Shipping LibreOffice (Was: Re: Feature request)

Wed Jan 8 14:11:06 UTC 2014

There's always Linux Mint Xfce of course, which does have LibreOffice by
default and also the nice modern Whisker menu....

But I'd like to see Xubuntu provide a better "out of the box" experience as
well. It's unwise to underestimate the importance of first impressions.
Adding LibreOffice to the iso, would definitely improve the first
impression of a novice user. Abiword is nice, and even has some ability to
deal with .doc and .docx, but it's simply not comparable to LibreOffice.
It's not in the same league.

Lastly, just for the record: although I'm not active in development for
Xubuntu, that doesn't mean that I'm just a "free rider" who drops casual
remarks and does nothing: I'm the main (in fact: only) upstream Dutch
translator of both Xfce and LXDE (which are 100 % translated into Dutch)
and have done this since 2011. I'm also a member of the Dutch Ubuntu
translators team and I've provided the Dutch translations for Abiword, too.

In these respects I've been doing (and still am doing) a lot of work which
benefits Xubuntu as well. I repeat: this is not meant to boast or
something, but simply to highlight the fact that although I'm no Xubuntu
developer, indirectly I do work for Xubuntu as well....

Regards, Pjotr.

2014/1/8 Lutz Andersohn <landersohn at gmail.com>

>  My 2 cts:
> I understand lightness, which is why I like Xubuntu. Having said that, in
> order to get more users on Xubuntu (or all Ubuntu flavors for that matter)
> I think we need to take into account that a lot of computer work involves
> interoperability with other people/computers. For example my kid's school
> sends announcements often in DOCX file format.
> So, I think interoperability is really important and as such I think we
> need to embrace it. Abiword has no way of reading DOC or DOCX (neither has
> gnumeric for XLS or XLSX) so it is unsuitable in many cases. I really do
> not understand how one can use Xubuntu in a normal daily life interacting
> with people who don't have a strong philosophy about open software or open
> file formats without LibreOffice.
>
> *Lutz Andersohn*
>
> lutz.andersohn at gmail.com
> (925) 784 1565
> D-19318, AFF-I
>
> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/b65/2b6 Public key ID: 0x9620D1A6
> On 01/08/2014 05:37 AM, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:
>
> Including LibreOffice in the Xubuntu seed has been discussed numeours of
> times and the team has always decided to include it. At the moment we're
> preparing an LTS release with many more things to do, which are also much
> more important to do than prepare and execute LibreOffice integration.
>
> From my point of view, including LibreOffice on the ISO for optional
> installation is really close to just installing it, and I don't know why we
> would like to do the latter. On the other hand, being installable is really
> close to what we have now: the whole suite is in the repositories for
> installation already.
>
> All that being said, LibreOffice won't be in Xubuntu 14.04, even as an
> installation option.
>
> What's the situation after the LTS release? I don't know. If you really
> think it's a better fit for Xubuntu, start preparing a specification that
> covers questions about suitability, lightness, etc. The Strategy Document
> has a full and pretty thorough section about seeds and composition [1].
> More importantly, be ready to *do* something, not expect others to do it
> for you: the team hasn't been interested enough now to integrate
> LibreOffice, so it is highly likely that even if you got the team convinced
> Xubuntu should have LibreOffice, you probably still need to work, or get
> somebody to work on it.
>
> Cheers,
> Pasi
>
> [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/StrategyDocument#Seeds_.26_Composition
>
> On 08/01/14 11:45, PK wrote:
>
>  LibreOffice in Xubuntu seems a good idea to me. The only disadvantage I
> can think of, is that the iso probably won't fit on a 1 GB USB memory stick
> anymore.
>
>  But 1 GB memory sticks have gone the way of the dinosaurs a long time
> ago, so that's no real problem, I think. Heck, I myself probably can't even
> find the 1 GB stick that I still have somewhere....  :-)
>
>  Regards, Pjotr.
>
>
>
> 2014/1/8 Jackson Doak <noskcaj at ubuntu.com>
>
>> We're discussing changing to libreoffice, since abiword is generally
>> rather unstable. You could use a custom ISO maker to replace the parts
>> manually.
>>
>>
>>   On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:43 AM, Joel Ewing <physicsshark3 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>    Hello,
>>>  I am wondering if including an option to install LibreOffice during the
>>> Xubuntu installation (in place of or alongside Abiword and Gnumeric) could
>>> be considered for an upcoming release of Xubuntu.
>>>  Recently, I was part of a group to decide what Linux distribution
>>> should be chosen to run on a fleet of old laptops that were owned by a
>>> school.  I suggested Xubuntu, but my suggestion was ignored partly because
>>> Xubuntu does not come with LibreOffice.  Although Abiword and Gnumeric are
>>> great at what they do, many users seem to gravitate towards LibreOffice
>>> because it is more fully-featured.  I would appreciate if the developers
>>> could look into this matter.
>>>  Thank you.
>>>
>>>  Joel Ewing
>>>
>>>  --
>>> xubuntu-devel mailing list
>>> xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
>>>
>>>
>>
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>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Pasi Lallinaho (knome)                      » http://open.knome.fi/
> Leader of Shimmer Project and Xubuntu       » http://shimmerproject.org/
> Graphic artist, webdesigner, Ubuntu member  » http://xubuntu.org/
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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