4 ms·

LO and other openoffice suites are progeny of StarOffice, originally released in 1985. Even with such a long development history, there are deep compatibility

LO and other openoffice suites are progeny of StarOffice, originally released in 1985. Even with such a long development history, there are deep compatibility issues which make it unacceptable for the "power users" that comprise the most profitable segment of the market. And if you really want to go down that rabbit hole of perfect compatibility, it's an absolute clusterf*ck. There are more than than 20 different 100+ page specs (some exceeding 500 pages) needed to properly parse excel files. An incomplete list (which you can find by searching for the keyword): MS-XLS, MS-CFB, MS-ODRAW, MS-ODRAWXML, MS-OGRAPH, MS-OFFCRYPTO, MS-RMPR, MS-OVBA, MS-OSHARED, MS-CTXLS, ECMA-376, MS-OLEDS, MS-OLEPS, MS-DTYP, MS-XLSB, MS-OFORMS, MS-VBAL, MS-OAUT, MS-DCOM, MS-XLSX But if you are looking to contribute to an open source project, consider some of these reasonably active projects (I'm sure I am missing some really good libraries here, so don't consider this a comprehensive list): https://github.com/tealeg/xlsx https://github.com/tealeg/xlsx (go, xlsx read) https://poi.apache.org/ https://poi.apache.org/ (java) https://github.com/Niggler/js-xlsx https://github.com/Niggler/js-xlsx (javascript, xlsx read) https://github.com/Niggler/js-xls https://github.com/Niggler/js-xls (javascript, xls read) https://phpexcel.codeplex.com/ https://phpexcel.codeplex.com/ (php) http://www.python-excel.org/ http://www.python-excel.org/ (python, based on openoffice ) https://github.com/randym/axlsx https://github.com/randym/axlsx (ruby, xlsx write) https://github.com/seamusabshere/remote_table https://github.com/seamusabshere/remote_table (ruby, xls/xlsx read)

jebblue 13y ago
>> But if you are looking to contribute to an open source project, consider some of these reasonably active projects Anything I've ever needed any of the OpenOffice/LibreOffice tools to do have worked fine. I don't think it does anyone service to suggest to projects which keep the proprietary Microsoft Office suite alive.
- nonchalance 13y ago
  To successfully replace the office suite, in the beginning you must be able to interact with office files. Joel Spolsky (member of the office development team) attributed their success to this: > Microsoft Office ended up beating its competitors because it was able to read and write to file formats other than its own. For example, Excel was able to read files from Lotus, and was able to save the file without losing any information. The important lesson in order to gain market share was that in order for new users to try Microsoft Excel, they had to be able to work with the files their coworkers were creating. > Lesson: You don’t want your customers to feel locked into using your software. It helps with sales cycles because customers know that they can switch away if they so choose. While customers will be willing to try your product, they think two steps ahead. They want to ensure they can easily migrate to a new system. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/07/spolsky-on-software-on-both-sides-of-the-table/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/07/spolsky-on-sof...

jebblue 13y ago

>> But if you are looking to contribute to an open source project, consider some of these reasonably active projects Anything I've ever needed any of the OpenOffice/LibreOffice tools to do have worked fine. I don't think it does anyone service to suggest to projects which keep the proprietary Microsoft Office suite alive.

nonchalance 13y ago
To successfully replace the office suite, in the beginning you must be able to interact with office files. Joel Spolsky (member of the office development team) attributed their success to this: > Microsoft Office ended up beating its competitors because it was able to read and write to file formats other than its own. For example, Excel was able to read files from Lotus, and was able to save the file without losing any information. The important lesson in order to gain market share was that in order for new users to try Microsoft Excel, they had to be able to work with the files their coworkers were creating. > Lesson: You don’t want your customers to feel locked into using your software. It helps with sales cycles because customers know that they can switch away if they so choose. While customers will be willing to try your product, they think two steps ahead. They want to ensure they can easily migrate to a new system. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/07/spolsky-on-software-on-both-sides-of-the-table/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/07/spolsky-on-sof...