Apache OO vs Libre Office

I haven't used any 'nasty' language.

LibO may not actually be a virus but it is about as stable as a jelly trifle in an earthquake zone.

I firmly believe that The Document Foundation are progressing too fast & releasing near-betas as 'stable'.

My issues happened on multiple machines & plenty of others had the same problems. This is not a case of FUD but one of personal experience.

I don't need to make this stuff up.

 

You can say that again!

Yeah, in win7x64, each creates a different folder in userspace, one "OpenOffice.org" and one "LibreOffice", so they can coexist, but as you say, i wouldn't want them to fight over file associations. So i ll start with Apache, if it goes well, I will stick to Apache.

I already made some trials in text document, it's pretty intuitive in writing, although i am not an expert in word processing software. Will see presentations later.

I had used Open Office again many years ago, but in the meantime i had switched to AbiWord for a long period and used Microsoft's "Power point viewer" to see power points. But i prefer having a suite now.

Thanks again.

 

You're welcome (again).

 

I believe you. It's like AMD. When you have to release something just because "you promiced", it's natural that there will be problems. So AMD was releasing driver 12.4 and then after 2 days you had release of 12.4a fix, after another 2 days 12.4b hotfix and then 12.4c hotfix and people swearing all around internet fora saying "now it broke my other game", "mine doesn't install", "i get BSOD", "now i have crash to desktop", etc. FINALLY, the company itself understood that this couldn't go on and said "that's it, we stop scheduled monthly updates, we will release when we must and have done better betatesting". And the situation is much better.


It's not FUD, i am sure, as i found an example myself here:

http://decentralist.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/libreoffice-vs-openoffice-not-always-simple/

You have one program slowly upgraded, another which is a fork and very aggressively updated and yet you see it fail, despite being upgraded. The answer to how a more evoluted fails to produce the results of its forefather is obvious. In the haste to upgrade, someone borked something that was right.

 

Speaking of which, version 2.9.4 is now available:

-http://www.abisource.com/downloads/abiword/2.9.4/Windows/abiword-setup-2.9.4.exe-

 

That's a beta though, right?

 

Oh, The Document Foundation borked something all right! LOL

 

Sorry to be off topic here but has anyone tried kingsoft office suite?

 

Formally, yes. No 'upgrading every few weeks' here, but many small improvements:

http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2012/Nov/0025.html

 

I haven't used it, but gets good reviews:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2495..._office_alternative_youve_never_heard_of.html

http://www.kingsoftstore.com/news/3003-review-free-office-software


SoftMaker Office (it has a free version too), is also good (it's really the source of AShampoo Office). I 've used the free version and at least for MS Compatibility it's good. I think i only once had a slight visualization problem with a complicated power point.

 

Well its good to see slow but gradual progress. I rate AbiWord highly.

 

Now i see what you meant about politics:

http://lehors.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/libreoffice-should-declare-victory-and-rejoin-openoffice/

From the comments it seems there is a sort of "civil war" between the 2 offices (to the benefit of MS of course). I agree with the author, they should recombine in order to go after the real "enemy", Microsoft. Instead, we 're having now a sort of "distros" for Offices... Divide and Conquer...

 

Thanks, that was an interesting blog. It would probably be a good idea. This is what happens when things get out of forking hand LOL. M$ are the winners here.

I think PortableApps have only just got permission to release an updated version of OO from Apache (which is in progress). It was looking decidedly dodgy when OO was still Oracle.

Although I often still use the PortableApps version 3.2.0. It works fine. I won't even use the LibO portable, I learned my lesson with that as well. It makes the desktop version look stable.

 

I've used latest LibreOffice (Portable edition from PortableApps.com) for more than a year and I never encountered such issues regarding its stability. I intensely used Writer and Impress, sometimes Calc and Draw. Not saying I didn't experience issues with LibreOffice, but the issues I had with LibreOffice plague all office suites, except Microsoft Office: they aren't fully compatible with Microsoft Office formats.

Anyways, I recently switched to Microsoft Office 2010 Pro Plus, which is a very superior product and really fulfills all my needs.

 

BTW, LibreOffice Portable used to need to be installed on short paths (like C:/xx/LibreOfficePortable) in order to properly work. Long install paths (like C:/xx/yy/bb/cc/nn/LibreOfficePortable) would make the suite unstable.

 

I used it for less than 5 minutes & decided I would never use it again.

I've used OO for over 4 years on multiple machines & never had a problem with it. Only some rare & very trivial formatting problems when opening complex Word documents. I gave LibO several months on one computer. I really was glad to see the back of it.

I prefer OO to MS Office. OpenOffice fulfils everything I need it to do, it is stable & easy to use. Plus it didn't cost me anything. You just can't get better than that.

 

When you tried it for "5 minutes", did you install LibreOffice Portable on a short path (like C:/LibreOfficePortable)? If not, that may be the problem that caused all the "instability", as I already mentioned on my previous post.

If you want to see lots of formatting errors, open the documents you are making with your OpenOffice suite (even if you save them on .doc format) with some version of Microsoft Office. Most people use Microsoft Office, so you may be making documents that look perfectly fine on your OpenOffice suite, but horrible on others machines (if they happen to use Microsoft Office). That's only relevant if you actually send/share your documents with others, like I need to.

And Microsoft Office didn't cost me anything. My university has a deal with Microsoft.

 

Just in case i am installing Word Viewer:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4

Just to make sure that the docs made in OO look ok in MS Word too. I already had Excel and Power Point Viewer and i thought "who knows, maybe there is a Word one too". And in deed there is...

 

I had trouble installing it full stop. It just wouldn't run. I never had this problem with OO.

My documents look fine, even if I open them in Word on other machines. I often do this at work anyway.

Well, I don't know if the college I actually lecture at has a deal with M$ or not, but I wouldn't have M$ Office on a computer I own even if it was free.

 

Looks like a good idea.

 

LibreOffice Portable used to crash if the path was too long, or if there was a space on the path (forgot to mention). Version 3.5.4 of LibreOffice Portable was also particularly buggy. The old OpenOffice Portable 3.2.0 may be stable but it's full of security holes (almost 3 years without patches), so I wouldn't recommend using it.

 

Almost 3 years? When was 3.0 released? It's only at 3.4.1 now.

Yeah, I'm sure hackers are just dreaming up ways of using it to spread malware. I've been using it for quite a while at work & I've never been infected through it.

You've probably got a more realistic chance of being hit by an Earth-crossing asteroid, getting run over, momentarily being electrocuted & then kidnapped by extraterrestrials all at the same time, than a portable version of OO 3.2.0 being the cause of a malware infection.

Dream on.

 

OpenOffice Portable 3.2.0 was released on 2010-02-25. Since then, PortableApps.com lost the authorization to create portable versions of newer OO versions. They are trying to get the authorization from Apache now apparently, but their main efforts seem to be on LibreOffice Portable and John T. Haller explicitly recommends LibreOffice Portable at this point:
http://portableapps.com/node/32155#comment-195018
http://portableapps.com/node/32155#comment-194444
http://portableapps.com/node/32155#comment-194332

OpenOffice Portable 3.2.0 is based on OpenOffice 3.2.0 which has several discovered and documented security vulnerabilites: http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerabi...ersion_id-92777/SUN-Openoffice.org-3.2.0.html

The probability of an attack remains small as long as its user-base remains small IMO. The fact is: it can be exploited really easily.

 

Not true, & a bit of a pork pie, actually it says on their site: "We are currently working with Apache (the new owner of OpenOffice and its trademarks) on an updated legal version of 3.4.0."

So it is a work in progress.

It's not their 'main efforts' so much as they got permission for LibO earlier. They are meanwhile steadfastly working on an OO version.

Maybe, maybe not. I haven't been exploited with it yet. I doubt it is a problem in the real world if you have a decent AV amongst other precautions. It won't deter me from using it until I can use a more recent portable OO release. I'd rather walk up a motorway with nails in my shoes than try LibO portable again. You're flogging a dead horse mate.

 

You got the wrong impression if you think that I'm trying to convince you to use LibreOffice. I'm merely stating some facts to counter some FUD about LibreOffice that you may be unintentionally spreading. I just like the expression of both sides of a story.

My statement about PortableApps.com trying to get authorization from Apache remains true and your quoted statement just confirm it. And yes, I'm pretty sure they allocate more resources to LibreOffice Portable. Six months passed since those posts from John T. Haller that I linked - and still no Apache OO Portable was released, while LibreOffice Portable continues to get better.