Ubuntu 11.04 to include LibreOffice

Following previous reports that Ubuntu sponsor Canonical was looking to replace Oracle's open source OpenOffice.org office suite, the Ubuntu developers have confirmed that the LibreOffice community fork will be included in Ubuntu 11.04, code named "Natty Narwhal". According to a post on the Ubuntu mailing list by developer Matthias Klose, the developers have already started the transition of removing outdated OpenOffice.org packages based on version 3.2.1.

Oracle released OpenOffice 3.3 in mid-December, however, the OpenOffice.org still shows the eighth release candidate as the latest 3.3.0 build. Klose says that, while the packages "definitely need some testing", they should be available for inclusion in the second alpha version of Natty Narwhal coming in early February.

The latest development milestone of Ubuntu 11.04 is the first alpha release from early December of last year. The final version of Natty Narwhal is expected to arrive on 28 April 2011.

Ubuntu isn't the only distribution to drop OpenOffice.org in favour of LibreOffice. At the end of last month, the fifth milestone for openSUSE 11.4, the next major release of the popular Linux distribution, replaced Oracle's open source office suite with the new community fork.

See also:

• LibreOffice RC2 now available, a report from The H.
• LibreOffice - A fresh page for OpenOffice, a feature from The H.
• Ubuntu 11.04 development begins, a report from The H.

(crve)