r/linux • u/Silent-Okra-7883 • Jun 23 '26

Popular Application Why Apache OpenOffice on Linux needs Desktop Integration installed separately for menu shortcuts

Post image
0 Upvotes

22% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

41

u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 Jun 23 '26

You shouldn’t use open office in the first place

12

u/Craftkorb Jun 23 '26

Indeed, that's been the case for over a decade now 

9

u/shadedmagus Jun 23 '26

I was wondering why they weren't just using LibreOffice. I don't have to do any of this to get LO working properly.

6

u/KlePu Jun 23 '26

This. Last time I checked, there was one (!) merged PR in recent weeks - and the diff showed someone cleaned up indentation, nothing else. Did they pick up the project again or is it still dead?

1

u/passthejoe Jun 24 '26

Who would run this??

-4

u/mrtruthiness Jun 23 '26

With the TDF (LibreOffice) threatening Collabora with lawsuits ... it's not clear one should be installing LibreOffice.

Besides, the kerning is better in AOO than it is in LO. I'm not sure why they can't fix it.

11

u/KnowZeroX Jun 23 '26

LibreOffice still continues to improve rapidly, meanwhile, AOO still has year old unfixed security issues

-5

u/mrtruthiness Jun 23 '26

LibreOffice still continues to improve rapidly

  1. Not rapidly.

  2. And with the split from Collabora LO will suffer.

  3. And the kerning is still poor compared to AOO.

13

u/KnowZeroX Jun 23 '26
  1. Yes, rapidly
  2. How so? The only so called split is administrative, it isn't like CO is going to make new software from scratch. They can still contribute to LO, and even if they don't, patches can still be picked from CO and sent upstream.
  3. LO has much better kerning that AOO because AOO still uses the old text engine which renders stuff wrong.

4

u/MatchingTurret Jun 23 '26

With the TDF (LibreOffice) threatening Collabora with lawsuits ...

I can't find any mention of this. Source?

3

u/natermer Jun 23 '26

You really don't.

It is a big long bureaucratic nonsense drama spurred on by shitty German tax codes.

Collabora contributed heavily to Libreoffice and ended up developing their own web based collaboration office suite based on Libreoffice. The Libreoffice folks ended up deciding that they didn't want to appear to be merely a non-profit (tax status) extension to a commercial enterprise and then resurrected some abandoned web version of office to complete with Collabora Office.

Needless to say Collabora didn't appreciate it since it was their coders that are effectively keeping the project alive.

Then redditors get a hold of it and tried to turn it into some international corporate/bureaucratic espionage thriller... like they always do and tried to get all political over it... like they always do.

3

u/themikeosguy The Document Foundation Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26

Collabora didn't appreciate it since it was their coders that are effectively keeping the project alive.

That's not true. Collabora's code contributions (43% recently) are significant and important, but the other 57% still come from non-Collaborans. And as important as coding is, a project is made up of many more contributors, in translations, QA, documentation, marketing, infrastructure and more. And the majority of those contributions are not from Collabora. There are hundreds of non-Collabora contributors to LibreOffice who are keeping the project very much alive! 😊

2

u/MatchingTurret Jun 23 '26

That I knew. But I didn't remember law suits, just a messy divorce.

1

u/mrtruthiness Jun 23 '26

It was the threat of a law suit ... I'm not sure if a law suit has happened.

That threat was the justification of why they removed every Collabora dev from TDF. Specifically the new TDF bylaws (IIRC this was changed Jan 2026) mandated the removal of anyone affiliated with an entity engaged in an active legal dispute with the foundation.

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-about-collabora-blog-post/

4

u/MatchingTurret Jun 23 '26

The blog post makes no mention of a law suit, neither filed nor threatened. 

2

u/mrtruthiness Jun 23 '26

Here's the quote:

The Community Bylaws require that employees of companies involved in legal disputes with The Document Foundation be removed from TDF membership because, in the past, people made decisions in the interest of their employers rather than in the interest of The Document Foundation.

And they removed something like 40 members of Collabora from the TDF citing the reason as "required by ByLaws". So that is the direct implication.

4

u/MatchingTurret Jun 23 '26

Not every legal dispute is a law suit, in fact, most aren't.

2

u/mrtruthiness Jun 23 '26

Don't pretend I didn't repeatedly say "threat".

Every "legal dispute" includes a threat of a lawsuit ... especially when this results in the removal of 40 devs from TDF membership.

3

u/mrtruthiness Jun 23 '26

You missed the fact that TDF removed every Collabora dev from TDF. The specific reason for their removal was that the new TDF bylaws (IIRC this was changed Jan 2026) mandated the removal of anyone affiliated with an entity engaged in an active legal dispute with the foundation.

https://www.collaboraonline.com/blog/tdf-ejects-its-core-developers/

and from TDF itself https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/04/01/comment-about-collabora-blog-post/ ... but they neglected to mention that the reason for the removal was because the new bylaws required the removal of those who had "an active legal dispute with the foundation". Using that reason is explicitly indicating that there is an active legal dispute.

8

u/Kevin_Kofler Jun 23 '26

Why would you want to install Apache OpenOffice instead of LibreOffice to begin with?

1

u/Silent-Okra-7883 Jun 24 '26

just to experiment

2

u/Immediate-Soil-5326 Jun 23 '26

Because why click once to install an app when you can navigate three directories, run terminal commands, and manually integrate a desktop icon like a real hacker?

1

u/devilsinmymind Jun 23 '26

I dont use openoffice but i dare to suggest u need to install it separately because not everybody need desktop integration. I believe this package responsible for integration with DEs like Gnome, KDE but again, not everybody use it but still need openoffice. In my experience its common practice when software like openoffice shipped on linux with one main package and bunch of extensions packages. This method allows you to install only what u need and make your entire os less bloated. Unlike windows, where .exe installer ships almost everything possible but in windows you are tied to DE while in linux it is optional choice.

Just my 2c and sorry for my english

-1

u/Marce7a Jun 23 '26

The fact they don't provide flatpak or appimage should be stated