Today I found LibreOffice in the Windows Store.
https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9PNF0NVBN59F
I like installing free software from the Windows Store because I get seamless automatic updates in the background. (MuseScore, WinSCP for example.)
But this LibreOffice doesn’t seem an official version because the publishing organization has a lot of unrelated apps:
Is LibreOffice officially in the Windows Store? If not, why not?
Well - that is not a TDF (official) release.
I cannot tell for TDF, but IMO, LibreOffice isn’t there officially because it isn’t worth the burden. The (Apple/Mac) AppStore version is backed by a commercial company (Collabora Productivity); and possibly Windows Store would need something like that; but it is unlikely that it would be of significant benefit, especially taking into account that the automatic updater for Windows is in the works, so the Windows version from TDF (MSI) would not be any worse than that from the store.
It would be slightly worse UX, in that it would use a separate process to update (that has to be started by the user?). If the updater has any UI (notifications etc.) that is even worse UX: the OS built-in update mechanism doesn’t bother the user at all.
It’s funny how users like when software dumbs them… sigh. Well: notifications is the status quo. What is in works is automatic updater. E.g., Thunderbird uses a service to update itself (given that user wants that at install time), and then user doesn’t need to bother.
Of course, it is very convenient when users get automatic updates without any warning, in the middle of an important project with approaching deadline, and find a neat regression ruining the whole work…
“It’s funny how users like when software dumbs them… sigh.”
Centralized update is a feature idea from the Linux world. Are you saying that a Linux command to update software dumbs down users? The only difference is that one is presented in a 2-dimensional UI, while the other is presented in a 1-dimensional UI (a worse UI for discovery). Sounds to me like you are a masochist/impractical when it comes to how to distribute software.
Not only is it more human-friendly, it is more admin-friendly to have the package available from the msstore, where users can bookmark the official one and never be tricked again into download L1breoffice.org’s spam copy, or whatever. These days, it is also installable from scripts and windows shell via winget install.
Am I? Are you saying that a command that you refer to is the same as no command that app stores default to (and that was the explicit topic there)?
Anyhow, there is now an official MS app store offer from TDF, for those who want it.
There is an official Windows Store version now. You can check out the page on the LibreOffice website that refers to app store options.
I’ve tried it out and it works nicely. The download is a bit bigger this way, but it’s a nice way to support LibreOffice and get automatic updates. Automatic updates were mentioned above as in the works, but two years on and it’s still not here.
The only downside is there isn’t an option in the store for the “Fresh” version, as this one seems to be an older stable version (6.4). Hopefully that will update to at least v7.0 soon since 7.1 only just came out in the last week or so…
