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German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

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Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#111

Post by BenjiWiebe »

RedShift1 wrote: post #30
nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I can understand why you left after kde 4 came out. That release gave me more trouble with desktop Linux than anything else in the last 10 years.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#112

Post by PoignardAzur »

shireboy wrote: post #97

I'm in a position to recommend similar for a large organization, but am on the fence. They have SharePoint on-prem and Office, and are being pulled to Office 365 by MS sales folk. I'm definitely pushing to linux containers for apps, etc, and part of me wants to recommend Libre. There's a lot not to like about Office and SharePoint, but I've yet to find decent open-source document management software that does all the…

I've heard good things about OnlyOffice as a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office, with online collaboration out of the box.

It's open-source and free for individual use, paying for companies, I think?

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#113

Post by open-source-ux »

The last photo in the article shows a slide that states:

The 4 commandments of trusted internet services:

1. A service you use must be available from many providers

2. It must be possible to move your data from one to the other

3. The service must also be available as software

4. The software must be available as open source

I like this criteria - and it's not new. Think of a popular online app that has met these conditions for over a decade: WordPress.

If the criteria above were more popular it might make SaaS lock-in less attractive too.

Consider the following scenario:

Hosting companies agree on a standard installation API for server web apps. This lets developers create server web apps that can be installed on any hosting provider that supports that installation API. A simple one-click process.

Businesses and indivduals can shop around to find a suitable hosting plan that will run the app. Like WordPress, there will be cheap-and-cheerful hosting plans at one end of the scale and at the other end are managed services with SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and premium support.

The open, standard installation API enables data to be transferred from one hosting provider to another allowing easy data transfer from one hosting provider to another. (Or at least an easy way to download your data).

Think of the above as the 'WordPress' model and imgaine if it was widely available to all cloud apps. It would unlock countless opportunities for developers. It would also mean management of servers is offloaded to hosting companies - while developers can simply concentrate on building their apps. Alas, it will probably never happen.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#114

Post by rbanffy »

fbn79 wrote: post #74
pfortuny wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you but they did in Munich and then they undid it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

They undididing the undid

I wonder whether the person or company who paid for the first undiding got the payment undided.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#115

Post by PoignardAzur »

rob74 wrote: post #65

Ok, so it's " A German State" (Schleswig-Holstein), not " The German State" (which would be the federal government) - of course this is big news too, but the title is a little bit misleading...

Oh, wow, that's super underwhelming. The title is incredibly misleading.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#116

Post by IdiocyInAction »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #34
nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

That sounds so wonderful! Hopefully the US can also come together by divesting from European goods and services and also participate in this independence movement!

The US started this already by imposing tariffs on European goods like steel.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#117

Post by JTbane »

RedShift1 wrote: post #30
nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

>Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I watched it, they failed to install Steam (the game platform) on Pop!_OS via the package manager, then tried to remove it. A bug also caused apt to remove the entire desktop shell (with 3 separate warnings to NOT DO THIS), and Linus happily typed "Yes, do as I say!" and broke the desktop env.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#118

Post by nivenkos »

Flatuscents wrote: post #90
nivenkos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in contrast to the current digital colonialism. US Big Tech companies pay almost no corporation taxes in the EU (and if they do, only in Ireland / Luxembourg), and compete and buy out European companies, shipping the high-paying jobs (and the economic benefits and taxes those bring) back to the US (much like the oil industry in Nigeria, etc.). The EU must take a stand against this, like has been done again…

Let’s not overgeneralize. The US is not in lockstep with all EU goals and ideas, but not an ally? As someone who grew up with nuclear drills every week I can assure you I think of the EU as an ally, AND I want you to have a robust Big Tech environment. We share a common cultural interest in freedom and fairness, more or less, despite all the craziness in the world right now. Maybe the US isn’t always the BEST friend,…

It's well known that the CIA has spied on European industry to benefit their own (e.g. Boeing over Airbus) - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32542140

And on European leaders - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...

How does that differ from Huawei and China?

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#119

Post by [deleted] »

y4mi wrote: post #93
sgt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Munich do this like 20 years ago and it was a complete failure? Linux and OpenOffice. I think one of the major concerns at the time was that OpenOffice didn't work well with all the Excel and Word documents they needed to open, so people opted out and installed Windows instead. To the regular office worker, it didn't matter much if the computer ran Linux or Windows, as long as it worked. To the IT admin, it mi…

> Didn't Munich do this like 20 years ago and it was a complete failure? Yes, but the failure was basically manufactured. You cannot keep every process as it was before and just install Linux/libre office, yet that is what they did. Their current processes are optimized for windows to a degree that usage of the Microsoft office suite is part of the training they undergo. Switching at this point would be a multi-year…

[deleted]

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#120

Post by Yizahi »

nivenkos wrote: post #100
mc32 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too little too late. Most “office collab” is going cloud. Neither Google nor MS are threatened by free/open thick client alternatives. Users will still need their onedrive googledrive for collab. Admittedly some work is non collab but more and more of that gets pushed to SaaS.

That's less of an issue though as it's a bit easier to migrate. If everything were already on Linux, then switching cloud providers is much simpler than switching the desktop systems themselves. Also from my own enterprise experience, Office 365 cloud has still got a long way to go.

That's the thing though - if cloud office has 80-90% of functionality of common desktop office then it's completely covers open source office value proposition. And for the rest several percent of power users open office is still lacking and not an option to switch.
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