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.
The Mayor of Munich didn't talk about the feature set available to public employees.
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.
Let me offer a counterpoint: I started out with Word 3.0 for DOS, in 1987. From there, I went through lots of office software for PC, Mac, and Atari. A good ten years ago, I installed OpenOffice, which I have been using ever since. I never had any .doc compatibility problems.
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.
There's a bigger problem than usability - I say this because each of the places that adopts any kind of workplace software usually has IT/helpdesks/consultants to handhold this kind of stuff.
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.
I would imagine that employees would get training for the software they use so the benefits of the software being easier to learn on your own isn't an issue for government workers or really any place where they train their employees.
More important than the software suite they use, I wish they would impose the use of open formats. After that, they (and generations of people to come) can use which ever reader software they like.
I am a bit sceptic if LibreOffice or OpenOffice would be well received. There has been companies who have tried it but in the end returned back to MS Office. I think tools like Google Docs have brighter further.
However, As a tax payer. I would love to hear € savings on licenses over next 10 years if they would do it.
Beware that you actually see the savings and someone else isn't getting the money for "consulting" or "premium training". I have seen a few budgets that saved money on the software only to get hammered on the back-end.
// this is really, really common with Point-of-Sale solutions
I gave up on the project after the split. Why can't there be a concerted effort behind OpenOffice or LibreOffice? Two half-baked open source projects don't equal one good commercial project. I'd rather give my money to Apple and hope that they eventually build a better product.
Free is great, but I'll take reasonably priced quality commercial software. That reminds me, it's time to upgrade to IntelliJ 11.
There is no split. LibreOffice is clearly the successor and OpenOffice is clearly the legacy project. Oracle abandoned it long before donating it to the Apache Foundation.
Unless there's really a huge difference in productivity between each other, I don't think think it's worth paying tens or even hundreds of dollars for each and every license when you're using taxpayer money.
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.
Surely he/she should have said "German laptops should have LibreOffice or OpenOffice". It seems built into the German mindset that policy should be enforced at a federal level.
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.
If you've taken the time to actually read the article you would've noticed that he talks about laptops used by EU officials not all laptops in Europe. This aside: Yes, laptops of german officials should use LibreOffice/OpenOffice too.
Germany is a federal republic and some politics are centralized and others not. Compared to some other countries in, say, Europe, Germany is pretty decentralized. That the city Munich experiments with Linux is exactly because of this.
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.
To be fair, WordPad (Windows) and TextEdit (Mac) do come bundled with the OS and are perfectly usable as word processors (RTF style).
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.
[+] [-] Derbasti|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Duff|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dhs|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sandGorgon|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tehayj|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HotKFreshSwag|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babarock|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpkeisala|14 years ago|reply
However, As a tax payer. I would love to hear € savings on licenses over next 10 years if they would do it.
[+] [-] protomyth|14 years ago|reply
// this is really, really common with Point-of-Sale solutions
[+] [-] melling|14 years ago|reply
Free is great, but I'll take reasonably priced quality commercial software. That reminds me, it's time to upgrade to IntelliJ 11.
[+] [-] rbanffy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] loftsy|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sgift|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lispm|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Craiggybear|14 years ago|reply
This is simply common-sense. Let Microsoft compete for a change.
[+] [-] protomyth|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Derbasti|14 years ago|reply
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.