Mayor of Munich: "EU laptops should have LibreOffice or OpenOffice"
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I can see how the feature set of OpenOffice or LibreOffice would be sufficient for just about anyone. However, I strongly feel that both Microsoft Office and Apple iWork do offer some real benefits in terms of usability over (Libre|Open)Office.
Seriously, I tried this for real: My mom got a new computer. It was a Mac. We installed OpenOffice, then NeoOffice, then LibreOffice for her. Over the course of several months she never got the hang of it. She was always asking how to do stuff and could never figure out how to do simple things.
Then we installed iWork and she got along fine. There is this inspector thing, and if you want to do something, you will probably find it in there. She was happy with that and even discovered some features on her own.
Later we installed Microsoft Office for Mac for her (for *.doc compatibility reasons). Again, she got along fine. There is that ribbon/palette thing, and if you want to do something, you will probably find it in there. She was happy with that and even discovered some features on her own.
I mean, I very much hope that a wider adoption of (Open|Libre)Office with European Officials would make the European Union invest some money in porting (Open|Libre)Office into the 21 century. But until they do, I can not recommend it to anyone with a straight face.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
* 9000 of 14000 as of December 2011. However, "LiMux is a project by the city council of Munich to migrate their software systems, including 14,000", so, probably the total count is actually more than 14000, which makes the percentage even less.
Eight years for 65% is quite impressive actually.
Regardless, this is quite the tangent...
LOL
As for "spending public money on a dubious cause", they're spending roughly as much as before, but they're spending it in the local economy instead of sending it to the US, before you even count any other benefits.
He did talk about making "public knowledge accessible in the future". Public institutions have a moral and legal obligation to preserve certain items for posterity.
The problem with a proprietary application like iWork is that it uses a closed file format that may or may not stand the test of time. I've worked with archivists in government institutions, and they are already struggling to preserve digital documents produced as late as the 1980s.
As a citizen, I have the ability to learn from the primary sources that are hundreds of years old. One of my college friends spent a semester examining the papers of colonial New York State governors and looking at maps and treaties produced with Indian nations.
Unfortunately, the chances are very high that our children will not be able to read many of the important papers produced from the 1980's through today. How accessible will WordStar documents be in 2060? Or Excel XP spreadsheets in 2100?
There are different approaches to improving the current situation. The State of Washington chose to convert everything from native format to TIFF or PDF images. South Africa and cities like Munich are choosing to mandate the use of free and open native formats. There are ups and downs to each approach.
Hell we cracked the german army and naval codes without even really knowing what a computer was.
Yes, but the conclusion does not follow from this goal.
There's no reason that an open format will be readable in the future. If I define some document format, build an application that reads/writes it, and publish it to github with GPL licensing, then in all likelihood it will be forgotten completely in a decade. My inability to gain users will ensure that it withers.
On the other hand, even if the .DOC and .XLS files made by Microsoft are proprietary, they've been reverse-engineered and are well-understood; the .DOCX and .XLSX file formats are even documented. Because they're so universally used, out of necessity, someone in the future will be thinking about how to read those old files.
So being open might make it more likely that something obscure will be readable in the future. But I don't think it's nearly so strong a likelihood as what demand from an army of users of proprietary software will lead to.
The point is, in the distant future, someone will be able to use the specification for ODF and read a document that complies with the standard. All aspects of the file will be reproducible, including metadata, tables, etc.
And as I said, open formats are just one approach. The approach that the US Courts and the State of Washington takes (conversion to PDF/A or TIFF) is a valid approach too.
For instance, it does not specify how formulas work in spreadsheets.
You can't store the full spec of a format that's not fully documentes nor keep a runnable reference implementation that has only a binary executable (unless you also preserve the computer it runs on). But then you have turtles all the way down.
Isn't it much easier to just have compilable source code?
The biggest problem is really the spreadsheet - people can live with even Google Docs for documents and even presentations. But Excel has managed to be irreplaceable.
When billion dollar termsheets (and all its macros) come bundled in the XLS format, there is no way we can get away with anything less than 100% Excel compatibility. I speak of this from experience in a failed attempt to port an accounting office to Linux - Excel was the only roadblock ... and I tried everything including Softmaker.
I am willing to wager real money that if LibreOffice Calc becomes 100% compatible with XLS 2000 and XLSX formats, we would see the adoption of Linux just explode. Word and Powerpoint dont matter as much - web based offerings like Prezi are increasingly compelling alternatives.
Today, I'm working for a small retail company in Madrid, Spain: Ten people, running Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. All of us are using OpenOffice. It already was that way when I came here a year ago. Until now, I heard nobody even mentioning our office software. And these people are not "computer geeks" by any measure; we sell clothes.
I guess it is the reliance on Excel macros, which are not compatible with OpenOffice Calc, that prevents lots of companies from switching. If you don't depend on any of those, I honestly see no advantages in using MS Office.
Seriously: it's not like someone won't be able to buy a copy of LibreOffice. OTOH, a government should avoid mandating the use of proprietary solutions because they exclude people who can't pay for them.
I would often fire up Windows, load the office docs I had been sent, and save them out as PDFs so that I could at least have reliably readable files on my development machine.
I had zero confidence that OOo could correctly generate any complex document that would render identically in Office so I either sent clients PDF files created in OOo or authored the documents in Office on Windows. In fact, I much prefer using Word for anything moderately complex simply because document manipulation is just so much easier. (E.g. resizing all text in a document.)
I've seen a number of testimonials from people saying OOo has worked out perfectly fine for them, and I've no doubt it's true for their circumstances. But it does not have the degree of Office interchangeability needed to make it a complete stand-in when you have to exchange Office docs that go beyond simple formatting.
Even docs specifically created in the format of the target version didn't seem to do very well.
Presumably MS have solved this now and the current versions will produce pixel perfect renderings of all the past versions that LibreOffice can do (and a few more)?
How are MS now at supporting ODT format and importing PDFs?
However, As a tax payer. I would love to hear € savings on licenses over next 10 years if they would do it.
// this is really, really common with Point-of-Sale solutions
I totally sure their decision is right in long term.
Free is great, but I'll take reasonably priced quality commercial software. That reminds me, it's time to upgrade to IntelliJ 11.
It's probably why they've chosen Linux over Windows, and I assume the security/lack of viruses has something to do with it, too. Buying Macs for the Government because they're pretty would make even less sense.
Where the cut-off is, we could debate. However, I like to lavish myself with the best tools. Sometimes, they're free (e.g. emacs), sometimes they cost money.
You're most precious asset is time, not money.
Whilst I agree with a more integrated monetary policy in the Eurozone the continual assimilation of power in Brussels is the wrong way for Europe to go.
This has nothing to do with assimilation of power in Brussels, but getting rid of Microsoft office and get more public money spend on 'free' and or 'open source' software.
It is our money which keeps cities, states, countries and the EU budgets going.
This is simply common-sense. Let Microsoft compete for a change.
I'm not saying that they approach the feature set of MS Office, OpenOffice, LibreOffice or iWork, but for writing a letter or two they are perfectly reasonable.