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German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

blog.documentfoundation.org

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Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#41

Post by bserge »

OneTimePetes wrote: post #21

Would be nice to have a german software culture. But all we got is politicians who wish for that and then turn a blind eye on fraudsters like WireCard. Something is missing from the german cultural dna, that our neighbours have.(Swiss,Luxemburg, Belgians, Chechen Republic, Poland, Litauen). Seems the most important thing to be big in software in europe, is to foremost be not german ;)

Nonsense. Germans are bad at creating new things but excellent at improving anything to its highest potential.

Kinda doubting the Chechen software industry, though.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#42

Post by nivenkos »

RedShift1 wrote: post #30
nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I've used Linux full-time at home for 10 years, and now at work (in an enterprise). For the most part, it works well and doesn't require a whole lot more support.

The LTT video hit one specific packaging bug in PopOS that was present for only an hour, and was unfortunate. But to judge so much on that is unreasonable, shit happens in software engineering, it'd be like trying to use Facebook in the window where it was down and concluding that Facebook is completely unreliable.

I'm not a PopOS user myself, but I have a lot of respect for everything they've achieved. It's not fair to constantly attack them for this one incident.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#43

Post by titannet »

jamil7 wrote: post #18

Do they plan to fund and/or contribute to the development of LibreOffice as well? I couldn't find anything in that article or the linked paper. Edit: Actually one of the slides seems to indicate they have the intention to contribute and/or fund in someway.

It is highly doubtful. German public authorities are notorious for not voluntarily sharing anything with the public.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#44

Post by dan00 »

nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

You have to start somewhere and if you can switch just one software, which you can later also use on linux, it seems like the perfect way to go.

Switching is always painful and will result in some troubles. So keeping it at a minimum is a good idea.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#45

Post by [deleted] »

wahern wrote: post #25
loudmax wrote: post #20

This is the kind of story that would have been cheered on on Slashdot twenty years ago. But here we are in 2021 and a major organization having the temerity to not pay the Microsoft tax is newsworthy. This is not what a free market looks like.

It's the kind of story that was cheered on on Slashdot. Multiple times. I can't count the number of times I've seen "Some German [agency|municipality|state] [is planning to adopt|has adopted|cancels adoption|reverses adoption] of [StarOffice|OpenOffice|Libreoffice|Linux]". I think it's some kind of meme, the product of peculiar German administrative politics, or a result of vigorous Free Software activism in Germany…

[deleted]

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#46

Post by go_elmo »

nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

This could be a major ease on state budgets, also communal ones and allow to allocate resources where they are more urgently needed. Might require high initial costs for setup & staff education which would amortize over a few years for sure.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#47

Post by marcodiego »

Hope this encourage them to invest in improving OOXML compatibility. I think right now this is the biggest reason people avoid LibreOffice.

Also, some action must be taken about MS behavior. They are the same company they were in the 90's. It is easy to find commit messages in LO explaining things like 'this is what MSO does but not what the specification says'. They recently change the algorithm the justifies text in MSO and it is not explained in the specification. So, even a simple text file without any especial formatting may not be viewed correctly with anything but MSO.

This is ridiculous. The use of such a format should be forbidden for governments. ISO shouldn't have ratified it.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#48

Post by Folcon »

nivenkos wrote: post #42
RedShift1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I've used Linux full-time at home for 10 years, and now at work (in an enterprise). For the most part, it works well and doesn't require a whole lot more support. The LTT video hit one specific packaging bug in PopOS that was present for only an hour, and was unfortunate. But to judge so much on that is unreasonable, shit happens in software engineering, it'd be like trying to use Facebook in the window where it was…

As someone who used to be an avid linux desktop user, but has subsequently moved away from it and is interested in the current ecosystem with a view to maybe coming back, what would you say is a good entry point?

I used to run Ubuntu back in the day if that helps.

I'm curious to get a sense of how much has changed.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#49

Post by nivenkos »

cat199 wrote: post #9

"digital sovereignty" is a nice phrase

Especially in contrast to the current digital colonialism.

US Big Tech companies pay almost no corporation taxes in the EU (and if they do, only in Ireland / Luxembourg), and compete and buy out European companies, shipping the high-paying jobs (and the economic benefits and taxes those bring) back to the US (much like the oil industry in Nigeria, etc.).

The EU must take a stand against this, like has been done against Huawei. Ultimately the American Big Tech companies are no better than Huawei - the US is not an ally of the EU, and has been interfering in European democracy ever since the May 1947 crises.

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