Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
What features in Office are essential for those users that you don't get from Google? If you're talking about Excel I can imagine there are such features but not so much in other apps.
German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
151–160 of 333 posts
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a long time Linux user, I think problems are partially technical. For example: * A lot of software used by them is certainly Windows only (they will have to find alternatives, change their workflows or invest in some windows virtual machines) * Windows tooling for organizations is much more mature. There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. * Linux is very focused on user freedoms. This is not usually important…
> There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. The reason everyone uses AD is that you can have a functional Linux client in AD. But you cannot have a Windows client in any Linux-based LDAP+Kerberos setup. The problem isn't that there isn't a good solution for Linux in big organisations, the problem is that Windows is only compatible with AD, nothing else, so the more compatible system (Linux) gets shoved into AD.
Every large organization that I have worked at has a solution for desktop and server Linux. The downside is you typically have a password hash stored in ad or a separate service. Ultimately, it isn’t terrible, but you do have a lot of enforcement at the border. So trouble can surprisingly appear when you connect remotely.
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#153Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39916133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39928173
Previous reporting (from over two years ago):
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2021/11/18/german-s...
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#154> ...cites cost, security, and digital sovereignty... With the recent XZ Utils backdoor fiasco, I would really think twice with this decision. Might be worth sticking to MS for a little bit longer, who knows if the backdoor code has been reused somewhere else? Besides, wasnt it a MS employee who uncovered this backdoor?
Ridiculously silly to say. Because ONE recent security flaw in open source fucking M$ is better? That is laughable.
But yes, open source is used more by private users and even in government the hackers may target it more. BUT Linux is already in use for like 99% of the internet, all datacenters, everything runs on it. Every big company, even M$ is involved in it heavily, they have their own Linux called Azure Linux or something like that. So it makes zero sense to claim using some shitty close source software they want way too much money for is better. M$ 365 bullshit might as well connect to some online services run by M$ ON LINUX that have bugs exactly that you mention that somehow then also make it to users of office that connects to the net for no reason. I think it's some software as a service crap now.
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#155I'm sorry, what year is it? Am I posting on Slashdot still? Is this year finally going to be the year where Linux desktops become something for normies? When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. Now we're going to do it all over again with a different, much poorer, German state?
Linux desktops will never be for normies because desktops are not for normies and are dwarfed by mobile devices and have been for a while now. Many, Many people use only mobile devices and the ones under 40 who still have computers have them for work.
Well, the article was about work.
Mobile devices may be well-suited for chatting and general entertainment but I seriously doubt that many people could do effective work - more than a couple quick changes - with the mobile versions of Word or Excel.
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#156I'm sorry, what year is it? Am I posting on Slashdot still? Is this year finally going to be the year where Linux desktops become something for normies? When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. Now we're going to do it all over again with a different, much poorer, German state?
> When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
> September 2006 — "Soft" migration begins.
> October 2013 — Over 15,000 LiMux PC-workstations (of about 18,000 workstations)
> December 2013 — Munich open-source switch was "completed successfully".
> September 2016 - Microsoft moves its German headquarters to Munich.
> November 2017 - The city council decided that LiMux will be replaced by a Windows-based infrastructure by the end of 2020. The costs for the migration are estimated to be around 90 million Euros.
> May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux.
They've still got a website up where they say some stuff about it, which itself is hosted MIT-licensed on GitHub with pretty regular commits:
> Our strategic guidelines also provide for this:
> > If economically and technologically or strategically sensible, LHM prioritizes the use of open source solutions, in particular to avoid company dependencies. LHM pursues this approach in both the application and infrastructure areas.
https://opensource.muenchen.de/use.html
https://github.com/it-at-m/opensource.muenchen.de/commits/ma...
Well, it's not just about "FOSS" or whatever, is it? As a German state, you're better off not relying on making payments to a North American company.
LibreOffice specifically was indeed decommissioned eventually in Munich (just within the last couple months!), though:
> LibreOffice was used as an office package as part of Limux until the end of 2023.
Though the Microsoft headquarters do make this seem like possibly a special situation, and as another commenter said, surely they don't need a national headquarters in every German state…
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#157Very 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…
There are a ton of very specific pieces of functionality that are built into Microsoft Word that caters to business edge cases. Features that have worked the same way and have not been touched for years for compatability reasons and are not duplicated in other software/services. Word is a bloated mess, but incredibly feature rich.
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
People always forget about Outlook. Name me a competing desktop app that does integrated calendar, email, todo, and meetings as well as Outlook. Thunderbird is (unfortunately) a joke, and web clients aren't as nice when managing complex folder arrangements and lots of mail.
Honest question, what's wrong with Thunderbird? I never used Outlook, and I use Thunderbird daily so I wonder what I miss [1]. It also picked up development a bit and got some nice improvements, maybe check it out of you didn't recently. But I'm really curious why is it bad. [1] I'm pretty sure outlook users miss good GPG support, at least.
Supernova has fixed a number of the performance issues with large mailboxes, but that was fairly recent. People steeped in Windows still prefer the sleek/modern UI in Outlook over TB, in my experience, but the biggest benefit in Outlook is just the tight integration in MS/365 land.
Calendaring in TB always felt like a bit of an afterthought compared to email, and for personal use, that makes sense. For business, strong calendaring with meetings/shared calendars/availability and the tight link to meetings (Teams)is not done as well anywhere else.
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#159I tried using Libre's alt to MS Access (database). It couldn't open an Access file (couldn't create a connection).
Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice
#160Very 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…
There are a ton of very specific pieces of functionality that are built into Microsoft Word that caters to business edge cases. Features that have worked the same way and have not been touched for years for compatability reasons and are not duplicated in other software/services. Word is a bloated mess, but incredibly feature rich.
Office is Final Cut Pro. It is brimming with features and power.
But lots of people aren’t working at some corporate office. Mom and Pop can get far with the iMovie option like Google Sheets and Docs.
Actually now that I say that… what I want is a LibreOffice equivalent of Google Docs and Sheets and Presentations. Google is the only bad part of my Docs experience.