LibreOffice

[lxskllr]

The OpenOffice project forked, largely due to Oracle's takeover of Sun. The project was fairly closed anyway, due to Sun wanting to have absolute control, and copyright to all contributions to the project. The first stable release of LibreOffice, actually added some new features, and I'm expecting development to accelerate with the more open environment.

Why am I telling you this? I thought there may be one or two people who weren't familiar with OpenOffice, and maybe some more who weren't aware of the project fork. It's compatible with MS Office, and absolutely free. Free as in cost, and you're also free to do with it as you like. From distributing, to adding code, to selling it(assuming you can find a buyer, or have compelling features/support to add). Appleites should take particular notice. You don't get treated like a second class citizen, as you do with MS Office.

Check it out. It's a pretty good package...

http://www.libreoffice.org/

[Corvus]

Thanks for the heads up. I've been an OpenOffice user since the StarOffice days.

[chadizzy1]

Thanks for the heads up. I've been an OpenOffice user since the StarOffice days.

I've used OpenOffice for a long time. What's different about LibreOffice?

[Corvus]

I've used OpenOffice for a long time. What's different about LibreOffice?

I'm about to find out.

[snusgetter]

I've used Open Office for quite some time and am overall satisfied with it... in fact it's usually always open since I use it quite frequently and it's not a resource hog.

Thanks for the heads-up, lx... I'm downloading it now. Just wonder if it plays well with OOO on OS-X (blasphemy ........... I know!!).

[lxskllr]

Right now it basically is OOo. The project forked in Nov I believe, and this is the first stable release. I think you'll see more divergence in the future as features get added. This also will be replacing the Go-OO branch which was OOo for Linux. That was a separate fork that included patches that Sun(now Oracle) wouldn't accept upstream. The Go-oo project will be closing, and the devs will start working on the LibreOffice project. Also, most of the devs jumped ship when the project started, so most of those that were working on OOo, are now with LibreOffice. It would probably be more accurate to think of LibreOffice as the primary suite, as opposed to OOo.

In the immediate future they plan to clean up the code, and get everything streamlined. I noticed program startup was faster on my Windows box when I switched to Go-OO from OOo. That should be noticeable in LibreOffice also since it includes the Go-OO patches..

[Corvus]

Startup time is definitely improved over OOo on my XP box. Haven't really delved too deep into it yet, but I'm liking the GUI. Definitely more streamlined and easier on the eyes.

[ratcheer]

I've been using Open Office for about a year and a half and LibreOffice for about the past week or two. Good stuff!

Tim

[Rattlesnake]

I needed something like this to do stuff on. THANKS lxskllr!!!!!!!!!!