Freeoffice trend

[deanr72]

For what it's worth...

I've work for the professional publishers Pearson and Macmillan for years and when I switched from Windows to Linux - and consequently from my illegal copy of Office 2007 to LibreOffice - I didn't have any major problems.

Occasionally I find the formatting subject to change in which case I open the docs in WPS Office. I've never had the situation where both WPS and LO have let me down. Note: I always produce and edit docs in docx. format.

Having said that, the docs that I deal with are all relatively basic i.e. just text with maybe a picture inserted here or there as everything I work with is before they go to design.

Either way, I think LO is an incredible gift to the world of FOSS and should remain the default Linux Office suite. Having WPS and/or Soft- Free-office in the repos is fine, imo. I can't afford to have anything against proprietary software in and of itself.

I've installed Manjaro a couple of times in the past and only ever had stability problems. I think I went two weeks once before an update made the system unusable but that was the longest period of time - usually something broke irreparably (for me) while I was setting it up to my liking. I was always surprised by the fact they had Skype etc. and MS Office online installed off the bat. I don't the think FOSS vs. proprietary argument is one the devs of Manjaro are particularly concerned about.

[asqwerth]

As someone who still creates documents in doc format, I guess FO won't be that helpful, or at least not as the sole word processing program on my system.

Ditto for people who want to create open document format files.

Just curious, why doc instead of docx? Especially since MS doc format is proprietary, and supposedly Open Office XML (docx) is 'open'.
Edit: I meant Office Open XML
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML

As far as I know as an avid reader of groklaw.net in the past, the docx format used in MS Word is patent-encumbered. The format/specs they sent for ISO certification is not the exact one they use in Word. And you can have ISO certification even if there are patents on it. At least this was the situation in the past.

Doc format was developed by Microsoft so they don't need to to provide documentation of its specs to others but since it's not patented, anyone can reverse engineer their own word processing program to read and write in that format.

If I get docx documents, I'll read and edit in that format. The stuff I deal with doesn't have complex formatting. But when I start my own document, I just go with doc. LO is a good jack of all trades even if it's not a master of docx or complex spreadsheets . Seems to be improving all the time though.

That said, I don't think it's objectionable for MX to provide an option to install FO in mxpi, for those who want it. There are other useful proprietary stuff in the popular apps tab of mxpi, like masterpdf, I believe.

[Dennis-TW]

Not sure where this message is quoted from

Quoted directly from MX Package Installer while installing Freeoffice from the Popular Apps - Office tab, hence the confusion.

[fehlix]

Not sure where this message is quoted from

Quoted directly from MX Package Installer while installing Freeoffice from the Popular Apps - Office tab, hence the confusion.

Do you still get this message? apt should ignore such non signed InRelease files and shall instead fetch Release and the detached signature Release.gpg.

[CrackMeUp]

A couple of infos FreeOffice users need be aware of ...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... JWHfksym8_
https://www.softmaker.com/en/comparison ... ker-office

Point is this: While TextMaker is the most functional/MS-compatible of all the modules that FreeOffice installs, the others are limited. If you intend ONLY to create NEW documents, spreadsheets, and presentations FROM SCRATCH, and saved/shared with MSOffice users in docx, pptx, xlsx formats, then by all means use it. Bugs, however, as they are being flushed by the full SoftMaker, will NOT be addressed in the free version. Older formats (doc, ppt, xls) are especially format-troublesome as anyone who wants to check out the SoftMaker Forum will surely notice. So, even if you are being sent files in these older formats created by MSOffice users, you'll often encounter inconsistencies ... you'll have to advise your senders to update their formats to the latest Xses ... oh yeah, you have to download your spell-check dicts from SoftMaker. Worth all the hassle? You be the judge ...

[KBD]

Yeah, pretty clear; Phil confirmed it's a partnership with Softoffice... there's also more anger/confusion (800+ posts in a day) here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments ... _shipping/

I think one of the problems is the default install of crippled software - means people are reminded of the first thing they did after installing Windows... uninstall all the crippled crapware and bloat. Obviously there's a choice still, but what about users new to Linux? Will they know how to uninstall FreeOffice and install LibreOffice? Is this a good look for Linux?

Questions from me and others... I've no answers yet.

When I read 'partnered up' I took that to mean Softmaker/Manjaro made it available, not that money changed hands. Hopefully Manjaro will make a clearer statement about this.

Additionally we ship FreeOffice 755 by default. This is possible since we partnered up with Softmaker 101. Enjoy the best compability to MS Office, we still provide as our JAK launchers.

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/testing-upd ... kell/96690

[Dennis-TW]

Do you still get this message? apt should ignore such non signed InRelease files and shall instead fetch Release and the detached signature Release.gpg.

I already uninstalled Freeoffice, however, the repo is still there and this is what I get from apt update:

Code: Select all

Holen:15 http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt wheezy InRelease [2.322 B]                                  
Fehl:15 http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt wheezy InRelease      
  Die folgenden Signaturen konnten nicht überprüft werden, weil ihr öffentlicher Schlüssel nicht verfügbar ist: NO_PUBKEY 3413DA98AA3E7F5E

W: GPG-Fehler: http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt wheezy InRelease: Die folgenden Signaturen konnten nicht überprüft werden, weil ihr öffentlicher Schlüssel nicht verfügbar ist: NO_PUBKEY 3413DA98AA3E7F5E
E: The repository 'http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt wheezy InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

[asqwerth]

Open up Synaptic >> Settings >> Repositories

If the softmaker repo is still enabled, just uncheck it, then reload Synaptic.

Uninstalling a program is not the same as subsequently removing the repo it comes from.

[Dennis-TW]

Uninstalling a program is not the same as subsequently removing the repo it comes from.

I assumed that a program that automatically adds its repo during installation would also be nice enough to remove its repo after uninstall.

Some things might never change, no matter which OS

But thanks for the hint, I don't use Synaptic too often since MXPI does usually all the magic!

[richb]

Uninstalling a program is not the same as subsequently removing the repo it comes from.

I assumed that a program that automatically adds its repo during installation would also be nice enough to remove its repo after uninstall.

Some things might never change, no matter which OS

But thanks for the hint, I don't use Synaptic too often since MXPI does usually all the magic!

Freeoffice is being downloaded from their site. When you delete it you are doing it locally. So there is no visibility to their installer. which adds the repo.