German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice • Hacker News Board

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#101

Post by jonesjohnson » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:50 AM UTC

f_allwein wrote: post #15

Did not work well in Munich, my hometown, in 2004. Hope the lessons have been learned. https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-failure/

It's a sad story. My spouse is working for the city in some legal department and she was happily using LiMux for years with no big issues. The main problem was that the IT department was understaffed and underpaid...

One reason for their switch might be that Microsoft thought about opening up a big office here. Another reason might have been the study conducted by Accenture [1], who have some close ties to Microsoft...

I also enjoyed reading the interview of former Munich mayor Christian Ude [2]. Apparently, Steve Ballmer was interrupting his ski vacation in Switzerland to visit Ude and personally try to convince him to ditch LiMux.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170219053640/https://www.ris-m...

[2] https://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgaben/2019/10/interview-2/

[edit: typo]

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#102

Post by prmoustache » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:51 AM UTC

ChicagoDave wrote: post #86

I’d quit my job if I was forced to a Linux desktop and non office365 tools. The loss of productivity in this change is going to be massively disruptive. It’s not going to go as smoothly as they think it will. I highly doubt their pilot program sniffed out all the complexities.

I haven't seen a particular productivity boost anywhere from regular office + sharepoint and office365.

I also haven't noted a productivity difference between sharepoint (which office 365 really is) and other content management platforms.

Ironically the only place where office 365 offered a boost is in the linux world really. You don't even need a local suite office to open msoffice documents.

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#103

Post by TulliusCicero » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:52 AM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #88

[flagged]

In those cases, there's not really a practical non-proprietary option.

Whereas with a lot of software, there is a practical non-proprietary option.

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#104

Post by tpm » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:52 AM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #31

monospaced wrote: post #3

The will likely be using Phoenix: https://www.dataport.de/about-phoenix/ The German government developed a fully free and open source solution that is quite similar (consisting of Nextcloud, jitsi, Collabora etc.) and can be deployed using Kubernetes: https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/opendesk

It’s kind of a bummer that there’s a bunch of these separate OSS initiatives in Spain, France, Germany and a few other countries.. Instead of everyone rolling their own subvariant of Nextcloud, Matrix, LibreOffice etc, imagine if there was an EU mandate set up and some serious money was budgeted to it. You’d get a triple multiplier of more budget, less duplication of effort, and a self-reinforcing cycle where more us…

You are underestimating German federalism - there are several competing providers for each specialized software used by German municipalities, often with huge customisations. There is no way you could mandate a specific product. What can be done from above, in some cases, is specifying requirements (for eg data storage, privacy laws, code auditability...) and APIs (like APIs to federal agencies) and let the customers and providers create solutions. It might be messier, but in the end you are not dependent on a single product.

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#105

Post by pshirshov » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:55 AM UTC

What, again?

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#106

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:55 AM UTC

pixelpoet wrote: post #100

Stranger43 wrote: post #7

The germans have been tinkering with policies mandating non-cloud dependent products for a while wondering if this is a start of it actually getting implemented on a large scale or if the delay attempts will remain successful elsewhere across the region. If this is a start of an actual migration away from cloud dependence, it's a matter of time before windows(which is as cloud dependent as office those days for enter…

Do the americans exclusively use MS Office in government computers?

[deleted]

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#107

Post by shrubble » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:55 AM UTC

Rinzler89 wrote: post #32

daeros wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sane policy. Every time Office 365 is down I watch the maddening dash of IT workers who can't get anything done, it's amusing.

What's the alternative? Would they be able to do more without cloud office solutions? Like in the days long last we used to email .doc files to each other? I doubt it. Would hosting an on-prem alternative yeld better cost and a higher uptime? I doubt it.

You mean emailing .doc files around to co-workers, like what happened yesterday?

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#108

Post by ChicagoDave » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:55 AM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #102

ChicagoDave wrote: post #86

I’d quit my job if I was forced to a Linux desktop and non office365 tools. The loss of productivity in this change is going to be massively disruptive. It’s not going to go as smoothly as they think it will. I highly doubt their pilot program sniffed out all the complexities.

I haven't seen a particular productivity boost anywhere from regular office + sharepoint and office365. I also haven't noted a productivity difference between sharepoint (which office 365 really is) and other content management platforms. Ironically the only place where office 365 offered a boost is in the linux world really. You don't even need a local suite office to open msoffice documents.

Most non-technical people have a pattern of work. They know how to do their job because it’s been repeated over years. This change will alter many of those patterns.

Even the simplest things like text editor or using a command line will be disruptive.

The support staff is going to be overwhelmed.

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#109

Post by lrvick » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:55 AM UTC

pixelpoet wrote: post #100

Stranger43 wrote: post #7

The germans have been tinkering with policies mandating non-cloud dependent products for a while wondering if this is a start of it actually getting implemented on a large scale or if the delay attempts will remain successful elsewhere across the region. If this is a start of an actual migration away from cloud dependence, it's a matter of time before windows(which is as cloud dependent as office those days for enter…

Do the americans exclusively use MS Office in government computers?

Yes. Most schools too. Microsoft has incredible political power here.

Re: German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice

#110

Post by Hamuko » Thu, Apr 04, 2024, 11:57 AM UTC

Stranger43 wrote: post #8

Hamuko wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the cost of training a bunch of public servants to use Linux?

Probably lower then people think once the applications are identical across the two platform. and if Linux turns too complex there is always macos. The big push is going to be getting rid of old excel and word macro's and replace sharepoint/onedrive with something else as data migrations are newer as simple in reality as they look in theory.

>and if Linux turns too complex there is always macos

I have witnessed in person people switching from Windows to macOS have issues adapting to a different operating system and its concepts, like the fact that pressing the X button in the top-left corner doesn't close the application. Therefore I am rather skeptical that you can just throw some Linux distro at a bunch of novice computer users without large amounts of friction.