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Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

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Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#171

Post by mistrial9 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #145
welshwelsh wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of features is not an excuse for a government to adopt proprietary software. Surely, the Danish government can figure out how to support real-time collaboration in LibreOffice.

It doesn't need an excuse; it's a fully valid reason. Using proprietary software is a perfectly valid choice to make.

In English the word "free" is apparently another difficulty. The technical Four Freedoms are not at all about the money. Money can be exchanged between willing partners of course. That includes government. The means and methods of closed source, and the means and methods of "corruption" are real.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#172

Post by tomjuggler »

udev4096 wrote: post #122

LibreOffice is terrible. I cannot believe how anyone can do anything with it. I cannot stand Word but it's just impossible to find a true replacement for it. OnlyOffice should get more recognition. It is the closest you can get for Word replacement

Yeah I tried so hard to use LibreOffice. OnlyOffice is great

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#173

Post by dardeaup »

I think the best way to go about these types of efforts is to: (1) build a coalition with agreed upon goals, governance, etc. (2) define the desired systems and architecture for it (3) define the file formats and wire protocols to support the features/functionality (4) start building it

There would need to be conferences every 6 or 12 months. There would also need to be lots of documentation, training, videos, podcasts, etc.

It would be a huge effort but possibly also extremely rewarding.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#174

Post by v5v3 »

kube-system wrote: post #151
v5v3 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LibreOffice does everything I need it to... Most people only use a small percentage of functionality in any app.

Individually, sure. But in an organization, the larger it is, the more probability that all of the features are being used approaches 1. Then you don't have a software issue anymore, you have a business workflow, retraining, or retooling issue.

Most admin staff don't do anything complex aside from writing letters. They don't create complex docs with table of contents and images and so on.

I have worked for companies prior who gave basic online office 365 to 99% of staff and then more expensive subscriptions on a as needed basis.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#175

Post by marcosdumay »

dmix wrote: post #127
Herring wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every 4 years" - French Minister Delegate for European Affairs.

Which is what Trump seems to want. A Europe not totally dependent on the American taxpayers for their own self defense and their own global power projection agendas. Many countries like Germany are quite far from that. France is more of a leader in that regard. Although abandoning commercial American software wholesale would likely degrade their own security and GDPs even further than it already is.

I really don't think Trump has run that line with the US weapons manufacturers.

He got the goal of increasing the EU weapons expenses, and entirely monkey-pawed it.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#177

Post by marcosdumay »

exceptione wrote: post #7
fazza999 wrote: post #2

Gosh. Is Linux now ready for the desktop?

KDE + any rolling distro is miles ahead of Windows. So, as a user of both, I read your question with a smirk. If you would ask if LibreOffice is ready, I would say: yes and no. The UX of LO is worse than MS Office. LO is more feature rich in certain areas but it lacks the UX if you want to get a well-looking document with a minimum amount of work. Case in point: lack of acceptable Impress templates (they look from th…

I'd say Writer is miles ahead from Word. To start with, it works and won't mangle your entire document because you added a line-break some place it didn't like.

But also, office suites are becoming anachronistic very quickly. Every time you use one nowadays, it's a symptom of some organization failure. (Ok, there are a few reasonable use cases for spreadsheets.) So the entire question is kinda of moot.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#178

Post by a022311 »

Honestly, if they manage to make the transition without major problems, it will greatly improve Denmark's sovereignty.

My concern is mostly about the government depending on open source software without contributing in some way. I really hope they fund and/or contribute to both projects.

Another interesting question to consider is whether the likelihood of attacks on these projects will increase. Knowing that government(s) use LibreOffice makes it a much more valuable target for attackers willing to pull of something like xz-utils. Likewise, increasing adoption of Linux for desktop usage could result in more vulnerabilities being discovered and more malware targeting Linux desktops.

I think there's a lot to see in the near future...

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#179

Post by [deleted] »

belter wrote: post #148
linotype wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI Bill Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000.

"Bill Gates never left" - https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-still-pulling-str... "...In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft's AI revolution from behind the scenes. Current and former executives say Gates remains intimately involved in the company's operations — advising on strategy, reviewing products, recruiting high-level executives, and nurturing Micr…

[deleted]

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#180

Post by kube-system »

louiskottmann wrote: post #167
kube-system wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deploying a free tool that doesn't solve an organizations problems isn't a valid choice. I'm tired of open source advocates hand-waving away the reasons people choose other software. For most organizations, software is not a big cost, labor is. It often makes sense to throw a million dollars at a piece of software to make people's job easier, because that can translate to tens of millions in labor.

That is stretching the subject beyond reasonable. Proprietary software as a general endeavor is not an invalid business and nobody is saying that here. LibreOffice is close enough to Microsoft's offering that surely it makes sense accross the many EU states to stop spending millions on it, and spend a few to close the gap, saving even more millions in the future.

Respectfully, I think it's a bit of a Dunning–Kruger effect for random internet commenters to presume they know what is "close enough" to meet the requirements for the many thousands of different day jobs that people have across the different governments of dozens of different countries.

Certainly the people buying software know best what their requirements are.

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