Freeoffice trend

[KBD]

To the best of my knowledge MX is the first Linux distro to have Freeoffice in its package installer. But it seems to have started a trend as Manjaro now has Freeoffice as the default Office Suite:
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/testing-upd ... kell/96690

[Jerry3904]

I imagine that there are a lot of other distro people watching what we do these days...

[nathan2423]

Wow! That decision to use Freeoffice as default rather than Libreoffice is really going to cause some consternation all over the place! I like Softmaker office too and just today I deinstalled Libreoffice on several of my computers. I will miss Libreoffice Draw, but I am going to try to substitute Inkscape.

I hope Philip Muller is ready for the uproar that is about to ensue!

[KBD]

I imagine that there are a lot of other distro people watching what we do these days...

MX Linux the trendsetter

[KBD]

Wow! That decision to use Freeoffice as default rather than Libreoffice is really going to cause some consternation all over the place! I like Softmaker office too and just today I deinstalled Libreoffice on several of my computers. I will miss Libreoffice Draw, but I am going to try to substitute Inkscape.

I hope Philip Muller is ready for the uproar that is about to ensue!

Yeah, people are already bitching over at Reddit. At the same time, one of the biggest gripes about Linux is that it doesn't have MS Office, or anything fully compatible. I think in the long run it is a smart move for Manjaro, and MX Package Manager having it available is great too.

[asqwerth]

Wow! That decision to use Freeoffice as default rather than Libreoffice is really going to cause some consternation all over the place! I like Softmaker office too and just today I deinstalled Libreoffice on several of my computers. I will miss Libreoffice Draw, but I am going to try to substitute Inkscape.

I hope Philip Muller is ready for the uproar that is about to ensue!

Yeah, people are already bitching over at Reddit. At the same time, one of the biggest gripes about Linux is that it doesn't have MS Office, or anything fully compatible. I think in the long run it is a smart move for Manjaro, and MX Package Manager having it available is great too.

There is a lot of concern in the Manjaro forums. The main issue is not so much that it was offered in the repos but that it (proprietary software) was made default in the latest or next iso over Libreoffice, which is more "libre" free.

What stood out for me were some posts that Freeoffice is crippled and you can't save files on it. Is that true? I don't use Freeoffice so I don't know.

[richb]

I do not know about it being crippled. But it would not load one of my spreadsheets stating it ran out of memory. I deleted it.

[KBD]

There is a lot of concern in the Manjaro forums. The main issue is not so much that it was offered in the repos but that it (proprietary software) was made default in the latest or next iso over Libreoffice, which is more "libre" free.

What stood out for me were some posts that Freeoffice is crippled and you can't save files on it. Is that true? I don't use Freeoffice so I don't know.

Softmaker offers a paid version with a few more features like a dark theme, ability to handle older MS doc file format instead of the default docx. I figure if you need odt you should just use LibreOffice. But if you need something to handle the newer Microsoft Office file formats then Freeoffice is going to do a better job with those.
I keep both Softmaker Office and LibreOffice on my machines. The complaints toward Manjaro seem overblown to me, but MX probably handles it better by just offering the option to download if you wish.
Edit: yes, it saves files. Docx is the default word document.

[Dennis-TW]

The repository 'http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt wheezy InRelease' is not signed.

[CrackMeUp]

No ... FreeOffice is not crippled (it's a fully-functional free version of Softmaker Office with a few less features to try to get you to buy the full version) ... BUT, it IS buggy ...
(1) Has problems opening/recognizing some files created with LibreOffice (even though they were saved in MSOffice formats!) ... e.g., Spreadsheets, Presentations (ppt,pptx), and even Text (doc,docx) ... also problems opening/saving files from other partitions or external drives.
(2) Upon installation, takes over your home/(user/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list, totally making it the first on the list for anything "Office"
(3) Same thing system-wide, insofar as it creates a defaults.list in your /usr/share/applications, prioritizing itself over any other installed Office apps (LibreOffice)
(4) Have fun uninstalling it and trying to remove the left-over crud!! BTW, the aforementioned mimeapps/defaults list will still be there after uninstall.

I tried it for a year and dumped FreeOffice ... the lead-developer of Manjaro needs to pull out his yoga-rug and truly meditate on his decision to have it as default ... really bad move IMO. One last thing that folks often forget: MSOffice is notorious for backward compatibility with older versions of its suite .. so how in the heck do ya think you're going to have FULL MS compatibility over the long-term with wannabes, duh!

Many countries/governments are/looking at transitioning to ODF formats in their digital infrastructures ... more and more LibreOffice users at schools, colleges, and universities as well. The onus is on MS if they truly want to maintain universality when it comes to Office formats ... NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! In other words, accommodate full ODF in your input/output MS. Personally, I think the day will come soon for Linux as MS has had to deal with Macs at some point in the past as well.