Last week, we have published the crash report chart just two days after the announcement of LibreOffice 6.0.1, to show the impact of the new version on the issues reported by Windows users.
Ten days after the announcement the impact is even more visible, and the chart on the left shows that the situation is now under control.
The trend shows how important is for LibreOffice users to quickly update to the last available version to reduce the number of potential issues.
The Document Foundation was incorporated in Berlin on February 17, 2012. Today is the 6th anniversary, and all TDF Members around the world are celebrating another year of outstanding achievements. The last one has been the successful announcement of LibreOffice 6, which represents the combined effort of hundreds of people around the world, involved in development, localization, quality assurance, documentation and marketing. To summarize their activity, we have represented the building process of LibreOffice 6 visual image, from the empty sheet to the final result.
Showing our love for free software at LibreOffice FOSDEM booth, and around FOSDEM. Above, from left to right: Italo Vignoli (Italy), Sophie Gautier (France), Mike Saunders (UK/Germany) and Marinela Gogo (Albania). Below, from left to right: Jona Azizaj (Albania), Michael Meeks (UK), and Valerie Dagrain (France).
On Friday, we have announced LibreOffice 5.4.5 and LibreOffice 6.0.1. In both cases, it has been an earlier than scheduled – and expected – release, to solve a couple of issues which were considered significant enough to change the usually predictable release schedule. The first issue was related to security, and we decided to release a patched version to reduce the risk for LibreOffice users (details are available on dedicated channels). The second issue was related to the increase of crashes on Windows of the just announced LibreOffice 6.0.
The chart on the left shows the increase of crashes after January 31 announcement and the subsequent decrease after February 9 announcement (right-clicking on the image will allow opening the original image, which is easier to read). It is important to underline the fact that the chart is generated by our test system, which is stressing the software, and does not reflect the actual number of crashes experienced by end users. On the other hand, we received several reports of unexpected crashes, which confirmed data provided by the test system.
Although both issues were reported while a large number of developers and other community members were in Brussels for FOSDEM and for a series of internal meetings, they were immediately tackled by developers – who provided the patches – and triggered a new release process: production of the binaries for the different operating systems, test of the binaries to verify that issues were solved, upload of the binaries on mirrors, preparation of web pages relevant for the announcement (changelogs on the wiki, and download pages on websites), and draft of the announcement text for the announce mailing list, the blog post and the press release distribution. From the decision to the release, the entire process was completed in less than two days, confirming the maturity of the LibreOffice project in front of unexpected events.
Berlin, February 9, 2018 – The Document Foundation announces the earlier than planned release of LibreOffice 5.4.5 and LibreOffice 6.0.1, to solve issues which have popped up after the launch of LibreOffice 6.0. In addition, the new release has been leveraged to integrate a security patch.
Although members of the LibreOffice core development team were attending FOSDEM in Brussels to talk about LibreOffice and meet the FOSS community, they have immediately reacted to QA reports and provided the necessary patches. This confirms the level of responsiveness achieved by LibreOffice project.
All LibreOffice users are therefore strongly invited to update to the new versions:
All individual users and organizations of any size should update from any other version of LibreOffice to LibreOffice 5.4.5.
Organizations should deploy LibreOffice with the backing of certified developers, migrators and trainers (an updated list is available at https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).
LibreOffice 5.4.5 bug and regression fixes are described here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.4.5/RC1 while LibreOffice 6.0.1 bug and regression fixes are described here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.0.1/RC1
Download LibreOffice
LibreOffice 5.4.5 and LibreOffice 6.0.1 are immediately available for download from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/. Donations help TDF to maintain its infrastructure, share knowledge, and fund the presence of volunteers at events, where they can meet with other free software advocates.
Several companies sitting in TDF’s Advisory Board (https://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/) provide either value-added LTS versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migrations and training, based on best practices distilled by The Document Foundation.
