LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

Michael started by posing a couple of questions and answering them, the first of which was "why not rewrite into C# or HTML5?" He noted with a straight face that going to a web-based approach might not succeed in [Michael Meeks] improving the program's well-known performance problems. He also said that he has yet to go to a conference where he did not get kicked off the network at some point. For now, he just doesn't buy the concept of doing everything on the web.

Of course I wish Michael and LibreOffice all the best. I am quite thrilled with the increased activity in the LibreOffice git repository. Perhaps, when KOffice gets git later this month it will see a similar surge in the, already very nice, activity. A remarkable thing is that there really are a lot of people working on ODF software these days, and there diversity with compatibility is the optimal result.

I find it interesting that Michael goes out of his way to defend the decision to stick with C++. I say this because at GUADEC this year I presented WebODF which is a javascript library to render and edit ODF documents in the browser and on the desktop. The 5 minute presentation that was rudely, but timely, interrupted by a vuvuzela prompted Michael and Luis Villa to have a lively discussion about the merits of desktop vs web. I could tell Michael was appalled and intrueged by the idea of doing ODF in the browser, but ultimately thinks C++ on the desktop is the most accurate and fast way of editing ODF. With WebODF, we aim for "good enough for most people" and especially for groups of people that want to share office documents on their own server and edit them from anywhere.

Here's a small video of WebODF.