852
German state moving 30,000 PCs to Linux and LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Blog
(blog.documentfoundation.org)
this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
852 points (99.4% liked)
Linux
48083 readers
774 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think reducing their reasons to ideological is not fair. They stand to save a lot of money, reduce the risk of leaking data (to MS or hackers), and will have the ability to fork/add their own features.
While I am not familiar enough with Calc or Excel to comment on the speed, I imagine having an entire government using it could get the ball rolling on optimizations.
Do they? They'll now have to start training people to use Linux.
These people aren't going to be enthusiasts like us. They need to be shown where everything is.
The money that will be saved is peanuts compared to the cost of the workers. Loss of productivity through the implementation of bad tools can be very costly. The various Microsoft Office programs also offer the possibility to add bespoke features. Microsoft Office does not leak data unless you chose to let it do so, at least in the eu.
Optimizations that might happen once a program with unacceptable performance is in a production environment, are generally optimizations that never happen. I've never seen a program make such a turnaround, it's wishful thinking without a basis in reality.
This thing really is set up for failure. I'm not against organisations moving away from products from large monopolistic companies, rather the opposite, I'm very much in favor. But if the move is done in such a way that it's bound to fail and then cement itself into people's mind as a bad thing, then it has accomplished the opposite of what it has set out to do. Right now Linux is ready for widespread adoption in environments where productivity matters, but in my experience libre office is not.
Every time I see someone say 'I'm actually really a fan of open source' it reads like 'I'm not racist but'.