2011/6/29 John W Foster <jfoster81...@verizon.net>: > 1. Why is Debian switching to LibreOffice, per the posting I saw a few > days ago?
Because the community has switched to LibreOffice. > 2. Is OpenOffice still going to be supported? Perhaps by Oracle, the Apache foundation, IBM or whomever may be interestested, not by Debian, unless some maintainer decides it is worth his while. > 3. What makes LibreOffice better than OpenOffice? Community, which translates into development, support and bug fixing critical mass. For now, this holds true, with LibreOffice developing faster, deeper and better than OpenOffice.org since Oracle, after Sun, declined to fulfill their promise of involving the community in the development of OpenOffice.org, and furthermore declined to get involved in the community aroung the Document foundation and LibreOffice. In other words, the .org in OpenOffice is a sham, and has been exposed as such by the Document foundation and LibreOffice. I would add that copyleft also makes LibreOffice better, but that is at least slightly more controversial. > Now I'm concerned that a > large body of work covering several years will have to be 'ported' to a > new format & that I will have to learn a lot of new stuff. No, indeed LibreOffice inherits the same compatibility and data formats as OpenOffice.org does, and the community which defined the ODF is behind LibreOffice today, not OpenOffice.org. Furthermore, the licensing model behind both projects ensure it is easier for LibreOffice to follow developments from OpenOffice.org than the reverse. > Any rational comments are appreciated. I hope I was rational, and clear, enough. -- Skype:leandro.gfc.dutra?chat Yahoo!: ymsgr:sendIM?lgcdutra +55 (61) 3546 7191 Google Talk: xmpp:leand...@jabber.org +55 (11) 9406 7191 ICQ: AIM:GoIM?screenname=61287803 sip:leand...@iptel.org MSNIM:chat?contact=lean...@dutra.fastmail.fm -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/BANLkTikt=k-nzSXfsi=xfblrz_x91at...@mail.gmail.com