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German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

zdnet.com

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Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#21

Post by holografix »

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office.

I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years.

They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them.

The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guaranteed them it had saved, so they had to start from scratch.

It did save it. In their fucking cloud and made it so opaque that the user couldn’t possibly understand wtf was happening. It took me, a tech professional a good 5 minutes to snap out of the dark pattern and realise what was going on.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#22

Post by acchow »

holografix wrote: post #21

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years. They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them. The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guara…

Don't the most recent documents appear on the welcome screen when you open MS Word?

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#23

Post by csdreamer7 »

holografix wrote: post #21

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years. They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them. The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guara…

> Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office.

My mom had to buy a copy of MS Office. Her university provided free ms office online, but there were certain features missing from it she needed for her papers. I am remembering wrong, but it was annotations? Citations? I do not remember.

Libreoffice kinda could do it, but I could not find how online, while MS had it properly documented on their website and so many youtubers making videos on MS Office had it listed on their website.

Edit: also found out MS Office can screen record and record her webcam. Very useful for her giving a remote presentation during covid.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#24

Post by dade_ »

breadwinner wrote: post #13
HeavyStorm wrote: post #8

While I work for msft, I'm all for open source, even more in this space - consumer and office apps - however, my government has tried this and rolled it back a while later in some branches, while others just suffer with it. Office is much superior to any open source and even paid alternatives, and we must remember that most people using the software don't have a degree in CS. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the rev…

> Office is much superior to any open source and even paid alternatives Bullshit. The only reason to use Microsoft Office is compatibility with Microsoft Office files. What improvements have been made in the last 10 years in Outlook and Word? Nothing. There are some new bugs that didn't exist before, but no advancements. That's what lack of competition gives you.

Exactly. Especially for contract negotiations & track changes with a counterparty. Only MS can figure out their screwed up document formats. Office is terrible these days, it is so damned slow. I remember Office 97, so fast and responsive on a Pentium 90, now back in the dark ages of slow bloatware and network latency. It takes so long to open a document, I forget what I was doing the week I double clicked on the file.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#26

Post by financypants »

HeavyStorm wrote: post #8

While I work for msft, I'm all for open source, even more in this space - consumer and office apps - however, my government has tried this and rolled it back a while later in some branches, while others just suffer with it. Office is much superior to any open source and even paid alternatives, and we must remember that most people using the software don't have a degree in CS. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the rev…

Does libreoffice do hotkeys similar to excel/powerpoint?

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#29

Post by [deleted] »

yayr wrote: post #6

1. Every software needs resources to be maintained and improved. Those resources finally will need to be paid for by someone. 2. Getting Linux and LibreOffice does not get you a functioning productivity environment. You still need mail, calendars, shared document storage, web conferencing, security etc. There are various levels of usability in those and on basic levels you could get those already 30 years ago mostly.…

[deleted]

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#30

Post by 000ooo000 »

geraldwhen wrote: post #20
jll29 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more people use free software, the more it will become cost effective to improve it using government funding. There can be enormous net savings (zero license fees), which is fantastic for the taxpayer.

Without an actual design vision, all open source software will flounder and never replace commercial counterparts.

What a ridiculous thing to say
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