German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by cardanome » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

BlueTemplar wrote: post #213

cardanome wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example sounds more like typical Firefox to me. While I use it as my daily driver, video calls should always be done in Chrome in my experience. (Yeah, I know that is not exactly a point in favor of free software but it is what it is.) Honestly at least relative to the general mood of the software industry I wouldn't say that foss projects don't care about backwards compatibility. The kernel is famous for caring…

Why are you doing video calls in a browser in the first place ?

Did I use the wrong preposition or are you telling me to always use proper apps for it?

I don't see the issue, yes Teams is crap in Browser but most WebRTC based solutions work fine, at least in Chrome. Plus if I can avoid installing proprietary Software that is always a plus.

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

#262

Post by mfer » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

deknos wrote: post #202

mfer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Windows and macOS allow you to install software (most of the time) without being an admin on the system. You only need to be an admin if the software to be installed needs certain capabilities.

On Linux this isn't typical. You usually need to be an admin to install deb or rpm. Things are changing but it's not fast.

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

#263

Post by jaclaz » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

periheli0n wrote: post #78

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 ;)

Things will hopefully change now that the political tide has turned. Digitally, the old government was essentially stuck to the status quo of 2005, when they took over. In my view the weak digital culture in Germany is a direct consequence of political non-engagement with the matter during the last 15 years. Many areas are affected, first governance itself (fax machines!!), in education (universities and schools "dis…

>(fax machines!!)

Maybe not the best example, fax machines usually work.

E-mails - for a number of reasons - may not.

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

#264

Post by eitland » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

deknos wrote: post #246

afavour wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was there. You are just biased. That doesn’t mean you’re free of bias. If anything it means the opposite. “Limux worked” and “we solved a whole ton of problems and had to implement printing dialogs, QT interfaces and more” feel like statements somewhat at odds with each other. Were all these bug fixes complete on day one or did they have to be done after the Limux switch had been made? Obviously I’m an outside ob…

LOL, damned if you do, damned if you don't > That doesn’t mean you’re free of bias. If anything it means the opposite. Maybe, but at least i know what i talk about. You observe from the outside and talk about "meme-level bad"? do you believe anything BILD and AZ writes? > “Limux worked” and “we solved a whole ton of problems and had to implement printing dialogs, QT interfaces and more” feel like statements somewhat…

> Linux can do something, which windows cannot || : eh, wo cares

Exactly.

We who have used Linux for a while have had fun a couple of times before asking if Windows is ready for our desktops and the answer was most often a resounding no.

Lately I've made do with just Windows and WSL and to be honest, it still isn't ready for my desktop.

Recently my laptop had overheated in the bag a number of times.

Knowing I would probably have some work to do to work around Microsofts new "bake your laptop feature" (also known as "modern standby") permanently, I dug into power settings.

The reason this has been more problematic recently became very clear immediately: some recent software update has managed to set action on closing lid to "Do nothing".

If this was Linux there would be a major outcry about how it is not ready for ordinary users.

For Windows it is an ordinary Tuesday.

Same goes for a lot of other things: waiting for half a minute before git returns (admittedly on a collection of 500 files, but still), it is just the way it is.

Still can't match apt-get or any other package manager? Deal with it.

30% longer compiles? You are welcome.

Ads on the logon screen of my work PC with Professional license? Of course. Same with ads in my start menu and even in Soltaire like in some cheap Android app. Yep.

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

#265

Post by pas » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

mlry wrote: post #237

smartbettor wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for mentioning the Berlin airport fiasco - I had never heard the story - hilarious and very troubling for those in Berlin!

Oh, if you find the story of BER hilarious and troubling you should read up on the 2021 vote for federal and local parliaments. Or the civil administration there in general where you have to make an appointment to get your passport renewed months in advance.

> 2021 vote for federal and local parliaments

tldr?

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

#266

Post by jimnotgym » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #92

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…

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.

Even more, on 365 you can have the full desktop app, with fully integrated cloud collaboration and storage

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

#267

Post by zeppelin101 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

heurisko wrote: post #147

RedShift1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My favourite desktop is the Unity desktop by Canonical, which used to be the old Ubuntu desktop. I felt like I could tell they were building it for actual users. There were things like the corner pixels activating logout, so you could just drag your mouse straight to the corner of the screen. It also ran well on old hardware. Ubuntu moving to the Gnome interface again was a step back in my opinion, but it shows what…

I quite liked Unity, myself, but I recall that the Linux community was very upset and vocal at Canonical for having ditched Gnome. It's really hard to please everyone.

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

#268

Post by ipaddr » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

nodejs_rulez_1 wrote: post #249

gentleman11 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a lot of organizations see foss as purely a free thing and not an investment. If they put half the money they spent on licensing into paying people to improve the foss packages they use, the ecosystem would transform and everyone would benefit. Massive cost savings overall, and it would push paid software to work harder to compete (who knows, it might even force Microsoft to offer decent privacy p…

> If they put half the money they spent on licensing into paying people to improve the foss packages... Like in a legally-binding contract way or some hippie way hoping for the best?

Hiring developers to work on specific package improvements is what is normally done. Could be legally binding, probably would be a standard employment agreement but you could do it through a hippie way (coding circle?).

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

#269

Post by ruph123 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

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…

I always wondered why they had to create their own fork. I had the feeling that this is unecessary maintenance work that they took on and a "not invented here" philosophy.

Why not just use one of the avaible distros or why not even make a deal with SUSE (a bavarian company) to have a subscription model with support directly from experienced distro makers? Surely they could've made sure that all important features and workflows can be implemented.

Of course this would've needed to be a public bidding but if Red Hat gets it or SUSE does not really matter and surely is much cheaper than Microsoft licenses.

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

#270

Post by GravitasFailure » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #236

dmitriid wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ultimately, closed-source software is like running a factory with a machine you aren't allowed to repair. That... that is exactly how factories operate. When something breaks, they call the manufacturer to bring someone in to fix it.

I actually thought this when I was writing the comment. The difference is, you call the manufacturer when you actually need their specific expertise, and when they're your best option. You're not obligated to. They haven't generally purposefully hidden the internals of the machine from you - and most machines are designed to be serviced by end-users. If every software supplier was like hilti when it came to support,…

> you call the manufacturer when you actually need their specific expertise, and when they're your best option. You're not obligated to.

That depends entirely on the terms of your lease and service agreements. For high end equipment, like the CNC systems at my work, you may not even be given the option to purchase them, and they're so specialized you probably won't have someone that can competently work on them even if your service contact permitted it. Electronics manufacturers are also notorious for sanding off component info or burying components in epoxy blobs to hide information from competitors and customers alike.