LibreOffice 7.3 RC1 Available For Testing This Open-Source Office Suite

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LibreOffice 7.3 RC1 Available For Testing This Open-Source Office Suite

LibreOffice 7.3 is due out in early February while for ensuring it will be another successful feature release to this open-source office suite, LibreOffice 7.3 RC1 was made available today for some nice holiday testing...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LibreOffice-7.3-RC1

[gnarlin]

The most common complaint that I hear and read about is that LibreOffice isn't compatible enough with MS Office and more specifically doesn't support Excel spreadsheets well. Is there any actual data on compatibility or is this just something that people experienced 10-20 years ago with OpenOffice back in the day and now carry that belief today?

[Linuxhippy]

Too bad, still no Vulkan rendering backend on Linux :/

[caligula]

The most common complaint that I hear and read about is that LibreOffice isn't compatible enough with MS Office and more specifically doesn't support Excel spreadsheets well. Is there any actual data on compatibility or is this just something that people experienced 10-20 years ago with OpenOffice back in the day and now carry that belief today?

90% of those who complain don't know the difference between Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. They only know Open Office is shit because it's free as in beer, which means that no professional ever contributed any code. If something works, it's either copied from Microsoft or stolen from those big MS source code leaks.

[uid313]

90% of those who complain don't know the difference between Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. They only know Open Office is shit because it's free as in beer, which means that no professional ever contributed any code. If something works, it's either copied from Microsoft or stolen from those big MS source code leaks.

Actually LibreOffice derives from the proprietary software office suite StarOffice developed by paid developers at the German company Star-Division. Then bought and maintained by paid developers at Sun Microsystems.

[cl333r]

Actually LibreOffice derives from the proprietary software office suite StarOffice developed by paid developers at the German company Star-Division. Then bought and maintained by paid developers at Sun Microsystems.

And when it was open sourced and people looked at the source code they realized it was a steaming pile of horse manure, quality wise. Which is the main reason StarOffice failed.

[Romaker]

The most common complaint that I hear and read about is that LibreOffice isn't compatible enough with MS Office and more specifically doesn't support Excel spreadsheets well. Is there any actual data on compatibility or is this just something that people experienced 10-20 years ago with OpenOffice back in the day and now carry that belief today?

Well, the Writer still has issues with figures inside both doc and docx. Some scientific paper docx templates, e.g., RSC, could not be opened with Writer at all. Complex formatting is not the strongest side of all LO equvalents. I use both LO 7.2 and Office 365.

[caligula]

Actually LibreOffice derives from the proprietary software office suite StarOffice developed by paid developers at the German company Star-Division. Then bought and maintained by paid developers at Sun Microsystems.

That basically proves both: 1) parts of LibreOffice have been developed by professionals & 2) even professionals can produce low quality code.

[caligula]

And when it was open sourced and people looked at the source code they realized it was a steaming pile of horse manure, quality wise. Which is the main reason StarOffice failed.

All code bases with longer history also contain more or less technical debt. It's easy to look back now. Most PCs have been 64-bit since 2005 or so, basically providing the same OS interfaces and programming paradigms. They've also had plenty of resources for office suites. This wasn't the case in the early years of StarOffice. The first version was targeting 8-bit computers.

[OneTimeShot]

90% of those who complain don't know the difference between Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. They only know Open Office is shit because it's free as in beer, which means that no professional ever contributed any code. If something works, it's either copied from Microsoft or stolen from those big MS source code leaks.

LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice from when Apache changed the licence. They are pretty similar IIRC. I think most code changes get applied to both.