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Here comes LibreOffice -- an Oracle-free fork of OpenOffice
First it was OpenSolaris, now it's OpenOffice. Yes, another previously-Sun-led initiative is being forked as a 'thanks-but-no-thanks' response to the arrival of Oracle on the scene.
The freshly-formed Document Foundation is being created to further the goals and aspirations of OpenOffice.org, and will produce LibreOffice -- a more community-focused project. Initial supporters of LibreOffice include the FSF, OSI, Canonical, and the GNOME foundation. Oracle has been invited to the party as well, though they've yet to RSVP.
As The H points out, there's some uncertainty about Oracle's commitment to OpenOffice development, hence the desire by a certain group to fork. The Document Foundation hopes that LibreOffice's independence from Oracle will attract more contributors and lead to an even better, more popular product.
The freshly-formed Document Foundation is being created to further the goals and aspirations of OpenOffice.org, and will produce LibreOffice -- a more community-focused project. Initial supporters of LibreOffice include the FSF, OSI, Canonical, and the GNOME foundation. Oracle has been invited to the party as well, though they've yet to RSVP.
As The H points out, there's some uncertainty about Oracle's commitment to OpenOffice development, hence the desire by a certain group to fork. The Document Foundation hopes that LibreOffice's independence from Oracle will attract more contributors and lead to an even better, more popular product.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentshectormaciasa79Sep 29th 2010 2:36PM
Great, but it should be called Yet Another Office.
KohdSep 28th 2010 4:10PM
Also see MySQL/MariaDB.
hectormaciasa79Sep 29th 2010 2:36PM
http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/testing/
Here is de DEB version.
Alex2112Sep 28th 2010 4:26PM
Then Virtualbox is next in line?
pingSep 28th 2010 6:56PM
Not a chance. Oracle has expressed great interest in VirtualBox.
jfjbSep 28th 2010 5:07PM
Quickly compared to Ooo v3.2.1 and GoOo v3.2.1-11(look them up) this LO v3.3.0 beta 1 has some '+' and some '-'.
( about the installation )
the installation package is much smaller
the installation is a tad longer multi-pass process
the installed results are a lot smaller
( about running application -- WinXP SP3, 3GB of RAM, 3GB of virtual memory, 200 GB free disk space - tested only Writer )
the load time is a tad faster (forgot to check the footprint)
the CPU load stays at 50%
the documents do not return to last cursor position and view
the scroll bars do not 'go' when set not to show
( about ancillary files )
personal dictionaries and extensions do not show as after 'forking' from Ooo to Go-oo because LibreOffice creates a new Documents and Settings\\Application Data\LibreOffice, whereas Go-oo used the original Ooo tree, therefore it is easy to copy files over since the tree structures are more or less the same
( all in all )
if you're on a deadline at work for somebody else, if you are not knowledgeable about your system or if you are unwilling to take the time to set yourself up to speed with these details and other options, don't leave your day job and their favorite tools you've learn so well to use
if you're committed to open source non-proprietary independent community participation, participate, and you'll learn in the process something that may look, feel, smell and taste different, that'll be you
my two-cents, I may be wrong
jfjbSep 28th 2010 5:08PM
P.S. Oh, and it is fast! Very fast. :-)
GregSep 29th 2010 3:49AM
LibreOffice? There is already an OO fork: Go-oo. Compared with up-stream OO.o, it has better Microsoft binary file support (with eg. fields support), and it will import WordPerfect graphics beautifully.
anonymousSep 30th 2010 5:16PM
Yes, but Go-oo is tied to Novell. The point here is to remove the dependence on vendors so that if {CompanyA} is sold to {CompanyB} it no longer affects the users of a given project adversely.