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LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

zdnet.com

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Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#71

Post by renewiltord »

austincheney wrote: post #13
hirundo wrote: post #12

Most of my coworkers in the enterprise I work for use LibreOffice, but the business itself has made no such decision. We're all remote workers, and the business provides none of us with locally run software, or any hardware, just lots of SaaS apps. So a spreadsheet file gets passed around, usually from a client, and we're just expected to figure out how to read it. Those of us without MS Office already installed for…

Is the hardware paid for by you or the business? If the hardware is paid for by the business then everything on that hardware is essentially business property, unless that business declares otherwise, and thus the business should be providing you with properly licensed software.

Sure, big companies or ones with boomer culture work like this. In practice, at startups I've BYOD easily, I've used company hardware for things not company related, etc. Etc. They're not dicks about it.

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#72

Post by renewiltord »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #58
indymike wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should it matter to HQ? The result of the work probably matters (i.e. a document), but the software used to create it? Doesn't really matter so long as it can be read. There are so many ways to do IT than the old central control of all the things model from the 90s.

Because...Security? That's not an issue? Imagine one unintend breach and poof! customer data splattered across the (dark) web. I can't imagine how security and privacy are of no concern. Has that been cleared by legal? Or is it laziness and/or negligence?

Because they trust you to do it right. At a certain stage of organization, if you put a lot of barriers in people's way your company will fail.

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#74

Post by gnfargbl »

jrh206 wrote: post #36
nprateem wrote: post #20

Well it's hardly surprising given the design of their web site. I've used libreoffice for years and have never noticed the 'for business' link before. Add to that that if you go to download Libre Office and end up on some site trying to flog you something like collabra or whatever, it sounds like you've gone to the wrong place. Even if you get past that barrier, the most obvious button is 'try collabra office' which…

Prompted by this comment, I tried to search for the 'for business' link. I couldn't find it. I looked around the blog, the document foundation website, and the LibreOffice website. I eventually search for 'business' on the LibreOffice website, and found this article: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business... Now I see that this article is linked in the 'Download' menu. Even being on this page, i…

I read the page, and I'm still not clear what they want me to do. Do they want me to buy something from one of their partners? If so, what do they want me to buy, and why is it better (either for me or the developers) than just using the free LibreOffice?

I actually _do_ need a document and spreadsheet suite which works on Linux, and I would pay for one which works well. At the moment I kind of get by between Google Docs (generally reliable, functionality often not quite there) and LibreOffice (lots of functionality, UI feels clunky, sometimes crashes). If LibreOffice are offering me something that makes my life better, I will likely buy it.

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#75

Post by Closi »

dazc wrote: post #51
Closi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely - the collabora office site is terrible! They seem to have some sort of cloud version too but then don’t mention the price of it at all. The whole site looks sketchy and unofficial. No support as standard, without paying thousands of pounds a year (Microsoft offers great SMB support in my experience). Maybe they should look introspectively at why nobody wants to sign up rather than blaming the users. Users…

Sadly, for Libre Office, the value is 'free'. And, the competition in the 'free' space nowadays is pretty good enough.

The value could at least be support - this to me would be the minimum expectation for any type of enterprise software, but amazingly it isn't offered in any of their packages (they just state that documentation = support!). Even in smb & enterprise plans it is "pay for a bug fix if you find a bug".

It is amazing to me that they expect a paying SMB user, who has discovered a bug in the code, to pay £12,000 for them to fix it! Then they wonder why nobody signs up - what a joke!

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#76

Post by lumost »

hirundo wrote: post #12

Most of my coworkers in the enterprise I work for use LibreOffice, but the business itself has made no such decision. We're all remote workers, and the business provides none of us with locally run software, or any hardware, just lots of SaaS apps. So a spreadsheet file gets passed around, usually from a client, and we're just expected to figure out how to read it. Those of us without MS Office already installed for…

Depending on your industry, not providing hardware could end up in sketchy legal ground.

Generally speaking, any software development activities I perform on my company issued laptop can be interpreted as belonging to the company without prior agreement. If I was using my own machine - it's likely the company would try to enforce security policies on it, or claim ownership of anything I develop on my hardware. While I am not a lawyer - Given the shrink-wrapped nature of such contracts, it's likely an employee could challenge this in court.

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#77

Post by buovjaga »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #66
buovjaga wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> During this time, I learned that all the "donations" to tdf are used for "conferences and shit" I am paid by TDF to onboard new contributors. I think it is going rather well, with many FOSS outsiders being lured in. Conference expenses are a small part of the budget. A software project is much more than pure development.

why isnt TDF hiring actual programmers? why are you looking for outside volunteer help when you can do programming in house? its not like TDF is cash strapped or anything? or does leadership at TDF have that mozilla ceo style BS mindset (paying herself millions of dollars salary while laying off actual developers because of cash issues)

TDF board works without compensation.

TDF was set up as a German charity in a way that it can not operate like a full-blown software company. It has a staff of 11 (some part time like me).

TDF is funding development constantly by contracting out work. Budget item proposals for this year: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2021

TDF ledgers are public: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Ledgers

Annual reports are also produced as required by German law: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/08/10/tdf-annu...

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#78

Post by stu2b50 »

renewiltord wrote: post #72
chiefalchemist wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because...Security? That's not an issue? Imagine one unintend breach and poof! customer data splattered across the (dark) web. I can't imagine how security and privacy are of no concern. Has that been cleared by legal? Or is it laziness and/or negligence?

Because they trust you to do it right. At a certain stage of organization, if you put a lot of barriers in people's way your company will fail.

At the same time, IT is not everyone's forte. If you're a office worker that types documents and looks at spreadsheets, should you be expected to know if the document suite you're using has a zero day that was just released?

I trust you're not being malicious, and I trust that you're not trying to be insecure, but software is a complex world now.

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#79

Post by renewiltord »

stu2b50 wrote: post #78
renewiltord wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they trust you to do it right. At a certain stage of organization, if you put a lot of barriers in people's way your company will fail.

At the same time, IT is not everyone's forte. If you're a office worker that types documents and looks at spreadsheets, should you be expected to know if the document suite you're using has a zero day that was just released? I trust you're not being malicious, and I trust that you're not trying to be insecure, but software is a complex world now.

No you're right which is why usually you have some very sane default like Google Sheets and then let people escape hatch when they need to. Then you hire the people who won't use the escape hatch to bring Bonzibuddy PolitburoSuite to do their spreadsheets.

Re: LibreOffice tells businesses: Get off Community version, you are hurting devs

#80

Post by indymike »

ksec wrote: post #49
indymike wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of thoughts: Many enterprises are moving away from thick client office software and moving to browser based office software with cloud backends. Google apps, Zoho, OnlyOffice, Bitrix, and Microsoft all have very usable cloud offerings. Collabora is trying to build an LibreOffice based cloud offering, but LibreOfice remains old-style "thick client" software. Apache OpenOffice is still available and free. Libr…

>Apache Foundation I can understand Oracle, but why Apache?

The fear was the product would not advance.
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