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Comment by _n66o | Hacker News Reader

What if you have an excel workbook that relies on a bunch of custom formulas. I would be upset if this happened in my workplace. Datasets have been far easier to handle with lambda, vstack, byrow, and the rest. I would not like this move and would have to remain a holdout. That would also frustrate me because of the division.

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Are we gonna accept being forever locked in to Microsoft because of custom Excel workbook formulas? Forever paying Microsoft a license fee, because we don't want to covert said formulas or invest in open source software to make it reach parity with Excel.

The problem with this is that the decisionmakers fucked up 10-20 years ago, and now when those decisions are being righted, some poor public servant is paying the price.

And 10-20 years ago it would have also been a public servant paying the price. You are just salty it's now you. At least be happy your work is impacted for a noble cause.

I am salty, but not because I'm impacted by this. :)

The reason I'm salty is that most linux desktop envs are unusable in their own right. I very much feel the pain of being forced to use some centrally-dictated craptastic linux GUI. I've been on Linux for 2+ decades and I hate nearly all the desktop envs. I totally feel for those blokes whose Windows UI is now being ripped from their hands. Where they'll land doesn't only suck for them (having a Windows background), it might very well suck for anyone, even those with a long Linux background.

In many organizations, that license costs less than converting all the Excel workbooks - a process that disrupts work, as only the Excel spreadsheet's creator and user can reliably spec and test the new spreadsheet. And they need to convert with accuracy - worse than crashes is undetected bad output.

Being stuck in legacy systems sucks, and technical people like to deny the reality of it - but it's a business reality.

I must agree, unfortunately, and do so due to a reason that's way more mundane than "custom formulas": UI.

Language, form, muscle memory (call it what you will) is difficult to separate from thinking and working. I'm very picky when it comes to desktop UI: I use Linux exclusively, and I can't tolerate most Linux distros' default desktop environments. Someone who's been productive for a decade or more with Windows applications -- well, to the extent we're willing to ascribe "UI stability" to those applications' own updates -- will probably hate Linux with a passion.

I don't think such a transition can be made seamless. They should have thought about becoming Microsoft's hostage two decades ago (I guess).

Unfortunately, we have to be willing to make compromises and even learn a new thing or two if we want to survive and protect our sovereignty. And it really is a matter of national survival - Microsoft has made it clear that they are fully controlled by the whims of whoever is in charge of the US government on any given day and will comply with the orders that come down to them. So yes some people will have to re-learn how to use a spreadsheet program, but it's a transition that's worth making.

This is equally an issue migrating from Windows 10 to Windows 11, or desktop Word to Office 365 Word, or in fact basically any major software update.

Yes, there is a cost to changing software. But it’s not unique to an Open Source migration.

In that case, keep your MS license where there is a migration problem, simple as that. There is no need for the entire gov sector to pay so you and your team can use custom formulas.

Will you get upset if Microsoft will charge 500000000 USD (because more copilot value added every month) per year? That is way more upsetting imho. And if all fails there is still some SAP solution to everything in life :P

This one gets me now than most of the rest... The increase in licensing for copilot features a lot of orgs would prefer to disable is distasteful to say the least.

Formulas exist in other software too. LibreOffice has better compatibility with older Excel files than MS Excel itself.

When you migrate anyway you could choose that to use a proper database and SQL if that makes sense instead.

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