Bug 40170

Summary: Suggestion: "lightweight" LibreOffice apps
Product: LibreOffice Reporter: helloworld
Component: LibreOfficeAssignee: Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG    
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: All   
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature: Regression By:

Description helloworld 2011-08-17 07:52:13 UTC
Sometimes Windows and Mac users don't want to install LibreOffice because it takes up so much hard drive space (the OSX application is nearly 600MB).  For people who only need one part of the suite, like the word processor, would it be possible to make smaller downloads available with just that one app?  I find that people often refuse to open things I send as .odt files, and I can't ask them to install LO because it's so huge.  other, better, solution would be a word plugin to handle odf, but that seems really difficult so this would be an easier solution.
Comment 1 Urmas 2011-08-22 00:06:19 UTC
It's very unlikely considering what a clusterfuck OpenOffice was, is and will be.
Comment 2 Don't use this account, use tml@iki.fi 2011-08-22 00:29:04 UTC
LibreOffice is the very opposite of "lightweight". Also, it does not consist of separate "apps". Writer, Calc, Impress etc are all the same program. Saying that LibreOffice would be a "suite of apps" is mostly marketing-speak. 

It is a fallacy to think that Writer, Calc etc would be very separate. The part of the code totally specific to each "app" of the "suite" is not that large in the end. I am fairly sure that especially for the Mac, where each application is a self-contained "app bundle" (.app directory), it would require *more* total diskspace to install both a separate "lightweight" Writer and a "lightweight" Calc, for instance (i.e. leaving out anything specific to Impress, Draw, Math).

Still, of course anything is possible with enough resources. Volunteers welcome.
Comment 3 helloworld 2011-08-22 15:48:00 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> LibreOffice is the very opposite of "lightweight". Also, it does not consist of
> separate "apps". Writer, Calc, Impress etc are all the same program. Saying
> that LibreOffice would be a "suite of apps" is mostly marketing-speak. 
> 
> It is a fallacy to think that Writer, Calc etc would be very separate. The part
> of the code totally specific to each "app" of the "suite" is not that large in
> the end. I am fairly sure that especially for the Mac, where each application
> is a self-contained "app bundle" (.app directory), it would require *more*
> total diskspace to install both a separate "lightweight" Writer and a
> "lightweight" Calc, for instance (i.e. leaving out anything specific to
> Impress, Draw, Math).
> 
> Still, of course anything is possible with enough resources. Volunteers
> welcome.

Ah, interesting.  So maybe another solution.  Question: for developing a .odt <-> .doc translator, is it easier to write that as (a) a standalone utility application or (b) to write it as a plugin for Word?  It seems like (b) will never ever happen, so how about (a)?
Comment 4 Björn Michaelsen 2011-12-23 12:34:47 UTC
[This is an automated message.]
This bug was filed before the changes to Bugzilla on 2011-10-16. Thus it
started right out as NEW without ever being explicitly confirmed. The bug is
changed to state NEEDINFO for this reason. To move this bug from NEEDINFO back
to NEW please check if the bug still persists with the 3.5.0 beta1 or beta2 prereleases.
Details on how to test the 3.5.0 beta1 can be found at:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugHunting_Session_3.5.0.-1

more detail on this bulk operation: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/RFC-Operation-Spamzilla-tp3607474p3607474.html
Comment 5 Urmas 2012-02-13 02:57:03 UTC
We could have everything lighter, just with Base and Impress cut off, and many unnecessary functions removed. 500 MB office suite is beyond ridiculous.
Comment 6 Joel Madero 2012-06-07 22:09:56 UTC
I'm marking this as NOTABUG as it's really not a bug and just falls under the category of "long term project" that is already being addressed by LibreOffice. There is a ton of outdated and unused code left by OOo and it's slowly being taken care of. I doubt it'll take out hundreds of megs like you're suggesting it should. 

If one of the other devs disagree with me please re-open this but as far as I can tell it won't be addressed as an individual item and instead will hopefully slowly be done over the years with code cleanup. 

Because LO is so integrated with itself (you really can't strip out individual parts of it). It's just the reality of the software and how it's designed that it's going to take up some space. With modern systems having hundreds or thousands of gigs, it seems like a few hundred megs for a fully featured office suite is acceptable.