Hmmm I just assumed you were into Habbo Hotel but i guess not!
1 Like
Hello @s7habo
I have started working with OpenOffice way way back.
It is a pity it is no longer developed.
At work, in our public service, we are running LibreOffice on thousands of computers and we are extremely happy by its results.
The compatibility (docx, xlsx) with Office is, on the whole, good (even though it is obvious it will never be perfect since it is contrary to what Microsoft wantsâŚ)
The only application which really sucks is LibreOffice Base (Access is much better IMHO). At work, we also run Dbeaver (the community edition) with SQLite as database. Some colleagues, power users of course, run PostgreSQL.
I have still fond memories of Microsoft Excel because I have read many books to become proficient with this software. However, in all truth, LibreOffice Calc serves me just fine albeit only slightly differently since the GUIs is a different (but, again, there is even an option to use a âRibbon interfaceâ if you want)
For those interested, here is a comparison between LibreOffice and Office:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office/en
Next version of LibreOffice will be the 7.6 and it sports a plethora of interesting improvements:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/7.6
For the tech geeks on this forum, it is interesting to note that there is an ongoing work, quite advanced, already, to port LibreOffice to GTK4
You can lead a camel to water but you canât make it drink.
1 Like
If no one volunteers to take it on, you could at least hire a programmer. At work, we have a lot of proprietary software. If we need an extra feature, the manufacturer might implement it or not. In most cases not or only for a very large amount of money. There is no market anymore, you are locked in. The only alternative is to buy a new software that will destroy your workflow completely.
3 Likes
Hello @Soupy
You can lead a camel to water but you canât make it drink.
Yeah. You are 100% right!
When you are a âseniorâ you are often too much ingrained in your working habits to even slightly change your workflow.
I have moderate hopes for future generations: students, most of all, which are not entrenched yet in a specific software (proprietary or not).
But of course it ALL depends on their professors or institutions to channel them: at least, to show them the different alternatives (proprietary or open source).
As regards LibreOffice the GUIs is pretty much similar to Microsoft Office and it is not so difficult to take the risk to take the jump 
Where we work, public service, in all truth, I have never found a major task which I could not accomplish with the LibreOffice equivalents of Microsoft Word, Excel, Power point. Only Access is regretted compared to the half-baked features available with Base.
Believe it or not, I have personally bought Microsoft Office 2021 (perpetual license) and also Microsoft 365 (where I pay an annual subscription) but I never open them up because, over the years, I have accustomed to the LibreOffice workflow
LibreOffice is mostly developed by full time hired developers (much less by volunteers) and this should insure that it is âfuture-proofâ.
Are you aware that Windows has an endless sea of âeditionsâ? Eg Windows 10 has at least 6â7 main ones, depending on how you count, and then about 10 special ones, mostly discontinued now?
Most people donât know this and donât care, unless they are the IT administrator. Similarly, a novice Linux user can just pick one of the big ones (eg Ubuntu) and forget about the issue.
The issue is a much deeper problem: the majority of people want their computer to âjust workâ, and not care about the OS or whatever. Unfortunately, this is not possible. Computers are tools, and like all tools they require maintenance.
Linux is explicit about this (you can fix things, and you will need to fix things), and so is OS X (you pay a premium for the device, which you can bring in and we will do maintenance for you).
Windows in a corporate environment works OK because there are people who have the job of maintaining it. In contrast, uninformed Windows users in a home setting are sold a lie: sooner or later they need maintenance, because the built-in mechanisms are inadequate to take care of it. So they notice their machine filled with malware and having various problems, and either live with this or take it to a computer shop or find a relative to reinstall from scratch. This is of course not known to the majority of people at the time of purchase.
2 Likes
True, but in the context of critical infrastructure, government regulations, potentially massive fines ($1 million / day USD isnât impossible) etc. that kind of uncertainty isnât allowable.
This reminded me of the rant: âImage processing does not kill people⌠and itâs a shameâ 
3 Likes
Consider the alternative: if the software is closed source, you need to go through the company which made it originally. It may or may not exist (equipment like this, especially if well-maintained, can easily outlast a typical medium scale software company providing niche solutions).
If it exists, the ârepairâ may or may not come under warranty (if their lawyer is worth his/her salt, they excluded responsibility for bugs like this in the contract, or put an expiry that from the original delivery which, again, could be years ago).
If not under warranty, the incentives are to extract a price that is not astronomical, but not cheap either. A neat solution is to have Company A write the software, then in 10 years quietly transform into Company B without being a legal successor. You deal with Company B now, who wash their hands of the whole affair, and the soap they use is expensive.
Now consider the FOSS alternative. Your worst-case scenario is finding a programmer who understands the original code, and has the technical expertise. This may be expensive â it could run into thousands of dollars. But it will be under 1/10 of the amount you would spend on lawyers alone in the first scenario.
For software that may be used 5 years from now, FOSS is typically the best solution, even if you have to fund the development to the full extent. The second best is code in escrow, with right to repair, but that can be tricky to operate after decades (sure, you have the code, but the toolchain can be inaccessible, so getting it to work may be tantamount to rewriting it).
People frequently think that FOSS is about the price being zero. It isnât, itâs about control, ownership, and preventing rent seeking.
3 Likes
Boom! Exactly.
The reason the FOSS movement started was because of a printer that Richard Stallman could program to do what he needed it to do. He told the manufacturer, hoping they would add his functionality. Instead, they changed the software so that he could no longer fix it. And here we are, today.
5 Likes
In that case the company responsible for software bundle will have a support contract with on of the bigger support companies in the open source world.
I know that because i was the guy one of those support companies used to call when they had problems in a certain area.
1 Like
Actually, the company I worked for (and retired from) used a major large distributed application (including databases, client systems, mainframe tie-ins, etc., etc.) for 20 years that was created and maintained in-house. Part of it was another application where we bought the source code and maintained it ourselves. It included Solaris, IBM mainframe, Oracle, Windows, SQL Server, you name it. I was on the IT / infrastructure side of it, not the dev side, but I exposed to it and helped support it.
After finally moving on from that infrastructure, the corporate mandate was never again. I.e., donât write anything you can buy, donât customize anything you can configure, donât create anything you can just use and donât do anything you can outsource. Be as off-the-shelf as possible.
Of course, in reality it didnât shake out quite so âideallyâ, but the emphasis was to cease as much development as possible, cease as much administration as possible, etc. and just consume. It was obviously driven more by HR and financial reasons than by technical merit, but thatâs whoâs in control.
Thatâs how the world looks when HR, financial and legal are at the helm. That said, I can see their viewpoint to some degree (itâs not all wrong) but there was little balance, as it were, with the technical side. We just had to do what we were told.
3 Likes
Yes. Kind of like our Linux environments. They were mostly Red Hat, with a little SuSE and a couple of Ubuntu machines. But without those vendors in place (and willing to legally sign on the line) Linux wouldâve never been there. The existence (e.g.) of Red Hat behind the FOSS OS was what made it palatable for management.
Please note once again - Iâm not advocating nor arguing for this approach, just relating what happened in my part of the real world.
1 Like
Hmm, I read that portion of Mikeâs comment more as sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek.
I talked to one of my friends the other day. He was in radio here in the states for about 20 years. He exclusively used open source Audacity for every bit they recorded and played on the radio.
However he is a huge Mac guy. Kind of funny to me.
This isnât you is it?
2 Likes
Many of us have had moments when we want to explain to others why we use Linux instead of another operating system, or why we use darktable, GIMP, Blender and other free tools. But in a world where companies constantly invest more in promotion than in R&D to sell their products, itâs not worth spending time teaching those who donât want to spend time learning anything other than what they are already used to.
Just a joke 
15 Likes
Yes! YES! Love it. Not saying itâs 100% accurate 
but made me chuckle like anything.
2 Likes
I get the Lr reference and opbviously the Dt one but the fish and the bird? Iâm just a bit blank on other existing software and OSâsâŚ
1 is Capture One, the other is ON1.
1 Like