Tech | Steve Woods

Collabora Online 1.0 “Engine” for hosters and clouds released

03/06/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech
Collabora Productivity, the driving force behind putting the free and open source LibreOffice productivity suite in the cloud, has announced the release the first production grade version of Collabora Online, its flagship cloud document suite solution. Codenamed “Engine”, it is targeted specifically at hosting and cloud businesses who wish to support both commercial and consumer document viewing, creation and editing services in their portfolios.

“Collabora Online 1.0 is the culmination of several years’ intensive work”, remarked Michael Meeks, Collabora Productivity’s General Manager. “Our objective is to enable key document suite service delivery for hosters by integrating seamlessly with their existing groupware, storage, file sharing and other customer solutions. Critically, Collabora will tailor the look and feel of the integration to complement a hoster’s identity and desired product experience.”

Calc spreadsheet being used online

For this release Collabora Productivity has also updated its demo, which now includes, amongst other things:
- Header menus;
- Right click menus;
- Tables
- Comments
Interested potential users can request access to the demo from Collabora.

Reposted from Bristol Wireless.
LibreOffice 5.1.3 available for download

12/05/2016 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

The Document Foundation (TDF) has today announced the immediate availability of LibreOffice 5.1.3, the third minor release of the LibreOffice 5.1 family, which now supports Google Drive remote connectivity on GNU/Linux and MacOS X operating systems.

LibreOffice 5.1.3 is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users. For more conservative users and for enterprise deployments, TDF recommends the “still” version – LibreOffice 5.0.6. For enterprise deployments, The Document Foundation also recommends professional support by certified people.

For those users interested in helping to test forthcoming releases, there are also development versions and nightly builds available. However, these are not recommended for use in a production environment, where stability and reliability are required.

LibreOffice Impress presentation software

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.1.3 is available for immediate download.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can also support The Document Foundation with a donation.

LibreOffice Conference 2016

In 2016 the annual LibreOffice Conference will be hosted by the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic from 7th to 9th September.

The Call for Papers is open until 15th July 2016 and registration for the conference is now open.
Open source helps Bristol academics win award

06/05/2016 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Open Source, Tech

Open source software was an essential element in the work of 2 Bristol modern languages tutors who have just won an award.

The University of Bristol has announced that Marcella Oliviero and Andrea Zhok have won first prize in the 2016 Apereo Teaching & Learning Awards (ATLAS) for a project that helped first-year students in the Department of Italian teach elements of grammar to their peers. With support from University staff, students were encouraged to develop their own tutorials using Xerte, an open source software package for the creation of interactive teaching and learning materials, which has been developed by the University of Nottingham. As a result, students gained a greater stake in their own learning, improved their subject knowledge and acquired new IT skills.

Apereo is a network that develops and maintains e-learning software used in thousands of educational institutions worldwide. Packages like Xerte permit the use of a wide range of functions and media to make the learning experience richer and more diverse than is possible with traditional methods. The tutors’ success was announced at the 2016 Xerte Conference in Nottingham and they have also been invited to present their work at the Open Apereo conference in New York later this month.

Initially posted on Bristol Wireless.
LibreOffice 5.0.6 released

06/05/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

Yesterday The Document Foundation announced the availability LibreOffice 5.0.6 “still”, the sixth release of the LibreOffice 5.0 family, which can be used for the deployment in large organisations and for more conservative software users.

The Document Foundation recommends large-scale deployment of LibreOffice 5.0.6 with professional level 3 support from certified developers (a list of qualified developers is available at https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/). When migrating to LibreOffice from proprietary office suites such as MS Office, organisations are further advised to seek professional support from certified migration consultants and trainers, which are listed on the same web page.

In addition, there are companies providing LibreOffice LTS (Long Term Support) versions with incremental updates which are targeted at enterprise deployments.

People interested in technical details about the release can see the bugs fixed in RC1) and those fixed in RC2.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.0.6 is available for immediate download.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation by making a donation. In addition, LibreOffice merchandise is now available from the brand new project shop.

LibreOffice Conference

The 2016 LibreOffice Conference will be hosted by the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic from 7th to 9th September. The conference is being organised by OpenAlt.

Details of the Call for Papers, which is open until 15th July 2016, are available at https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/04/08/libreoffice-brno-conference-call-for-paper/, whilst registration has also opened for the conference.

LibreOffice development versions

LibreOffice 5.2 alpha1 – a development version currently available

Pre-release development versions of LibreOffice are also available. To access these, visit the pre-releases server.

Finally, for those who want to right on the bleeding edge of software development, there are nightly builds available, although it should be pointed out that both pre-release and nightly build versions are intended for technology enthusiasts and developers only; use in a production environment by users with average IT skills is not recommended.
Windows 10 update interrupts weather forecast

30/04/2016 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Tech

Microsoft has a reputation for forcing unwanted updates and upgrades on users.

Its actions reached a new nadir when it made Windows 10 a recommended update for users of earlier versions – 7 and 8.* – of its operating system.

Since this occurred there have been numerous reports of the new operating system installing itself without either user consent or much warning.

One of the most public of these attempted upgrades happened 2 days ago live on air at TV station KCCI of Des Moines, Iowa, as per the following screenshot.

That’s right! With impeccable bad timing, Windows 10 update barged unannounced into Metinka Slater’s heavy rain and thunderstorms update. However, the TV meteorologist managed deal professionally with the unwelcome intrusion into her work and switch quickly to an alternative video source to continue her broadcast, as shown by the following video.
LibreOffice 5.1.2 released

07/04/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

The Document Foundation (TDF), the German foundation behind the free and open source LibreOffice productivity suite, has today announced the release of LibreOffice 5.1.2, the second minor release of the LibreOffice 5.1 family.

LibreOffice 5.1.2.2 in use

LibreOffice 5.1.2 is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users. For more conservative users and for enterprise deployments, TDF recommends use of the “still” version: LibreOffice 5.0.5. For enterprise deployments, The Document Foundation suggests the backing of professional support by certified people, of whom a list is available.

Technical details of the release can be seen in the change logs, i.e. bugs fixed in RC1 and bugs fixed in RC2.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.1.2 is available for immediate download via the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/.

In addition, LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members are encouraged to support TDF with a donation.

User comment

Your correspondent has been using LibreOffice 5.1.2 since the first pre-release version was made available. It has proved itself to be nimble, reliable and I would recommend it as a replacement for your current office suite, particularly if you wish to escape vendor lock-in and support free and open source software too.
First LibreOffice 5.2 bug hunting session announced

02/04/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

A blog post earlier this week from The Document Foundation, the organisation behind LibreOffice, the popular free and open source office productivity suite, gives details of the first bug hunting session for the forthcoming release of LibreOffice 5.2.

There is also a page on the session on the LibreOffice wiki.

This initial session will be held on Friday, 22nd April 2016. Tests will be performed on the Alpha version of LibreOffice 5.2, which will be available on the pre-releases servers a few days before the event. Builds will be available for Linux (DEB and RPM), MacOS and Windows.

Mentors will be available on on the day from 8.00 a.m. UTC to 10.00 p.m. UTC. Of course it will also be possible to hunt bugs on other days, as the builds of this particular Alpha release (LibreOffice 5.2.0 Alpha) will be available until the end of May.

During the day there will be two dedicated sessions: the first to chase bugs on the four main LibreOffice modules – Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw – between 3.00 p.m. UTC and 5.00 p.m. UTC; and the second to test the top 10 features between 5.00 p.m. UTC and 7.00 p.m. UTC. The list of the top 10 features will be decided during the week before the session and will be added to the wiki page.
Happy Document Freedom Day

30/03/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech
Today, 30th March, is Document Freedom Day, an annual celebration of the benefits of using open standards and open formats for the production and exchange of documents.

Open standards are essential for interoperability and freedom of choice based on the merits of different software applications. They provide freedom from data lock-in and the associated vendor lock-in. This makes open standards essential for governments, the public sector, companies, organisations and individual users of information technology.

What is an open standard?

An open standard is defined as a format or protocol that is:
1. Subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties;
2. Without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves;
3. Free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by any party or in any business model;
4. Managed and further developed independently of any single supplier in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties;
5. Available in multiple complete implementations by competing suppliers or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties.
Examples of open formats include Open Document Format (ODF) and plain text (.txt).

Examples of open protocols include the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), which together as TCP/IP help determine how the internet works.

What do open standards mean for you?

Open standards ensure that you can:
- Collaborate and communicate with others, regardless of which software they are using;
- Upgrade or replace your applications and still be able to open and edit your old files;
- Choose which device – (smartphone, tablet, computer) you want to use without worrying about compatibility;
What do open standards mean for society?

Open standards ensure that society has:
- More competitive software and technology products;
- More efficient government systems and services;
- More accessible high-end software for innovation and experimentation.
US government wants to commit to open source

21/03/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

The US government wants to save taxpayers’ money with reusable software and open source. To this end the White House’s “Office of Management & Budget” (OMB) presented a draft “Source Code Policy” (PDF) at the end of last week, German IT news site heise reports. According to this draft policy, computer programs developed especially with public financial resources are to be used in principled throughout the entire administration, i.e. not just in the commissioning authority. Part at least of the source code produced shall also be made available to the public as open source software. Standard programs such as office packages are excluded from this policy.

During a pilot programme the authorities involved are initially to release 20% of the source code under an open source licence if outside programmers are involved in development. Software which administration officials write within the scope of their official duties will have to be released in its entirety although there will be exceptions for source code for systems developed for the purposes of national security.

Regard for national security

Tony Scott, the US government’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), believes that the project will promote innovation and collaboration and reduce costs. It should also be possible for experts to be able to examine and improve the source code. Only this will ensure that programs work more securely and reliably. According to Scott the initiative also fits into the administration’s plans for technological neutrality and new economic development models. The draft policy is out for consultation until 11th April, after which it will be decided and implemented.

Update 21/03/2016: The policy is under version control on Github; that’s a lovely detailed touch! 🙂

Reposted from the Bristol Wireless blog.
LibreOffice 5.1.1 released

13/03/2016 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Tech

Three days ago, The Document Foundation (TDF) announced the release of LibreOffice 5.1.1, the latest release of the LibreOffice 5.1 family.

LibreOffice 5.1.1 offers a long awaited feature in Writer – the first request for which dates back to 2002 – as it allows hiding the white space between pages to provide a continuous flow of text. This feature will be extremely useful on laptops.

LibreOffice 5.1.1 is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users. For more conservative users and enterprise deployments, TDF suggests the “still” version: LibreOffice 5.0.5. For enterprise deployments, The Document Foundation recommends engaging certified professional support.

People interested in technical details about the release can see the bugs fixed in Release Candidate 1 and RC3. There was no intervening RC2.

LibreOffice 5 series screenshot

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.1.1 is immediately available for download.

Besides the “fresh” and “still” versions of LibreOffice, those who want to be at the bleeding edge or assist in development can also download development versions, nightly builds and the source code. Your correspondent is currently using a pre-release version, 5.1.3*.

Finally LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation.

* = When initially upgraded, the installation process reported data corruption in the Calc spreadsheet component. This was resolved by downloading the package again and re-installing the relevant spreadsheet packages.