251–260 of 263 posts
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if you are editing a 500 page document you should use other software for writing, perhaps use latex, and put the document in git. but i get that there are lots of lawyers who don’t want to learn any new tools. for all the other stuff you mentioned you have solutions for linux that work and conferencing software has clients these days for linux. you can use diff or visual diff tools for comparisons.
Git (VCS in general) seems like this absurd accidental secret of our profession. I use Fusion360 occasionally for hobby stuff, and its version 'control' is a joke, it's unfathomable to me how (especially since they're fellow engineers, technical people!) people can use and collaborate with it to build serious stuff. I think there's a lot of money to be made and a potential huge turning point in end user software for…
subversion with turtoiseSVN worked well for me and was perfect in that it was version control for newbies. until I was forced to use git because it was the hot new thing. no real reason for me to use git, but there you go.
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if you are editing a 500 page document you should use other software for writing, perhaps use latex, and put the document in git. but i get that there are lots of lawyers who don’t want to learn any new tools. for all the other stuff you mentioned you have solutions for linux that work and conferencing software has clients these days for linux. you can use diff or visual diff tools for comparisons.
That is like telling data scientists that they should use Python and SQL instead of Excel. Good in theory, in practice, everyone keeps doing like everyone else.
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if you are editing a 500 page document you should use other software for writing, perhaps use latex, and put the document in git. but i get that there are lots of lawyers who don’t want to learn any new tools. for all the other stuff you mentioned you have solutions for linux that work and conferencing software has clients these days for linux. you can use diff or visual diff tools for comparisons.
Come on, let's be realistic, what's the chance of that happening? The network effects are enormous, that's like saying "just don't use javascript lmao". Even in tech companies most of the non-technical staff works with MS Office.
Excellent article. I would like to read a line or two explaining how this law-firm contributes to the F/LOSS community.
By using FLOSS and spreading information about it?
I "pay" (i.e. make a financial donation) to any software development where I would have purchased commercial equivalent. It makes sense.
I'm curious as to what scanner /needs/ MacOS. I have yet to meet a scanner that VueScan doesn't support. I'm a mild free software zealot, VueScan is such a gem that I was more than happy to pay for it. (this comment not sponsored, really!)
Also a lawyer here, I think the biggest hurdle is MS Word. MS word is the defacto IDE of the law world. We spend most of our time in Word. The drafting of documents won't be a problem with libre office. You can send a PDF to the client. But working with other lawyers/parties could be a challenge. I am not certain how Libreoffice could handle a 500 page memo being worked by 50+ people including thousands of track chan…
I wonder if it would be legal to offer Windows Machines as a Service. So that you connect via Remote Desktop and pay by usage ... might violate MS' TOS though.
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I’m glad this is working for him, but it’s only been three months. The most important thing Word gets me is an excuse. If someone sends me a Word doc and I open it in Word and something is screwed up, I can say “oh, um, maybe something is wrong on your end.” If I’m using anything else—LibreOffice, Pages, Google Docs, anything—then there’s a possibility that it’s the software’s fault. I can’t be messing around with th…
I'm principally a transactional attorney. The one piece of software that keeps me tied to Windows in addition to Word is Workshare Compare. To my astonishment, even after jacking prices after the recent acquisition by Litera, there is literally no substitute for elegantly and cleanly preparing redlines. This cannot be that difficult. Somebody build a competitor!
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I'm principally a transactional attorney. The one piece of software that keeps me tied to Windows in addition to Word is Workshare Compare. To my astonishment, even after jacking prices after the recent acquisition by Litera, there is literally no substitute for elegantly and cleanly preparing redlines. This cannot be that difficult. Somebody build a competitor!
A friend and I are actually looking into the space and would love to have a chat if you're up for it?