Hacker News Reader

Comment by ForHackernews | Hacker News Reader

https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/ is the French government's office suite. I think this can work as long as the devs are responsive to users' needs.

They don't need to reimplement all of MS Office, just the parts they need to serve their constituency.

View on HN

The challenge is engaging with external orgs. They will send you office docs and it creates friction when they cannot be reliably edited and returned. Even just opening them can be unreliable.

I assure you the French government is large enough and obstinate enough that they will dictate to external parties what inputs they accept.

When you’re a government you can mandate the file formats (and versions thereof) you are willing to accept.

Sure they can make a mandate but the grunts on ground will still get sent pptx files by their vendors.

And they send them back.

How do you think currencies are established? By accepting chickens and cows in lieu of legal tender? That’s precisely the meaning of legal tender. This is the exact analogue thereof: information is required as value is required, information and value are required in a mandated standardised form, other forms are rejected a priori.

Currencies are established by force (taxation backed by militaries and police)

Sure, the government could force a format change if they really want to.

Ultimately, yes: governmental actions are backed by force in the case of noncompliance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com