LibreOffice Removes Support For Some Old Targets: AIX, 32-bit s390 & More

[ryao]

I wouldn't call AIX old, it is still an active Unix but is mostly used on POWER 9 and 10 servers, not desktop use so I guess an office suite isn't needed. You can still find some AIX admin jobs that pay good money. They are much fewer in number compared to cloud admins or Linux admin jobs but they still exist, especially in the financial sector.

The commit message indicates that the code enabling AIX support is being removed because it is broken:

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=70bcf9e8bea1fee9cca44437730324ba7805b633

Presumably, they would be open to patches to bring it into working order.

[oiaohm]

No, I know what I'm doing. The thing freezed and got confused and replaced my file with old save. It's not like you can anticipate when it would freez and burn..

All office suites can do this this is not a unique Libreoffice thing. Freeze and burn is normal. You have to choose your style of burn.

And also, with libreoffice, one crashes, everything else also crashes. If only one doc lost, i wouldn't whine like I do.

This is better than MS Office where one document with word in it crashes then all the following documents you save from other open versions of word at the time and other instance of word opened while any of the prior word instances are still open are all saved in a damaged way that will not open in MS Office and if you are lucky will open in either libreoffice/openoffice if not all gone. Screwed up back-end state is very horrible,.

Libreoffice and openoffice choose the burn of if something gone wrong we will stop everything this prevent the burn from spreading. Microsoft Office choose the selective failure route that means if the backend has gone bad you have the software equal to cable virus that could spread across your complete work day. You think the failure you had was bad its nothing to the MS Office version.

The worst I have seen was in business luck they were using CMIS that automatically kept prior saved version over 120 documents in a single day from a single copy of Ms Office word backend going bad had incorrectly written up to the CMIS. Remember the person who did this over 120 file damage only had max of 10 documents at a time. Yes only one document had appeared to crash on them. After seeing this Libreoffice/openoffice crashing out did not seam that bad to me.

There are reasons why in business it like back up regularly or run CMIS servers like sharepoint or nextcloud.

mirmirmir everything is a trade off here.

I guess you never checked the libreoffice "Tools - Options - Load/Save - General" "Save AutoRecovery information every". The libreoffice default is losing 10 mins of work is acceptable this can be adjusted down 1 min if that suites you better. MS Office default autosave that is the same feature is 5 to 10 min depending on version. Current versions of MS Office are also 10 min default with configuration adjustment down to 1 min. OnlyOffice desktop is also 10min with no adjustment.

mirmirmir sorry to say majority of what happened to you is status normal for using Office suite software. Loss of 10 mins work*number of documents open is classed as acceptable data loss. People don't press the save button anywhere near as often as they should. Data management policy stuff you really do need to learn to do. As this data management policy create would have had you look at the AutoRecovery time frames and the acceptable data loss level.

I want to love the thing. But these things. Also shilling to companies? Shoving to your face word "community"? "Business" banner? Huh, blender has richer sugar daddy and yeah.

Developers have to be paid somehow. Companies using program commercially want rapid support. Blender does not have a rich sugar day these days.

https://studio.blender.org/welcome/ Most of the money that funds blender development comes in from the studio cloud fees.

The reality is people without a pay check cannot be doing SLA level support work. SLA level support work due to possible access to confidential information to solve the problems to legally enforce privacy of that information person need to be paid. The business side of libreoffice about funding and meeting the requirements business using libreoffice require for support.

[darkonix]

Who uses "their download page" among the readers of this site? Nobody.

And if you are so overstressed by using a "download page", maybe you should leave software installation to other people.

I do. For windows or macOS.

[kylew77]

I wouldn't call AIX old, it is still an active Unix but is mostly used on POWER 9 and 10 servers, not desktop use so I guess an office suite isn't needed. You can still find some AIX admin jobs that pay good money. They are much fewer in number compared to cloud admins or Linux admin jobs but they still exist, especially in the financial sector.

[oiaohm]

This is actually not correct and based on a wrong assumption made by the LibreOffice developer in the mailing list thread.

The UNO bridge for x86-64 Solaris is actually part of the patch set that the Illumos developers are maintaining in their packaging Github repository.

See: https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-us...solaris_x86-64

The block of code removed from Libreoffice was for the old Solaris closed source compiler so correct presume gcc code base is only required going forwards. Libreoffice upstream developer has not been seeing any upstream work on the Solaris or Openindana code. There has been zero push from Openindana to upstream that code as well.

Yes you could say wrong assume by Libreoffice developer. But that assume is based on actions from the illumos side not being upstream you can expect bugs at some point to happen as it gets out of alignment.

[GrumpyLinuxUser]

From the article:

But for those using the OpenSolaris-derived OpenIndiana, LibreOffice still should work. OpenIndiana x86_64 makes use of the GCC Linux x86_64 bridge implementation.

This is actually not correct and based on a wrong assumption made by the LibreOffice developer in the mailing list thread.

The UNO bridge for x86-64 Solaris is actually part of the patch set that the Illumos developers are maintaining in their packaging Github repository.

See: https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-us...solaris_x86-64

[Weasel]

And again, no Linux user should visit a "download page".

Says you.

Download pages >>>>>> distribution packages made by lazy bums who sometimes throw fits as if their job is so hard.

[kpedersen]

I do find LibreOffice's connection to partners a little bit scummy but that aside, this *is* what the open-source community wanted.

Remember 10-15 years ago when we were trying to push OpenOffice to replace Microsoft Office at work and we couldn't because it wasn't "corporate" enough for our upper management bean counters? Well, effectively these SLAs and company backed distributions of it are getting it ready for when Microsoft's product goes cloud only. Yes, again, a little slimy but lets be honest, they have to be to speak the same language as the finance department.

That said, I do use OpenOffice because it is a little lighter and don't let any productivity software go online so most security issues aren't a concern.

[stormcrow]

Ordinary users simply install Open Office.

Hardly. "Ordinary users" simply install Microsoft Office (on Windows) from 5 (10, 15...) years ago.

[caligula]

Aah yes, libreoffice. With their confusing 2 or 3 stable releases in their download page, pushing people to use their newest version. I hope they do this not because they expect people to run into bugs with their newest "stable" release, so when people complain, they can say "we told you so, if you want support, you should've gone with our business partners"

Ordinary users simply install Open Office.