What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Talk about anything at all....
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ngk
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What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by ngk »

So what's the future like for OpenOffice
4.2? 5.0?
While OpenOffice is still very good it feels old and is old compared the LibreOffice
there hasn't been a major update since 2014 i think
i know that the LibreOffice team wants to work with Apache to make OpenOffice more modern (using libre code i think)
But what's the future for OpenOffice? Is Apache planning anything?
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RusselB
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Re: The Future

Post by RusselB »

Welcome to the Forums.
We are end users and have no more knowledge about the future of OpenOffice than you do.
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John_Ha
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Re: The Future

Post by John_Ha »

In my opinion ...

... AOO is walking dead and will gradually fade away due to lack of active development. After 20 years of using AOO I migrated to LO last year.
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Re: The Future

Post by Bidouille »

First post: first troll
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Hagar Delest
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Re: The Future

Post by Hagar Delest »

John_Ha wrote:... AOO is walking dead and will gradually fade away due to lack of active development. After 20 years of using AOO I migrated to LO last year.
+1.
Bidouille wrote:First post: first troll
Maybe.
But anyway, the question is not that irrelevant. I mean, there is an AOO 4.1.9 on its way but 4.1.x releases have not brought a lot to users. So what is the point compared to the active development of LO?
I would never have thought that I would one day talk like that. But let's face the facts: development on AOO side is moribund, discussions on the dev mailing list are sometimes just a waste of time (cherry picking about wording :roll: :ucrazy: ).
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Re: The Future

Post by John_Ha »

Bidouille wrote:First post: first troll
Bidouille
Neither do I think it is trolling - it is a very relevant question. Or "Je ne pense pas non plus que ce soit de la pêche à la traîne - c'est une question très pertinente" 8-) Somehow I don't quite think Google translate got trolling correct!

ngk is just asking for advice although (s)he has an incorrect understanding about the possibly of using LO code in AOO. The LO licence forbids that so no LO enhancements, no LO bug fixes or whatever will ever appear in AOO.
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by RoryOF »

Neils Bohr, the Danish quantum physicist, once said "Prediction is very difficult, especially when it is about the future".
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Bidouille
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by Bidouille »

Again and again...
Remember this previous thread: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=84952
ngk wrote:i know that the LibreOffice team wants to work with Apache
Who knows? To work how? This point should be more clear, if the OP come back...
bmcs
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Re: The Future

Post by bmcs »

John_Ha wrote: The LO licence forbids that so no LO enhancements, no LO bug fixes or whatever will ever appear in AOO.
Sorry, but you have that the wrong way around. It is the Apache License AL2 that forbids LO MPLv2/LGPLv3+ licensed code appearing in AOO.
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Re: The Future

Post by dave2wave »

bmcs wrote:Sorry, but you have that the wrong way around. It is the Apache License AL2 that forbids LO MPLv2/LGPLv3+ licensed code appearing in AOO.
It is not the Apache License V2 that prevents inclusion of MPLv2/LGPLv3+ code. It is Apache Release Policy that prevents this. The ASF wants those who use Apache software to not have restrictions like Field of Use and reciprocity. http://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a

LO even consumed Apache OpenOffice source code under the ALv2 and relicensed it as MPLv2. That was their choice.

There have been contributions made to both AOO and LO.

The main reason for 4.1.9 release which ought to happen next week is to support macOS 11 and OOXML. Please note that after minor releases about once a year 4.1.9 is coming less than 3 months after 4.1.8.

I think that we will be seeing development on 4.2.0 with some dev builds coming soon.
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by John_Ha »

While I rarely cite a newspaper as a reliable source of technical information I did find this 2015 article interesting.

Should I switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office?.

I have copied below what it says on licences and, as I haven't researched the actual licence conditions, may be the, or one of the, place(s) where I got my information. It explicitly states that LO's copyleft licence is what prevents AOO taking code from LO.
LibreOffice is being developed under two “copyleft” licences: GNU’s LGPLv3 and the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2). “Copyleft” licences try to ensure that the code contributed by open source programmers can only be re-used on the same terms.

However, OpenOffice has changed from a “copyleft” (GPL) licence to a permissive Apache license, which means anybody can use the code for commercial purposes. Not everybody wants to write free code for somebody else’s benefit.

The difference in licences puts Apache OpenOffice at a disadvantage. It means that LibreOffice can take code from Apache OpenOffice (that’s the point of permissive licences) but Apache OpenOffice can’t take code from LibreOffice (that’s the point of “copyleft” license)s.

Indeed, Apache has had to replace OpenOffice code that was copyleft-only, but when it [AOO] introduced a big new sidebar, LibreOffice was able to incorporate it immediately. (In fact, both versions got it from the same source: IBM’s Symphony.)

Since LibreOffice seems to have many more active programmers, and since Apache’s programmers are inevitably contributing to LibreOffice, I don’t see how Apache OpenOffice can keep up.
As I say, I have not verified this and if someone can point to a similar brief explanation I will be pleased to read it.
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by dave2wave »

Release Policy vs. License is a technicality. It matters at The ASF. BTW - the Apache Release Policy does allow MPL2 and other class B licenses to be included in a project's convenience binary releases. https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-b

Apache OpenOffice binaries do include binaries in class B.

AFAIK all of the OpenOffice community consists of volunteers while many of the LO developers are paid.

Any and all volunteers are welcome.
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petko
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by petko »

John_Ha wrote:While I rarely cite a newspaper as a reliable source of technical information I did find this 2015 article interesting.

Should I switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office?.

I have copied below what it says on licences and, as I haven't researched the actual licence conditions, may be the, or one of the, place(s) where I got my information. It explicitly states that LO's copyleft licence is what prevents AOO taking code from LO.
LibreOffice is being developed under two “copyleft” licences: GNU’s LGPLv3 and the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2). “Copyleft” licences try to ensure that the code contributed by open source programmers can only be re-used on the same terms.

However, OpenOffice has changed from a “copyleft” (GPL) licence to a permissive Apache license, which means anybody can use the code for commercial purposes. Not everybody wants to write free code for somebody else’s benefit.

The difference in licences puts Apache OpenOffice at a disadvantage. It means that LibreOffice can take code from Apache OpenOffice (that’s the point of permissive licences) but Apache OpenOffice can’t take code from LibreOffice (that’s the point of “copyleft” license)s.

Indeed, Apache has had to replace OpenOffice code that was copyleft-only, but when it [AOO] introduced a big new sidebar, LibreOffice was able to incorporate it immediately. (In fact, both versions got it from the same source: IBM’s Symphony.)

Since LibreOffice seems to have many more active programmers, and since Apache’s programmers are inevitably contributing to LibreOffice, I don’t see how Apache OpenOffice can keep up.
As I say, I have not verified this and if someone can point to a similar brief explanation I will be pleased to read it.
The LO code I read uses 2 Licenses. (Dependencies excluded). MPL and APL2. IMHO all code is APL2, but I understood that the intend is that the commit follows the first mentioned license in a file. I have my doubts this is a water proof license governance that can stand in front of a court. But since I have no intend on starting a war with LO, I would rather fix the fork, I leave the topic as is, and rather research the commiters intend.
As long as a Code change is available under APL2 we can integrate that into our core code.
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petko
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by petko »

ngk wrote:So what's the future like for OpenOffice
4.2? 5.0?
While OpenOffice is still very good it feels old and is old compared the LibreOffice
there hasn't been a major update since 2014 i think
i know that the LibreOffice team wants to work with Apache to make OpenOffice more modern (using libre code i think)
But what's the future for OpenOffice? Is Apache planning anything?
I would like to use the opportunity to provide my vision on where I want to move. This is my List, unaligned with what other developers or community members, even you the reader might think. I see us all as equal, so no promises that anything will happen. Priority depends on if a topic get dev power or not.

First target is bringing the 4.2.0 to release. We have some regression Issues and then an extensive testing is needed to ensure we do not miss any other regressions.
I see 2 priority bugs: The issues with the profile and the power supply cases where OpenOffice starts eating files are quite important.

Features:
2 Major features we need to focus on: ODF 1.3 support and increase OOXML support. For the later it is most likely we implement Apache POI, I see another way to rip the LO OOXML filter and put it into an extension as an alternative approach. Apache POI is currently more likely to happen.
I want to take a look at base. Base in its concept is not anything near state of the art. Lets see where discussions will go. Not a thing on short timeline. I see that long term, we need to first align on a vision.
Another topic is picture manipulation. I have there some Ideas. Lets see if this topic can get some angle.

On the OS support:
Windows 64 bit Version has to be continued in line with SDK updates.
MacOSx port for Silicon needs to be start soon.
Maybe a port for raspberry py is possible. I do not know. Depends on volunteer success.
Unix: Fix GTK+ implementation
General: We support pretty old compilers. That means our Code can not adapt the latest concepts. However a lot of modern concepts are applicable on old style preparing for the new compilers. I would like to go into improvements here. But the discussions are quite difficult for me, so I process this topic only slowly.

UI:
Retain the concept of the UI as much as possible and extend it.
Maybe: reduce the need for popup windows.
Extend the usability of the sidebar.

Technical things:
Enhance the modularization. We talked about separating UNO from OpenOffice code wise. That would make maintenance easier, and we could maybe along the line outsource the UNO in its own project, trying to attract more developers for their applications. Maybe that is a thing, that could become true for other topics as well.
change of the build environment: Current build environment has lots of unpleasant surprises. One Idea is to switch to SCONs that would allow to better align the code to the target platform. For example improve build complexity on windows. Lower Maintenance difficulties.

Community Project wise:
Chop topics in small packages, in order to make it for volunteers it easy to grab a packege deliver a quick win fast feedback according to they skill. Enhance short commitment on developer sides. Currently this is only an Idea that is recently came up.
Build a payed developer arm -> I miss funding, or people willing to organize funding. Depending on the funding I have some Ideas how to get that topic rolling. Here is one common misconception: People demand the ASf should do this. Despite the ASF is not build for that task. The ASF is build as aplatform the project can operate on and it can stuard a project. (And Imho the ASF is a real giant in the job it is build for. But really poor in all other topics) However the design template the ASF uses for their project allows us to build structures that take care of the features we need on the project.

Security:
We need to improve reaction time on security. However even if the project is slow on fixing these Items, and misses Industrial standards (Edit: IMHO this means we need longer then 90 days to provide a fix. Which resulted in the past in one or the other media report.), fixes are produced and rolled out. I am not active on security, and it is not a public spoken topic, so I wont go in further details. But this is an important topic to developers. We do the best we can do. I think this is important to state, since I hear that users complain on this topic.
There are discussions to increase the quality of the code in on a look ahead basis, often refered to Code hardening by developers.

Hope it gives people something similar to a roadmap, even if the alignment is only between me and my ego ;) And not free from any influence. The list is not complete, and it shifts as the wind blows.
Last edited by petko on Fri Jan 22, 2021 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Hagar Delest
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by Hagar Delest »

dave2wave wrote:AFAIK all of the OpenOffice community consists of volunteers while many of the LO developers are paid.
This is the core issue IMHO.
TDF team managed a huge achievement with an agressive marketing strategy right from the start. They convinced many contributors ready to pay to join. And it worked.
I remember having warned about that years ago on the AOO mailing list but nothing (visible) happened.

As said above, who wants to give free code for the benefit of others?
It's almost all about money. Real development happened when there were still paid teams on OOo. Look also at Firefox and Mozilla.

AOO cannot survive without a corporate support. All have given up about competing with MS Office, so what would be the point now?
I guess that LO success also comes from a much better OOXML compatibility. Not a good thing IMHO because it weakens ODF and it tends to mimic MS Office. But here they are, way ahead of AOO.
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by John_Ha »

petko wrote:I would like to use the opportunity to provide my vision on where I want to move. This is my List ...
petko

Thanks. First I thank all AOO developers for what they do. I know their task is a very difficult one and that they are stretched beyond breaking as there are not enough of them. I have no relevant programming skills so I have had to limit my contribution to the AOO Project to answering user queries in the forum, writing tutorials, fixing broken files and the like.

However, one of the things which has always concerned me is that there seems to be virtually no communication between development and end users. Developers seem to work in a vacuum and developers don't talk to end users. My background is the IT industry.

Four years ago, in 2016, RoryOF and I initiated a discussion with Denis Hamilton, then Chairman of the AOO project, about the most common user data-loss problems. I submitted a paper entitled Four user problems with Writer detailing the four most common problems seen in the forum. The paper opened:
Ignoring trivia, some of the most common “data loss” forum posts are:

1. My entire document content has been replaced by ######
2. My .odt file is broken – which often turns out to be a problem with the ZIPped .odt file being either large and completely full of zeros; or having the first (often binary significant = 2^n) bytes correct, then followed by zeros.
3. My document has lost all its graphics
4. There are also a multitude of seemingly unrelated problems, all of which are magically fixed by resetting the profile...
Denis created a bug report Issue 126846 - Analysis Task: Major Recurring Data/Operation Loss/Corruption Situations ... and precisely nothing then seemed to happen. Patricia ? did contact me briefly about 1 and 2, where I did some further diagnosis for her and suggested avenues for investigation, but it petered out and I heard no more. See here for the code in /openoffice/trunk/main/package/source/package/zipapi/Deflater.cxx which I suspect is causing the problem.

Why is nothing being done to address these problems? Do you think they should be on your list of things to do? The forum thread [Hint] How did I fix my ODT file has been viewed 382,000 times suggesting it is important to users.

When are the problems which users see going to be fixed?

Why are developers completely wasting their limited, valuable time providing fixes in 4.1.7 for running AOO under OS/2 when OS/2 became obsolete decades ago? Issue 128036 - Crash in Writer when linking frames on OS/2. Why was Issue 10687 - Cannot insert .dib pictures in documents, like other fixes, "Cherry-picked for AOO42X and AOO418".

The forum gets repeated cases where, when an AOO user edits a document with Record changes set to ON, the user deletes two comments attached to a ranges of text, the document becomes completely corrupted and all data in the document is lost. RoryOF and I submitted a bug report Issue 128356 - Track Changes and Annotations on text range can cause corruption. Applies to 4.x (all versions?) complete with a trivial .odt file having less than 100 words in it which reliably and repeatedly produced the error. It was marked P5 LOWEST until I protested that, as it caused complete data loss it should be more important than that. It is now marked P2 CRITICAL, CONFIRMED, and has four votes. Why is nothing been done to fix it? Do you think it should be on your list of things to do?

Data loss is a serious problem. Please do look at some of the tutorials I have written to help users retrieve their data when AOO corrupts their files. [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files has been viewed 42,000 times and [Tutorial] Format error discovered in sub-document is based on my post and added to by me, and has been viewed 16,000 times.

That being said I realise there are very difficult decisions to be made about where effort should be spent.

I press equally for something which warns the user that a file she has opened has content (ie XML tagged information) which is not recognised by AOO so content and other information may be missing from the document. As one example I cite that AOO is silent when a Microsoft Textbox in a .docx file is ignored and both the textbox and its content are not shown to the user. This is a data loss problem as when the user saves the .docx as a .odt the data is silently completely lost. I raised Issue 126927 - Enhancement Request - Notify user if any XML tags in the file being opened are not recognised.
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petko
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by petko »

Why is nothing being done to address these problems?
We are not aware of this issues as you are. I know the first one, but not the other 3. I will take that to the dev list.
The Issue with the '####' Issue is that we do not have an angle on the Issue. Patricia has some suspicion, Andrea has said he tried to reconstruct the Issue but failed in the reproduction.
We look into threading maybe that will turn something up. But in the end, we have not been able to get hold on the Issue.

When are the problems which users see going to be fixed?
As we are all volunteers estimates are very difficult to make. I have only the frustrating answer, when we manage to fix the Issue. However promoting and organizing tasks is a big issues for the developers. Maybe remebering the dev list on the pain points from time to time would improve attention. This does not need to be complex, just maybe the higest prioritzed bugs from bugzilla send to dev list on a quater bases would promote these issues a lot. (even if it is the same mail...)
Why are developers completely wasting their limited, valuable time providing fixes in 4.1.7 for running AOO under OS/2 when OS/2 became obsolete decades ago?
Because OS/2 release is handled by bitworks which collects Money from OS/2 users and develops the port with their volunteers that get a small salary. See third party page.
Do you think it should be on your list of things to do?
Yes. Of course. I just mentioned the most important one I am aware of. I did want to post a List of Issues, which falls to me on the case of maintenance, which we want to have a main focus on.
Please do look at some of the tutorials I have written to help users retrieve
I post them regular on facebook. So yes I know. And well what to say. I am the only one on facebook handling people. Help would be nice.
However, one of the things which has always concerned me is that there seems to be virtually no communication between development and end users.
Well yea, the project does not have any volunteers that take care of communication. We had for 2 years the Issue to find trusted people for twitter (now handled by Jim) or Facebook (Handled now by me), and I could use help. The Project does need more then coders. But the thought is that everyone who brings the Project one step to the next level develops the project. So while most end users believe that development is a coding task it is not completely true. And therefor we fall short on volunteers taqking jobs. Keith just droped the try to develop a documentation team because people do not join and he feels alone.
I invite anyone who wants to improve things to the dev list for a discussion. The dev list is the main body of the Project. Project descisions are made only on the development list.
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petko
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by petko »

I have posted all Issues you Jon Ha mentioned to the dev list. I hope that we get an angle and make some progress on those.
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by John_Ha »

petco

Thank you for your comprehensive reply.

May I suggest the following avenues of investigation.

You can find the Four user problems with Writer report uploaded at Issue 126846. There are quite a few errors in it :( especially my confusion that profile corruption could be fixed by deleting registrymodifications.xcu - I now know it is usually corruption in ...\config which needs to be repaired.

1. AOO continues to write to disk long after the blue dotted line has stopped crossing the bottom of screen.

See Issue 107558 - A hidden step while writing OOo files? where it is reported that, on a network disk, AOO can still be writing 30 seconds after the blue line has stopped. Users naturally think they can shut down once the blue line has stopped as "AOO has finished" - but AOO has not finished. I suspect this is where the corruption to the profiles occurs. Continuing to display that moving line until the very last moment before AOO completes will, I think, prevent the problems.

2. I suspect the cause of "my file is full of #####" is because AOO does not properly handle the OS interrupt saying the user has requested a shutdown.

AOO should tell the OS that the shutdown must be paused until such time as AOO has completed what it needs to do - finish writing the file safely (and finish writing the profile). I think the OS shuts down the PC before AOO has finished and we therefore see files full of the NULLS written by line 52 in Deflater.

I do not recollect any LO user posting a My file is full of #### to the forum suggesting it seems to be an AOO problem and has been fixed in LO.

I have suggested a possible diagnostic test: Insert a pause or infinite loop command immediately before or after line 51/52 in Deflater. Save the file. AOO will now be held at the pause or loop. Shutdown the PC. AOO should prevent that shutdown. If AOO calls 100 routines in writing a file, 99 could handle a shut down interrupt properly but one may not do so and it is only those unfortunate users who happen to shutdown when that routine is being run who see the problem. Developers will know much better than me where that pause should be placed and one possibility is to place a diagnostic pause into each of those routines. The pause outputs Pause n and waits for input before proceeding. If the tester now issues a shutdown it will allow the tester to step through each routing individually to identify the routine(s) which allow the PC to shut down.

Code: Select all

    /**************************************************************
    2     *
    3     * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
    4     * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
    5     * distributed with this work for additional information
    6     * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
    7     * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
    8     * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
    9     * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
    10     *
    11     *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
    12     *
    13     * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
    14     * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
    15     * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
    16     * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
    17     * specific language governing permissions and limitations
    18     * under the License.
    19     *
    20     *************************************************************/
    21    
    22    
    23    
    24    // MARKER(update_precomp.py): autogen include statement, do not remove
    25    #include "precompiled_package.hxx"
    26    #include <Deflater.hxx>
    27    #ifndef _ZLIB_H
    28    #ifdef SYSTEM_ZLIB
    29    #include <zlib.h>
    30    #else
    31    #include <external/zlib/zlib.h>
    32    #endif
    33    #endif
    34    #include <com/sun/star/packages/zip/ZipConstants.hpp>
    35    #include <string.h> // for memset
    36    
    37    using namespace com::sun::star::packages::zip::ZipConstants;
    38    using namespace com::sun::star;
    39    
    40    /** Provides general purpose compression using the ZLIB compression
    41     * library.
    42     */
    43    
    44    Deflater::~Deflater(void)
    45    {
    46            end(); 
    47    }
    48    void Deflater::init (sal_Int32 nLevelArg, sal_Int32 nStrategyArg, sal_Bool bNowrap)
    49    {
    50            pStream = new z_stream;
    51            /* Memset it to 0...sets zalloc/zfree/opaque to NULL */
    52            memset (pStream, 0, sizeof(*pStream));
    53    
    54            switch (deflateInit2(pStream, nLevelArg, Z_DEFLATED, bNowrap? -MAX_WBITS : MAX_WBITS,
    55                                    DEF_MEM_LEVEL, nStrategyArg))
    56            {
    57                    case Z_OK:
    58                            break;
    59                    case Z_MEM_ERROR:
    60                            delete pStream;
    61                            break;
    62                    case Z_STREAM_ERROR:
    63                            delete pStream;
    64                            break;
    65                    default:
    66                             break;
    67            }
    68    }
    69    
    70    Deflater::Deflater(sal_Int32 nSetLevel, sal_Bool bNowrap)
    71    : bFinish(sal_False)
    72    , bFinished(sal_False)
    73    , bSetParams(sal_False)
    74    , nLevel(nSetLevel)
    75    , nStrategy(DEFAULT_STRATEGY)
    76    , nOffset(0)
    77    , nLength(0)
    78    {
    79            init(nSetLevel, DEFAULT_STRATEGY, bNowrap);
    80    }
    81    
    82    sal_Int32 Deflater::doDeflateBytes (uno::Sequence < sal_Int8 > &rBuffer, sal_Int32 nNewOffset, sal_Int32 nNewLength)
    83    {
    84            sal_Int32 nResult;
    85            if (bSetParams)
    86            {
    87                    pStream->next_in   = (unsigned char*) sInBuffer.getConstArray() + nOffset;
    88                    pStream->next_out  = (unsigned char*) rBuffer.getArray()+nNewOffset;
    89                    pStream->avail_in  = nLength;
    90                    pStream->avail_out = nNewLength;
    91    
    92    #if defined SYSTEM_ZLIB || !defined ZLIB_PREFIX
    93                    nResult = deflateParams(pStream, nLevel, nStrategy);
    94    #else
    95                    nResult = z_deflateParams(pStream, nLevel, nStrategy);
    96    #endif
    97                    switch (nResult)
    98                    {
    99                            case Z_OK:
    100                                    bSetParams = sal_False;
    101                                    nOffset += nLength - pStream->avail_in;
    102                                    nLength = pStream->avail_in;
    103                                    return nNewLength - pStream->avail_out;
    104                            case Z_BUF_ERROR:
    105                                    bSetParams = sal_False;
    106                                    return 0;
    107                            default:
    108                                    return 0;
    109                    }
    110            }
    111            else
    112            {
    113                    pStream->next_in   = (unsigned char*) sInBuffer.getConstArray() + nOffset;
    114                    pStream->next_out  = (unsigned char*) rBuffer.getArray()+nNewOffset;
    115                    pStream->avail_in  = nLength;
    116                    pStream->avail_out = nNewLength;
    117    
    118    #if defined SYSTEM_ZLIB || !defined ZLIB_PREFIX
    119                    nResult = deflate(pStream, bFinish ? Z_FINISH : Z_NO_FLUSH);
    120    #else
    121                    nResult = z_deflate(pStream, bFinish ? Z_FINISH : Z_NO_FLUSH);
    122    #endif
    123                    switch (nResult)
    124                    {
    125                            case Z_STREAM_END:
    126                                    bFinished = sal_True;
    127                            case Z_OK:
    128                                    nOffset += nLength - pStream->avail_in;
    129                                    nLength = pStream->avail_in;
    130                                    return nNewLength - pStream->avail_out;
    131                            case Z_BUF_ERROR:
    132                                    bSetParams = sal_False;
    133                                    return 0;
    134                            default:
    135                                    return 0;
    136                    }
    137            }
    138    }
    139    
    140    void SAL_CALL Deflater::setInputSegment( const uno::Sequence< sal_Int8 >& rBuffer, sal_Int32 nNewOffset, sal_Int32 nNewLength )
    141    {
    142        OSL_ASSERT( !(nNewOffset < 0 || nNewLength < 0 || nNewOffset + nNewLength > rBuffer.getLength()));
    143           
    144        sInBuffer = rBuffer;
    145        nOffset = nNewOffset;
    146        nLength = nNewLength;
    147    }
    148    void SAL_CALL Deflater::setLevel( sal_Int32 nNewLevel )
    149    {
    150            if ((nNewLevel < 0 || nNewLevel > 9) && nNewLevel != DEFAULT_COMPRESSION)
    151            {
    152                    // do error handling
    153            }
    154            if (nNewLevel != nLevel)
    155            {
    156                    nLevel = nNewLevel;
    157                    bSetParams = sal_True;
    158            }
    159    }
    160    sal_Bool SAL_CALL Deflater::needsInput(  )
    161    {
    162            return nLength <=0;
    163    }
    164    void SAL_CALL Deflater::finish(  )
    165    {
    166            bFinish = sal_True;
    167    }
    168    sal_Bool SAL_CALL Deflater::finished(  )
    169    {
    170            return bFinished;
    171    }
    172    sal_Int32 SAL_CALL Deflater::doDeflateSegment( uno::Sequence< sal_Int8 >& rBuffer, sal_Int32 nNewOffset, sal_Int32 nNewLength )
    173    {
    174        OSL_ASSERT( !(nNewOffset < 0 || nNewLength < 0 || nNewOffset + nNewLength > rBuffer.getLength()));
    175        return doDeflateBytes(rBuffer, nNewOffset, nNewLength);
    176    }
    177    sal_Int32 SAL_CALL Deflater::getTotalIn(  )
    178    {
    179            return pStream->total_in;
    180    }
    181    sal_Int32 SAL_CALL Deflater::getTotalOut(  )
    182    {
    183            return pStream->total_out;
    184    }
    185    void SAL_CALL Deflater::reset(  )
    186    {
    187    #if defined SYSTEM_ZLIB || !defined ZLIB_PREFIXB
    188            deflateReset(pStream);
    189    #else
    190            z_deflateReset(pStream);
    191    #endif
    192            bFinish = sal_False;
    193            bFinished = sal_False;
    194            nOffset = nLength = 0;
    195    }
    196    void SAL_CALL Deflater::end(  )
    197    {
    198            if (pStream != NULL)
    199            {
    200    #if defined SYSTEM_ZLIB || !defined ZLIB_PREFIX
    201                    deflateEnd(pStream);
    202    #else
    203                    z_deflateEnd(pStream);
    204    #endif
    205                    delete pStream;
    206            }
    207            pStream = NULL;
    208    }
3 LibreOffice recently spent 40,000 Euros rewriting the Image handling code so I doubt that AOO will be able to match that.

See [Tutorial] Some useful hints on using images where I wrote
The image handling code in LO (inherited from OOo and as still used by AOO 4.1.7) was recently (2018/2019) completely rewritten to address the image handling problems and LO may therefore now be more reliable than AOO in image handling. LO spent 40,000 Euros on having a professional programmer rewrite the image handling code so it was probably about six person-months of work suggesting it was a lot of work. The bug report states
The code we've inherited [from OOo] that deals with image caching, swapping in, out, lifecycle management of images via strings, swapping in and out to documents etc. is broken beyond belief. This is a tracker bug to start aggregating these horrors.
While substantial improvements were made to LO it appears there are still "a few problems remaining" - see Comment 41

See LO Bug 47148 (Image-Caching) - [META] Image handling problems,
Image handling rework for LibreOffice – Collabora’s tender results (June 2018),
How TDF uses its tendering process to improve LibreOffice and share knowledge with the community,
Has LibreOffice 6 just killed the indispensable "Memory" options? and
Bug 110448 - Remove "Memory" page from Options dialog; only adjust the settings using Expert Configuration.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
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RoryOF
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by RoryOF »

My current approach to the loss of images in OpenOffice (Writer, Impress and Draw) is to disable the autorecovery process; since doing so several years ago, I have not lost any images; John_Ha who has looked into this at greater depth than I have suggests my results might be a fluke (I have a good timed/dated backup regime in place, just in case).

My instinct is that the problem of image loss may be caused by improper saving of the program state around the autorecovery process - perhaps a flaw in the code permitting untimely interruption from the keyboard; this could also be linked to the ### error..
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
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floris v
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by floris v »

Odd as it may sound, but I think that ODF will be safer when it's used in software that supports the MSO xxx* formats. Most people use AOO or LO because they are cheap replacements for MSO, not because of their sympathy for ODF. It has to be worthwhile for developers to continue coding. What if the number of users drops so far that it's no longer interesting to go on with it? Many people might never hear about ODF if it wasn't for the support of the MSO format by AOO and LO. They install it, get in trouble with a docx file, come to us, we tell them the good news.
OpenOffice 4.1.11 on Ubuntu; LibreOffice 6.4 on Linux Mint, LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Ubuntu
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John_Ha
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by John_Ha »

RoryOF wrote:My current approach to the loss of images in OpenOffice (Writer, Impress and Draw) is to disable the autorecovery process; since doing so several years ago, I have not lost any images; John_Ha who has looked into this at greater depth than I have suggests my results might be a fluke (I have a good timed/dated backup regime in place, just in case).
See Issue 126970 - Lost images while editing a Writer .odt file - two scenarios where I report two scenarios I have experienced: one where images were lost at the moment of AutoRecovery and one when when images were lost without an AutoRecovery taking place. Note that while deleting the swapped out image files in .\temp does cause image loss I have seen images lost despite the swapped out images still being present in \temp.

I think Rory is being lucky because, by switching off AutoRecovery he has removed only the one known potential cause of image loss. The work done by LO suggests there are other factors at work. AOO uses OOo code which LO describes as
The code we've inherited [from OOo] that deals with image caching, swapping in, out, lifecycle management of images via strings, swapping in and out to documents etc. is broken beyond belief.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
sveld
Posts: 23
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by sveld »

Going forward this is a very relevant question. Round two decades ago I started with OOorg and had several customers move to use that after having used MS Office for years. Then after a lot of (mostly compatibility and 3th part integration) issues finally all moved back to MS Office. Even home users moved back to MS Office frequently for different reasons (stability, GUI, compatibility, etc). (My) Hard lesson learned is you cannot have for free solution in a company without good support (SLA's). That is why LO has payed dev's working on the code and those work for the company's which build of the LO code their log term support solutions. Then LO users of (the LTS) builds also pay those dev's to add certain features they need. Then companies show good insight where the marked is heading as they request certain features: like the web/cloud and mobile. This lead to the development of LO Online which allows it to integrate on the web level and is also used today to bring LO to mobile devices and Chromebooks (as Collabora Office). Recently Apple moved to their ARM based devices and Windows later this year will bring Win 10X with a lot of architectural changes. The point here that I want to make is moving forward will be a lot of work and in between the world keeps changing fast. It took LO, after splitting the original OO code, over a year just to clean up the mess and get to a state to reliably build on. I feel sad for AOO it's in the state it is in today, but this is not the fault of LO. Even when code exchange is possible AOO still needs dev's to integrate and maintain those. Even then, that would not magically attract new (payed) dev's from companies I guess as why would you builds on AOO while LO is the source where all plumbing happens? Sure this would make AOO more up to date, but that would mostly benefit those in need of a free (as in beer) solution. Reality is (and LO leaned that the hard way ad is still a discussion today) building and hosting Apps in stores costs money. In a few years MS will also move to a tighter secured desktop with APPX etc, they will slowly try to get rid off any classic applications and only allow installing from stores like Apple already does with IOS. Then I also see with my customers a slow adoption of Window in the cloud. O365 is just a hard competitor when not having the pieces in place. When LO ask to work closer together that is not because they are after the OO name, tough most of us have warm feeling and history with that, it's because together we are stronger in this competitive world dominated by MS.
LibreOffice 24.2.0.3 on Win11 and Linux (mostly openSUSE Tumbleweed), Collabora Office App on IOS and Android, Collabora Office Online (CODE) with Nextcloud
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Villeroy
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by Villeroy »

+1
AOO fell behind far too much, and the code base makes a grown programmer cry.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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Bidouille
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by Bidouille »

sveld wrote:Round two decades ago I started with OOorg and had several customers move to use that after having used MS Office for years. Then after a lot of (mostly compatibility and 3th part integration) issues finally all moved back to MS Office.
Perhaps these customers should have funded to have a better filter for OpenOffice and OOXML rather than paying for Microsoft licenses.
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Villeroy
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by Villeroy »

If it does not have an international brand, it is not worth anything.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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sveld
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by sveld »

Perhaps these customers should have funded to have a better filter for OpenOffice and OOXML rather than paying for Microsoft licenses.
I get your sarcasm on this, but generally "customers" are not willing to wait for something -maybe- to happen, nor are most willing to fund features as that way of using software is just not in their DNA... mind what I wrote regarding funding and LTS. Today I have several customers that (indirectly) fund LO Online trough a large 3th party that uses a rebranded Collabora Online. I've been pushing for that integration since the early days of (what is today) "LO Online", starting in '14 to get that into this commercial file access solution. That took 2 years to get on the upper management table and another 18 months trough their legal department before it was settled. Then almost a year of integration work before it landed with the customers. Lucky us, most open source based solutions (Nextcloud, (party) Owncloud, etc) move a lot faster with new integrations, but the point is enterprises need to be able to support such an solution for at least 5 years and so need to have legal and binding contracts. You cannot have such with a for free working community and I mean that with -all respect- for those spending their free time on (in this case) AOO.

Regarding OOXML support, which was largely funded by Novell at the time (go figure), even today this is not 100% compatible within LO although the last few releases have made great progress with that. I'm personally a firm believer in and user of ODF, but within companies and governments I work with there is not a single one them that uses this format today even as ODF is the officially format that those governments are require to use here in the Netherlands.
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Villeroy
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by Villeroy »

IMHO, any software generating OOXML is just a shame. I refuse to create any such documents except for some very rare cases on this forum. We send our documents on paper or PDF. Whenever we receive a doc(x) or xls(x), we open it in the MS WordViewer or MS ExcelViewer respectively which are discontinued for obvious reasons but still do an excellent job. In our small business, I am the one who deals with all kinds of mail attachments that are not PDF or picture. In the past 10 years have not seen a single Word document that would not be readable in plain text. All the Word users sending documents to us are idiots using the most convoluted product for plain text with bold character formatting, underlining, space indents and line breaks for vertical spacing.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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orangeli
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by orangeli »

My guess it will continue to fade away until abandoned.
A few more 4.x releases, it will not reach version 5...

The best options today for an office suite are:
https://www.libreoffice.org/
https://www.freeoffice.com/en
and if you are willing to pay:
https://www.wordperfect.com/en/product/home-student
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floris v
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Re: What's the future like for OpenOffice?

Post by floris v »

I don't see the point of having two similar and free office suites compete with each other against MS. Waste of energy, time, resources.
OpenOffice 4.1.11 on Ubuntu; LibreOffice 6.4 on Linux Mint, LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Ubuntu
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