First, the cost: Open-source applications often cost nothing. OpenOffice and LibreOffice are both free. Updates to the latest-and-greatest versions of the open-source applications are also free, but the same is not always true for Microsoft Office users. Office users who want to upgrade to Office have to pay for the new edition, for example.
However, smaller updates between major releases are free. Note: If you currently hold a valid license of Office with Software Assurance , a support-and-benefits service available to volume-licensing customers, you may be able to upgrade to newer versions released during your coverage period for free. Related to price, licensing is another advantage of open-source software. You don't have to worry about how many copies of LibreOffice you've installed at home or the office.
There's no cost no matter how many times you download or install it. However, when you buy or receive a version of Office , you may only install it on a specified number of computers within your organization — the number depends on which edition of the suite you purchase, so you'll need to keep track of exactly where it's been installed. Another advantage of open-source code — if you're a programmer — is that you can do what you like with it. You can study OpenOffice or LibreOffice and customize it to your needs, improve it, or use the code to create something completely new and release your changes to the public.
Unless you're a programmer or have one on staff, this may not be a feature you need, but for some users it's a valuable selling point.
Microsoft doesn't offer anything comparable. What Microsoft does offer is a company that has a strong incentive to create applications that it can sell. This means its features, support, and interface need to be attractive enough for users to purchase year after year. Microsoft has built a vast pool of talented developers, a mature platform, and polished user interfaces. Also, by virtue of being the largest software provider in this space, there are hundreds of Microsoft Office suite experts who can help troubleshoot issues and offer tips for power users.
The mandates for open-source applications also tend to be fuzzy. Tech-savvy programmers are not always focused on the interface or user experience. Documentation can be spotty. However, because open-source code is available to all, OpenOffice and LibreOffice are not solely dependent on their current crop of developers and corporate sponsors.
Even if all those people supporting the project were to disappear, the code would still exist, and other people could pick up where they left off. Commercial products tend to keep their code secret, so if the company goes under, so does the software.
That said, it is unlikely Microsoft will be unable to support its Office suite in the foreseeable future. Office is the online software subscription version of Microsoft Office. It offers all of the tools available in the desktop version of Office and many more that are not available for download. Users simply have an account that gives them online access to their Office apps and the files created on those apps. Qualified nonprofits and libraries can get Office for free or at discount , depending on which plan they choose.
It's no secret that Microsoft wants to move more people to its software as a service SaaS model, where upgrades and new features are automatic and customers are locked into an annual payment to use their product. Critics of Microsoft don't like the feeling of being "locked" into regular payments and worry that they will lose control of their data.
Of course, there are benefits to a Internet-based Office as well, namely the increased ability to share documents and access them on multiple devices. However you feel about Office , this article focuses on the desktop version of Office because it's a more apples-to-apples comparison with the open-source options. As a result, many of the new features in the online version of Office will not be covered here.
First, a little about the two open-source tools: OpenOffice and LibreOffice are very similar products. In fact, they were both built upon the same source code. When Sun Microsystems acquired OpenOffice, and was subsequently taken over by Oracle, the community split and LibreOffice was created in parallel.
The OpenOffice project has since been handed over to the Apache Foundation. For practical purposes, users won't see much of a difference between the two tools, although it's generally believed that LibreOffice is quicker to update and offer new features.
Many past innovations in the Microsoft Office user interface were met with scorn and frustration — most notably the introduction of the "ribbon" toolbar in Office Office is similar in look and feel to the previous version, which means the ribbon is still there.
Hopefully you're used to it by now. There's a new gray theme that improves visibility for some users and more charts in Excel, but for the most part Microsoft has decided that its desktop offering is sticking to the basics.
However, a few new usability features stand out. If you've ever been working on a document and suddenly wanted to find more information, you can now get what you need without switching screens. You just select the text and choose Smart Lookup from the Home menu. Office also offers more targeted help. Its new Tell Me feature lets you type in a description of the feature you need and spits out links that will take you directly there.
Outlook also makes it just a little easier to send a document in an email by using its Recent Documents feature. OpenOffice and LibreOffice, on the other hand, lack the ribbon toolbar and instead offer a more traditional interface — which makes them intriguing options for Office 's steadfast supporters.
Anyone who has used Word or Excel will feel comfortable using their open-source competitors, Write and Calc, while those familiar with newer versions of Office will find them somewhat retro. This is not to say that the open-source applications aren't also improving usability. LibreOffice has worked to simplify its menus while providing finer controls for charts and images across all of its applications.
OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and Microsoft Office will all work fine on most computers, but if your office machines are significantly older, slower, or less powerful than the average modern machine, you'll find OpenOffice and LibreOffice better suited than Office However, both open-source options need Java installed to take advantage of certain features, most notably Base.
Office requires at least Windows 7 Service Pack 1, but notes that Windows 10 offers the "best experience. In addition, both open-source suites will run on most Mac computers running OS X I agree.
I asked them if were using OpenOffice deliberately instead of LibreOffice. I wonder how many other people are in the same boat! This kind of argument is really dangerous. At that time, Gnumeric was the best Spreadsheet software. It was an example for perfectly clean and documented code, it was efficient, it was stable, and it was so much ahead with regards to calculating mathematically correct and exact, that it was very popular in the science community.
There were even scientific papers comparing statistical calculations between Gnumeric, Excel and the other competitors at the time. Well, LO has just to take the ALv2 licence. Merging these two projects on the single banner OpenOffice will a good idea. Apache changed the licence at the request of IBM at that time. For the Open Office branch, it is too late.
Is there any way to communicate with you that allows attaching a document? Bug reports from the community are really appreciated. And you say sales? Peter, please do not do drugs while commenting on Document Foundation blog posts. I used OO right through the forking of LO. AOO was a sharp break from the freedom concept, directly putting chains on developers which translates into less freedom for end users.
Whatever the official canon, this is the history as I experienced it as a user. It would be a mistake of historic proportions for LO to subjugate itself to OO after having built such a magnificent contribution.
Instead we need, as a community of users, to redouble efforts to communicate. For institutional users there may be institutional communications opportunities. I personally will cogitate on this for a time and perhaps can finally return some contribution in that regard, being totally unable to use if-then in any language other then English i.
Hello Mike, Could you please tell me what tool you used to create the timeline release graphic in this post? Thank you in advance. Hi there! The timeline is based on this public domain image, which is an SVG and can be edited in Inkscape etc.
Rather than trying to work with a still obviously heels-dug-in Apache OpenOffice, consider instead:. One minor potential downside is that there is a small Architectural practice in Iran using this name. However, they might like getting some name recognition. Also, there would likely be ZERO doubt about which entity does what.
One good way of doing this is with schools which then also seeds future business use. The new antitrust case the US Dept. And they disagree. OO is an open source project. You may have heard of open source. Apache exists as a place for open source projects to live, as long as they want to.
Can you imagine the outcry of Apache were to go around shutting down projects just because some other project declared themselves to be better? You have a better product? Get out there and spread the word. If we in the FOSS world want to get the best tools out there, to the most people, we should let people know what exists.
LO is doing just fine. By anon. By Kalle Kula. By Dobs. By anonymous troll. Looks like they fixed it. By Vitor Madeira. Apache Foundation: Please do the right thing. Humankind will thank you. By James Harking. By Raven. By Erik. Internet users, according to a 2,strong survey administered by ClickStream Technologies , 5 percent of U.
Web users also actively use the open-source productivity suite OpenOffice. Importantly, ClickStream wasn't measuring installations. It was measuring use. The company actually installed client-side software that tracked which applications the users were running. To have OpenOffice in use across 5 percent of U. Internet users is pretty amazing.
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