5 ms·

Why in the world don't you switch to Libre Office?

noduerme 5y ago
I tried it awhile back, but it's also extremely slow on an M1 and I found the UI issues even more annoying than the ones I was used to in OpenOffice.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  As far as I understand, apache open office is not really in active developement, unlike libre office. So maybe try it again at some point. (the main developers left open office to fork it as libre office, after oracle aquired sun and open office with it, but destroyed it and after it was burned and pretty much without contributers, donated the name to the apache foundation, who for reasons unknown to me, do not want to merge again)
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    About the reaons of the not happening merger between open office and libre office, it might be because of license issues. LibreOffice is with copyleft and OpenOffice switched to dual licence https://mobile.twitter.com/ApacheOO/status/1316422829202604032 https://mobile.twitter.com/ApacheOO/status/13164228292026040... Frustrating.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  Please file bugs about these issues at: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/ https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/ (but first search for pre-existing reports about them.) Also consider donating to the project, and writing relevant people (e.g. Engineering Steering Council?), petitioning them to work on the quality of M1 support.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I'll give it another go and file what I see. I can't recall exactly what problems I ran into, but I remember having trouble with choppy scrolling and some UI elements appearing blurred. But I'll need to play with it again. It was awhile ago. I'm always happy to support a project if I end up using it ;)
    - einpoklum 5y ago
      I've filed something like... well, probably over 60 bugs related to RTL, Hebrew, and Arabic support (in addition to many others). In my experience, something like... maybe half or so have gotten some traction on them within a year of filing, and many have been completely resolved. Sometimes even quickly.
KronisLV 5y ago
> Why in the world don't you switch to Libre Office? As someone who uses LibreOffice to the point that it has displaced MS Office (which is no longer installed on any of my private devices, only work ones), i have to agree that it's the better option of the two. However, one could make the argument for OpenOffice that it's pretty much stable/finished/dead at this point which also means that it's unlikely to have unexpected breaking changes, or even changes to the UI or anything else: which would be horrible for software like OpenSSL that needs to deal with security related issues and patches, but might be more passable for an office suite, given that the OpenDocument formats aren't changing that much. Of course, since OpenOffice does get some updates, the most severe problems would probably get addressed anyways: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Releases https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Release... Thus, it can be a viable package to just install and forget about, hence it's widespread in some universities that don't have awfully lot of resources to keep LibreOffice installs up to date (and if users learn it, then they'll probably be able to keep those skills relevant for the rest of its lifetime). Of course, one can also make an argument that you can just run an old version of LibreOffice, since the changes aren't that severe.
- tokai 5y ago
  But its not stable/finished - only dead. The devs just left the project. OO has only been getting sparse bug and security fixes for half a decade now. Security issues stay open for years.

I tried it awhile back, but it's also extremely slow on an M1 and I found the UI issues even more annoying than the ones I was used to in OpenOffice.

hutzlibu 5y ago
As far as I understand, apache open office is not really in active developement, unlike libre office. So maybe try it again at some point. (the main developers left open office to fork it as libre office, after oracle aquired sun and open office with it, but destroyed it and after it was burned and pretty much without contributers, donated the name to the apache foundation, who for reasons unknown to me, do not want to merge again)
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  About the reaons of the not happening merger between open office and libre office, it might be because of license issues. LibreOffice is with copyleft and OpenOffice switched to dual licence https://mobile.twitter.com/ApacheOO/status/1316422829202604032 https://mobile.twitter.com/ApacheOO/status/13164228292026040... Frustrating.
einpoklum 5y ago
Please file bugs about these issues at: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/ https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/ (but first search for pre-existing reports about them.) Also consider donating to the project, and writing relevant people (e.g. Engineering Steering Council?), petitioning them to work on the quality of M1 support.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I'll give it another go and file what I see. I can't recall exactly what problems I ran into, but I remember having trouble with choppy scrolling and some UI elements appearing blurred. But I'll need to play with it again. It was awhile ago. I'm always happy to support a project if I end up using it ;)
  - einpoklum 5y ago
    I've filed something like... well, probably over 60 bugs related to RTL, Hebrew, and Arabic support (in addition to many others). In my experience, something like... maybe half or so have gotten some traction on them within a year of filing, and many have been completely resolved. Sometimes even quickly.

KronisLV 5y ago

> Why in the world don't you switch to Libre Office? As someone who uses LibreOffice to the point that it has displaced MS Office (which is no longer installed on any of my private devices, only work ones), i have to agree that it's the better option of the two. However, one could make the argument for OpenOffice that it's pretty much stable/finished/dead at this point which also means that it's unlikely to have unexpected breaking changes, or even changes to the UI or anything else: which would be horrible for software like OpenSSL that needs to deal with security related issues and patches, but might be more passable for an office suite, given that the OpenDocument formats aren't changing that much. Of course, since OpenOffice does get some updates, the most severe problems would probably get addressed anyways: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Releases https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Release... Thus, it can be a viable package to just install and forget about, hence it's widespread in some universities that don't have awfully lot of resources to keep LibreOffice installs up to date (and if users learn it, then they'll probably be able to keep those skills relevant for the rest of its lifetime). Of course, one can also make an argument that you can just run an old version of LibreOffice, since the changes aren't that severe.

tokai 5y ago
But its not stable/finished - only dead. The devs just left the project. OO has only been getting sparse bug and security fixes for half a decade now. Security issues stay open for years.