Good on them. I hope they succeed where Munich fell short. This is not a knock on open source or Munich. The forces behind Microsoft are very powerful. And bureaucratic resistance to change is...
Good on them. I hope they succeed where Munich fell short. This is not a knock on open source or Munich. The forces behind Microsoft are very powerful. And bureaucratic resistance to change is monumental, even when a majority inside want the change (or at least complain about the current circumstances).
As a user who had a legal version of Office that I couldnt reinstall because of a lost email account, I got fed up and switched to LibreOffice. Took a couple of days to learn a few new commands...
As a user who had a legal version of Office that I couldnt reinstall because of a lost email account, I got fed up and switched to LibreOffice. Took a couple of days to learn a few new commands but they are so similar I dont feel Im missing anything.
Any company that wants a subscription to use a word processor and spreadsheet program that has essentially the same functionality that it had 30 years ago, deserves to be abandoned. With vigor.
For word and PowerPoint, I can agree with you. But I can’t agree about excel. Excel is absolutely the best spreadsheet program that exists by a huge margin. Once you get into more complex stuff,...
For word and PowerPoint, I can agree with you. But I can’t agree about excel. Excel is absolutely the best spreadsheet program that exists by a huge margin. Once you get into more complex stuff, there are many things you can’t do in libreoffice or google sheets that you can do in excel. It hasn’t visually changed in years, but Microsoft is still pushing out new features and functions all the time. I have had to get my IT department to install new versions of excel before they are automatically pushed out in order to use these new features. For many complex tasks, the only software that can rival excel is something like python and pandas, and that is much less user friendly and approachable.
I’ve been using LibreOffice (on a Mac) for many years. Before that I used NeoOffice and OpenOffice. I’m a big proponent of FOSS alternatives, but honestly I’m not a hardcore office software user....
I’ve been using LibreOffice (on a Mac) for many years. Before that I used NeoOffice and OpenOffice. I’m a big proponent of FOSS alternatives, but honestly I’m not a hardcore office software user. My needs are pretty minimal… mostly just occasionally opening a Word doc or Excel file I got somewhere else. When I have tried to use LibreOffice to make something, particularly any kind of spreadsheet with formulas, it’s disappointed me with poor performance and repeated crashing. Maybe just because I’m on a Mac? I dunno. But it’s hard for me to imagine any serious organization with complex use cases relying on it. At least in my experience it’s just not up to the task.
As an European, Germany's neigbor and Linux user, I love to read this article! I hope it will work fine for them and wish they won't be switching back in a few years.
As an European, Germany's neigbor and Linux user, I love to read this article! I hope it will work fine for them and wish they won't be switching back in a few years.
Not entirely true. If you're making a commercial agreement the parties are bound by contract (or statute, if you legislate). I think the main benefit of open source is the ability to customise it...
As The Document Foundation, the organization backing LibreOffice, put it, "The term digital sovereignty is very important here. If a public administration uses proprietary, closed software that can't be studied or modified, it is very difficult to know what happens to users' data."
Not entirely true. If you're making a commercial agreement the parties are bound by contract (or statute, if you legislate). I think the main benefit of open source is the ability to customise it to your needs should you ever need to without having to make another commercial agreement. This is basically what copy-left contracts are doing: ensuring that - no matter what - you have the right to read and modify the code.
edit: to be clear, I'm not saying either open source or proprietary source are better in all situations. When you buy software you're paying for someone else's development (which, if they have a lot of customers, can be considerable). If you're open source you either developing/extending it yourself or pay a vendor (like RedHat) to do it on your behalf.
The main benefit of open-source is that you're guaranteed a second-source/alternative. "Customizing it to your needs" is just a rephrasing of having a provider that actually provides.
The main benefit of open-source is that you're guaranteed a second-source/alternative. "Customizing it to your needs" is just a rephrasing of having a provider that actually provides.
As another European, I think this is rather petty. If they really want digital sovereignty, how about actually competing with the rest of the world? It's a similar story in A.I., making up rules...
As another European, I think this is rather petty.
If they really want digital sovereignty, how about actually competing with the rest of the world? It's a similar story in A.I., making up rules rather than ruling..
Don't get me wrong, I think these are good decisions and things that need to be thought about, but it's blatantly obvious that if Europe was in US's shoes, they wouldn't be talking like this.
Exactly, there's no competitive European software to Office 365. But why does that have to be the case? Additionally, I personally find it hard to believe 30,000 employees just switched to Libre...
I can't really picture an alternative.
Exactly, there's no competitive European software to Office 365. But why does that have to be the case?
Additionally, I personally find it hard to believe 30,000 employees just switched to Libre without issue. MS Office is quite an expansive collection of software, all integrated together.
The beauty of being an employee (in the US at least) is that you don't really have a say. (yes this is a bad thing overall) 30,000 may gumble, but they'll adapt or find a new job. The real reason...
The beauty of being an employee (in the US at least) is that you don't really have a say. (yes this is a bad thing overall) 30,000 may gumble, but they'll adapt or find a new job.
The real reason there isn't "European O365" (assuming you mean an Office suite created by European company) is because Microsoft made damn sure to translate well enough the effort wasn't worth it.
LibreOffice is the best chance there. You're not starting from ground 0, you have a workable base. An intrepid German would do well to provide support contracts and start pushing changes upstream.
I mean FOSS is kind of european. Not in a sense that they own it, but a lot of important projects, enterprises and developers are based there. Kde, SUSE, The Linux Kernel just to name a few. And...
I mean FOSS is kind of european. Not in a sense that they own it, but a lot of important projects, enterprises and developers are based there. Kde, SUSE, The Linux Kernel just to name a few. And in this context, the document foundation is based in germany.
europe might not have any tech giants, but there are a lot of small and middle sized companies there that can an will profit from a switch away from U.S big tech to FOSS.
Good on them. I hope they succeed where Munich fell short. This is not a knock on open source or Munich. The forces behind Microsoft are very powerful. And bureaucratic resistance to change is monumental, even when a majority inside want the change (or at least complain about the current circumstances).
As a user who had a legal version of Office that I couldnt reinstall because of a lost email account, I got fed up and switched to LibreOffice. Took a couple of days to learn a few new commands but they are so similar I dont feel Im missing anything.
Any company that wants a subscription to use a word processor and spreadsheet program that has essentially the same functionality that it had 30 years ago, deserves to be abandoned. With vigor.
For word and PowerPoint, I can agree with you. But I can’t agree about excel. Excel is absolutely the best spreadsheet program that exists by a huge margin. Once you get into more complex stuff, there are many things you can’t do in libreoffice or google sheets that you can do in excel. It hasn’t visually changed in years, but Microsoft is still pushing out new features and functions all the time. I have had to get my IT department to install new versions of excel before they are automatically pushed out in order to use these new features. For many complex tasks, the only software that can rival excel is something like python and pandas, and that is much less user friendly and approachable.
Fair point. Im a pretty light duty user.
I’ve been using LibreOffice (on a Mac) for many years. Before that I used NeoOffice and OpenOffice. I’m a big proponent of FOSS alternatives, but honestly I’m not a hardcore office software user. My needs are pretty minimal… mostly just occasionally opening a Word doc or Excel file I got somewhere else. When I have tried to use LibreOffice to make something, particularly any kind of spreadsheet with formulas, it’s disappointed me with poor performance and repeated crashing. Maybe just because I’m on a Mac? I dunno. But it’s hard for me to imagine any serious organization with complex use cases relying on it. At least in my experience it’s just not up to the task.
As an European, Germany's neigbor and Linux user, I love to read this article! I hope it will work fine for them and wish they won't be switching back in a few years.
Not entirely true. If you're making a commercial agreement the parties are bound by contract (or statute, if you legislate). I think the main benefit of open source is the ability to customise it to your needs should you ever need to without having to make another commercial agreement. This is basically what copy-left contracts are doing: ensuring that - no matter what - you have the right to read and modify the code.
edit: to be clear, I'm not saying either open source or proprietary source are better in all situations. When you buy software you're paying for someone else's development (which, if they have a lot of customers, can be considerable). If you're open source you either developing/extending it yourself or pay a vendor (like RedHat) to do it on your behalf.
The main benefit of open-source is that you're guaranteed a second-source/alternative. "Customizing it to your needs" is just a rephrasing of having a provider that actually provides.
As another European, I think this is rather petty.
If they really want digital sovereignty, how about actually competing with the rest of the world? It's a similar story in A.I., making up rules rather than ruling..
Don't get me wrong, I think these are good decisions and things that need to be thought about, but it's blatantly obvious that if Europe was in US's shoes, they wouldn't be talking like this.
But they aren't, ergo the competition is happening by switching over to FOSS alternatives. I can't really picture an alternative.
Exactly, there's no competitive European software to Office 365. But why does that have to be the case?
Additionally, I personally find it hard to believe 30,000 employees just switched to Libre without issue. MS Office is quite an expansive collection of software, all integrated together.
The beauty of being an employee (in the US at least) is that you don't really have a say. (yes this is a bad thing overall) 30,000 may gumble, but they'll adapt or find a new job.
The real reason there isn't "European O365" (assuming you mean an Office suite created by European company) is because Microsoft made damn sure to translate well enough the effort wasn't worth it.
LibreOffice is the best chance there. You're not starting from ground 0, you have a workable base. An intrepid German would do well to provide support contracts and start pushing changes upstream.
There is SoftMaker Office from Germany. Never used it though.
https://www.softmaker.com/en
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftMaker_Office
I mean FOSS is kind of european. Not in a sense that they own it, but a lot of important projects, enterprises and developers are based there. Kde, SUSE, The Linux Kernel just to name a few. And in this context, the document foundation is based in germany.
europe might not have any tech giants, but there are a lot of small and middle sized companies there that can an will profit from a switch away from U.S big tech to FOSS.