Infrastructure

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for reporting the issue, and the complicated link situation! We can make it a lot simpler indeed. One concern is linking directly on the main download page to older, unsupported versions of LibreOffice that have security issues.

IMO it's OK for technically knowledgeable users to install unsupported LO versions in specific instances (eg an old Windows XP box with no internet connection). But we should really avoid making it too easy for people to download unmaintained releases with security risks.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Mike at TDF

One concern is linking directly on the main download page to older, unsupported versions of LibreOffice that have security issues.

To be clear: my proposal concerns the System Requirements page, not the main download page. (And, for what it's worth: note that the main download page currently does include a link to older, unsupported versions of LibreOffice.)

So, because it is already so easy to find the old, unsupported versions, my proposal is simply that we update the System Requirements page so that it also points users to the existing information about those older versions (specifically, which older operating systems they're compatible with).

In my opinion, a disclaimer/warning that these versions are unsupported and thus contain security risks is indeed a good idea. (And I'd argue that that same disclaimer/warning should be added to that wiki page.)

So, to slightly modify what I proposed before to make that disclaimer/warning even more explicit, I would propose that the "Microsoft Windows" and "Apple macOS (Mac OS X)" sections of the System Requirements page of the website include something like this: "For older versions of LibreOffice that are compatible with older versions of [Microsoft Windows/Apple macOS (Mac OS X)] but that are also unsupported and thus contain security risks, advanced users should see System Requirements on the TDF Wiki."