In a recent interview with derStandard.at Novell developer Michael Meeks talks about the reasoning behind the fork from OpenOffice.org, the first few weeks of the new project, and plans for the future.
In a recent interview with derStandard.at Novell developer Michael Meeks talks about the reasoning behind the fork from OpenOffice.org, the first few weeks of the new project, and plans for the future.
Now that I’m back to running Solaris Express, I can’t wait for Openoffice to die and Staroffice to show its head again.
Why?
In the same way that Opensolaris should have never existed, leaving Solaris Express in position, Openoffice should have never existed. There was a time when StarOfice was quite a good product with a direction. It was good enough that it was worth the price to pay for a nice MS Office alternative. It seems that Openoffice had FOSS leadership, which means that forking can happen when all the contributors are not happy. Libroffice today, ReallyfreeOffice Tomorrow and Beerffice after that. I’m not jumping on that bandwagon.
One thing that’s slightly disappointing about LibreOffice is that it’s an “unknown brand” compared to OpenOffice.org. The latter has taken years to slowly gain market share and recognition and now, in some ways, it’s almost back to square one again (it doesn’t help that LibreOffice launched the new branding as a beta, which further discouraged users from trying it out).
It’s sad – though understandable – that Oracle are indeed holding onto the OpenOffice.org brand and are also seemingly in a “race” vs. LibreOffice to see who can get the next stable release out since the fork happened. Considering OOo is now at 3.3.0 RC4, it looks like Oracle is going to win this “race”.
In a matter of weeks, users will be in something of a fork quandry w.r.t. which stable release they install next. OpenOffice.org, which is a known entity but not looking to have too bright a future or LibreOffice, requiring a bit of a leap into the unknown, but seemingly where the major development is going to be heading.
I just hope LibreOffice reduce the number of RPMs (45-50!) that OpenOffice.org distributes for the Linux version. Surely you just need a “core” RPM for common code and then an RPM for each of the writer/calc/draw/presenter/db components (because you might want to skip installing some of the components)?
Isn’t that suppose to be a good thing?
A bit of competition will help them push just a little harder.
So?
It’s not like users would be stuck with the “brand” they choose next. On the second next release, they may revert their choice. After all, writer uses an open format so I guess other components do too. So having a cycle installing OO then Libre is possible with no data loss.
I’m running LibreOffice 3.2.99.3-1 on Arch Linux right now, as a trial.
http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/libreoffice/
On Arch, it has 24 dependencies, it downloaded five new packages to install it, and it recommended another two that weren’t already installed.
There is a huge list of files within those few packages however:
http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/libreoffice/files/
It doesn’t really matter however it is packaged, this is a large download.
It does work fairly well, and the integartion with the Arch KDE 4.5.3 desktop is pretty good.
If you don’t run preload, the first load of LibreOffice in a session takes about nine seconds (at least it does on my pedestrian machine). Subsequent starts however take less than two seconds.
Even with this large download and long list of files, this isn’t as comprehensive as an installation from a CD or a DVD. You are missing some resources copmared to a commercial offering.
However, if you have a web connection, even that is not too much of a difficulty:
http://openclipart.org/
Enjoy.
http://www.openclipart.org/people/Anonymous/Anonymous_Plush_Tux.svg
http://www.openclipart.org/people/nosferatuX/Tux_laptop_v1-1.svg
SVG support! Yay.
http://templates.services.openoffice.org/
Edited 2010-11-17 12:48 UTC
I think I could give Koffice a new shot… I really liked it I just don’t have the time to get comfortable with a new sw…
I need to get things done asap cause I have college tests every 2 months and I work and stuff so I could never give it a shot.
But I may start right now, while waiting to see who of the two competitors gets its act together faster and/or better…