Intel joins The Document Foundation, pushes LibreOffice


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Intel joins The Document Foundation, pushes LibreOffice

Redmond pines for bygone WinTel hegemony

Intel has begun distributing the open source LibreOffice suite via its online AppUp Store, and has joined the board of The Document Foundation (TDF) ? a decision that will have many of the Redmond old-guard fuming.

"I have been using LibreOffice from day one for presentations at conferences and for data analysis," said Dawn Foster, open source community lead at Intel, in a statement. "Our engineers have worked with the LibreOffice codebase to optimize it for Intel hardware. Adding it to the AppUp Center is an obvious extension, and will provide an exciting feature for all Ultrabook users."

While LibreOffice already has a cozy relationship with the main open source vendors such as SUSE and Red Hat, it has lacked a major commercial member. The bagging of Intel, formerly one of Microsoft's closest allies in the technology world, is a major coup, and TDF board member Florian Effenberger said he was "thrilled" with the news.

The AppUp download is a special five-language (English, German, French, Spanish and Italian) edition of LibreOffice for Windows. The free download runs on Windows 7 and XP systems, and was developed with the support of SUSE.

"We welcome Intel to The Document Foundation, and look forward to working with them," said Dr. Gerald Pfeifer, senior director of product management at SUSE. "It's great to see Intel providing LibreOffice through an exciting new channel so that more and more users can experience LibreOffice on Windows."

LibreOffice recently completed the third major overhaul to its code base since TDF divorced itself from its OpenOffice origins after Oracle started rubbing people up the wrong way. It'scurrently planning Android, iOS, and cloud builds, and is the most dynamic open source rival to Microsoft's cash-cow Office applications suite. The fact that Intel is not only distributing it but also contributing financially to its development must rankle many at Redmond. ?

Source: The Register

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I will consider LibreOffice when updating from 2.2.3 to 2.2.4 does not require downloading the whole suite of MBs all over again. It's a shame they still don't have the concept of delta/incremental patches.

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Well maybe this will help LibreOffice in areas it lacks (1) optimization (2) user interface (3) docx support and (4) not being a laughingstock of Office 2007+ crowd

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Intel sees MS shafting them by allowing windows on ARM CPUs so they're probably doing a 'well you screwed us so we will screwed you'

Never-the-less, good to see libreoffice getting bigger! :D

And I agree about the incremental updates, but not just with libreoffice, EVERYTHING. On linux it wastes so much space by downloading packages when all you'd need are 'change-bits' and just to apply them, would really reduce the required load :(

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Well maybe this will help LibreOffice in areas it lacks (1) optimization (2) user interface (3) docx support and (4) not being a laughingstock of Office 2007+ crowd

LibreOffice supports docx format.

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LibreOffice supports docx format.

There's a difference between 'being able to open it and look somewhat like the original' and supporting something.

LibreOffice is okay. But Microsoft made a brilliant interface with the Ribbon, it'll take some very innovative ideas to beat it.

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LibreOffice supports docx format.

Supporting the format is one thing. Getting the layout intact is another. That said, the reverse holds true as well - Word 2010 didn't open a .odt file correctly the last time I tried it.

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Since I just did a fresh install on my new PC I needed Office. Saw this thread and installed this instead, tried to open my .docx resume file and it didn't retain the layout I had done.

Back to Office.

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LibreOffice supports docx format.

Just as predecessor OpenOffice did.

It was like the old assumption (which I am still busily debunking) that Office 2010 no longer supports the old Office document/spreadsheet/etc., formats.

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Great news! LibreOffice is a superb FOSS office suite. Combined with Google Docs, it fulfils all my work/personal needs.

Since I just did a fresh install on my new PC I needed Office. Saw this thread and installed this instead, tried to open my .docx resume file and it didn't retain the layout I had done.

Back to Office.

All my files are stored in the OpenDocument format. Microsoft's proprietary extensions make docx unsuitable for my needs. I've also noticed a lot of public institutions are now requiring true open standards that are supported across multiple platforms and implementations.

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LibreOffice supports docx format.

Yes with only slight problems which make it unreliable for properly rendering that homework assignment that you need to turn in in 10 minutes.

Worthless!

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Supporting the format is one thing. Getting the layout intact is another. That said, the reverse holds true as well - Word 2010 didn't open a .odt file correctly the last time I tried it.

Tested more than 100 OpenDocument Text and OpenDocument Spreadsheet files a week ago. Everything opened perfectly in Word and Excel.

The major problem with LO is that it uses Java, and is terribly slow, as all Java applications that I've tried. Not to mention that installing Java opens up a huge security window.

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There's a difference between 'being able to open it and look somewhat like the original' and supporting something.

LibreOffice is okay. But Microsoft made a brilliant interface with the Ribbon, it'll take some very innovative ideas to beat it.

Ribbon is stupid and difficult to navigate for non-technical users, if you resize your window you lose access to buttons sometimes, and some of the buttons aren't even labeled.

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Ribbon is stupid and difficult to navigate for non-technical users.

Im the only tech guy in my family and friends, and they all prefer 2007, 2010 UI over 2003 UI.

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I quite like LibreOffice. And to everyone that's complaining: Think of the price. Exactly.

That's a good enough sell for me. More people that use it means less crappy conversions to MS Office DOCX's :p

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I quite like LibreOffice. And to everyone that's complaining: Think of the price. Exactly.

That's a good enough sell for me. More people that use it means less crappy conversions to MS Office DOCX's :p

To be fair, even Google Docs does a better conversion job than LibreOffice (converting .doc files - it kept choking on .docx documents), and especially presentations - I posted a presentation made in PowerPoint 2010 to Google Docs and it did a 90% accurate conversion, keeping the theme intact, with only the fonts being incorrect (only because said font wasn't available in Google Docs).

Plus it's also free, is argubly many times more convienent given it's online, and there's nifty collaboration features.

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Back to Office.
LaTeX, bro'.
The major problem with LO is that it uses Java, and is terribly slow, as all Java applications that I've tried. Not to mention that installing Java opens up a huge security window.
You don't need JRE for LibreOffice.
To be fair, even Google Docs does a better conversion job than LibreOffice (converting .doc files - it kept choking on .docx documents), and especially presentations - I posted a presentation made in PowerPoint 2010 to Google Docs and it did a 90% accurate conversion, keeping the theme intact, with only the fonts being incorrect (only because said font wasn't available in Google Docs).
It is incredibly difficult to correctly work with the clusterfunk versions of OOXML.
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Tested more than 100 OpenDocument Text and OpenDocument Spreadsheet files a week ago. Everything opened perfectly in Word and Excel.

I have had problems opening OpenDocument files using Microsoft software in the past. That's why I stick to LibreOffice and Google Docs. Both of those never have a problem opening OpenDocument files. In addition, I use WIndows and Linux, so I like software consistency.

As far as opening proprietary formats with LibreOffice go, it's not a problem for me because I store all my documents in the OpenDocument format anyway. It's better supported across platforms.

The major problem with LO is that it uses Java, and is terribly slow, as all Java applications that I've tried. Not to mention that installing Java opens up a huge security window.

I thought it was written in C++.

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