Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 adds languages, stability and performance

Apache OpenOffice, while still incubating at the Apache Software Foundation, has been updated by the developers to add new languages, improve stability and enhance performance. Version 3.4.1 is the second release of the open source office suite from the incubating project (or "podling" as Apache refers to them) and its first maintenance update. The first release, as an Apache project, of OpenOffice in May has seen over 12 million downloads.

The release of OpenOffice 3.4.1 sees new translations for Finnish, British English, Khmer, Slovak and Slovenian, and updated translations for Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian (existing translations include Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, English (US), French, Galician, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian). Sixty-nine issues have been resolved in 3.4.1, including re-enabling auto-update checks, problems when quickstarting, undo, redo and "freeze" problems in Calc, and failure to detect Java from Oracle. From version 3.4.1 onwards, the OpenOffice developers are making use of static analysis of the source code provided by Coverity, which will assist them in detecting bugs.

In 3.4.1, there have been some performance improvements including updated versions of the Hunspell library and cleanups around the temporary areas used when installing extensions. The developers have also begun testing with Windows 8 and are working through the official Windows 8 Certification checklist; progress is being monitored on the wiki. Other work in progress includes ports of the suite to OpenSolaris, Solaris, FreeBSD and OS/2.

The development community is already working on Apache OpenOffice 3.5.0, which is expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2013. They are also coming up with plans for Apache OpenOffice 4.0 which will see many features from the contributed IBM Lotus Symphony code merged in; the project hopes to "think outside the box" to bring in additional innovation and is using Google Moderator to collect and rate ideas for 4.0.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 is available to download mostly under the Apache Public Licence 2.0 with some legacy licences.

(djwm)