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Open Source Technology

LibreOffice Marks 40th Year With Browser-Based Overhaul (theregister.com) 48

Posted by msmash from the going-strong dept.
LibreOffice, the open-source office suite that began as StarOffice in 1985, has marked its 40th anniversary with new features that it says could transform how users interact with the software. At the FOSDEM 2025 conference, developers unveiled LibreOffice 25.2, which introduces browser-based functionality and real-time collaboration capabilities through a technology called conflict-free replicated data types.

A key development is ZetaOffice, a version built for the WebAssembly runtime that enables the full office suite to run inside web browsers across operating systems and CPU architectures. The project, which entered public beta last November, allows websites to embed LibreOffice applications with complete user interfaces for editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

While the browser-based version currently requires about a gigabyte of code and additional memory to run, developers at Allotropia are working to modularize the codebase for faster loading times. The software, released under the MIT license, can be controlled via JavaScript and operates without requiring an internet connection, unlike Google Docs or LibreOffice's existing Collabora Online version.

LibreOffice Marks 40th Year With Browser-Based Overhaul More | Reply

LibreOffice Marks 40th Year With Browser-Based Overhaul

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  • It sounds like it's time to start investigating alternative word processors.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, why not switch to the out of date, barely maintained ancient version of Libreoffice. That sounds like a smart plan (if you're a moron).

      Perhaps you might ask yourself why the mere *existence* of a separate, entirely optional web interface for LibreOffice would make you abandon it, even though it will literally make zero difference to you if you keep using the existing interface?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Problem with almost all projects of this nature, is that they tend to get taken over by activists over time.

        And activists then proceed to enshittify the product, as they focus on their activism.

        Humans are inference machines, and OP is simply inferring likely potential outcome from plentiful examples from the past.

        • Change activists to Companies and you get the same thing. They try to maximize profit and ruin everything. I wonder if we'll start getting Loot Boxes in Office soon

        • Problem with almost all projects of this nature, is that they tend to get taken over by activists over time.

          And activists then proceed to enshittify the product, as they focus on their activism.

          When has this *ever* happened?!

        • Problem with almost all projects of this nature, is that they tend to get taken over by activists over time.

          Ok, please name some of those activists derailing LibreOffice.

      • I would hazard a guess that you replied to a troll from an out of touch Microsoft employee. Nice reply all the same.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        "Out of date" is not a valid criticism. My experience with html interactions leads me to believe that this is a very bad way to implement a word processor. (Also, my needs don't include really advanced features that LibreOffice actually provides. I'd appreciate easy generation of multiple indexs much more than many of the things they actually have.)

        P.S.: The best markup system for generation of indexes that I actually encountered was MSWord 5.1a for the Apple LC+ (or possibly LC2). That had the problem

  • I never understood why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Thursday February 13, 2025 @02:30PM (#65164371)

    ...some people want to run ever more complex stuff in a browser.
    A browser is a tool for displaying web pages. It is not, and should not be, an OS

    • Re:I never understood why... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by supremebob ( 574732 ) <themejunky.geocities@com> on Thursday February 13, 2025 @02:43PM (#65164399) Journal

      Basically, it comes in handy if you don't have admin access on your local machine and just need word a processor without being able to install anything.

      I'd imagine that this comes in handy for school students, but probably not so much for office workers.

      What I don't understand is why it took LibreOffice so long to develop this. If they had this 15 years ago, maybe Chromebooks using Google Docs would have never needed to become a requirement for many schools to use.

      • Did you look at the memory requirements for the web version? Running it on a limited device would be crap. The advantage of Google docs is that most of it doesn't run on your machine.

      • Re:I never understood why... (Score:4, Informative)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Thursday February 13, 2025 @04:45PM (#65164859)

        It's worth noting here that LibreOffice didn't take this long to develop this. They have had this for 10 years now, but their Google Docs equivalent was called Collabora Online. The news here is that LibreOffice isn't becoming Google Docs, it's becoming Microsoft Office - i.e. the standalone desktop program now has these online collaboration features.

        Also it's easy to talk hindsight, but Google Docs not only broke new ground with the online office paradigm, but they actively had to ignore / make up internet standards to do so back in the day. That shit doesn't fly well in the open source world.

        Also worth noting is that Collabora Online beat Microsoft Office to the punch. Word only got it's first collaboration features in 2016.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Basically, it comes in handy if you don't have admin access on your local machine and just need word a processor without being able to install anything.

        I'd imagine that this comes in handy for school students, but probably not so much for office workers.

        What I don't understand is why it took LibreOffice so long to develop this. If they had this 15 years ago, maybe Chromebooks using Google Docs would have never needed to become a requirement for many schools to use.

        Or need to quickly edit something on your phone and don't want to faff about installing full office suite.

        It's not like this is going to change the open source nature of Libre Office.

    • I guess cross platform compatibility is nice for the developers. Not needing to make three or four versions of your software. For instance, OnShape seems to be a pretty good web-based CAD solution. I'm not a professional, but for hobby stuff it seems well put together. It also allows for easy collaboration. The part I don't like is the need for a new account with every online service. It gets annoying. Of course, you are likely going to need to create a web portal account for new desktop software these days

      • ...you are likely going to need to create a web portal account for new desktop software these days too, so there is that.

        I too like OnShape for my hobby stuff, although I admit I've been more and more tempted to move to Fusion360 for...reasons. That said, to your point about creating accounts for each and every service, there are Open solutions to this. SAML, OAuth, OIDC depending on use-case. The problem I really see with those is that the only services providing easy access to centralized Identity Management and supported by these third parties tend to be the ones that most /.ers tend to hate (Google, Microsoft, Faceboo

    • I used to think so after using a few save game editors for a few games I play I can appreciate the convenience of things just working regardless if you are Windows, Linux, or macOS.

      Of course that Jurassic Park quote comes to mind:

      Your Programmers Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could (run all software in a browser), They Didn't Stop To Think If They Should.

      The problem is now we have bloated web "apps" because people want to do more and more.

      At some point we'll inevitably reach The Birth and Dea [destroyallsoftware.com]

    • It makes LibreOffice a direct competitor to Microsoft's online office products.

    • A browser is a tool for displaying web pages.

      Ok boomer. You do you. I expect more from my browser than the 1998 internet experience thanks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hasaf ( 3744357 )
      I work in an environment where I am forbidden from doing anything to the computers. If I want to do anything I need to have a browser-based app, or install a portable version on my USB drive.

      So, Arduino programming on the web app and FreeCad on my usb.

      • Rather odd that a place that paranoid about changing anything about their computers lets you plug in arbitrary USB drives.

    • ...some people want to run ever more complex stuff in a browser. A browser is a tool for displaying web pages. It is not, and should not be, an OS

      Browsers turned out to be great for applications as well as for documents.

      Like, over 25 years ago ...

      But to put it less snottily :) retrieving and displaying data, and letting you interact with it, is what browsers do.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by strombrg ( 62192 )
      The browser has become a near-universal client. Programming for it with Javascript+HTML+CSS is a mess. We put up with this, so endusers don't have to install anything. If we can get WASM to take off, it'll be a much better alternative. It'll still require no software installs, but have a much more rational programming model.

    • That's easy. It's the one platform that supports basically *every* OS. Write your code once, it runs truly everywhere.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The main reason is that a browser with wasm brings you portability and hardware-independence. It is essentially a form of easy-to install hardware-independent VM.

  • LibreOffice Begins its Decline (Score:4, Informative)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Thursday February 13, 2025 @02:40PM (#65164391)

    One of the more compelling parts of LibreOffice is that it's not a data-sucking "cloud" based software. If they're announcing that they're changing that, it removes a large portion of incentive to use it.

    I assume this is a precursor to announcing AI features, probably teaming up with one of the larger data vacuums to "provide" the "service" for folks. Nothing cloud related doesn't eventually end up in the data-suck that is AI. It's a backslide in user-focused development into "how do we best leverage our user's data for profit and ad serving potential?" Of all the garbage I wade through each day, this one actually manages to stir enough gut-reaction to almost register as anger.

  • It is somewhat ironic, but certainly not surprising, to celebrate a software package's anniversary by announcing a major push to enshittification. Hopefully there will be a fork that removes these 'functionalities'.

  • Weird reactions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Thursday February 13, 2025 @04:22PM (#65164753) Homepage

    Some guy: "Hey look! I made Linux run inside a PDF file!"

    /. reaction: "Oh cool! You da BOSS! That's amazing!"

    Libreoffice: "Hey look! We made an office suite run inside a browser!"

    /. reaction: "Boo! Enshittification! Activism! Woke! Grumble mumble get off my lawn!"

    LibreOffice is awesome. And this web thing is completely optional, so perhaps the doomers might want to cool their jets.

    • "LibreOffice is awesome. And this web thing is completely optional, so perhaps the doomers might want to cool their jets."

      As long as it stays optional I have no problem with it at all. Personally I'd rather they put some effort into improving the charting in the spreadsheet.

      • The spreadsheet is an order of magnitude or so too non-performant, in that Excel can handle about an order of magnitude more data without cratering.

        Also, when will Calc get live pivot tables? What year is it?

        • Possibly. The biggest spreadsheet I've dealt with lately is 105,000 rows by AX columns. Speed is fine there.

          • Sometimes I like to pull some data into a spreadsheet to massage it before using it for something, without having to write a script for it. Usually I want to do something pretty simple like merge or split some cells. I've had Calc either grind to an apparent halt or just die when I've tried to do this, several times. Yeah, I loaded a lot of rows, so what? I have 64GB RAM, load those fuckers. Nope, Calc go boom. Given that spreadsheet logic is a series of simple iterative processes which when repeated give c

  • I guess that means that this year is the 38th year of not handling ISO 8601 dates properly except in countries that have adopted ISO 8601 as their official date format.

  • This is awesome. Not so much for running a word processor in a browser, though that is nice. The awesome part is that it probably means they have a robust widget set compiled to WASM. The world has been really, really, really needing a robust widget set for WASM.

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