They just use it as negotiation tactic with regards to MS. Last time Munich attempted this with LiMuX, even Bill Gates flew in to personally give them a discount.
German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
131–140 of 368 posts
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#132Now 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…
As italian I can't agree more
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#133What is the open source alternative to Office365? 'Regular' Office is becoming more and more rare. Which is a shame, between the licensing costs, having to re-download or re-install the desktop apps, having to deal with OneDrive, etc.
I'd say a combination of Nextcloud together with Collabora Office.
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#134Earlier 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.
It depends. If you have regulations that influence retention and audit trail etc it’s less easy to migrate.
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#135I think the main "drawback" of LibreOffice is that it is not widely used. If you receive a docx document and it formats funny, or vice versa (common on LibreOffice and not entirely their fault), it's on you for using weird software, or penny-pinching on a MS Office license. If it becomes common, people just accept the minor incompatibility and move on. It will also get better as funds and attention flow to these proj…
>>LibreOffice lacks no features I would remotely consider using.
Yup. I use it all the time just fine, and set the default format to .XLS and .DOC (not the X versions which are bogus MS bastardizations of XML anyway) and I've had no interchange problems.
Over the last decade or so, I occasionally see some Excel feature that might be switch-over-worthy, but then the whole MS setup is so much of a hassle I don't bother — NO I'm not interested in a monthly subscription, NO I'm not interested in online-only or Online-First, HELL NO I'm not interested in a Microsoft Account — I just want a package I can install locally and run when needed.
Then, the next version, LibreOffice has that feature.
So, great move by Schleswig-Holstein and also very strategic - right to repair, right to not be held over a barrel by a monopoly, etc..
Let's hope it catches on.
(And now that I'm writing about this, I realize I haven't sent LibreOffice a donation in too long, so I'm off to do that now...)
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#136Now 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…
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.
I think this is Schleswig-Holstein's nextcloud instance: https://infonext.schleswig-holstein.de/nextcloud/index.php/l...
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#137Clears throat. LibreOffice: https://xkcd.com/743/
Published in 2010.
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#138Now 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.
Linux came a long way since then. For projects like this, Zorin would be a great way to start. But even a standard desktop like Mint would already be a very good starting point.
Don't forget that LTT is has two things that are not relevant for administration work: they try to game (which heavily influences their OS choice) and they need to figure out everything themselves. These cities can offer curated packages, the user does not have to figure out which package to use for what, the IT team provides them.
With those two things in mind, the LTT story shows exactly that this can actually work, provided there is support for the rough edges. Windows also has rough edges by the way.
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#139Now 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…
Munich did that a few years ago, which got rolled back after they elected the dude mayor who got Microsoft to move their German headquarters to Munich. Completely unrelated events, of course. There were of course some technical problems as well, e.g. because a number of administrative tasks can only be performed using Excel 2003 with VBS macros enabled and stuff like that, as well as "technical problems", like "users…
Uhh "users can't install software themselves" is how things are supposed to be. If you're still giving everyone admin rights you're going to have a fun time every time one of them falls for phishing.
Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been said ad infinitum. My experience is that Windows works, but very poorly. It is slow, hangs, steals my data and treats me like an abusive parent treats a toddler. But for me, Linux doesn't work. Or maybe it works 90%. Something's always broken, and a different thing is broken with each update. It requires constant tinkering. One flawless and amazing experience I had was working on Linux at a medium-sized…
What exactly does not work? What Distro were you using? Serious question because my experience is that I install Linux Mint and everything just works. Updates never break anything. Why should they? The only arguable pain point is maybe graphics drivers but honestly installing proprietary ones is just a few clicks these days. Plus you don't need them for office work anyway. (Maybe also some power saving features on ce…
I recently installed Ubuntu on an old laptop. Everything worked for a week. Then the touchpad stopped working.
There are many pages telling you how to debug a touchpad. I tried various incantations of installing, reinstalling, uninstalling drivers, one set or another. I ran some special commands to capture messages coming out of the touchpad - showing it actually, at some level, worked. Just didn't move the mouse. Nothing helped.
That it's even a thing to debug a touchpad is precisely what's "wrong" with Linux. Windows, crapware that it is, for me had never this kind of 1->0 failures. It's just all meh.