OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice Release Candidates Duke It Out

"Oracle-owned OpenOffice.org and independent LibreOffice are both nearing their freely available 3.3.0 versions and show their wares with recent release candidates. Commercial OpenOffice.org 3.3 was released by Oracle last month at a licensing fee starting at $49.95 for the Standard Edition, but has yet to release the freely downloadable version for home and small business use. That version has reached RC9, which is said to probably be the last development release before final. On the other side of town, LibreOffice has been releasing development versions as well with the latest being RC3 on January 13, which is rumored to be its last before final as well. LibreOffice has gained popular support probably primarily due to breaking from Oracle control and ownership while offering largely equal functionality.

"OpenOffice.org 3.3 RC9 didn't introduce any new features this late in the game, but instead concentrated on bug fixes. OpenOffice.org 3.3 will bring some nice new features since the 3.2 stable branch. Some include new free fonts that will make it more compatible with Microsoft Office prepared documents, password protection for some formats that were previously wanting, increased Calc support for up to 1,048,576 rows and colored tabs..."

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