9 ms·

Open-source cloud with LibreOffice online

114 points by ashitlerferad 11y ago

stephenr 11y ago
Is this using the "LibreOfficeOnline" thing where you can compile LibreOffice to run a server? Or is this something else? Also, it says it's open source, but I can't find any links to source downloads or a repo? Otherwise, I'm keen to see how this works. I'd love to offer business customers a way to self-host documents without telling them they have to install an office suite on every single computer.
- tmikaeld 11y ago
  Seems that they are "getting it ready" in a few days. http://support.open365.io/index.php/en/forum/englishsuport/13-open365-on-premises http://support.open365.io/index.php/en/forum/englishsuport/1...
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Weeks. "We are readying repositories. Estimate date... In the next few weeks ^^" I don't think you should be able to claim something is open source... until the source is open. But maybe that's just me.
- tmikaeld 11y ago
  What I'm missing most is collaboration, it's been requested time and time again due to Google Apps having such great support for it.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Etherpad does a not bad job at handling real-time collaboration, with the right plugins included. Sandstorm.io is an awesome hosting solution for it. I just kinda assumed if LibreOffice was announcing a cloud platform it'd be collaborative...
    - stephenr 11y ago
      This isn't a LibreOffice announcement FYI. It's a company, and appears to be using desktop installation(s) of LibreOffice and some kind of adapter to render the regular desktop app's window chrome as HTML5. So, think like XenDesktop or app-specific RDP, rendered to a browser.
  - ishansharma 11y ago
    IMHO, collaboration will be a hard one to crack. I use MS Office for office work and even they haven't gotten it as good as Google Apps.
- fbartels 11y ago
  On their main website they also have an overview of the used technology: http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb
pieter1976 11y ago
Every time I try to use LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before that), I end up terribly disappointed by the software quality compared to 'equivalent' Microsoft or Apple products. Have things improved lately?
- mavhc 11y ago
  Not greatly. https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_Libr...
- mxuribe 11y ago
  I have to say yes, things have improved. Perfect for home use; we use it for budget stuff, drafting the typical documents, school stuff for my daughter, etc. But haven't fully tested it with hardcore, crazy sophisticated (business intelligence-level) spreadsheet formulas that one might encounter in the workplace.
- r3bl 11y ago
  OpenOffice is as good as dead atm. LibreOffice, to date, as far as I can tell, mostly focused on fixing the mistakes from OpenOffice days (as in, code cleanups and refacturing the code) and improving the compatibility with Microsoft Office. In those aspects, seems like things have improved quite a bit. Unfortunately, it still looks like it was made in the year 2000. libreoffice-style-sifr icon pack kind of makes the things a bit less obnoxious, but there's still a long way to go. I've read mixed statements from the LO community about the possible switch to ribbon interface, but even if they decide against it, they need something. My biggest mistake about the whole LO project is that I somehow ended up on one on their admin mailing lists (for https://ask.libreoffice.org/ https://ask.libreoffice.org/) and I just can't find a way to remove myself from it. I contacted them five or six times already, and ended up empty handed every single time.
  - ArbitraryHobo 11y ago
    I thought ribbon was really bad for productivity, as it's just a less-effective mega menu, or a mega-menu which hides some options without providing any mechanism to see everything. My understanding was that an application had to go to full mega-menu, with all the options visible, or traditional dropdowns w/ alphabetized groupings and lots of iconongraphy.
cstross 11y ago
Is there an overview of this thing that doesn't require me to watch a video? ("A photo tells a thousand words", but I can read at 300-400 words/minute while a video typically conveys roughly 100 wpm. I don't like wasting my time and bandwidth.)
- vinay427 11y ago
  I agree, and that's a disingenuous quote in any case: "A photo tells a thousand words." There are many cases when the reverse is true.
  - philtar 11y ago
    A photo tells negative one thousand words? Or a word tells one thousand photos?
    - yread 11y ago
      A photo requires a 1000 word explanation
    - vinay427 11y ago
      I meant the reverse as "a word tells one thousand photos," or can in some cases. Many abstract concepts can be represented by a word in modern human verbal languages, but not so easily only photos.
      - trelltron 11y ago
        I think the existence of Pictionary as a game is a decent example of this.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    A photo may be telling a thousand words, but quite often a lot of those words have little value or relevance to the topic.
- sp332 11y ago
TheLogothete 11y ago
And when microsoft sues for copyright infringment, they will be the bad guys, right?
- rahimnathwani 11y ago
  What copyright infringement?
  - jle17 11y ago
    I guess parent is talking about the use of '365' which reminds of office 365. That would be trademark infringement though, not copyright. Seems to me that open365 is different enough of office 365 that no confusion is possible anyway but I have no idea what the law says.
    - unethical_ban 11y ago
      You think there is no confusion possible? It's a very obvious knockoff of Microsoft's product. And unlike office, which is kind of generic, the use of 365 for a productivity suite is certainly specific to Microsoft.
      - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
        365 is a descriptive term used widely to mean 'always available', it's too generic for a registered trademark by itself - Microsoft shouldn't have a hope in a sensible IP court.
    - znpy 11y ago
      It's sad that you can be sued for using numbers.
      - TheLogothete 11y ago
        It's sad that you can't figure out a name which is not an exact replica of your competitor. And definitely deserves the lawsuit.
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
"First open source cloud"? I think not. ownCloud, Sandstorm.io, etc. This is not new territory. Awesome, sure. First, no.
- dang 11y ago
  We took that bit out of the title.
nereid666 11y ago
I think this is libreoffice inside a remote-desktop like, html client. Like VNC. I fact the same company eyeOs is offering Microsoft office "on cloud", something similar as http://guac-dev.org/ http://guac-dev.org/ My opinion is that this is not html5 editor, It is very high demanding hungry resources consuming and complex architecture. Or I am missing a new release libreoffice HTML5 version?
- fbartels 11y ago
  Actually not VNC, but Spice: http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb
  - janvdberg 11y ago
    You can watch a bit about what is actually is here: http://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2016/janson/scaling-and-securing-libreoffice-online.mp4 http://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2016/janson/scaling-and-securing-li...
janvdberg 11y ago
For those interested here is the github repo for the main parts of this solution: https://github.com/LibreOffice/online https://github.com/LibreOffice/online I've been following this pretty closely, the loolwsd and loleaflet are the server and client component, but you need to have a user (authentication) system on top of that for collaborative editting which can be anything. Collabora is the main driver behind this project (LibreOffice Online) and has already provided a beta vmdk (based on OwnCloud for the user part) some time ago: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/
- kh_hk 11y ago
  I do not think it's using LibreOffice Online. You can see kontact running there too. http://i.imgur.com/WOuJyyA.png http://i.imgur.com/WOuJyyA.png
newscracker 11y ago
It gives 20GB space online, which is great. I'm a bit wary of these cloud platforms and have a fear they'd disappear after sometime (like how Ubuntu's did and others have in the past). Anyone know how strong the financials and projections are for this cloud project (not just LibreOffice/Document Foundation overall)? I can't seem to find anything specific on the website.
guilhermeasg 11y ago
"Linux" and "Ubuntu" seem to be used more and more interchangeably these days. Are there binary/source downloads for other distros?
alexkavon 11y ago
In before the cease and desist from Microsoft by calling your product Open365.
- karussell 11y ago
  Maybe they should make a bit fun about the missing day in years like 2016 and name it Open366.io or OpenYear.io ;)
jaegerbombb 11y ago
The website design looks great and it's a shame the video is so rushed by comparison :/
neikos 11y ago
Fun, I can't sign up with my email since it ends with '.email' They actually put in their own email regex........
- gkya 11y ago
  Be careful with those new tlds though. They do frequent discounts on them and spammers love them cheap domains. I recently had to black-list "*.top" after a Gandi.net discount on it. The day after each discount I receive loads of spam from the discounted tld, blacklisted .top, .eu, .science, .xys, .party so far.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    .EU is widely used in the European Union [1], and is over a decade old. You should probably find a better way to block spam than blocking a whole TLD. [1] e.g. The European Union's own site, http://europa.eu/ http://europa.eu/, and lots of European science projects I've seen.
    - gkya 11y ago
      I use SpamAssassin and a whitelist generated from my contacts. If I had a .eu in my contacts list, that mail would make its way to my inbox, but till now I've only received sneaky spam from it.
frik 11y ago
Were can I find the source code? Is there a Github repo? And is the eyeos tech open source?
- janvdberg 11y ago
  Here: https://github.com/LibreOffice/online https://github.com/LibreOffice/online and here is another thing based on the same components: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/
rob5150 11y ago
I'm looking for info on who open365.io is. There is no info listed in their website. Where are they located? Who is behind them? How is my data in their cloud protected? Etc etc.

114 points by ashitlerferad 11y ago

Is this using the "LibreOfficeOnline" thing where you can compile LibreOffice to run a server? Or is this something else? Also, it says it's open source, but I can't find any links to source downloads or a repo? Otherwise, I'm keen to see how this works. I'd love to offer business customers a way to self-host documents without telling them they have to install an office suite on every single computer.

tmikaeld 11y ago
Seems that they are "getting it ready" in a few days. http://support.open365.io/index.php/en/forum/englishsuport/13-open365-on-premises http://support.open365.io/index.php/en/forum/englishsuport/1...
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Weeks. "We are readying repositories. Estimate date... In the next few weeks ^^" I don't think you should be able to claim something is open source... until the source is open. But maybe that's just me.
tmikaeld 11y ago
What I'm missing most is collaboration, it's been requested time and time again due to Google Apps having such great support for it.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Etherpad does a not bad job at handling real-time collaboration, with the right plugins included. Sandstorm.io is an awesome hosting solution for it. I just kinda assumed if LibreOffice was announcing a cloud platform it'd be collaborative...
  - stephenr 11y ago
    This isn't a LibreOffice announcement FYI. It's a company, and appears to be using desktop installation(s) of LibreOffice and some kind of adapter to render the regular desktop app's window chrome as HTML5. So, think like XenDesktop or app-specific RDP, rendered to a browser.
- ishansharma 11y ago
  IMHO, collaboration will be a hard one to crack. I use MS Office for office work and even they haven't gotten it as good as Google Apps.
fbartels 11y ago
On their main website they also have an overview of the used technology: http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb

pieter1976 11y ago

Every time I try to use LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before that), I end up terribly disappointed by the software quality compared to 'equivalent' Microsoft or Apple products. Have things improved lately?

mavhc 11y ago
Not greatly. https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_Libr...
mxuribe 11y ago
I have to say yes, things have improved. Perfect for home use; we use it for budget stuff, drafting the typical documents, school stuff for my daughter, etc. But haven't fully tested it with hardcore, crazy sophisticated (business intelligence-level) spreadsheet formulas that one might encounter in the workplace.
r3bl 11y ago
OpenOffice is as good as dead atm. LibreOffice, to date, as far as I can tell, mostly focused on fixing the mistakes from OpenOffice days (as in, code cleanups and refacturing the code) and improving the compatibility with Microsoft Office. In those aspects, seems like things have improved quite a bit. Unfortunately, it still looks like it was made in the year 2000. libreoffice-style-sifr icon pack kind of makes the things a bit less obnoxious, but there's still a long way to go. I've read mixed statements from the LO community about the possible switch to ribbon interface, but even if they decide against it, they need something. My biggest mistake about the whole LO project is that I somehow ended up on one on their admin mailing lists (for https://ask.libreoffice.org/ https://ask.libreoffice.org/) and I just can't find a way to remove myself from it. I contacted them five or six times already, and ended up empty handed every single time.
- ArbitraryHobo 11y ago
  I thought ribbon was really bad for productivity, as it's just a less-effective mega menu, or a mega-menu which hides some options without providing any mechanism to see everything. My understanding was that an application had to go to full mega-menu, with all the options visible, or traditional dropdowns w/ alphabetized groupings and lots of iconongraphy.

cstross 11y ago

Is there an overview of this thing that doesn't require me to watch a video? ("A photo tells a thousand words", but I can read at 300-400 words/minute while a video typically conveys roughly 100 wpm. I don't like wasting my time and bandwidth.)

vinay427 11y ago
I agree, and that's a disingenuous quote in any case: "A photo tells a thousand words." There are many cases when the reverse is true.
- philtar 11y ago
  A photo tells negative one thousand words? Or a word tells one thousand photos?
  - yread 11y ago
    A photo requires a 1000 word explanation
  - vinay427 11y ago
    I meant the reverse as "a word tells one thousand photos," or can in some cases. Many abstract concepts can be represented by a word in modern human verbal languages, but not so easily only photos.
    - trelltron 11y ago
      I think the existence of Pictionary as a game is a decent example of this.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  A photo may be telling a thousand words, but quite often a lot of those words have little value or relevance to the topic.
sp332 11y ago

TheLogothete 11y ago

And when microsoft sues for copyright infringment, they will be the bad guys, right?

rahimnathwani 11y ago
What copyright infringement?
- jle17 11y ago
  I guess parent is talking about the use of '365' which reminds of office 365. That would be trademark infringement though, not copyright. Seems to me that open365 is different enough of office 365 that no confusion is possible anyway but I have no idea what the law says.
  - unethical_ban 11y ago
    You think there is no confusion possible? It's a very obvious knockoff of Microsoft's product. And unlike office, which is kind of generic, the use of 365 for a productivity suite is certainly specific to Microsoft.
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      365 is a descriptive term used widely to mean 'always available', it's too generic for a registered trademark by itself - Microsoft shouldn't have a hope in a sensible IP court.
  - znpy 11y ago
    It's sad that you can be sued for using numbers.
    - TheLogothete 11y ago
      It's sad that you can't figure out a name which is not an exact replica of your competitor. And definitely deserves the lawsuit.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

"First open source cloud"? I think not. ownCloud, Sandstorm.io, etc. This is not new territory. Awesome, sure. First, no.

dang 11y ago
We took that bit out of the title.

nereid666 11y ago

I think this is libreoffice inside a remote-desktop like, html client. Like VNC. I fact the same company eyeOs is offering Microsoft office "on cloud", something similar as http://guac-dev.org/ http://guac-dev.org/ My opinion is that this is not html5 editor, It is very high demanding hungry resources consuming and complex architecture. Or I am missing a new release libreoffice HTML5 version?

fbartels 11y ago
Actually not VNC, but Spice: http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb http://www.eyeos.com/en/eyeos/technology#clienteweb
- janvdberg 11y ago
  You can watch a bit about what is actually is here: http://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2016/janson/scaling-and-securing-libreoffice-online.mp4 http://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2016/janson/scaling-and-securing-li...

janvdberg 11y ago

For those interested here is the github repo for the main parts of this solution: https://github.com/LibreOffice/online https://github.com/LibreOffice/online I've been following this pretty closely, the loolwsd and loleaflet are the server and client component, but you need to have a user (authentication) system on top of that for collaborative editting which can be anything. Collabora is the main driver behind this project (LibreOffice Online) and has already provided a beta vmdk (based on OwnCloud for the user part) some time ago: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/

kh_hk 11y ago
I do not think it's using LibreOffice Online. You can see kontact running there too. http://i.imgur.com/WOuJyyA.png http://i.imgur.com/WOuJyyA.png

newscracker 11y ago

It gives 20GB space online, which is great. I'm a bit wary of these cloud platforms and have a fear they'd disappear after sometime (like how Ubuntu's did and others have in the past). Anyone know how strong the financials and projections are for this cloud project (not just LibreOffice/Document Foundation overall)? I can't seem to find anything specific on the website.

guilhermeasg 11y ago

"Linux" and "Ubuntu" seem to be used more and more interchangeably these days. Are there binary/source downloads for other distros?

alexkavon 11y ago

In before the cease and desist from Microsoft by calling your product Open365.

karussell 11y ago
Maybe they should make a bit fun about the missing day in years like 2016 and name it Open366.io or OpenYear.io ;)

jaegerbombb 11y ago

The website design looks great and it's a shame the video is so rushed by comparison :/

neikos 11y ago

Fun, I can't sign up with my email since it ends with '.email' They actually put in their own email regex........

gkya 11y ago
Be careful with those new tlds though. They do frequent discounts on them and spammers love them cheap domains. I recently had to black-list "*.top" after a Gandi.net discount on it. The day after each discount I receive loads of spam from the discounted tld, blacklisted .top, .eu, .science, .xys, .party so far.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  .EU is widely used in the European Union [1], and is over a decade old. You should probably find a better way to block spam than blocking a whole TLD. [1] e.g. The European Union's own site, http://europa.eu/ http://europa.eu/, and lots of European science projects I've seen.
  - gkya 11y ago
    I use SpamAssassin and a whitelist generated from my contacts. If I had a .eu in my contacts list, that mail would make its way to my inbox, but till now I've only received sneaky spam from it.

frik 11y ago

Were can I find the source code? Is there a Github repo? And is the eyeos tech open source?

janvdberg 11y ago
Here: https://github.com/LibreOffice/online https://github.com/LibreOffice/online and here is another thing based on the same components: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/

rob5150 11y ago

I'm looking for info on who open365.io is. There is no info listed in their website. Where are they located? Who is behind them? How is my data in their cloud protected? Etc etc.