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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

#51

Post by nullindividual »

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.

> What improvements have been made in the last 10 years in Outlook and Word?

Microsoft Search makes it much easier to find stuff. Word got near real-time co-editing (or perhaps that was closer to 11 years ago) and later (Lots of other improvements in Excel and PowerPoint, data access/visualization, various presenter modes, and then you've got that AI stuff all mixed in.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#52

Post by NewJazz »

ozim wrote: post #33
lwde wrote: post #2

We'll have to see how long it takes, as it did with LiMux ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux ) when Microsoft Germany headquarters magically moved to Munich and everything got back to running on Windows again.

My question is what the heck? I read that same thing every 2-3 years “German state goes Linux/libre office”. Then it turns out that it is not really true. Some parts yes then some other parts are already on it and some parts move back. I do understand there might be different parts of rather big country doing different stuicf

I imagine the tide will lift and fall over the years. Some applications (new and old) will only run on specialized platforms. Exceptions will exist in a large enigh environment.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#53

Post by paulryanrogers »

stateofinquiry wrote: post #48
breadwinner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Objectively there have been an absolutely enormous number of "improvements" to MS office (including Outlook and Word) over the last decade. The biggest is probably cloud/simultaneous editing capabilities. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/sto... . Interestingly, there is a decreased emphasis on the file format- the opposite of your point. In addition to cloudy used on mobile devices, sharep…

This depends on what parts you use. For many Microsoft Word 4 was probably peak Word. At this point Office is becoming an OS into itself.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#54

Post by CharlesW »

acchow wrote: post #22
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?

They do, and right below the file names is its path. However, the elderly relative had never opened the file on the new computer/Office install, and likely never had any idea where they'd originally saved the file.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#55

Post by lwkl »

ozim wrote: post #33
lwde wrote: post #2

We'll have to see how long it takes, as it did with LiMux ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux ) when Microsoft Germany headquarters magically moved to Munich and everything got back to running on Windows again.

My question is what the heck? I read that same thing every 2-3 years “German state goes Linux/libre office”. Then it turns out that it is not really true. Some parts yes then some other parts are already on it and some parts move back. I do understand there might be different parts of rather big country doing different stuicf

It's a German of Schleswig-Holstein which is like the state of California or the state of Kentucky in the US doing a change like this. And it's only the state government and not the municipalities in the state.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#56

Post by Difwif »

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…

So many microcosms with tech. I'm always reminded here on HN how terrible Office is and why we don't just use Google Docs. I hold this same opinion personally. However I go to other communities (I think the last one I remember was some startup subreddit) and GSuite is being mocked and everyone is recommending Office and Teams as the obvious choice for starting your business.

I assume it's just that we prefer the devil we know than the one we don't.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#57

Post by analog31 »

I've tried LibreOffice, periodically over the years. The same thing always sends me back to MS Office. MS has really sweated the details of their UI in ways that can only be done by maintaining a huge army of coders. When I use LibreOffice, the lack of responsiveness is immediately noticeable, and actually makes the software physically laborious to use. I've also noticed something like a 10x or even 100x difference in the time to recalculate a large spreadsheet.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#58

Post by leipert »

dataflow wrote: post #17
bkor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Germany is investing in improving free software, see https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/ . Though not sure if this is linked to that state switching. I think LibreOffice is riddled with loads of small "paper cuts". Basically loads of small issues that make it annoy…

> I hope that they understand it shouldn't be about cost, it should be about being sovereign Makes sense in principle, but practically speaking Germany would seem to have higher priority threats to address than software from the United States?

Mhm. Spending less on licenses would free up money for other things.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#59

Post by NekkoDroid »

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.…

There is https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/opendesk/info

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#60

Post by AaronFriel »

mlok wrote: post #3

Munich did it a few times already since 2003. Last one was in 2020 : https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-i...

I've seen this story every few years, perhaps this is just how they Munich negotiates its contract with Microsoft.
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