Recently, we reported on LibreOffice, accusing Microsoft of intentionally using complex file formats as a tactic to lock in users to Microsoft Office, hindering open source alternatives like LibreOffice. Now, Microsoft has banned LibreOffice developer, Mike Kaganski, from using its services, citing an “activity that violates [its] Services Agreement”.
According to Mike, this happened last Monday when he tried to send a technical email to the LibreOffice dev mailing list, which is a normal part of his routine, but Thunderbird returned an error saying the message couldn’t be sent. His account was blocked upon retry, and he found himself completely logged out of his Microsoft account…
You using this thing helps boost metrics and alert search engines and shit. That boosts their visibility. Just using the thing helps the project.
Frankly, if libreoffice made a cleaner looking UI that wasn’t stuck in the 90s more people would take it seriously. It’s functional, but curb appeal helps to attract people, to convince them to give it a chance.
While it doesn’t bring it up to current standards, it does have a tabbed UI that you can enable by going to View --> User Interface
Personally, I don’t fully understand why they don’t make that the default and keep supporting the toolbar design as they’ve always done. I can’t imagine there would be a big backlash from existing users who prefer the toolbar UI