German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by gentleman11 on Thursday November 18, 2021 @12:16PM (#29267858)

The problem is that a lot of organizations see foss as purely a free thing and not an investment. If they put half the money they spent on licensing into paying people to improve the foss packages they use, the ecosystem would transform and everyone would benefit. Massive cost savings overall, and it would push paid software to work harder to compete (who knows, it might even force Microsoft to offer decent privacy policies and remove ads from their manipulative desktop)

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by tdeck on Thursday November 18, 2021 @03:33PM (#29270134)

Organizations like school systems don't have a great track record managing custom software projects. They don't know what to look for and who to hire, and how much things should cost. It's very likely that these problems would translate into funding FOSS development as well. Also, it's a big headache to manage custom development compared to buying or downloading an off the shelf package.

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by mixmastamyk on Thursday November 18, 2021 @03:58PM (#29270440)

This is the opposite of custom development for the most part, with the exception of some integration work.

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by mensetmanusman on Thursday November 18, 2021 @08:15PM (#29272683)

It’s hard to predict whether you could make MS products in foss with global cooperation at lower cost to taxpayers (since it can be expensive to get politicians to agree with goals across international borders).

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by nodejs_rulez_1 on Thursday November 18, 2021 @12:43PM (#29268200)

> If they put half the money they spent on licensing into paying people to improve the foss packages...

Like in a legally-binding contract way or some hippie way hoping for the best?

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by mistrial9 on Thursday November 18, 2021 @02:14PM (#29269242)

great to see the "H-word" used as a slur, again (great for my own sense of antagonistic prejuidice being alive and well that is).

for a more constructive reinforcement of what a "hippy way" might be, in business and government:

anti-rascist, that is actively inviting and communicating with others socially; inclusive generally; valuing cooperation; building and valuing talent for its own sake; bringing in arts to shared spaces; generally vegetarian; health proactive; tolerance of personal drug use including tobacco; deeply environmentalist; generally opposed to military-style administration; generally opposed to authoritarian governments; use of non-monetary trade goods; valuing education and definitely advanced education.

are these things "fail" in City Administration as the parent comment implies ? not necessarily

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by AtlasBarfed on Thursday November 18, 2021 @03:05PM (#29269778)

"node_js_rulez_1" decries hippy open source support model.

... ummmmmmm ... look in your username.

Seriously, your stack is running on hippies, top to bottom.

TOP TO BOTTOM.

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Re:German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice by ipaddr on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:22PM (#29268663)

Hiring developers to work on specific package improvements is what is normally done. Could be legally binding, probably would be a standard employment agreement but you could do it through a hippie way (coding circle?).

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