I see this latest development as an admission that their time is up, but I don't see that same awareness from the people who actually use the software.
Link to the extension for anyone curious: https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/extensions/show/99471
Unfortunately, from the article:
> Markdown import and export features.
Anything that can run locally instead of uploading potentially sensitive stuff to random websites. Would be handy on work PCs.
Back when they were quarreling over the standardization of OOXML, instead of pushing their own proprietary** desktop format, they should have instead been pushing hard for something that could be shared with and opened by anyone who has a Web browser (in other words: "anyone")—something that uses HTML as a container format and can degrade gracefully even if you don't have any kind of office suite installed and the only reader software you have for it is Chrome/Safari/Firefox/Edge. There was no chance of beating Microsoft's incumbency with Office when being libre+gratis was the _only_ distinguishing feature. It required doing something different at a fundamental level. Even Microsoft beat them to getting halfway to the place they should have been when they bought the company that wrote what became Windows Live Writer app (which is now itself open source, though neglected, and still mired in visions of desktop software from the 90s: <https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter>).
> The LibreOffice project's imprimatur should be to stop existing[…] The editing paradigm perpetuated by the legacy of MS Office is a dead end[…] A standardized "Markdown for the Web" (or AsciiDoc) with native browser support would be a good 80/20 start and would move things out of weird proprietary office formats and towards plain text[…]
> Right now LibreOffice is aligned against this goal as a result of perverse incentives to continue perpetuating the MS Office model of document creation, editing, and (let's face it: email-based) distribution.
How would that look in a single-pane, edit-in-place, wysiwyg editor? Where would you type the input, and where and when would it show the output?
LibreOffice also allows to convert documents via command line, so there's one more bonus.
And if you expect Word's current user base to get by with Emacs or Vim or Zed and git, you really are programmer-brained and need to develop more empathy for ordinary people.
... who said that? Are they in the room now?
I'm baffled when these kinds of responses show up in these threads—every time I've brought this up. Like, it's pure hallucination. And the readiness to go from what is _my_ very clear call for "empathy for ordinary people" to an explicit suggestion that I might be programmer-brained is inexplicable. Did you black out when reading?
Ordinary people don't want to do any of the things uttered someone who's telling them to stop using Google Docs and to go "download" something called "LibreOffice".
We’re pleased to announce the release of LibreOffice 26.2, the newest version of the free and open source office suite trusted by millions of users around the world. This release makes it easier than ever for users to create, edit and share documents on their own terms. Designed for individuals and organizations alike, it continues to be a trusted alternative to proprietary office software.
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What’s New in LibreOffice 26.2
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LibreOffice 26.2 shows what happens when software is built around users, not business models, and how open source software can deliver a modern, polished productivity suite without compromising user freedom. This release is about speed, reliability, and giving people control over their documents.
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LibreOffice 26.2 Press Kit: nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/eDiocN8Gak6jDKx