Rutba Office’s next version is 2.0: seventy releases in, what the new number means

Rutba Office 1.0.0 came out on 8 September: seven apps in one download for Windows, free, with no account, and 577 tests. Version 1.51 came out on 15 October, seventy numbered releases later. A version number that passes fifty in under six weeks has stopped telling anybody anything, so the release after 1.51 is 2.0.

What the 1.x line built

• Calendar and Contacts joined in the first week of releases, and since 1.29 they sync with a server of your own.
• Documents, Worksheets and Presentations grew to Office’s ribbons, and by 1.49 no greyed-out button was left. Old .doc, .xls and .ppt files open in full.
• A tenth app, for PDFs, arrived in 1.46 and by 1.49 commented, filled, signed and redacted.
• Text recognition on your own computer, in six languages from 1.47, and receipts and invoices read into rows from 1.51.
• Mail as an archive tool: Outlook’s .pst, .ost and .olm files searched where they lie and exported for legal hold, and signed and encrypted mail read and sent.
• Image, Video and a screen recorder: layers and a photo editor’s tools, a video editor, and a recorder and introduction videos.
• Urdu, Arabic and Hindi for the whole interface, with right to left throughout and Hijri dates.

What 2.0 means, and what it does not

It is a new number, not a claim that the work is finished. 2.0 is still a beta, built for Windows, and its builds are still not code-signed, so SmartScreen still warns on the first run. A finished, signed release is a separate step, and it will be called that when it comes.

Nothing about how you get it changes either. An installed copy is offered 2.0 the way it was offered every 1.x release, with no account, and files and settings stay as they were. The suite stays free under the AGPL, as it has been since 1.0.0.

The work going into 2.0 is mostly finishing rather than starting: tools that 1.50 began and faults that the 1.51 round left open. When it is out, this blog will say exactly what changed and what was run before it went out, as it has for every release so far.