OpenOffice.org vs. LibreOffice

“On September 28, 2010, LibreOffice was announced as a fork of
the OpenOffice.org office suite. In the weeks since then, there
have been promises of innovation and change from LibreOffice, and
an attempt at dignified silence from OpenOffice.org.

“However, it was only last week that the two rivals released
their 3.3 versions, and users had the chance to see whether the
differences in the culture of the projects made any difference in
the code.

“Unfortunately, tracking the differences is not easy. For one
thing, while the improvements over the previous common release 3.2
are numerous, few are major.

“Just as importantly, although both OpenOffice.org and
LibreOffice issued lists of new features, the lists are structured
and worded differently, and emphasize different features.

“However, a point-by-point comparison shows that while the new
releases have numerous improvements over version 3.2 of the code,
the advantage seems to lie with LibreOffice. So far as I can see,
OpenOffice.org 3.3 contains no new features that LibreOffice 3.3
lacks while, by contrast, LibreOffice.org 3.3 has a number of
features that OpenOffice.org 3.3 does not have, including improved
language support, new import filters, and several changes that
allow for more flexibility for spreadsheet users.”

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