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My understanding is that there was an enormous amount of useless 'spaghetti code' remaining in the OO legacy code that ate up cpu cycles but did nothing and slowed down OO and made support rather difficult When Libre Office was branched off of Open Office, much of that useless code was trimmed. (Any programmer can tell you this is NOT an easy task, you can 'break' a lot of stuff if you aren't careful)

It made LO a tiny bit faster and slightly more responsive, but the real potential gain was in making changes easier. Clearly Apache would want to clean that up to remain competitive. When Apache took on OO, the speculation was that Apache had 2 big tasks.
  1. Rebuild the supporting developers many of whom left for LO. Volunteer developers with the right skills and willingness to work for free don't grow on trees!
  2. Clean up the code in the way LO did, and restructure the code for growth.
I don't know that this is what they did, but it is what I would have done. I suspect this release won't be radically different from the last one. But it would be worth it long term if it results in a better platform for the future.
 
Here is a short comparison of the two products. A quote:

"Because both programs are open source and share a code base, they're more similar than different. Today, LibreOffice has a slightly better range of new and improved word processing features, while OpenOffice is slightly ahead in performance."

My conclusion is that OpenOffice is more refined, while LibreOffice more cutting edge. Seems to me they are so similar there is no compelling reason to switch from one to the other. That may change over time, and it will be worthwhile to consider the other product if you run into issues with the one you are using. I'm currently happy with OpenOffice 4.0, by since I've retired I no longer tax the limits of these products, and my needs now are very modest. Both are big time overkill for me.

The only real annoyance is the conversion of document format from and to those still contributing to the Bill Gates yacht fund.
 
They used the old name and attached it to a branch of Open Office. Apparently, support has also stopped on it and the code was donated to Apache in 2012. So if there is any added value in that code, we'll likely see it in OO eventually.

I don't recall it being all that different from OO in look and feel or in functionality. I vaguely recall that there was some additional support for file formats important to IBM users. So we might see some formats pop up in OO that might not appear in LO, but I doubt they would likely be mainstream formats that many people need.
 
Oops!!!!
Thanks for that
 
BG454 said:
MisterBG wrote:
BG454 said:
Ron AKA wrote:

The only real annoyance is the conversion of document format from and to those still contributing to the Bill Gates yacht fund.
Click to expand...
Actually it was co-founder Paul Allen that went the yacht route:

http://www.slideshare.net/iamdaryllmc/paul-allens-octopus

It may have been the largest when it was launched but it's not in the top 10 now.

Bill is better known for his philanthropy these days.
Click to expand...
Right, I guess I was thinking of Steve Jobs and his self designed $200 million dollar yacht. No wonder his computers cost twice as much as they should...
 
Never use free wares. Always pay Microsoft full retail price to help dealers and workers. In other words, don't be a cheapskate.
 
Looking for a word processor that works with Windows 8. Never new free ware existed till now. All my previous computer purchases had some type of document processor (Lotus Works/Microsoft Works?) Pre-installed. Primary user will be my son (college related assignments/essays/papers etc). Any thoughts on Corel's Word Perfect ?
 
Texas Heat said:
Texas Heat wrote:

Looking for a word processor that works with Windows 8. Never new free ware existed till now. All my previous computer purchases had some type of document processor (Lotus Works/Microsoft Works?) Pre-installed. Primary user will be my son (college related assignments/essays/papers etc). Any thoughts on Corel's Word Perfect ?

--
Cindy
Click to expand...
It's still a pretty good office suite. It was THE suite of office tools before Microsoft Office Came along.

As good as WP is, I have a hard time recommending a commercial office package over OO or LO. Unless you have a need for a specific tool that a commercial office package offers, I just don't see that you get anything extra for your money. Certainly not anything that an individual might need for personal use. A corporate/business situation might be different in some cases.

--
I still like soup. . .
Now that you've judged the quality of my typing, take a look at my photos. . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7267302@N03/
 
Last edited:
Glen Barrington said:
Glen Barrington wrote:
Glen Barrington said:
Texas Heat wrote:

Looking for a word processor that works with Windows 8. Never new free ware existed till now. All my previous computer purchases had some type of document processor (Lotus Works/Microsoft Works?) Pre-installed. Primary user will be my son (college related assignments/essays/papers etc). Any thoughts on Corel's Word Perfect ?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Texas Heat said:
Texas Heat wrote: Any thoughts on Corel's Word Perfect?
Click to expand...
I was a big fan of WordPerfect and especially their reveal codes feature. If you ever got into trouble with format you could always figure it out. Not so with Word and others. However, I think the sun has set on WordPerfect. I didn't even think it still existed. MS Word is the business standard. OO can open Word docs and save in Word format. It wouldn't exist either if it wasn't for that.
 
Both OO & LO Writer module have a way to show something similar to what I remember from WP.

In the top row of icons is a Paragraph Mark (Like P but flipped horizontally).

Click that to show non-printing characters.
 
That the office automation tools are a pretty mature software category, word processing especially. I don't think we see the sort of unexplained 'odd formatting behavior' that we saw 15-20 years ago.

That being said, when it does occur, 'reveal code' is still useful. But for the newbies, I don't think selecting a suite using its reveal code functionality as a major decision point is going to buy you that much. I would look for cost, and a user interface that doesn't drive you crazy. When it comes to basic functionality, they are all pretty much the same.
 
Very true. Unless users are skilled and want true semantic control, then they'd use an XML-based editor, which isn't suitable for the average user.

Regards,
Mike
 
Every time you go on the Internet you're using free software. Plus, if you support a free software project like LibreOffice with your $$, it goes a very long way.
 
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