LibreOffice 5.0 Arrives

The Document Foundation has announced the release of the Open Source office suite LibreOffice 5.0. LibreOffice, which emerged as a fork of the OpenOffice project due to developer disagreements with OpenOffice sponsor Oracle, now comes pre-installed in most Linux systems and also serves as a popular alternative to the Microsoft Office suite for Windows and Mac OS users.

LibreOffice 5.0 includes "a significantly improved user interface, with better management of screen space and a cleaner look. In addition, it offers better interoperability with office suites such as Microsoft Office and Apple iWork, thanks to improved filters to handle non-standard formats."

Other highlights include new spreadsheet features, more intuitive style management, and better support for mobile devices. According to Document Foundation director Michael Meeks, "Since 2010, we have gone through three different development cycles: the 3.x family, to clean the code from legacy stuff; the 4.x family, to make the suite more responsive; and the 5.x family, to make it smarter … ."

You can download the latest LibreOffice from the project website (http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/) or wait for the latest version to appear in the package repository of your favorite Linux.

Google Announces Kubernetes 1.0

Google has announced the Kubernetes container orchestration system has reached the v1.0 milestone. Kubernetes runs within a "Google-style infrastructure stack" to manage and orchestrate a container-based data center environment. The 1.0 version number is a major step that means the developers believe they have met their initial objectives, although they acknowledge that much work remains to complete their vision of a universal container-based toolset.

According to Google, the most significant feature of the new release is "API stability, meaning developers can build on top of the core Kubernetes tools without worrying about upcoming releases pulling the rug out from under their work."

The announcement reports that the project has had more than 14,000 commits and includes contributions from 400 developers, including coders from Red Hat, CoreOS, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, VMware, and other companies.

Linux Foundation Launches New Cloud Native Computing Project

The Linux Foundation has announced the launch of a new nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing "the state of the art for building cloud native applications and services." The new Cloud Native Computing Foundation will "… create and drive the adoption of a new set of common container technologies driven and informed by technical merit and end user value and inspired by Internet-scale computing."

Founding members include a number of leading Internet companies, such as AT&T, Cisco, CoreOS, Docker, eBay, Google, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, Twitter, VMware, and others. The goal of the group is to define APIs and standards that will lead to better and more open technology for containers and cloud computing.

According to Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin, "The Cloud Native Computing Foundation will help facilitate collaboration among developers and operators on common technologies for deploying cloud-native applications and services. By bringing together the open source community's very best talent and code in a neutral and collaborative forum, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation aims to advance the state of the art of application development at Internet scale."

See the Cloud Native Computing Foundation website for more information: https://cncf.io/.