Apache OpenOffice 4.1.14 Brings A Handful Of Bug Fixes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Apache OpenOffice 4.1.14 Brings A Handful Of Bug Fixes

LibreOffice 7.5 released earlier this month as just the latest six-month update to this cross-platform, open-source office suite while today the Apache Software Foundation released OpenOffice 4.1.14. While the prior release, Apache OpenOffice 4.1.13, happened all the way back in July, there isn't much to show for today's update...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Apache-OpenOffice-4.1.14

[ClosedSource]

What? How dare they release software I find useless because I have better options? Damned open source software!!!

[andyprough]

I said some bad things about OpenOffice on the Phoronix article about the last update, but since that time I tried it out with different systems and found that it works very well and with low memory usage on old 32-bit machines. On those same machines, LibreOffice is either not available as a 32-bit download from the official site, or is a bit of a memory hog using the Debian 32-bit package. So I've changed my tune - on old 32-bit machines, I do now recommend it as the office suite of choice, and I hope that the current team keeps maintaining it for that purpose. Sorry for my hostile words last time - the OpenOffice devs are doing a good and important job.

[uid313]

I can't imagine how terrible this is!
OpenOffice is even worse maintained than LibreOffice, and I just tried the latest release of of LibreOffice some weeks ago and was greatly disappointed beyond belief!

I thought it would be good, I expected it to be good, I had high hopes for it and was eager to try it with excitement, but it was worse than I could have imagined. It is stuck in the past. I know they have some different modes to make it look differently and more modern and I tried all those modes and each one of them was more terrible than the other!

[Zapp!]

Apache Graveyard™ - the place where great FLOSS projects go to die.

[schmidtbag]

What? How dare they release software I find useless because I have better options? Damned open source software!!!

Honestly it is actually causing a problem - OpenOffice is basically just an outdated and poorly maintained version of LibreOffice, yet, there's shockingly a lot of people who continue to use OpenOffice. It also implies there are developers who could potentially be improving LO but aren't.

While it's great that open source allows projects to fork in order to suit the needs of differing opinions, it's not so great when one of the projects stagnates.

[calc]

I said some bad things about OpenOffice on the Phoronix article about the last update, but since that time I tried it out with different systems and found that it works very well and with low memory usage on old 32-bit machines.

Not sure that is really a positive.

32-bit machines should have long since been recycled, especially the very slow but very high power usage Intel P4 systems.

64-bit (amd64/x86-64) have been shipping in desktop/laptops for 20 years now (2003), so you can easily get a 64-bit system for free as old ones have been thrown away for decades.

[andre30correia]

I can't imagine how terrible this is!
OpenOffice is even worse maintained than LibreOffice, and I just tried the latest release of of LibreOffice some weeks ago and was greatly disappointed beyond belief!

I thought it would be good, I expected it to be good, I had high hopes for it and was eager to try it with excitement, but it was worse than I could have imagined. It is stuck in the past. I know they have some different modes to make it look differently and more modern and I tried all those modes and each one of them was more terrible than the other!

why? I use libreoffice as daily driver, no problems or issues, most of people only need a notpad nothing more

[acobar]

I can't imagine how terrible this is!
OpenOffice is even worse maintained than LibreOffice, and I just tried the latest release of of LibreOffice some weeks ago and was greatly disappointed beyond belief!

I thought it would be good, I expected it to be good, I had high hopes for it and was eager to try it with excitement, but it was worse than I could have imagined. It is stuck in the past. I know they have some different modes to make it look differently and more modern and I tried all those modes and each one of them was more terrible than the other!

OK, now I'm really curious. What you have against LO besides the interface?

I use it daily and even fix Excel files people send to me because they don't know how to make things work (mostly, specialized macros). Yeah, open in LO Calc, fix things and export to xlsm format.

LO Writer and LO Calc have been rock solid for me and I even use LO Impress from time to time.

[uid313]

why? I use libreoffice as daily driver, no problems or issues, most of people only need a notpad nothing more

OK, now I'm really curious. What you have against LO besides the interface?

I use it daily and even fix Excel files people send to me because they don't know how to make things work (mostly, specialized macros). Yeah, open in LO Calc, fix things and export to xlsm format.

LO Writer and LO Calc have been rock solid for me and I even use LO Impress from time to time.

The user interface was terrible, every variant of them, really, really terrible.
I messed around with LO Base and LO Impress and couldn't understand anything, I was just confused and had no idea how to accomplish anything. LO Writer and LO Sheets were slightly better but still shitty. Everything was overwhelming and looked like something from three decades ago. Microsoft Office and Google Docs are a breeze to work with. I haven't tried OnlyOffice, maybe I should try that.