Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

blog.documentfoundation.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 368 posts

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

#201

Post by nivenkos »

ilamont wrote: post #174
earthnail wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Munich. As much as I would've liked that project to succeed (I really did), I can tell you that Limux - that was the project's name - was a brutal usability disaster. As in, almost meme-level bad. It's like the Berlin airport in software. Sure, Microsoft has a huge office in Munich, and they definitely applied political pressure, too (it'd be naive to assume they didn't). The project's stated goal was to be…

Was a post-mortem of the Munich project published anywhere? Some people may remember the hype over the One Laptop Per Child Project, which had a noble mission that many people could get behind. In 2011 I heard from someone at MIT who criticized aspects of the program such as no real planning for support when the devices broke down in the field. Other issues came out years later, including unrealistic cost estimates a…

It's a shame it failed and there are no real cheap netbooks anymore (aside from Chromebooks).

I used an Acer Aspire One when travelling through Germany as a student (to research jobs and conferences) - and it was amazing being able to program and write papers on such a small device.

Reading about the hardware issues reminds me a lot of the ZX Spectrum reviews (especially the keyboard!) - keeping a low price means a lot of compromises unfortunately.

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

#202

Post by deknos »

mfer wrote: post #172
formerly_proven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "users can't install software themselves" This is one example of a real problem. Linux desktops are great for professional Linux people and hard core enthusiasts. Once you try to take them out to non-technical people trying to do everyday tasks it's much harder. I've driven numerous distros and keep running into UX problems masses will run into. How do we get distros that can be good daily drivers for the masses? H…

this is misrepresentation. you cannot install systemwide software on any enterprise-installed system

THAT was their problem. before limux there was no permission management and everybody was admin.

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

#203

Post by go_elmo »

f6v wrote: post #198
go_elmo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be a major ease on state budgets, also communal ones and allow to allocate resources where they are more urgently needed. Might require high initial costs for setup & staff education which would amortize over a few years for sure.

If you could save money by switching to Linux from Windows, I’d expect to see much more Linux machines in corporations.

I only saw linux machines in SE companies so far (at least remote ones). Maybe, just maybe, it is because non-tech people 1) cant handle it as cli is needed from time to time 2) because personal preferences & habits make it almost impossible to "force" using linux on staff..?

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

#204

Post by deknos »

apexalpha wrote: post #130
formerly_proven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be fair, you're probably downlplaying it. How much enterprise software runs on Linux? Probably not a lot. LibreOffice is nice, but it can't compete with MS office. let alone Exchange, outlook...

funny, the users didn't mind.

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

#205

Post by fsflover »

earthnail wrote: post #159
formerly_proven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm from Munich. As much as I would've liked that project to succeed (I really did), I can tell you that Limux - that was the project's name - was a brutal usability disaster. As in, almost meme-level bad. It's like the Berlin airport in software. Sure, Microsoft has a huge office in Munich, and they definitely applied political pressure, too (it'd be naive to assume they didn't). The project's stated goal was to be…

Actually, the Limux project is well alive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux#Timeline

May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux.

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

#206

Post by agumonkey »

mopsi wrote: post #182
agumonkey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't check the latest LO version but I agree. LO shines on import export but the UI lags, the functionalities are limited. Even macros are weird compared to VBA which is sad. FOSS community needs to gather up on this.

And what's worse, lot of functionaly that appears to exist turns out to be broken when you actually try to use it. Basic things like pivot tables, conditional formatting or automatic data import at regular intervals (from a file) are ridiculously broken in LO, and have been so for many years. Feels as if no-one's actually using it beyond a simple document viewer.

10$ the most used button is export as pdf

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

#207

Post by pessimizer »

rich_sasha wrote: post #102

I 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…

> 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.

But the funny thing is that Libreoffice has better compatibility with documents composed with older versions of Word than newer versions of Office do. When MS Office loads up an old MS Office document badly, people gripe about Microsoft. When Libreoffice loads an old MS Office document badly, people gripe about whoever made the decision to install Libreoffice.

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

#208

Post by jcelerier »

rich_sasha wrote: post #102

I 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…

In France I've always seen OpenOffice and then LibreOffice being used in schools & administrations, and it never was an issue

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

#209

Post by __m »

kall wrote: post #33
OneTimePetes wrote: post #21

Would be nice to have a german software culture. But all we got is politicians who wish for that and then turn a blind eye on fraudsters like WireCard. Something is missing from the german cultural dna, that our neighbours have.(Swiss,Luxemburg, Belgians, Chechen Republic, Poland, Litauen). Seems the most important thing to be big in software in europe, is to foremost be not german ;)

Feels like a good chunk of OSS development is happening in germany. By some accounts, the entirety of linux is being ruined by one german. The biggest software companies like SAP are maybe not shining examples, but when you go lower, there‘s a lot of good stuff. What differences do you see to the other European countries? Who‘s big in those countries?

I'm not familiar with linux development, what did that one german do?

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

#210

Post by namdnay »

pasabagi wrote: post #68
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…

Aside from the obvious strategic/people power side of it, honestly, I think being a user of closed-source is just the wrong model for a big organization. Ultimately, closed-source software is like running a factory with a machine you aren't allowed to repair. Having your core means of production and security essentially at the mercy of somebody else's support team seems kind of insane to me. I get the point in the 90…

> Ultimately, closed-source software is like running a factory with a machine you aren't allowed to repair.

But that's exactly how big organizations handle most internal needs! They don't have mechanics on the payroll to repair company cars - they take out a lease with someone who handles all that for them. They don't employ cleaners, they contract it out to a service company.

Post reply on HN