OpenOffice vs LibreOffice

[bug]

It's the mixture of self-importance and yet not really relevant to end users I take issue with. I guess?

That and these small opportunities of actually getting involved ended up failing too. They could have fostered some good will with OpenOffice or Solaris or whatever. But they don't. Not even IBM is this bad.

I have (briefly) worked some GSM providers and the motto of that world is "if you can't bill it, kill it". Sums up nicely Oracle's business model as well.

 

[RejZoR]

Basically, LibreOffice appeared when OpenOffice was announced to be maintained less frequently. Never looked back since then. LibreOffice is superb alternative to MS Office.

 

[John Naylor]

Libre office was recommended by IBM when it dropped the Lotus Suite and was one of the only suites that let you import SmartSutre files ... was disappointed when an upgrade removed that option. Still...its basically an improved GUI over the plain jane OO

 

[dirtyferret]

Years ago I used open office because I didn't want to buy MS office again for a new build. I had to send a document to a client which open office claimed would work with all version of office and the client could not open the doc. I don't know what version of office they had but I just switched back to office and have not looked back. Currently using office 365 but Ive used practically all versions of MS office and I must say it is a much better product then the competition. We do use google docs at work sometimes and I find their spreadsheets frustrating compared to what I can do with excel.

A few years back we ordered some business Lenovo PCs and they all came with libre office. It was ok but people began to get frustrated a bit and we switched them all to MS office.

 

[silentbogo]

LibreOffice all the way. OpenOffice went a bit off track ever since they joined the Apache foundation.
Plus LibreOffice is more of a look-alike of my favorite MSOffice 2007 and can be easily set up to act like it too, but with all the new bells and whistles (including PDF editing)

 

[notb]

Years ago I used open office because I didn't want to buy MS office again for a new build. I had to send a document to a client which open office claimed would work with all version of office and the client could not open the doc. I don't know what version of office they had but I just switched back to office and have not looked back. Currently using office 365 but Ive used practically all versions of MS office and I must say it is a much better product then the competition. We do use google docs at work sometimes and I find their spreadsheets frustrating compared to what I can do with excel.

A few years back we ordered some business Lenovo PCs and they all came with libre office. It was ok but people began to get frustrated a bit and we switched them all to MS office.

This is something many people fail to understand. LibreOffice is OK feature-wise (often better than MS), but it's just not nice to use.
Maybe one has to actually use this software a lot (I mean: a large part of time spent at work) to notice how well MS Office is designed.
After all it's primarily made for work - not for home use. And it really delivers.

Plus, currently the documents actually look pretty - something that was a big issue for me during studies and even at work few years ago.
For example plots in Excel used to be awful, but now are publication ready. Libre is years behind, which I find weird, since it's written partly in Python, so they could just use matplotlib...

They're big in the corporate space where data integrity/reliability is important and they're good at making money. The latter is especially useful in conducting a business
So yes, even if you as an end-user don't really care about Oracle, they're still handling probably your most important data (your bank almost certainly uses Oracle, though banks also have a thing for another dinosaur: Sybase).

I think the word "dinosaur" is slightly inappropriate in case of Oracle. I don't know anyone who wouldn't miss Oracle DB after moving to another database. And I know quite a lot of people who would turn down a job offer (even a very interesting/well-paid one) just because it would force them to use a different RDBMS. It's true for both admins and analysts.

As for Sybase, I have no experience with any of their product. I don't think they're as popular in Europe as they might be in US. That said, they're now owned by SAP, which is pretty ubiquitous in most industries (mostly in finance).

I've just checked the largest job offer site in Poland (pracuj.pl, 38181 offers at the moment). Keywords:
"MS Office": 7644
Excel: 3237
SQL: 1993
Java: 1190
Oracle: 606
MySQL: 281
PostgreSQL: 157
Sybase: 11

BTW ( ! ):
C#: 609
C++: 523

 

[lexluthermiester]

One day, I expect a digital world that only has them as a player among many. It's already getting that way.

It's pretty much that way now. Android is the most run OS on the planet and that number is only growing. Microsoft has been displaced as the dominant OS of the world.

Now before anyone says it, Yes I know they still have dominance in the desktop/laptop sectors, but as mobile devices are now powerful enough to be used as a primary and exclusive computing device, people are doing so. A lot of people.

Years ago I used open office because I didn't want to buy MS office again for a new build. I had to send a document to a client which open office claimed would work with all version of office and the client could not open the doc. I don't know what version of office they had but I just switched back to office and have not looked back.

Had a similar problem and it was because of the format used to save the document. Those problems have been worked out. I literally have had a document compatibility in at least 7 years.

A few years back we ordered some business Lenovo PCs and they all came with libre office. It was ok but people began to get frustrated a bit and we switched them all to MS office.

I give people the heads up that there is a learning curve, but not much of one and it's worth the effort. Few have complained after that. Even fewer go back to MSO. Once people break out of their MSO molds and get to know LibreOffice, they love it.

 

[bug]

@notb I meant "dinosaur" in the sense of cumbersome. Whereas most alternatives have at least an order of magnitude smaller footprint.

 

[notb]

@notb I meant "dinosaur" in the sense of cumbersome. Whereas most alternatives have at least an order of magnitude smaller footprint.

Well, you might be right, but Oracle DB brings a lot of features and is such a pleasure to use. I mean, seriously, this DB is the star of the industry right now.
With the amount of data such engines are designed for, the footprint doesn't really matter - nor does the cost most of the time, which is pretty astronomical (but SQL Server is really close). Oracle Database is clearly not recommended for home DB stuff or even small businesses (just go MySQL). There is, however, a free small-footprint version: XE (express edition). It offers a lot of features, keeps up to 11GB of data and uses up to 1GB of RAM. It can be used commercially.
Especially the 11GB is important, since SQL Server Express, which has the same purpose and very similar limitations, can hold just 10GB.

 

[StrayKAT]

It's pretty much that way now. Android is the most run OS on the planet and that number is only growing. Microsoft has been displaced as the dominant OS of the world.

Now before anyone says it, Yes I know they still have dominance in the desktop/laptop sectors, but as mobile devices are now powerful enough to be used as a primary and exclusive computing device, people are doing so. A lot of people.


Had a similar problem and it was because of the format used to save the document. Those problems have been worked out. I literally have had a document compatibility in at least 7 years.

I give people the heads up that there is a learning curve, but not much of one and it's worth the effort. Few have complained after that. Even fewer go back to MSO. Once people break out of their MSO molds and get to know LibreOffice, they love it.

True enough. Microsoft's best hope now is holding a tight grip on gaming imo. At least for average/home users. It's what keeps me a Windows user at least.

But as I mentioned earlier, I'm still using their apps on android. With Google Now being outdated, I may as well give the MS launcher a shot again too. I don't like the Samsung one. I don't like any of them, in fact. Even this Microsoft one sucks compared to Windows phone.

 

[bug]

Well, you might be right, but Oracle DB brings a lot of features and is such a pleasure to use. I mean, seriously, this DB is the star of the industry right now.
With the amount of data such engines are designed for, the footprint doesn't really matter - nor does the cost most of the time, which is pretty astronomical (but SQL Server is really close). Oracle Database is clearly not recommended for home DB stuff or even small businesses (just go MySQL). There is, however, a free small-footprint version: XE (express edition). It offers a lot of features, keeps up to 11GB of data and uses up to 1GB of RAM. It can be used commercially.
Especially the 11GB is important, since SQL Server Express, which has the same purpose and very similar limitations, can hold just 10GB.

I don't know, I could tell some real horror stories about OracleDB, triggers and their embedding of a full JVM in the DB server...

 

[SamirD]

When I had to strip out all of our computers because my parents kept downloading viruses/malware/etc, I started from scratch and didn't have MS licenses for office so I have both openoffice and libreoffice portable installed on our very legacy systems (p4 2.8 2gb ram).

Openoffice is much faster on the older hardware like this, although it doesn't have support for xlsx, docx, and the xml based MS file formats. So this is where Libreoffice kicks in. But both still lack quite a bit in terms of having the same functionality in excel and advanced word features like marking up a document, at least on the older version we run.

Still, for what they are, they both very capable for 90% of 'normal course' business stuff. I calculate sales tax returns, keep inventory counts, and do some forecasting in the excel equivalent, and we've written all sorts of legal documents in the word equivalent. Not that any of these tasks couldn't have been done by lotus 123 or wordperfect for dos, but that they can be done with MS office compability is the key.