bold, italic) that show up when opening a MS Word created document in OpenOffice Word.i.e. my opinion? it is NOT a DIRECT replacement from Microsoft Office. Sorry.

I don't get the point of this comparison RIGHT NOW....extreme futureproofing at its best, I guess?


So what is what is your point? That only MS is up to snuff in reading its own formats which are closed and have been changed just to make reverse engineering difficult for competitors? Other office suites will be "up to snuff" if people like you stop using MS and its closed formats.

[NightwishFan]

Need I mention the ribbon interface... >_>

[Stan_1936]

So what is what is your point? That only MS is up to snuff in reading its own formats ....

EXACTLY!

The first thing that stands about Open office is its claim to be compatible with MS Office. I guess it really should come down to levels of compatibility, eh?.....it is not 100% compatible.

Since the majority of users use MS Office, it is quite hard, for even the average user, to accept less than 100% compatibility.

I must say that, overall, my experience with OpenOffice has been quite disappointing. It hasn't made a good impression on me. I tired it, I gave it a real shot, but it never worked out.

Sorry but that's the truth.

[lukeiamyourfather]

lukeiamyourfather@ thanks.

If both are similar, why would one care to switch to other. :confused:

Sun's business model was openness, hell, they even open sourced designs for their processors. Oracle has a very different business model. The motivation to fork OpenOffice to LibreOffice is because the future of OpenOffice is uncertain (and/or misguided) under the control of Oracle (previously Sun). So you ask why bother switching? The short term answer is don't switch because LibreOffice is in beta. The long term answer is OpenOffice might not be around (or it might be a commercial product from Oracle under a different name). See more from their F.A.Q.

http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq/

[friTTe81]

i switched to libre on all my machines, seems to do the job pretty nice.

But if you are using in a production area you might wait a bit.

[rjbl]

Libre Office is in Beta2.

Right now, it is NOT a direct replacement for Open Office.

In the future it will be the SAME as Open Office which, from my experience, is simply not up to snuff. I've had numerous formatting issues and unneccessary font effects(type or style-bold, italic) that show up when opening a MS Word created document in OpenOffice Word.i.e. my opinion? it is NOT a DIRECT replacement from Microsoft Office. Sorry.

I don't get the point of this comparison RIGHT NOW....extreme futureproofing at its best, I guess?

Bollocks. Never seen any, repeat any, formatting issues with OO.0, or Star Office, or any of its line, when opening any, repeat any, MS Office document from any, repeat any, version of Office. Been using the two together for about twenty years.

rjbl

[ticopelp]

Thunderdome.

[alexfish]

Sun's business model was openness, hell, they even open sourced designs for their processors. Oracle has a very different business model. The motivation to fork OpenOffice to LibreOffice is because the future of OpenOffice is uncertain (and/or misguided) under the control of Oracle (previously Sun). So you ask why bother switching? The short term answer is don't switch because LibreOffice is in beta. The long term answer is OpenOffice might not be around (or it might be a commercial product from Oracle under a different name). See more from their F.A.Q.

http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq/

mm

have you look here

http://thenetworkisthecomputer.com/site/?p=699

still have a copy of S0 6.0 (widows,Solaris,Linux)

[CarpKing]

lukeiamyourfather@ thanks.

If both are similar, why would one care to switch to other. :confused:

To help whip it into shape by providing feedback to a hopefully more responsive upstream, with the hope that as they become less similar LibO will be the better of the two.

Full disclosure: I have not yet installed LibO and I might not use it until it comes with Ubuntu, but if I did that would be my reasoning.

[Khakilang]

I would say Oracle will convert OpenOffice to commercial and compete head on with Microsoft Office. As for me I will wait for the latest version of Ubuntu that has whatever software for my document and spreadsheet. If its LibreOffice so be it.

[john77eipe]

I would say Oracle will convert OpenOffice to commercial and compete head on with Microsoft Office. As for me I will wait for the latest version of Ubuntu that has whatever software for my document and spreadsheet. If its LibreOffice so be it.
+1

I agree with you totally. Most of the Ubuntu users use what comes with it. (Me for example:))

[beew]

I have installed LibreOffice in my Lucid box from a PPA. At first it was slow but after the first upgrade to beta 2 it is lightning fast,much faster than OO.O (go-OO) shipped with Lucid or Maverick. The only problem is that I have not yet been able to integrate it with the browser yet, will need to edit Mozplugger somehow.

[aysiu]

Bollocks. Never seen any, repeat any, formatting issues with OO.0, or Star Office, or any of its line, when opening any, repeat any, MS Office document from any, repeat any, version of Office. Been using the two together for about twenty years.

rjbl
I've seen it several times in only a few years.

Hard to prove a negative (I've never seen it, so it can't be, as opposed to It has to be because I have seen it.).

[kio_http]

I have tried libreoffice on Windows and OS X. However the only reason I am waiting for Ubuntu to ship it to use it on linux is the Kubuntu team's KDE integration is bound to be currently absent from libreoffice. The modifications can easily be ported though.

[KiwiNZ]

I have tried libreoffice on Windows and OS X. However the only reason I am waiting for Ubuntu to ship it to use it on linux is the Kubuntu team's KDE integration is bound to be currently absent from libreoffice. The modifications can easily be ported though.

How did it go on OSX ? and was it Snow Leopard?

[kio_http]

How did it go on OSX ? and was it Snow Leopard?

Yes SL (10.6.4). Runs nicely and fast and is fully integrated with Aqua.This was on a core 2 Duo macbook pro. Crashes when you insert a caption on picture as stated in the release notes of libreoffice

[KiwiNZ]

Yes SL (10.6.4). Runs nicely and fast and is fully integrated with Aqua.This was on a core 2 Duo macbook pro. Crashes when you insert a caption on picture as stated in the release notes of libreoffice

Hmmm I currently use Lotus Symphony and that works faultlessly.

[kio_http]

Hmmm I currently use Lotus Symphony and that works faultlessly.

Should I say it :confused: I use Microsoft office:mad: Forced actually for file format compatibility.

[KiwiNZ]

Should I say it :confused: I use Microsoft office:mad: Forced actually for file format compatibility. No problem with you using MS Office , like I have said a thousand times , its all about horses for courses , in other words you use what best suits your needs.

[foxmulder881]

I saw no point in waiting, I've had LibreOffice installed since it was first available. It runs perfect. And despite it being in "beta", it really isn't much different from the Oracle branded OO.o package.

[kio_http]

No problem with you using MS Office , like I have said a thousand times , its all about horses for courses , in other words you use what best suits your needs.

I have no problem with any product that is good and MS office certainly is with decent hardware.

However I do in general prefer an Open Solution that serves me. To me, commercial software and Open Software should coexist. I would never expect the Open Source community to create huge stuff like the games on Windows and OS X. However Open Solutions seem to work very well for work stuff. Which is why I am happy about the Libre Office switch out of Oracle's hands.It will take time, but this move will get its fruits eventually.

[rjbl]

Re: What will happen to OpenOffice.org now?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjbl http://ubuntuforums.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9992597#post9992597)
Bollocks. Never seen any, repeat any, formatting issues with OO.0, or Star Office, or any of its line, when opening any, repeat any, MS Office document from any, repeat any, version of Office. Been using the two together for about twenty years.

rjbl

I've seen it several times in only a few years.

Hard to prove a negative (I've never seen it, so it can't be, as opposed to It has to be because I have seen it.).
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Try a little experiment - if you've time to spare.

1. Google out a good sized sample of Microsoft Word files from the Web. Count how many fail to open or are not interpreted correctly by OO.o

2. I have found no such failures so far, but I'm still looking.

This experiment will give you a reasonable estimate of the probability of an OO.o being discommoded by receiving an MS Word document to read in OO.o. It is close to zero.

rjbl

[CraigPaleo]

I have tried libreoffice on Windows and OS X. However the only reason I am waiting for Ubuntu to ship it to use it on linux is the Kubuntu team's KDE integration is bound to be currently absent from libreoffice. The modifications can easily be ported though.

The integration is already there for both KDE and Gnome. It even look like a native KDE app in Kubuntu. :)

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/516/libreofficeg.png

[lukeiamyourfather]

mm

have you look here

http://thenetworkisthecomputer.com/site/?p=699

still have a copy of S0 6.0 (widows,Solaris,Linux)

Yes, StarOffice is based on OpenOffice. What about it? Under the leadership of Oracle there might be only StarOffice with OpenOffice being discontinued (like they did with OpenSolaris). Hence the fork to LibreOffice.

[irv]

I thought I would post some screen shots for those who have not installed it yet.
172840 172841 172842 172843 172844

[alexfish]

yes, staroffice is based on openoffice. What about it? Under the leadership of oracle there might be only staroffice with openoffice being discontinued (like they did with opensolaris). Hence the fork to libreoffice.

java

also think adabas

[themarker0]

No fence to any lovers, OO sucked. Libre office i don't think will be much better. Imho Abiword would be better if they made a suite out of that.

[irv]

No fence to any lovers, OO sucked. Libre office i don't think will be much better. Imho Abiword would be better if they made a suite out of that.

I have never tried Abiword, what can it do the OO can't? And why do you say it is better?

[kio_http]

I have never tried Abiword, what can it do the OO can't? And why do you say it is better?

I would like to here that too.

[rjbl]

Yes, StarOffice is based on OpenOffice. What about it? Under the leadership of Oracle there might be only StarOffice with OpenOffice being discontinued (like they did with OpenSolaris). Hence the fork to LibreOffice.

Actually 'tis the other way round OpenOffice is based on Star Office, which has actually been around since quite early MS DOS days.

rjbl

[qamelian]

EXACTLY!

The first thing that stands about Open office is its claim to be compatible with MS Office. I guess it really should come down to levels of compatibility, eh?.....it is not 100% compatible.

Since the majority of users use MS Office, it is quite hard, for even the average user, to accept less than 100% compatibility.

I must say that, overall, my experience with OpenOffice has been quite disappointing. It hasn't made a good impression on me. I tired it, I gave it a real shot, but it never worked out.

Sorry but that's the truth.

The only MS Office documents that I've ever found compatibility problems with have been documents that were poorly crafted in the first place. I use OpenOffice 100% of the time in a work environment that requires us to have compatibility with MS Office document formats and I deal with extremely complex spredsheets and text documents all the time with no issues whatsoever.

[qamelian]

No fence to any lovers, OO sucked. Libre office i don't think will be much better. Imho Abiword would be better if they made a suite out of that.
Not in a million years. Abiword is fine for light-weight word processing, but it can't even touch OOo in most business environments. It still has a long way to go before it could be seriously considered in my office.

[perspectoff]

I have never tried Abiword, what can it do the OO can't? And why do you say it is better?

Although I use OpenOffice routinely, I agree AbiWord is better for simple, routine usage, since it is snappy, clean, and efficient.

I have used OpenOffice because it is everywhere -- at work on Windows computers, at home, and on my kids' computers (and they use it for school projects, including Presentations). It has been reliable, and converts interchangeably with MS Office, PDF, and other formats. It is very powerful and does more than other platforms, too.

Still, I like to use AbiWord only on my *buntu machine, for quick editing purposes (when I hate waiting for OOO to load).

I agree with the post that AbiWord would be a great cornerstone of a suite.

KDE has KOffice, by the way, which is great.

KOffice can supplant OpenOffice today in many areas, and that is my backup on all my Kubuntu boxes.

I've never tried KOffice in Ubuntu (Gnome).

[dondiego2]

The only MS Office documents that I've ever found compatibility problems with have been documents that were poorly crafted in the first place. I use OpenOffice 100% of the time in a work environment that requires us to have compatibility with MS Office document formats and I deal with extremely complex spredsheets and text documents all the time with no issues whatsoever.


As far as I know it won't handle excel spreadsheets with simple macros let alone complex macros. I use Gnumeric for my spreadsheets. I have to rewrite any excel spreadsheets that have macros in them but other than that I haven't found any issues with Gnumeric. I had several formatting issues with the OO spreadsheet so I quit using it once I discovered Gnumeric.

I am pretty good at macro programming in Microsoft Office. I'm sure Gnumeric has some features that I haven't accessed like Python programming but I haven't figured that out yet.

[alexfish]

No fence to any lovers, OO sucked. Libre office i don't think will be much better. Imho Abiword would be better if they made a suite out of that.

instead of sucked , ( I suck jelly babies , love them )

Example:
Five ways Libre Office can improve to challenge Microsoft



Rebuild community momentum and supplier ecosystem - the current steering committee of developers and national language project managers in charge of the foundation are unlikely to deliver the boldness of vision and swiftness of execution required by the project at this juncture. Suppliers need to co-operate to help the team and push the agenda forwards.
Improve product for management for enterprise adoption - there is next to nothing for the enterprise administrator. Openoffice.org suffers from a lack of integration with document content as well as collaboration systems despite a wealth of open source offerings in these areas.
Rethink the product - rethink the product entirely and start from scratch to create an internet-centric suite of modular, easily embedded components.
Target developers - it also needs to promote embedding and use by developers and companies. For example, while there are many open source PHP scripts that enable developers to create Microsoft Office documents, not so many of them are available to create Openoffice ones.
Focus on innovation - Firefox was not adopted because it was free but because it introduced new features such as multiple tabs.

Source: Laurent Lachal, analyst at Ovum

[lukeiamyourfather]

Actually 'tis the other way round OpenOffice is based on Star Office, which has actually been around since quite early MS DOS days.

rjbl

Initially yes, but now its the other way around. Like Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Work done by volunteers and the public gets put into the paid product (StarOffice in this case).

[CoreyB.]

I wonder how/if Go-oo (http://go-oo.org/) will be used with LibreOffice.

[qamelian]

I wonder how/if Go-oo (http://go-oo.org/) will be used with LibreOffice.

Go-OO is just a set of patches that many distros already include in their OOo packages (including Ubuntu). The initial announcements regarding LibreOffice already indicated that they would be incorporating these patches.

[qamelian]

As far as I know it won't handle excel spreadsheets with simple macros let alone complex macros. I use Gnumeric for my spreadsheets. I have to rewrite any excel spreadsheets that have macros in them but other than that I haven't found any issues with Gnumeric. I had several formatting issues with the OO spreadsheet so I quit using it once I discovered Gnumeric.

I am pretty good at macro programming in Microsoft Office. I'm sure Gnumeric has some features that I haven't accessed like Python programming but I haven't figured that out yet.
I've never had any formatting issues with OOo, and I've always been able to work around macro issues. I never make any critical function in a spreadsheet dependent on the ability to use macros. Also, Novell began contributing some basic compatibility to MS Office VBA macros a few years ago, so some of those issues have gone away. Gnumeric is not bad, but I have experienced issues with it that I don't have with OOo. If it work for you that's great, but it doesn't meet my needs at all.