Category Archives: Affaires

La nouvelle application La Presse+: une attaque à la liberté de presse

Aujourd’hui le quotidien québécois La Presse annonçait en grande pompe le lancement de son application La Presse+.

Cette application et l’approche de La Presse sont un net recul de tout ce qu’on voit sur l’approche libre et ouverte aux données, à l’information et à la technologie.

Je veux bien monnayer des contenus, mais je considère que c’est un recul incroyable et ça prouve au contraire un manque de vision et un mépris direct pour la liberté technologique et la transparence que recherchent les citoyens québécois.

C’est l’affirmation de l’ère de l’information à deux vitesses: ceux qui auront les moyens de se payer le dernier “iMachin” et le reste.

Apple est tout sauf un exemple d’ouverture ou d’audiences “larges”, cette entreprise contrôle tout de ses appareils et imposes ses règles aux éditeurs. Bien sûr, c’est du “business as usual”. C’est ça la liberté de presse? Je suppose que tous les articles seront méticuleusement vérifiés pour respecter les règles d’Apple à ce sujet.

Dans son billet à ce sujet, Michelle Blanc célèbre cet accomplissement… même si elle est incapable d’y accéder avec son “vieux iPad” déjà désuet. D’autres parmi nos “visionnaires numériques” québécois comme M. Robert Gérin-Lajoie commentent à ce sujet [...] [La Presse a] surtout compris que l’avenir réside dans l’ouverture. C’est simple les publicitaires veulent et exigent une audience large![...].

Suite à mes commentaires, Michelle commente sur G+:
Sélection_028

Le problème n’est pas d’avoir une application Android, gageons que si il y en a une équivalente elle serait disponible uniquement sur Google Play, ce qui est tout aussi inacceptable.

La Presse a manqué une belle occasion de faire une API ouverte avec un accès libre à ses informations – plusieurs modèles d’affaires pourraient aider à monayer ces accès. Ça permettrait entre autre à n’importe qui de développer d’autres services connexes, de s’alimenter, d’analyser, croiser ces données… les archiver? Il n’est pas trop tard, mais Michelle se borne à m’accuser de prêcher pour une “religion”.

Quelle tristesse. C’est ça les leaders d’opinion qui enseignent à nos informaticiens et artisans de l’information.

Il ne faut pas s’étonner si on se fait fourrer, comme on dit en bon québécois, si même pour lire le journal il faudra acheter un iBidule.

Vive la liberté pour les audiences “larges”.

Quel gâchis.

Note: Pour commenter l’annonce de La Presse sur G+, c’est par ici.

LibreOffice 3.5.5 released – categorized bug fixes

LibreOffice 3.5.5 has been released:

Berlin, July 11th, 2012. The Document Foundation today announces the immediate availability of LibreOffice 3.5.5, the current version of the free office suite.

This release fixes a number of bugs and further improves the stability of the software, making it the best version available for corporate and enterprise adoption. Among the changes are improvements in Calc, Impress, in the handling of fonts as well as enhancements with regards to importing and exporting third-party formats. [...]

Keep in mind if you are using Ubuntu or Trisquel you need to be using the LibreOffice PPA to upgrade to this version. Make sure you read the LibreOffice notes for Ubuntu if you choose to do this. Remember this is not covered by commercial support.

I took the liberty to categorize the detailed technical change logs, which are available here:

 

Legend:

  • BNC# = bugzilla.novell.com
  • FDO# = freedesktop.org
  • I# = issues.apache.org
  • RHBZ# = bugzilla.redhat.com
  1. Performance fixes
    • fdo#48932 super slow typing and scrolling in large documents [Caolán McNamara]
    • fdo#47636 Extremely slow display with font fallback [Caolán McNamara]
    • fdo#49582 FILESAVE: Long delays saving in XP .XLS format [Petr Mladek]
  2. Notable usability and UI fixes
    • fdo#49724 update filters for file selector’s file type categories [Alberto Ferreira]
    • fdo#49948 ignore corrupted items in Recent Documents [Stephan Bergmann]
    • fdo#50981 update of German dictionaries (2012.06.10) [Andras Timar]
    • rhbz#799628 related: crash with chewing-IM with g3g [Caolán McNamara]
    • rhbz#678440 opening urls fails with error 403 on picky servers [Fridrich Štrba, Stephan Bergmann]
  3. Functionality fixes
    • bnc#652364 & bnc#750255 column break without columns seems to be a page break [Luboš Luňák]
    • bnc#750255 column break without columns seems to be a page break [Luboš Luňák]
    • bnc#757609 import vmlshape ‘hidden’ style attribute and apply to controls [Noel Power]
    • bnc#762542 don’t rotate calc shapes if twoCellAnchor, partial fix [Noel Power]
    • fdo#35972 toolbarmanager must be aware of changes in SvtMiscOptions [Ivan Timofeev]
    • fdo#38116 fix double hairline border drawing some more: [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#40874 make recorded border macros run: [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#42379 hide separators before calculating line breaks [Ivan Timofeev]
    • fdo#33634 better drawing support for borders of different width, [Markus Mohrhard]
    • fdo#42405 remove this, nowadays MenuItemAllowed disables menu entries [Ivan Timofeev]
    • fdo#42865 privatized unique empty string symbol: [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#43895 related Fixed shortcommings of FileDialogHelper_Impl::verifyPath [Stephan Bergmann]
    • fdo#45592 similar to type for property UNO_NAME_SAVE_FILTER_DATA is wrong [Noel Power]
    • fdo#45987 ensure that number of tabs is correctly set in ScViewData, [Markus Mohrhard]
    • fdo#46074 ignore corrupted items in Recent Documents [Stephan Bergmann]
    • fdo#46112 tweak condition to prevent guessing only… [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#47325 legacy reports: survive absence of Sorting hidden control [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#47473 try to set new order only after field columns are available [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#47520 use the already retrieved row instead of driver row [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#47805 rework handling of 64-bit registry entries [Andras Timar]
    • fdo#48018 legacy reports do not sort by group columns [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#48068 fix parsing of path d-attribute [Chr. Rossmanith]
    • fdo#48345 need to refresh row also when not m_bRowCountFinal [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#48647 fix double hairline border drawing some more: [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#49430 fix missing form control, partial fix for [Noel Power]
    • fdo#49438 heuristic pseudo-hack to use hair-lines if width <= 0.5 pixel [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#50139 do not cut first character of field text [Andras Timar]
    • fdo#50141 character count (with spaces) incorrect with numbering on. [Muhammad Haggag]
    • fdo#50144 put full reference text to selection field [Andras Timar]
    • fdo#50676 silence SolarMutex not locked spew [Caolán McNamara]
    • i#110536 legacy reports do not sort by group columns [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • i#116848 revert “Fixed Shapes are at wrong position” [Fridrich Štrba]
    • i#118068 revert “calc69: handle all-hidden case in ScDrawUtil::CalcScale” [Eike Rathke]
    • fdo#30519 Bad transitions if “use hardware acceleration” is enabled [David Tardon]
    • fdo#41556VIEWING: Incomplete font substitution when FontConfig matches italic font [Caolán McNamara]
    • fdo#43967 VIEWING: legacy report designer wizard improperly formats dates [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#51243 Trying to edit a report from new (but awful) Report Builder hangs libreoffice [Lionel Elie Mamane]
  4. Crash fixes
    • fdo#46687 fix Styles and Formatting gtk crasher [Bjoern Michaelsen]
    • fdo#50169 band-aid another crash in GraphiteLayout::expandOrCondense: [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#50173 fix Styles and Formatting gtk crasher [Bjoern Michaelsen]
    • fdo#50372 crash when refresh of last already-known row unexpectedly fails [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#50868 fix potential further crashes like the one in [Fridrich Štrba]
    • fdo#51249 Crash while saving a document with track-changes enabled [Pierre-Eric Pelloux-Prayer]
    • fdo#51619 [CRASH] legacy reports: asks for parameters, then for empty parameters list then CRASH [Lionel Elie Mamane]
    • fdo#50178 reading Visio file causes crash [Julien Nabet]
    • fdo#50988 Draw crashes on loading MS Logical Design Diagram example visio file. [Julien Nabet]
  5. Update/installer fixes
    • fdo#50603 Unable to update LibreOffice without resetting user profile [Stephan Bergmann]
    • fdo#43989 let unopkg.exe run with elevated privileges during install [Andras Timar]
    • fdo#48914 uninstall process should remove .pyc files from install directory [Andras Timar]
    • fdo#51270 On UNINSTALLING, LibreOffice leaves dirt behind [Andras Timar]
  6. GNU/Linux fixes
    • fdo#34638 and fdo#50415 Fix Shortcut names which are not localized on Linux [Thomas Arnhold]
    • i#86306 revert fix for “prepare against really broken CUPS installations…” [Stephan Bergmann]
  7. Mac/PPC fixes
    • fdo#47035 fix loading of jpeg files on Mac/PPC [Christian Lohmaier]
    • i#81127 revert “sw34bf03: patch by pmladek: linux/ppc: remove -fsigned-char” [Caolán McNamara, Rene Engelhard]
    • rhbz#820554 & rhbz#826609 fix smoketest on ppc[64] and s390[x] [Caolán McNamara]
    • i#86306 revert fix for “prepare against really broken CUPS installations…” [Stephan Bergmann]
  8. Windows fixes
    • fdo#47044 adapt to different Windows versions’ InternetQueryOption behavior [Stephan Bergmann]
    • fdo#50509 MSI: UI language selection from command line (e.g. silent install) [Andras Timar]
  9. .doc/.docx/.xslx/Visio import fixes
    • bnc#747461 implement relativeHeight (z-order) in .docx import (part of [Luboš Luňák]
    • bnc#750838 .docx wrap values mean different things than in LO, map them [Luboš Luňák]
    • bnc#751077 handle recursive <w:p> because of shapes [Luboš Luňák]
    • i#17200 & bnc#757118 fix horizontal rule width in .doc documents [Luboš Luňák]
    • bnc#757910 fix WW8 import of textboxes with thin border/inner margin [Miklos Vajna]
    • fdo#43249 WW8: fix double border import: [Michael Stahl]
    • fdo#50178 reading Visio file causes crash [Julien Nabet]
    • fdo#50304 fix excel row height export problems ( I hope ) [Noel Power]
    • i#93609, i#94028 better import xlsx heights [Noel Power]
    • fdo#46738 Cell background and border color formatting information of empty cells lost in particular document after FILESAVE as xls and xlsx [Petr Mladek]
    • fdo#48601 FILEOPEN: Open Visio’s file with bitmap’s blocks [Julien Nabet, Fridrich Štrba]
    • fdo#48602 FILEOPEN: The Greek codepage instead the Russian codepage (*.vsd by MS_Visio-2000) [Fridrich Štrba]
    • fdo#49582 FILESAVE: Long delays saving in XP .XLS format [Petr Mladek]
    • fdo#50988 Draw crashes on loading MS Logical Design Diagram example visio file. [Julien Nabet]
    • fdo#51601 Cannot open xlsx file [Eike Rathke]
  10. RTF import fixes
    • fdo#44174 RTF_TITLEPG when title page has no header [Miklos Vajna]
    • fdo#45190 import of RTF_LI should reset inherited RTF_FI [Miklos Vajna]
    • fdo#45522 fix crash on RTF export of sub-tables during copy&paste [Miklos Vajna]
    • fdo#49968 speed up RTF import of repeated character/paragraph properties [Miklos Vajna]
    • fdo#50539 fix RTF import of automatic character background color [Miklos Vajna]
    • rhbz#825548 speed up RTF import of repeated character/paragraph properties [Miklos Vajna]
    • fdo#49178 CRASH when FILEOPEN particular RTF [Julien Nabet]

If you still want Thunderbird in Ubuntu…

If you’re one of the rare species still wanting Thunderbird in Ubuntu as described in Jorge Castro’s recent post, you can help. I am more worried about Jorge’s other comments, following his logic Ubuntu and free software are only less and less relevant by the day – not a trend I am observing.

Considering Canonical decided to include Thunderbird in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS – which will keep it around for 5 years, Thunderbird is not going away anytime soon. This essentially puts forward software that is considered irrelevant by its employees (dogfood anyone?) and demonstrates improvisation and miscommunication between Mozilla and Canonical. Many are still waiting for an official statement from Mozilla. I’d love to hear a more formal position than Jorge’s on the subject from Canonical too.

I appreciate the cloud, closed web-services and Google Apps may be all the rage (and the money) but for the rest of us, here are a few links to gather forces and continue. Remember this is not a user-centric or technical issue. The issue at hand are the business deals between Mozilla, Google, and Canonical. If anything, the recent Mozilla announcement will help Thunderbird get a better chance at surviving such forces.

LibreOffice 3.5.3 disponible / LibreOffice 3.5.3 is now available!

(English version follows)

La Document Foundation a annoncé la disponibilité de LibreOffice 3.5.3 pour le téléchargement. Je suis membre de la Document Foundation depuis un an maintenant, pour en savoir plus sur mes activités dans le projet LibreOffice, visitez ma page wiki sur leur site. J’encourage aussi ceux qui voudraient participer au projet à le faire, et éventuellement faire une demande de membership! C’est un projet très stimulant, en tout cas pour la partie qui me concerne (surtout de la promotion et formation locale et le support / entraide).

Si vous n’utilisez pas Ubuntu, ou si vous voulez partager cette nouvelle avec des amis, famille ou collègues qui utilisent Windows ou Mac OSX, LibreOffice 3.5.3 est disponible pour téléchargement immédiat à partir du lien suivant: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Rappelez-vous que lorsque vous utilisez Ubuntu, vous n’avez pas besoin de télécharger et installer manuellement ce logiciel!

Si vous avez Ubuntu 12.04 LTS vous n’obtiendrez pas cette mise à jour automatiquement. Correction: cette version sera disponible d’ici 2-3 semaines. Si vous la voulez immédiatement, vous aurez besoin d’utiliser le PPA LibreOffice – ne le faites qu’à vos risques et périls. Vérifiez la page du wiki Ubuntu sur LibreOffice pour plus d’informations sur les autres versions aussi. À noter que le PPA de LibreOffice peut être utilisé tel quel avec Trisquel (dont la version actuelle 5.5 réagira comme un Ubuntu 11.10).

Voici quelques corrections de failles et mises à jour qui ont retenu mon attention:

  • Correctifs à l’import/export CSV / PDF / RTF / DOCS / XLS / XLSX / PPTX
  • La méthode de chiffrement ODF de versions antérieures est maintenant celle utilisée par défaut
  • Correctifs à l’export PDF (d’images) à partir de Impress lors de l’export avec notes
  • Amélioration de l’assistant d’étiquettes / cartes d’affaires – choix du format de page
  • L’emplacement par défaut des documents téléchargés n’est plus /tmp par défaut (GNU/Linux)
  • Le filtre d’exportation OOXML est maintenant Office 2007/2010 par défaut

D’autres nombreux correctifs ont été apportés.

Consultez l’annonce originale publiée sur le carnet de The Document Foundation. Ne manquez pas la section qui parle des fonctionalités à venir, comme le client Android ou le filtre MS Publisher!

Une liste détaillée des correctifs et mises-à-jours est disponible à http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.5.3/RC1 et à http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.5.3/RC2.

Pour terminer, voici deux correctifs qui ont vraiment piquée ma curiosité! Pourrez-vous les trouver? :)

  • fix the fix so it doesn’t crash
  • this hack in no longer needed


LibreOffice 3.5.3 is now available!

The Document Foundation has announced the availability of LibreOffice 3.5.3 for download.

I’ve been a member of The Document Foundation for a year now, to follow my LibrOffice activities you can visit my wiki page on their site. I’d encourage anyone willing to do so to participate in this project, perhaps even request membership at some point! It’s a very rewarding project, at least for the activities I develop the most (local advocacy and training, and users support/help).

If you’re not using Ubuntu, or want to share the news with friends, family or colleagues that use Windows or Mac OSX, LibreOffice 3.5.3 is available for immediate download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Remember when using Ubuntu you don’t need to manually download and install this!

If you have Ubuntu 12.04 LTS you won’t be getting this update automatically, though. Edit: this version will be available for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS automatically within 2-3 weeks. If you can’t wait and absolutely want to have it now, you will need to use the LibreOffice PPA – only do so at your own risk. Check the Ubuntu Wiki entry for LibreOffice for more information about other versions too. Also note that if you use Trisquel, you can use the LibreOffice PPA for Ubuntu as-is, it will bring updates corresponding to Ubuntu 11.10.

Hera are some bug fixes and updates that caught my attention:

  • CSV/PDF/RTF/DOCS/XLS/XLSX/PPTX import/export fixes
  • ODF legacy encryption is now the default
  • Fixed pdf export (of images) from Impress when printing w/notes
  • Improved label/BC wizard – set paper size
  • Default location of downloaded documents is no longer /tmp by default (GNU/Linux)
  • Ddefault to Office 2007/2010 filter for ooxml export

Other numerous bugs were fixed.

Check the release announcement on The Document Foundation Blog. Don’t miss the section about upcoming features, such as the Android client or the MS Publisher import filter!

Detailed change logs are available at http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.5.3/RC1 and http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.5.3/RC2.

And these two bug fixes also stood apart from others! Will you find them among the other bug reports in the release notes ? :)

  • fix the fix so it doesn’t crash
  • this hack in no longer needed

Holidays spending – JUST DO IT!

I’d like to share a few projects and organizations that I’d love to see reaching their goals this time of the year.

I want to stress how important it is to understand that donating even U$25 or U$5 or whatever you can is important. It’s also an easy decision for many people (I am not saying it is the case for everyone), to donate and make a difference, instead of spending that same money having lunch at the restaurant or taking a cab. You can also ask your employer to chip in – just ask! Your employer could donate to these projects, become a corporate member of the associations I mention, or pay your membership as part of mutual benefits (non-profit tax receipt + happy employee) :) Just ask. The worse that can happen is you get a “no, sorry”.

“OpenStreetMap‘s Operations Working Group, who have the important role of keeping core OSM services running smoothly, have planned to invest in a new server which will provide [them] with a database back-up. This improvement is at the very core of the OpenStreetMap infrastructure, giving services greater resilience. It means [they]’ll bounce back quicker and easier in the event of a hardware failure. In time the new server will also bring about some performance improvements.” – you can read more details about the fund drive and donate here. I am donating 50€ to this project.

The Debian Administrator’s Handbook was first written in French (and is a best-seller already) by two Debian developers who are translating it to English and possibly publishing it under a free license. The latter will only happen if the liberation fund reaches 25 K€. A physical book is a big helper when doing advocacy for free software. Imagine if instead of just showing the book to anyone interested, you could also show them how to search it electornically, cite it, use it, modify it, circulate it, share it at will ? I donated 100€ to this project.

Become a member of the Free Software Foundation and/or The Linux Foundation. I don’t always agree with everything that is said and done by the FSF, although I consider myself an active member and advocate – I certainly couldn’t do any of my advocacy work without all I’ve learned from the FSF and other fellow members. My membership at The Linux Foundation is a way to contribute to finance important projects (such as paying Linus Torvals’ salary). If you have a local free software advocacy group (such as FACIL or APELL in Quebec), consider joining as a full member or even making a donation – meeting space, flyers, CDs and food/drinks go a long way when networking locally. Becoming a member also increases the organization’s footprint, if nothing else. Numbers speak! This coming year I am sponsoring a student associate membership at the FSF.

Do you have any other ideas on where to donate cold, hard cash to further free, open technologies and software ? I’d love to hear them.

Update: I am helping putting together an accordingly “freedom geek” buying guide here, if anyone wants to peek or get inspiration for it.

Software Freedom Day tomorrow in Montreal / demain à Montréal

Don’t miss it! À ne pas manquer!

This year I was able to bring two simultaneaous events together, in different locations.

Cette année j’ai pu programmer 2 événements différents, ça se passe demain, à deux endroits différents :) .

Les détails à / All details at: http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Canada/Montreal

See you there! À demain!

Une belle heure Ubuntu à Outremont vendredi dernier!

Vendredi dernier, comme tous les vendredis, je suis allé au Bistro Araucaria pour l’Heure Ubuntu. Je m’y rends en bicyclette et tant qu’à rester chez moi les vendredi midi je viens au bistro et si des gens me rejoignent, tant mieux :) J’ai eu une belle surprise, plusieurs membre d’Ubuntu QC ainsi que deux nouvelles personnes (dont un voisi du quartier) se sont joint à nous:

[pe2-gallery class="aligncenter" ]
IMG_20110121_125151.jpgIMG_20110121_125140.jpgIMG_20110121_124852.jpgIMG_20110121_130220.jpg[/pe2-gallery]

Nous avons discuté de tout et de rien, entre autres la sortie imminente de LibreOffice, sa compatibilité avec Antidote (Miche a promis de tester!), la nouvelle entreprise en consultation et logiciel libres que Sipherdee démarre bientôt (IdleOne aussi était intéressé de collaboré avec les services que nous offrons), mais surtout, nous avons savouré de délicieux mets chiliens (le Pastel de Choclo reste mon choix préféré) et rencontré les gens qu’on cottoie souvent sur le webchat IRC d’Ubuntu QC :) J’ai vu deux nouveaux visages, Michel et Jack, qui ont bien aimé leur expérience – Jack voulait faire retirer Ubuntu de son laptop car il ne s’en servira pas mais il dit qu’il avait trouvé génial que ça “fermente” et ça “mijote” ainsi, toutes ces discussions animées ! Je crois qu’il va revenir :)

Cette heure Ubuntu s’est terminée à 15h30!!!

À vendredi prochain!

LibreOffice est ici: êtes-vous prêts ? Getting ready for LibreOffice

(English version follows)

LibreOffice 3.3 (release candidate 2) est disponible, grâce aux contributeurs de la Document Foundation. Comme vous l’avez probablement déjà constaté, LibreOffice sera la suite bureautique par défaut dans la prochaine version d’Ubuntu (11.04), du moins c’est le but pour Natty alpha 3 tel qu’indiqué sur le bogue #651124 [needs-packaging] LibreOffice Productivity Suite. Abonnez-vous si vous voulez suivre le progrès des package pour Ubuntu. Alors, pendant les vacances ou en attendant la nouvelle année, pourquoi ne pas augmenter votre bon karma en participant à ce projet ? :)

On peut parier que LibreOffice remplacera donc OpenOffice.org non seulement dans Ubuntu mais aussi dans la multitude de distributions dérivées mais aussi dans Debian, d’ailleurs on l’y retrouve déjà. Parmi mes lectures à ce sujet, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols résume la petite histoire dans une série d’articles sur son blog, Ralph Janke donne les détails techniques et logistiques du projet sur son blog.

LibreOffice et la Document Foundation progressent rapidement, et on retrouve déjà des versions de leur site en danois, allemand, espagnol, français, galicien, néerlandais et russe en plus d’une centaine de language packs pour l’application elle-même!

Essayer LibreOffice sous GNU/Linux, Mac OSX ou Windows

Pour l’instant il n’y a pas de dépôt officiel ou de PPA pour installer LibreOffice pour Ubuntu ni pour Trisquel. Les installateurs Mac OSX et Windows fonctionnent bien, et je les ai trouvé très utiles pour remplacer rapidement des installations OpenOffice.org existantes. Vous pouvez consulter des instructions d’installation détaillés sur leur site mais j’ai préféré résumer mon expérience Ubuntu et Trisquel ici:

  1. Si vous désirez supprimer complètement OpenOffice.org, utilisez cette commande:
    sudo apt-get remove openoffice.org*
  2. Si vous avez déjà une version antérieure de LibreOffice, il faudra la désinstaller. Consultez les instructions pour GNU/Linux (traduction en cours).
  3. Dirigez-vous à http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
  4. Assurez-vous d’avoir le bon choix de système d’exploitation
  5. Choisissez votre langue (!) Si vous voulez installer d’autres langues, il faudra les choisir et télécharger les fichiers un par un.
  6. Une fois que vous aurez les fichiers, dans le cas qui nous intéresse ici (GNU/Linux, paquets deb pour distributions Debian), ouvrez une fenêtre de terminal et éxécuter ces commandes:
    tar -xzvf LibO_3.3.0rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
    tar -xzvf LibO_3.3.0rc2_Linux_x86_langpack-deb_fr.tar.gz
    sudo dpkg -R -i .

Attention, le point “.” est important à la fin de la dernière commande!

Après quelques minutes vous devriez voir le lanceur de LibreOffice.org et ses applications sous le menu Applications > Bureautique. J’ai beaucoup apprécié le nouveau site et surtout la version plus intelligente de cette page de téléchargement!

Vous remarquerez que j’ai ajouté une étape pour supprimer OpenOffice.org. Personellement je n’ai pas constaté de problème majeurs à l’utilisation de LibreOffice, j’ai donc préfére de remplacer OpenOffice.org sur tous mes ordinateurs de bureau, à vous de décider si vous faites la même chose.

Note: j’ai effectué mes tests sous Trisquel 4.0.1 et Ubuntu 10.10 32-bit et 64-bit (pour ces deux distributions) ainsi que Windows 7 et Mac OSX.

Un document intéressant qui saura guider et rassurer les utilisateurs débutants ou experts est déjà disponible: le Getting Started Guide. L’équipe de documentation est d’ailleurs à la recherche de contributeurs et traducteurs. Si vous voulez contribuer aux traductions de documentation anglais -> français, inscrivez-vous à la liste discuss@fr.libreoffice.org.

J’en profite pour laisser quelques liens pour ceux et celles qui voudront bien aider à mener LibreOffice à bon port:

Pour une prochaine fois, j’écrirais sur comment utiliser et tester LibreOffice en plusieurs langues.

English, as promised :)

LibreOffice 3.3 (release candidate 2) is now available, thanks to all the contributors to the Document Foundation. As you may have noticed, LibreOffice will be the default office applications suite in the upcoming Ubuntu version (11.04), at least that’s where its heading starting with Natty alpha 3 as indicated on Bug #651124 [needs-packaging] LibreOffice Productivity Suite. Subscribe to it if you wish to follow its packaging progress in Ubuntu. So, during these holidays or while waiting for the New Year to come, is there any excuse not to earn some extra karma by contributing to this project ? :)

I would bet LibreOffice will be replacing OpenOffice.org in many of the Ubuntu-based distributions but also in others too – see it’s already making its way into Debian. While reading about LibreOffice few writers caught my attention like Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols with his blog where one can grasp what happened and when, and Ralph Janke’s opinions and detailed accounts of technical and logistical progress of this project.

LibreOffice and the Document Foundation make great progress each day, and we already see versions of the site in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Galician, Dutch and Russian – nevermind having LibreOffice itself already offering more than a hundred languages packs for immediate consumption!

Trying LibreOffice in GNU/Linux, Mac OSX or Windows

There isn’t an official LibreOffice repository yet (or even a PPA) for Ubuntu or Trisquel, but installing it is rather trivial. The Mac OSX and Windows installers worked really well, and I found them very useful when wanting to quickly replace existing OpenOffice.org. You can find detailed installation instructions on their site but I’ve summarized my experience in Ubuntu and Trisquel here:

  1. If you want to completely remove an existing OpenOffice.org installation, issue the following command:
    sudo apt-get remove openoffice.org*
  2. If you already have an existing LibreOffice installation, you will need to remove it completely before proceeding any further. see the Linux instructions for that.
  3. Go to http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
  4. Make sure the right operating system is selected
  5. Choose your language (!) If you want to install support for several languages, you will have to download all the language packs separately.
  6. Once you have all the files, in my example (GNU/Linux, deb packages for Debian distributions), you can open a terminal window and issue the following commands::
    tar -xzvf LibO_3.3.0rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
    tar -xzvf LibO_3.3.0rc2_Linux_x86_langpack-deb_fr.tar.gz
    sudo dpkg -R -i .

Make sure you don’t forget the dot “.” at the end of the last command!

After a few minutes you should be done and LibreOffice applications will be available in the Applications > Office menu. I really appreciated the clear and easy web site and was impressed by the download page!

You will notice my first step above is to completely remove OpenOffice.org. LibreOffice and OOo will happily co-exist but I like LibreOffice so much after a few weeks using it that I decided to replace all my desktops OOo installations right now. Of course you can decide not to do so!

Note: I made all my tests using Trisquel 4.0.1 and Ubuntu 10.10 32-bit and 64-bit (for those two distributions) as well as Windows 7 and Mac OSX.

An interesting document that will help new users and guide old hats is already available for review: the Getting Started Guide. The documentation team is always looking for contributors and translators, BTW. If you want to help English -> French translation, join the discuss@fr.libreoffice.org mailing list – note all the local mailing lists in that page!

I’ll take this opportunity to share some links that will help those of you interested in joining this project and make it rock:

Coming up next: Using and testing LibreOffice in several languages

Rogers Canada: how NOT to sell Android

I love Android (the platform, as a colleague put it).

But I hate my cellphone provider, Rogers Canada. I hope that’s clear. Rogers CANADA.

Being a community, people-oriented person, free software activist and open source enthusiast, and on top of that a full time technical trainer and support analyst, last summer when I heard that Rogers Canada would be the first company to sell & support the mighty HTC Dream (known as G1 to T-Mobile customers), I decided I would trust them. In fact I got my HTC Dream the day it came out, on June 2nd. If Google trusted Rogers with their first Android deployment in Canada, I would be OK. Big mistake!

I’ve posted before that Rogers Canada sucks. I’ve thought about documenting my own problems, but it’s getting easier to just gather other similar experiences Android customers have at Rogers:

That’s right, there is a whole blog dedicated to document and share all the mistakes Rogers Canada has made and all the problems they have caused.

When I saw that I started my own Identi.ca group: RogersSucks (or !rs)

As I write this I am waiting for a replacement HTC Magic which was promised once, order “lost”, promotion postponed, then secretly available again, then finally ordered on Sunday. I know, it’s Wednesday and we’re only a province away, but the phone hasn’t even shipped. Nevermind it’s only a slightly less outdated phone, I am waiting again to get the Rogers Canada Android Revolution.

Rogers Canada thinks it’s good business practice to suspend data service in order to force customers into upgrading to a firmware that basically locks down my phone. Why is it important it’s unlocked and rootable ? Because otherwise it’s very much useless, or should I say even less useful than a regular cell phone. At least regular cell phones behave well with BT headsets, don’t crash or reboot spontaneously, and don’t lag for >30 seconds when going from one application to the other. Among other things. It used to be possible to use Cyanogen Mod and other custom firmwares to make these phones somewhat usable. Not anymore.

How did Google let this happen ? I have no clue.

A lot of similar mistakes can be made by any company selling devices based on free, open-source software (and yes I know Android devices don’t come with 100% free software). I secretly hope some anonymous person inside such companies learns something from Rogers Canada mistakes. This is truly an example on how NOT to launch and service such a product.

Meanwhile I am gathering details on my own problems and getting all my services with Rogers cancelled without penalty for breach of contract. If that doesn’t happen, small claims court in Quebec should help, and I’ll document this in true free, open fashion so I can help as many people as I can do the same: vote with their money. I am angry such a great platform got such a bad start in Canada.

I guess the Revolution is not going to be available in Canada for some time.

How Rogers Ruined My HTC Dream

Rogers Canada sucks

What can I say.

Rogers Canada really sucks. It’s really a pitty they were the first to introduce Android devices in Canada. Fortunately now other companies also offer them. I hope Rogers never sells Android devices anymore to anyone.

I just found out 85% of online users agree with me. Now I feel like I am part of a big dysfunctional family.

I am doing my best so 100% of possible Rogers customers (and others too) all know their rates, customer service and technical service suck to no end.

I am so fed up with them I won’t bother explaining why they suck. The above links should provide ample accurate, complete historical data.

Of course there’s a dedicated Rogers Sucks Facebook group.