
LibreOffice is one - gorglax
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/10/libreoffice-is-one/index.htm
======
Osiris
I think my one issue with LibreOffice is, honestly, the name. I speak Spanish,
so I get the meaning behind Libre meaning free (as in unencumbered, or
available, not referring to price).

But for some reason the name still bugs me. OpenOffice was such a nice, clean
name. LibreOffice just doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way.

~~~
technomancy
> OpenOffice was such a nice, clean name.

Actually technically it was called OpenOffice.org, which is pretty silly.

~~~
Osiris
True, but it was easy enough talking to non-techies to just drop the .org and
no one was the wiser. I also agree the .org was a bit odd to include in the
official name.

------
reirob
I am an LibreOffice user since the StarDivision days - at those times on OS/2,
before Internet became available for public in Germany. I am happy that this
product survived all this and I am especially happy that LibreOffice gained
success after one year and so is less under control of companies. Congrats to
all the contributors!

By looking at the chart showing which companies contribute how much I am
surprised that Canonical has such as small slice in contribution? How comes?
It is the distribution that is focused on end users and pushes the desktop,
innovates on the UI. Is Canonical putting higher priority on the app store?
What do you think?

Another feature that I think is important for LibreOffice and to the
OpenSource scene in general is to get some synchronization (and maybe
collaboration) functionality, without a vendor lock-in. Mozilla is managed to
do this - though the amount of data is surely not comparable. I understand
that it costs money to keep all the servers running and adding hard disks, but
I think people would be ready to pay a fee - if it is guaranteed to be free of
advertisement, the code to stay open source and the data private.

------
varikin
I always wanted to support OpenOffice and then LibreOffice, but it has never
been as good as Word. Sadly, the corporate world uses MS Office and that
forces me to use Office. The compatibility for complex files are lacking.
Formatting would regularly be screwed up in one or the other. I tried
LibreOffice again a couple months ago and it crashed 4 times while trying to
create one document. I have given up and lost hope in LibreOffice.

~~~
brown
Yep. In particular, "track changes". As soon as you have to collaborate on a
document with a lawyer or a counterparty, track changes becomes a must-have.

I'm not quite as pessimistic. These are solvable problems. It's just taking a
really long time.

~~~
Udo
Yes, it's a must-have, that's why it's been part of LibreOffice for quite a
while: go to menu Edit > Changes > Record, or to review all the changes to the
document use the "Accept or Reject" function. It's all there, isn't it? What
is it with LibreOffice's change tracker that you don't like?

~~~
ams6110
I think the issue is that it doesn't play well with Word's change tracker. But
I could be wrong; my change tracker is diff(1).

~~~
brown
Yes, exactly what ams6110 said. The change tracking just isn't compatible
enough.

If you have a completely plain vanilla document -- no formatting, no line
breaks, no headers, no footers, no tables, nothing -- then
OpenOffice/LibreOffice's tracking is good enough. But documents are rarely
that simple. And, unfortunately, your lawyer or VC or potential acquirer
really isn't interested in discussions about document formats. They have
better things to do, and they expect you to be able to communicate with them.

------
snorkel
I was sent a 50MB spreadsheet. OpenOffice couldn't open it, Google docs
refused to even try, but LibreOffice did. Happy user.

~~~
wgx
Seconded - LibreOffice frequently opens large sheets that Numbers struggles
with.

------
jbellis
And Impress still sucks. :(

Trying to re-adapt after using Keynote for a year. It's rough. Even the simple
things, like having to click half a dozen times to find the "edge" of a text
box, because clicking in the middle either does nothing (if there is no text
there) or clicks "through" to edit the text inside.

------
awaretek
This is a fine, fine product and community.

