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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

#61

Post by rafaelmn »

FriedEggFred wrote: post #38
geraldwhen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Gimp, blender, firefox and obs are all very successful OSS alternatives that come to mind.

Gimp is a classic example of OPs point.

Mozilla really ? Lack of vision and focus driving Firefox into irrelevance. And also started on the back of a commercial product.

Blender started as a commercial software and is being spearheaded by Ton ever since (my very uninformed impression), which again reinforces OPs point.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#62

Post by schmichael »

jolmg wrote: post #50
schmichael wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux has directories and config/package/fleet management as well. No one in the past 20 years should be walking to every desk in 1,000 desk building installing software.

> No one in the past 20 years should be walking to every desk in 1,000 desk building installing software. Maybe even 50 years, if one considers that they could've automated the installations through telnet.

I remember walking to every computer in primary schools to do operations in the 90s, so I figured might as well play it safe with “20 years.” :)

There’s definitely been solutions to this problem since the dawn of computing, albeit with uneven availability.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#63

Post by CharlesW »

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.

For knowledge workers who live in these tools, the difference is stark. Even for companies who've standardized on Google Workspace or Apple iWork, advanced users will need Microsoft Office.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#65

Post by layer8 »

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…

Office has become a bit of a UX mess in parts, due to the cloud and web integration, but the overall functionality and integrations are still unmatched. Many people also continue to prefer native applications.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#66

Post by breadwinner »

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…

Enormous number of improvements? That link shows barely any improvements. If there was healthy competition you'd actually see enormous number of improvements.

> The biggest is probably cloud/simultaneous editing capabilities.

That was in response to Google Docs and is more than 10 years old (added in 2013?).

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#69

Post by incompatible »

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.

Surely there's a limit to how many German headquarters Microsoft needs though.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#70

Post by incompatible »

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

Apparently, it's how one bargains with Microsoft to get a better deal on software or employment in that location or whatever.
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