Posted by mfld 1 day ago
This is a no way a complete or a fair summary of everything that has gone on; and it's been simmering for a number of years now.
Due disclosure: I am a TDF trustee.
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About Collabora Office for Desktop itself: Personally, I don't see it as being up to par. The main thing going for it is that its ribbon-ish interface is more polished than LibreOffice's. But - I don't like ribbons; and features are missing; and it feels clunkier than LO itself.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24759573>
> The LibreOffice project's imprimatur should be to stop existing[…] The editing paradigm perpetuated by the legacy of MS Office is a dead end.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795918>
I'll amend my previous position and say that the charter should be to (a) as much as possible change the menu and dialog structure to match whatever the last "good" version of the Microsoft Office UI was, but still ultimately focus on (b) doing everything I said in those other comments.
I'm a big fan of plaintext (and things like Markdown). But I don't buy the argument that "plain text over the web is the future" or that that combination can or should supplant office.
Also remember that LibreOffice started before Microsoft Office even existed: as StarWriter in the mid-1980s. Yes, there has been a lot of borrowing between computer apps in this domain (and let's also not forget WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 etc.); and I am even willing to entertain the possibility that in 40 years' time we will all be doing something completely different. I mean, I still think people will be writing letters and CVs and reports but maybe the apps would be very different. Anyway, until that time, we need a decent office app, with support for the world's many written languages and their quirks, without spying on users, with multi-platform support, with a decent license etc. - and LibreOffice is that.
Good thing no one is making that argument. That's a fabricated quote.
> the second most used 'app' on a PC/laptop after a browser
This is supposed to be a rejoinder? You're just undergirding the thing that you're purporting to respond to—that when it comes to the dominance (or, if you prefer, relative importance) of actual multi-/cross-platform ease-of-access between browsers versus 90s-era suites like MS Office and LibreOffice, the office suites lose.
> until that time, we need a decent office app, with support for the world's many written languages and their quirks, without spying on users, with multi-platform support, with a decent license
We do need that. Which is why I described it. And LibreOffice is in a worse position than it should be with respect to filling this hole because of its failure to embrace the actual multi-/cross-platform and ease-of-access benefits afforded by the ubiquity of standard Web browsers and the formats they understand, contra the formats that the 90s-era office suites produce (useless to anyone who doesn't have that office suite or a quasi-compatible one installed).
If latter would suggest checking current version of LibreOffice (which is Collabra Office Classic) as a local (i.e. on client computer) install. If former, then I'd imagine you will have to fill the form in to get access.
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901100 Another commenter has summarised the differences between Collabora Office and Collabora Office Classic (aka LibreOffice) for us
Just use LibreOffice at this point, at least it has native performances and is not an app bundled inside a browser.
I don't think you've ever used LibreOffice if you think it in any way fits the description "performant". It's a great project but I wouldn't exactly call it snappy.
Okay, so what does it cost?
I choose not to participate in that, it's fishy. Others do better.
> online.
Wrong answer. I want offline.
There is no reason for an office programm to connect to the internet.
The few screenshots they show make this look similar to the existing online tool, which is fine for a lot of work, but like Word Online hits a wall with more complex documents.