I really dislike the term "up to N%" - this reminds me of sleazy commercials reporting "up to 80% discount". 0.2% is also "up to 100%". Can't more accurate figures be reported?
I have just installed LibreOffice 3.5.4 and yes, there is a drastic performance improvement. Documents and application do load much much faster (I am on Windows 7). A real improvement here, but I am not sure 'accurate' figures can be reported. I am impressed by the boost.
It could mean it's 100% faster for some tasks. So it could be 100% faster in loading docx or whatever, and only 20% faster in loading .doc. Are you looking for something like an average speed improvement? That probably wouldn't be very accurate, either. But they could say the new LibreOffice is 20%-100% faster, I suppose.
I've always had a problem with this too. If a product is 80% off, you pay 20% of the original price; 100% off and it's free. If a product is 80% faster, it runs in 20% of the original time. If it's 100% faster, it runs in zero time.
Does it import Microsoft document formats 100% better? That' the biggest issue that Open/LibreOffice has and until that one is solved for good, the rest does not matter much...
EDIT: not wanting to contribute further to the fall of HN, I edited M$ into Microsoft
The problem started to haunt Microsoft as well -- there are (simple) cases where their files don't open up correctly in slightly different versions of Office. In fact, I've recently had to open some .doc files with LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office (on Mac) because of this.
I just downloaded it because its been bogging down my machine. Its running notably smoother and quicker but I've got a regression on how its rendering the document I'm working from. Whats really stinks, its an internal document so I can't send it upstream so they can fix the issue.
The rendering bugs with Microsoft formats are understandable but still extremely frustrating.
Whether it's 100% or 40%, I'm very happy with this. The problem with OpenOffice for many years was that it was very slow, and it's even a problem today (e.g. if your machine is heavily loaded and you find yourself having to start an office suite, you usually regret it).
Not just when under load. Up until now, it was a pain watching the UI match up the information around caret position (e.g toolbar like bold, italic, font, etc... and in the style window) full seconds after it moved there.
Most of the community developers have jumped the bandwagon to work with LibreOffice. It seems that the developers still with OpenOffice.org are mostly working for IBM and Oracle. The project just did the first release (http://www.openoffice.org/news/aoo34.html) after two years of silence, but there's still a lot to do before they are featurewise competing with LibreOffice. You can see a feature comparison here: http://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2012-04-26-ooo-compari...
It's going very well, actually. There was just a release a couple of weeks ago, and IBM just donated the source code to their Symphony product - which was derived from OOo. Symphony apparently has some really nice UI features which will hopefully make it into the mainline of Apache OO.
There is talk on oo-dev about starting the process of graduating from the Apache Incubator, which is an encouraging sign.
I can run new libre from /opt/libreoffice3.5/program only, without Gnome or KDE. Old versions add softlinks to runnable paths. This new version doesn't.
This is good news actually, we always want improvement in every new software version.
But, i need a better, truly far better, presentation software. If we compare between Ms Office, iWork, and Libre, the only thing i don't like with Libre is the Impress. Impress do presentation like 10 years ago. No keynote-like (just like MS do in Office 2k10) 3D animation, no simple color picker, no shadow effects, no gradient,..
I won't get into the nitty gritty of how much faster it is, or how that kind of speed improvement should be calibrated. All I can say is it loads a heck-of-a-lot faster than it did previously - and also add a big thank you to the folks at LibreOffice.
100%? so now instead of taking X amount of time to do something, it takes 0 time (X-X*100) to do something? Or have I completely misunderstood what a % performance improvement is?
I think you're looking for an inverse relationship.
e.g. My car has 200hp and can do a quarter mile in 20 seconds. If I then increase my car to 400hp (a 100% increase), let's pretend I can now do a quarter mile in 10 seconds.
Thus, a 100% increase in performance drops cuts my quarter mile (or in this case processing) time in half.
Or you can interpret it the other way: before the code could complete X units of work (whatever the metric), now it can complete X + X in the same time (2X).
If we assume "100% improvement" means "100% increase," the most common definition of the latter is simply 2x the former amount. So a 100% improvement in performance likely means 2x the former speed.
In general, I think vendors should be more transparent about performance and reliability:
Microsoft Office 2011....Now using up to 30% less bugs, 20% faster load times, and you get X amount of features.
At least performance/reliability would be considered a feature. It would be better than a lot of the bloatware that comes out these days. Users should be conditioned to ask about performance and reliability of a product rather than how many features they added. You clearly see this from Apple but not Microsoft.
On Ubuntu 10.04 compared to Open Office Writer 3.2, storage of a 209 pages document with Libre Office Writer 3.5.4.2 is even slower.
Program startup of Libre Office Writer is also slower.
Minor detail: after unpacking "LibO_3.5.4_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz" I got a directory "LibO_3.5.4rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US", the "rc2" lets me doubt, that this is the release version.
100% performance increase!! thats a bit too much of a statement.
I am wondering if a product can have an 100% performance increase, then it must be pretty badly built the first time around. isnt it? I like openoffice, and didnt really think it needed a 100% performance upgrade, but hey more is better.
If Libre Office or Open Office really want to get ahead, they need to innovate on their user interface. Being libre/free isn't enough of a reason for some of us, what we need is ease of use and productivity. The Ribbon has been a great step forward IMO and I'd love to see the Libre team challenge it with something even better. Traditional menu bars feel so... 90s.
You are literally the first person (not counting Microsoft press releases) that I have ever heard praise the ribbon UI. If you like it, great, but I'm pretty sure you're in the minority.
Just fished helping the wife with a paper on libreoffice... Heck latex is the ultimate user friendliness. But mostly because i can write in vim.
openoffice is a joke. Don't know if it's because i still can't find how to fine tune key shortcuts but all the "speed" problems were me hunting down the same 3 items in a menu over and over.
They should move all the focus on maintaining a non-word clone interface.
100% performance improvement? That seems a little ridiculous (and impossible). I can't find the data that this claim comes from, so I have a feeling they might mean 50% performance improvement (i.e. 1s => 0.5s). Is there more detail anywhere?
(Edit: would it be possible to have an explanation for why this was downvoted? If I've said something stupid/wrong, I'd like to be corrected please.)
To begin with, it's perfectly possible to increase several orders of magnitude the performance of a piece of code, you can Google for plenty of examples. In addition, going from 1 sec to 0.5 sec is indeed 100% improvement.
[+] [-] eliben|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JVerstry|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaffeinecoma|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] velodrome|14 years ago|reply
I rather use average improvement rather than best case improvement - that way users don't feel duped.
[+] [-] av500|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: not wanting to contribute further to the fall of HN, I edited M$ into Microsoft
[+] [-] scscsc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexFromBelgium|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ssmall|14 years ago|reply
The rendering bugs with Microsoft formats are understandable but still extremely frustrating.
[+] [-] cowmix|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] recoiledsnake|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dminor|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sgt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lloeki|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iwwr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Maakuth|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|14 years ago|reply
There is talk on oo-dev about starting the process of graduating from the Apache Incubator, which is an encouraging sign.
[+] [-] samet|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erkin_unlu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fidz|14 years ago|reply
But, i need a better, truly far better, presentation software. If we compare between Ms Office, iWork, and Libre, the only thing i don't like with Libre is the Impress. Impress do presentation like 10 years ago. No keynote-like (just like MS do in Office 2k10) 3D animation, no simple color picker, no shadow effects, no gradient,..
[+] [-] kinleyd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmboyd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryankirkman|14 years ago|reply
e.g. My car has 200hp and can do a quarter mile in 20 seconds. If I then increase my car to 400hp (a 100% increase), let's pretend I can now do a quarter mile in 10 seconds.
Thus, a 100% increase in performance drops cuts my quarter mile (or in this case processing) time in half.
[+] [-] obiterdictum|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dan85|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsrguru|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] velodrome|14 years ago|reply
Microsoft Office 2011....Now using up to 30% less bugs, 20% faster load times, and you get X amount of features.
At least performance/reliability would be considered a feature. It would be better than a lot of the bloatware that comes out these days. Users should be conditioned to ask about performance and reliability of a product rather than how many features they added. You clearly see this from Apple but not Microsoft.
[+] [-] olaf|14 years ago|reply
Program startup of Libre Office Writer is also slower.
Minor detail: after unpacking "LibO_3.5.4_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz" I got a directory "LibO_3.5.4rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US", the "rc2" lets me doubt, that this is the release version.
[+] [-] avallark|14 years ago|reply
I am wondering if a product can have an 100% performance increase, then it must be pretty badly built the first time around. isnt it? I like openoffice, and didnt really think it needed a 100% performance upgrade, but hey more is better.
[+] [-] jcurbo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noveltyaccount|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acheron|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kfk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gcb|14 years ago|reply
openoffice is a joke. Don't know if it's because i still can't find how to fine tune key shortcuts but all the "speed" problems were me hunting down the same 3 items in a menu over and over.
They should move all the focus on maintaining a non-word clone interface.
[+] [-] erkin_unlu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samet|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbaupp|14 years ago|reply
(Edit: would it be possible to have an explanation for why this was downvoted? If I've said something stupid/wrong, I'd like to be corrected please.)
[+] [-] ars|14 years ago|reply
i.e.: 100% increase = 50% decrease.
Percents are weird to calculate.
[+] [-] koide|14 years ago|reply
Given 0.5 sec = 1 ; 1 sec = x, then x = 2
[+] [-] mtgx|14 years ago|reply