Any article that brings up LibreOffice as the driving force behind a move away from Microsoft has me both skeptical and amused. Sure, it’s wonderful that Libre

Any article that brings up LibreOffice as the driving force behind a move away from Microsoft has me both skeptical and amused. Sure, it’s wonderful that LibreOffice exists, don’t get me wrong. It’s a piece of software that’s famously better at opening ancient Word-formatted documents better than Word itself. It’s lovely that it’s free and supported by a great community. But I’ll be damned if it isn’t my very last choice for productivity software. It just is not somewhere I want to spend my time. Idealistic prose about data sovereignty is nice and all but I’ve never seen an organization have an ounce of hesitation about Microsoft’s enterprise data privacy and security. Really this manifesto is limited to organizations who have specific need to avoid things like search warrants, and in many cases all you’re doing is changing the search warrant from Microsoft to your company’s servers. Really if your information is that sensitive you probably need a more bespoke solution anyway. Finally, this article misplaces the value that Microsoft provides. Software as a service means that the software is providing a service: in other words, companies aren’t subscribing to 365 because they need a better spreadsheet program than LibreOffice, they’re subscribing so that they don’t have to administer servers for email, documents, communication, etc. Open Source offers no such thing.