Tag: Sun Microsystems

Libre Office (Beta) 3 Launched

Larry Ellison crop
Image via Wikipedia

The guys who forked off Larry Ellison‘s Open Office launched Beta 3 .

Whats new-

  • DDE reconnect – the old DDE implementation was very quirky in that, opening and closing a DDE server document a few times would totally disconnect the link with the client document. Plus it also causes several other side-effects because of the way it accessed the server documents. The new implementation removes those quirkiness plus enables re-connection of DDE server client pair when the server document is loaded into LO when the client document is already open.
  • External reference rework – External reference handling has been re-worked to make it work within OFFSET function. In addition, this change allows Calc to read data directly from documents already loaded when possible. The old implementation would always load from disk even when the document was already loaded.
  • Autocorrect accidental caps locks – automatically corrects what appears to be a mis-cap such as tHIS or tHAT, as a result of the user not realizing the CAPS lock key was on. When correcting the mis-cap, it also automatically turns off CAPS lock (note: not working on Mac OS X yet). (translation)(look for accidental-caps-lock in the commit log)
  • Swapped default key bindings of Delete and Backspace keys in Calc – this was a major annoyance for former Excel users when migrating to Calc.

(look for delete-backspace-key in the commit log)

  • In Calc, hitting TAB during auto-complete commits current selection and moves to the next cell. Shift-TAB cycles through auto-complete selections.
  • and lots of bugs squashed….

_Announcement_

 

 

The Document Foundation is happy to announce the third beta of
LibreOffice 3.3. This beta comes with lots of improvements and
bugfixes. As usual, be warned that this is beta quality software –
nevertheless, we ask you to play with it – we very much welcome your
feedback and testing!

Please, download suitable package(s) from

http://www.documentfoundation.org/download/

install them, and start testing. Should you find bugs, please report
them to the FreeDesktop Bugzilla:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org

A detailed list of changes from the past four weeks of development is
to be found here:

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Weekly_Summary

If you want to get involved with this exciting project, you can
contribute code:

http://www.documentfoundation.org/develop/

translate LibreOffice to your language:

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/LibreOffice/i18n/translating_3.3

or just donate:

http://www.documentfoundation.org/contribution/

A list of known issues with Beta 3 is available from our wiki:

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Beta3

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Libre Office Marketing Event FOSDEM

Things begin building up for LibreOffice- and here is the inaugural event.

Source- LibreOffice Wiki

 

LibreOffice at FOSDEM – Call for Papers

Contents

[hide]

Call for Papers

2011: Brussels, FOSDEM.(2011-02-05 – 2011-02-06).. Your first chance ever to give a talk for LibreOffice at this great open source event… obviously you don’t want to miss this!

Do you want to share your experience in starting to hack the code, or tell about the tweaks in your build environment, talk about the code changes you have done or those that you prepare, or do you want to share insight on your QA work? Simply submit your proposal at this page.

We really like you to share in the way that fits you best, be it 5, 10 or up to 30 minutes 🙂

It might well be that we’ll have to choose between the various proposals, after all FOSDEM is only two days 😉 So please give a clear description of your talk, goals and target audience. For details, see the outline that is provided at the wiki.

FOSDEM is a free conference to attend, and we will try to seek sponsorship. But funding is limited, so please only request it if you cannot attend otherwise, and we will try our best to support you.

Thanks a lot,
TDF Steering Committee

More info

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Events/Fosdem2011
For questions mail info@documentfoundation.org
Discussions with developers and code hackers take place on libreoffice@lists.freedesktop.org

 

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Libre Office

Some ambiguity about Libre Office and why it needed to change from Open Office- just when Open Office seemed so threatening on the desktop

FROM- http://www.documentfoundation.org/faq/

Q: So is this a breakaway project?

A: Not at all. The Document Foundation will continue to be focused on developing, supporting, and promoting the same software, and it’s very much business as usual. We are simply moving to a new and more appropriate organisational model for the next decade – a logical development from Sun’s inspirational launch a decade ago.

Q: Why are you calling yourselves “The Document Foundation”?

A: For ten years we have used the same name – “OpenOffice.org” – for both the Community and the software. We’ve decided it removes ambiguity to have a different name for the two, so the Community is now “The Document Foundation”, and the software “LibreOffice”. Note: there are other examples of this usage in the free software community – e.g. the Mozilla Foundation with the Firefox browser.

Q: Does this mean you intend to develop other pieces of software?

A: We would like to have that possibility open to us in the future…

Q: And why are you calling the software “LibreOffice” instead of “OpenOffice.org”?

A: The OpenOffice.org trademark is owned by Oracle Corporation. Our hope is that Oracle will donate this to the Foundation, along with the other assets it holds in trust for the Community, in due course, once legal etc issues are resolved. However, we need to continue work in the meantime – hence “LibreOffice” (“free office”).

Q: Why are you building a new web infrastructure?

A: Since Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems, the Community has been under “notice to quit” from our previous Collabnet infrastructure. With today’s announcement of a Foundation, we now have an entity which can own our emerging new infrastructure.

Q: What does this announcement mean to other derivatives of OpenOffice.org?

A: We want The Document Foundation to be open to code contributions from as many people as possible. We are delighted to announce that the enhancements produced by the Go-OOo team will be merged into LibreOffice, effective immediately. We hope that others will follow suit.

Q: What difference will this make to the commercial products produced by Oracle Corporation, IBM, Novell, Red Flag, etc?

A: The Document Foundation cannot answer for other bodies. However, there is nothing in the licence arrangements to stop companies continuing to release commercial derivatives of LibreOffice. The new Foundation will also mean companies can contribute funds or resources without worries that they may be helping a commercial competitor.

Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to developers?

A: The Document Foundation sets out deliberately to be as developer friendly as possible. We do not demand that contributors share their copyright with us. People will gain status in our community based on peer evaluation of their contributions – not by who their employer is.

Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to users of LibreOffice?

A: LibreOffice is The Document Foundation’s reason for existence. We do not have and will not have a commercial product which receives preferential treatment. We only have one focus – delivering the best free office suite for our users – LibreOffice.

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Non Microsoft and Non Oracle vendors are indeed going to find it useful the possiblities of bundling a free Libre Office that reduces the total cost of ownership for analytics software. Right now, some of the best free advertising for Microsoft OS and Office is done by enterprise software vendors who create Windows Only Products and enable MS Office integration better than  Open Office integration. This is done citing user demand- but it is a chicken egg dilemma- as functionality leads to enhanced demand. Microsoft on the other hand is aware of this dependence and has made SQL Server and SQL Analytics (besides investing in analytics startups like Revolution Analytics) along with it’s own infrastructure -Azure Cloud Platform/EC2 instances.

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