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>We have been testing LibreOffice in our IT department >for two years, and our experience is clear: it works Of course, the IT department made it work. What

>We have been testing LibreOffice in our IT department >for two years, and our experience is clear: it works Of course, the IT department made it work. What is needed is employee acceptance and blessing. Hopefully, they will have workshops and focus groups to ensure that the staff of 26.000 (*) likes the change and welcomes it. Ideally the employees would be allowed to vote on the change. after being given a chance to get familiar with it. I am 90% sure that vote would be against the change. This is a major inconvenience for nearly all of them. You get together a gang of 65 year old civil servants who have learned how to do their job one way and have done it one way, to suddenly figure out. Then the migration the 100s or more templates that they have carefully formatted and laid out to ensure consistent communication with the public and everyone else. And for them to be as productive as they are today, after the change. I help my grandpa and some of his friends with "computers". For most of them if an icon on the desktop, or a button in an application moves they give up.

wanderingmind 5y ago
Maybe the savings from moving to Linux can be shared with the employees and that can help to tilt the vote in favour.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  An Office license is ~$250. Let's assume that it's for one year, but I expect it to las2 2-5 years until an upgrade is purchased. I'm not sure about the salary of a public employee in Germany, but can I guess ~$50000 annual. So if you give the $250 to each employee instead of Microsoft, it's a raise of 0.5%. Edit: The Windows license is ~$200, but I don't expect it to be renewed annually.
solarkraft 5y ago
> I am 90% sure that vote would be against the change. > This is a major inconvenience for nearly all of them. I agree it’ll be an (arguably worth it) inconvenience. Whether it’ll be major will be determined by the migration effort. The migration of a local association’s administration from Windows to Linux went mostly unnoticed by the users.
JoeyBananas 5y ago
This is the modern equivalent of being an army general in the year 1910 arguing against adopting machine guns. "Why do we need to adopt machine guns? They are so much more complicated than our bolt action rifles. Everyone has been trained how to do their job using a bolt action rifle. We will have to totally rethink our doctrine. The Lewis gun doesn't even have a bayonet lug. In my experience, the average private will just give up when he experiences a malfunction."
- ttymck 5y ago
  Is it? Was the "100 rounds per minute instead of 5" not an obvious advantage? It's not like LibreOffice produces 10 pages for every 1 page I write in Word.
  - JoeyBananas 5y ago
    LibreOffice does pretty much everything Microsoft Office does, and it doesn't cost 200$ per year * 15,000 for each copy (or however much they spend on it.)
- ThinkBeat 5y ago
  1) You will not find any 65 year old, working in the office, civil servants in the US Army. Mandatory retirement is now 62 years old (up from 55). Unless you have many stars then you can stay until you are 64. I never saw any 55+ on the sharp end of the army. 2) A gun you give to the soldiers will be simple. When you are given a new weapon, you will be drilled on it. You will learn to fire, aim, reload, disassemble, reassemble (With strict time requirements). Then you will be drilled more. The hierarchy and command system of the US Army is extremely different from what an office civil servant union member can expect. You will not have an officer yelling at you to do something or face what could be severe consequences if you dont obey.

wanderingmind 5y ago

Maybe the savings from moving to Linux can be shared with the employees and that can help to tilt the vote in favour.

gus_massa 5y ago
An Office license is ~$250. Let's assume that it's for one year, but I expect it to las2 2-5 years until an upgrade is purchased. I'm not sure about the salary of a public employee in Germany, but can I guess ~$50000 annual. So if you give the $250 to each employee instead of Microsoft, it's a raise of 0.5%. Edit: The Windows license is ~$200, but I don't expect it to be renewed annually.

solarkraft 5y ago

> I am 90% sure that vote would be against the change. > This is a major inconvenience for nearly all of them. I agree it’ll be an (arguably worth it) inconvenience. Whether it’ll be major will be determined by the migration effort. The migration of a local association’s administration from Windows to Linux went mostly unnoticed by the users.

JoeyBananas 5y ago

This is the modern equivalent of being an army general in the year 1910 arguing against adopting machine guns. "Why do we need to adopt machine guns? They are so much more complicated than our bolt action rifles. Everyone has been trained how to do their job using a bolt action rifle. We will have to totally rethink our doctrine. The Lewis gun doesn't even have a bayonet lug. In my experience, the average private will just give up when he experiences a malfunction."

ttymck 5y ago
Is it? Was the "100 rounds per minute instead of 5" not an obvious advantage? It's not like LibreOffice produces 10 pages for every 1 page I write in Word.
- JoeyBananas 5y ago
  LibreOffice does pretty much everything Microsoft Office does, and it doesn't cost 200$ per year * 15,000 for each copy (or however much they spend on it.)
ThinkBeat 5y ago
1) You will not find any 65 year old, working in the office, civil servants in the US Army. Mandatory retirement is now 62 years old (up from 55). Unless you have many stars then you can stay until you are 64. I never saw any 55+ on the sharp end of the army. 2) A gun you give to the soldiers will be simple. When you are given a new weapon, you will be drilled on it. You will learn to fire, aim, reload, disassemble, reassemble (With strict time requirements). Then you will be drilled more. The hierarchy and command system of the US Army is extremely different from what an office civil servant union member can expect. You will not have an officer yelling at you to do something or face what could be severe consequences if you dont obey.