7 ms·

Lyon Drops Microsoft to Boost Digital Sovereignty

172 points by hermanzegerman 1y ago

sylware 1y ago
Don't forget, "open source" is not enough: we need _lean_ open source and I do include the SDK (then programing language). That for software/protocol/file formats (and hardware programing interfaces...). It is much easier to say than done, and when you read that, often it is to apply pressure on microsoft pricing only without a real intent to start to "digitally assume themselves". Keep in mind: there is ZERO, Z-E-R-O, economic competition with big tech as they are backed by funds with thousands of billions of $ and they their billions of $ too. They will spend anybody out of business (~usually 5-10 years, even longer), and "buy" anybody (then throw them away once lock-in is assured). For instance: libreoffice is horrible (c++ grotesque syntax complexity is the culprit), PDF file format is insane (I cannot event download the specs with noscript/basic (x)html browsers!). Better write simple utf8 text files along with some PNG images mkv(AV1/OPUS) video if needed. Basically, you need to generate programmatically the PDF files of the administration since there are no "reasonable" (as far as I know) open source software to do so (often c++, then excluded de-facto).
- sodimel 1y ago
  We generate pdf files using weasyprint (convert html+css into cool pdf files), I think tools like this are very valuable and practical for building higher-level pdf-generators tools.
  - sylware 1y ago
    Yep, in-house PDF generators should be some sort of good middle ground, but I dunno if this 'weasyprint' is open source, is _lean_ open source? (no c++, java, etc). When dealing with an ultra-complex file format which cannot be dodged, usually a good way to deal with it is to only use a very simple but coherent subset and enforce this usage with validation tools. For instance, the web, noscript/basic (x)html (or you are jailed in the 2.5 web engines of the whatng cartel). With PDF, I dunno much of the format (since I did not manage to download easily the specs), but when I have to print some text, I have a very small PDF generator for that (written ~25 years ago, so no utf-8 for me). But what's important: such attempt must be sided with re-assessing the pertinence of the usage of the information systems, and yes, it will annoying and much less comfy and that MUST be acknowledged before even trying. And big tech is not the only one trying hard to do vendor and developer lock-in.
    - sodimel 1y ago
      You can learn more about weasyprint on their website (https://weasyprint.org/ https://weasyprint.org/ ). It's an open source Python package that can be launched using cli or from Python code. It uses pypdf, which is "pydyf is a low-level PDF generator written in Python and based on PDF specification 1.7" (from their README at https://github.com/CourtBouillon/pydyf https://github.com/CourtBouillon/pydyf ).
      - sylware 1y ago
        Compile a minimal python interpreter with tinycc &| cproc &| scc, run this pydyf and you should be good to go :) Hopefully, its API a C API bridge for interop. But pydyf pretends to go up to PDF 1.7: this is kind of arrogant due to the file format complexity. That's why such tools are not enough: what's important is to evaluate and to assess a subset of the PDF format, that to reduce significantly the technical cost of ownership and exit cost, and maybe use such tools to write also validation tools in order to enforce the usage of that subset of PDF. Very often, complex file formats (open or not) end up being generated and consumed by one program. A warning: big tech and its minions will fight super hard everything that is simple, stable in table and does a good enough job (like noscript/basic (x)html for nearly all online services as they were working a few years back).
    - xOvni 1y ago
      Hi, WeasyPrint/pydyf dev here! > usually a good way to deal with it is to only use a very simple but coherent subset and enforce this usage with validation tools You’re right, that’s exactly what we do. We support a growing subset of HTML and CSS that’s documented. We also use the W3C testing suite for HTML/CSS, and PDF validators, on top of custom unit tests. > And big tech is not the only one trying hard to do vendor and developer lock-in. We "only" follow open specifications and refuse vendor-specific features to avoid lock-ins (equivalent closed-source tools love that). And we even love the other open-source "concurrents": ♥ to Paged.js and Vivliostyle, try them, they’re great too!
      - pepa65 1y ago
        How about typst, do you not consider that competition??
- pif 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    > Your unrelated, idiotic disdain Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- vasco 1y ago
  IBM has some cool AI tools for PDFs that I used for some side project toys: https://github.com/docling-project/docling https://github.com/docling-project/docling
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  I agree with you that the PDF format is insane (I have had my head buried in the spec for the last month) but it has won in the marketplace. It's unlikely anything can supersede it now. Microsoft had a technically strong alternative but it was far too late.
  - sylware 1y ago
    dude... 'it has won in the market' : with those words, you have already lost to big tech...
    - tonyedgecombe 1y ago
      Good luck changing reality.
      - sylware 1y ago
        With "people" like you, linux or any open source alternatives would not have happened. You are part of the problem dude.
  - michalf6 1y ago
    What was that Microsoft alternative called?
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      XPS
  - eska 1y ago
    FWIW I distribute HTML with embedded images instead of PDF usually.
    - sylware 1y ago
      And I think you can do the same with <audio> and <video>...
jddj 1y ago
It doesn't seem like it, but can someone shed any light on whether La Suite Numerique (https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en) and the Territoire Numérique Ouvert are related?
- eigenspace 1y ago
  Almost certainly related. Im sure Lyon won't just use those tools, but im sure they'll also be front of the queue for consideration.
- PoignardAzur 1y ago
  I'm not sure either, but those seem like completely parallel initiatives, with overlapping but not quite identical feature sets.
- williamdclt 1y ago
  googling a bit (as a french speaker with no specific knowledge about these): doesn't seem like it
- Disposal8433 1y ago
  I don't think so. "Territoire Numérique Ouvert" seems to be a private project that would give tools to the "collectivités territoriales" (i.e. mayors and local people). La Suite Numerique is a bunch of tools for a more global population. It's mostly for government workers I guess but it looks like anyone can use it. The most famous tool is Tchap (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)>) which is used by cops in France as a secure messaging platform.
mlok 1y ago
[flagged]
- amelius 1y ago
  I'm thinking more: maybe we'll see an increase in commits from dubious hacker groups. Who is going to audit these open source projects?
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    In particular the people who study and work at the government funded European universities tuition free. Most universities have a computer science department, that has a security group. As a part of European CS bachelor's students study the Linux kernel.
    - amelius 1y ago
      CS students are not expected to do security audits in production software. And if they do, it will certainly not be exhaustive. Nor will it be at a pace in which software is typically released.
      - guappa 1y ago
        It's funny that you think proprietary code is audited.
        amelius 1y ago
        Well, I suppose there is a tighter control on who is allowed to commit.
        GTP 1y ago
        Yes, but you have less people that can look at such commits. It's not so easy to claim that one is intrinsically more secure than the other. As someone in the cybersecurity field, I prefer FOSS software. But the situation is more nuanced than how you present it.
cyberkar 1y ago
Well open-source projects are free. Why pay for editing Software while you can get it for free in 2025 ??
- Disposal8433 1y ago
  You're very very wrong nowadays, see https://code.gouv.fr/fr/ https://code.gouv.fr/fr/ and https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/socle-interministeriel-de-logiciels-libres/ https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/socle-interministeriel-....
  - kergonath 1y ago
    Thank you. Baseless cynicism gets tiring. Not that governments are perfect, but overall it works better than people credit them for. The French government has been investing in open source for quite a long time now, just not on sexy and high-visibility projects.
tormeh 1y ago
Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia are switching to OpenTalk for teleconference. It's really wild to see things actually happen - not just research grants and talking.
- v5v3 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - mass_and_energy 1y ago
    GIYF
    - v5v3 1y ago
      [flagged]
- eigenspace 1y ago
  It's *almost* like those research grants and talking laid some groundwork ;)
  - notarobot123 1y ago
    sure, but international politics was probably a little more than the straw that broke the camel's back.
- hyperman1 1y ago
  I noticed a similar thing as an European with COVID. Noise from a new disease came from China, so everybody is a bit scared and does nothing. Then Italy got the full blast of it, overloaded hospitals and all. This somehow made it real. People in our ingroup were suffering. At that point, governements got actively involved. The Microsoft vs ICC situation seems similar. IT independence is now taken serious at governemental organisations. Our ingroup got a problem.
  - 1y ago
amelius 1y ago
It would be fair if we'd see an increase in government funding of open source projects. Or at least the government could pay for security audits.
- tormeh 1y ago
  Governments don't generally get Bob from accounting to install it on a spare laptop they have lying around. There's a contractor involved that will also be tasked with fixing bugs and other improvements and change requests. As long as the software is GPL improvements will flow back upstream somehow.
  - Muromec 1y ago
    Sometimes the contractor is a different department of the same government or a state enterprise. The point is -- somebody has to own the risk
    - bboygravity 1y ago
      I thought that in government everybody and thus nobody owns the risk?
- kergonath 1y ago
  I think you are not familiar with how governments work. They are not going to rely on a random git repo, they are going to have contractors to ensure a basic level of support and bug fixing. And some contractors to ensure development and availability of tooling. And deployment and integration. They are also going to test, audit and validate updates, not just pull from remote. Also, in some cases there are research agencies doing some work as well (sometimes they have been doing it for a long time on not-so-sexy but vital projects like Inria and the open source tax code in France).
  - Hilift 1y ago
    The product is a vehicle. Governments are looking for an assurance. That comes from the reputation of the system integrators/contractors. That said, Birmingham UK turned a £38 million Oracle Financials project into a £90 million failure after including re-implementation costs. That kind of stuff probably isn't replaceable, simply because they spent all the money.
lionkor 1y ago
Finally, the year of the Linux desktop!
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
buyucu 1y ago
I said this before, but will say it again: Trump is pure evil, but he is having positive (unintended) consequences. One of them will be is the migration he is triggering away from Big Tech.
- madaxe_again 1y ago
  Everyone is either pure good or pure evil now, huh? Red team or blue team, compromise is anathema, the centre a desert. FWIW I’m no fan of Trump, but I’m even less of a fan of this bipolar tribalism.
  - Kuinox 1y ago
    You are for or against fascism. The bipolar tribalism is in the viewpoint, there are tons of political groups out there that are not fascist, saying that Trump is pure evil doesn't exclude being open to multiple alternative and having various aligments with thoses.
  - justinrubek 1y ago
    Nope, nobody claimed that everyone is pure good or pure evil. The claim was just about Trump.
  - rb666 1y ago
    There's been plenty Republican presidents who did evil things and mixed it up with acceptable or even positive change. Trump is the first one who's actually an evil fascist at heart. That's the difference.
  - buyucu 1y ago
    I'm not an American and could not care about your petty rat races.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Away from AMERICAN big tech
  - 1y ago
nxobject 1y ago
Do they need an intranet wiki/web page solution to replace Sharepoint as well?
- hermanzegerman 1y ago
  I don't know. But if they do, they would probably go with the french XWiki. It is also already part of the german OpenDesk Project
- guappa 1y ago
  I think even a .txt file over a shared directory would work better than sharepoint.
sublimefire 1y ago
I found it hard to even bid to solve problems for councils locally. The requirements are mental sometimes, there is a reason the company would focus on consumers rather than gov sales. This in turn makes it easy for the large corps to win over contracts. There needs to be more willingness to engage locally with the engineers to help them setup and run OSS systems. With the new generation this could become true.
v5v3 1y ago
Article says they are switching to OnlyOffice. It looks and feels very similar to ms office (So easier to adopt than libre) https://www.onlyoffice.com/document-editor.aspx?docs=download https://www.onlyoffice.com/document-editor.aspx?docs=downloa... https://www.onlyoffice.com/spreadsheet-editor.aspx?docs=download https://www.onlyoffice.com/spreadsheet-editor.aspx?docs=down... (Edited to remove statement saying paid product, as it's free with enterprise offerings as below)
- GTP 1y ago
  You can actually use it for free, I don't know if that's just for private use, or if it's something like Nextcloud that you can self-host for free.
  - v5v3 1y ago
    Thanks, found the GitHub for it https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/ https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/
- bni 1y ago
  I thought at first it was a typo of OpenOffice. Turns out that is not the case. I think OnlyOffice focusing on web based collaboration only is on point. It is what organizations want today and what users expect.
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
glitchc 1y ago
What's the open-source equivalent of a collaborative platform like Sharepoint? Without that, it's going to be tough to migrate most organizations.
computerthings 1y ago
[dead]

Don't forget, "open source" is not enough: we need _lean_ open source and I do include the SDK (then programing language). That for software/protocol/file formats (and hardware programing interfaces...). It is much easier to say than done, and when you read that, often it is to apply pressure on microsoft pricing only without a real intent to start to "digitally assume themselves". Keep in mind: there is ZERO, Z-E-R-O, economic competition with big tech as they are backed by funds with thousands of billions of $ and they their billions of $ too. They will spend anybody out of business (~usually 5-10 years, even longer), and "buy" anybody (then throw them away once lock-in is assured). For instance: libreoffice is horrible (c++ grotesque syntax complexity is the culprit), PDF file format is insane (I cannot event download the specs with noscript/basic (x)html browsers!). Better write simple utf8 text files along with some PNG images mkv(AV1/OPUS) video if needed. Basically, you need to generate programmatically the PDF files of the administration since there are no "reasonable" (as far as I know) open source software to do so (often c++, then excluded de-facto).

sodimel 1y ago
We generate pdf files using weasyprint (convert html+css into cool pdf files), I think tools like this are very valuable and practical for building higher-level pdf-generators tools.
- sylware 1y ago
  Yep, in-house PDF generators should be some sort of good middle ground, but I dunno if this 'weasyprint' is open source, is _lean_ open source? (no c++, java, etc). When dealing with an ultra-complex file format which cannot be dodged, usually a good way to deal with it is to only use a very simple but coherent subset and enforce this usage with validation tools. For instance, the web, noscript/basic (x)html (or you are jailed in the 2.5 web engines of the whatng cartel). With PDF, I dunno much of the format (since I did not manage to download easily the specs), but when I have to print some text, I have a very small PDF generator for that (written ~25 years ago, so no utf-8 for me). But what's important: such attempt must be sided with re-assessing the pertinence of the usage of the information systems, and yes, it will annoying and much less comfy and that MUST be acknowledged before even trying. And big tech is not the only one trying hard to do vendor and developer lock-in.
  - sodimel 1y ago
    You can learn more about weasyprint on their website (https://weasyprint.org/ https://weasyprint.org/ ). It's an open source Python package that can be launched using cli or from Python code. It uses pypdf, which is "pydyf is a low-level PDF generator written in Python and based on PDF specification 1.7" (from their README at https://github.com/CourtBouillon/pydyf https://github.com/CourtBouillon/pydyf ).
    - sylware 1y ago
      Compile a minimal python interpreter with tinycc &| cproc &| scc, run this pydyf and you should be good to go :) Hopefully, its API a C API bridge for interop. But pydyf pretends to go up to PDF 1.7: this is kind of arrogant due to the file format complexity. That's why such tools are not enough: what's important is to evaluate and to assess a subset of the PDF format, that to reduce significantly the technical cost of ownership and exit cost, and maybe use such tools to write also validation tools in order to enforce the usage of that subset of PDF. Very often, complex file formats (open or not) end up being generated and consumed by one program. A warning: big tech and its minions will fight super hard everything that is simple, stable in table and does a good enough job (like noscript/basic (x)html for nearly all online services as they were working a few years back).
  - xOvni 1y ago
    Hi, WeasyPrint/pydyf dev here! > usually a good way to deal with it is to only use a very simple but coherent subset and enforce this usage with validation tools You’re right, that’s exactly what we do. We support a growing subset of HTML and CSS that’s documented. We also use the W3C testing suite for HTML/CSS, and PDF validators, on top of custom unit tests. > And big tech is not the only one trying hard to do vendor and developer lock-in. We "only" follow open specifications and refuse vendor-specific features to avoid lock-ins (equivalent closed-source tools love that). And we even love the other open-source "concurrents": ♥ to Paged.js and Vivliostyle, try them, they’re great too!
    - pepa65 1y ago
      How about typst, do you not consider that competition??
pif 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  > Your unrelated, idiotic disdain Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
vasco 1y ago
IBM has some cool AI tools for PDFs that I used for some side project toys: https://github.com/docling-project/docling https://github.com/docling-project/docling
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
I agree with you that the PDF format is insane (I have had my head buried in the spec for the last month) but it has won in the marketplace. It's unlikely anything can supersede it now. Microsoft had a technically strong alternative but it was far too late.
- sylware 1y ago
  dude... 'it has won in the market' : with those words, you have already lost to big tech...
  - tonyedgecombe 1y ago
    Good luck changing reality.
    - sylware 1y ago
      With "people" like you, linux or any open source alternatives would not have happened. You are part of the problem dude.
- michalf6 1y ago
  What was that Microsoft alternative called?
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    XPS
- eska 1y ago
  FWIW I distribute HTML with embedded images instead of PDF usually.
  - sylware 1y ago
    And I think you can do the same with <audio> and <video>...

jddj 1y ago

It doesn't seem like it, but can someone shed any light on whether La Suite Numerique (https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en) and the Territoire Numérique Ouvert are related?

eigenspace 1y ago
Almost certainly related. Im sure Lyon won't just use those tools, but im sure they'll also be front of the queue for consideration.
PoignardAzur 1y ago
I'm not sure either, but those seem like completely parallel initiatives, with overlapping but not quite identical feature sets.
williamdclt 1y ago
googling a bit (as a french speaker with no specific knowledge about these): doesn't seem like it
Disposal8433 1y ago
I don't think so. "Territoire Numérique Ouvert" seems to be a private project that would give tools to the "collectivités territoriales" (i.e. mayors and local people). La Suite Numerique is a bunch of tools for a more global population. It's mostly for government workers I guess but it looks like anyone can use it. The most famous tool is Tchap (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)>) which is used by cops in France as a secure messaging platform.

mlok 1y ago

[flagged]

amelius 1y ago
I'm thinking more: maybe we'll see an increase in commits from dubious hacker groups. Who is going to audit these open source projects?
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  In particular the people who study and work at the government funded European universities tuition free. Most universities have a computer science department, that has a security group. As a part of European CS bachelor's students study the Linux kernel.
  - amelius 1y ago
    CS students are not expected to do security audits in production software. And if they do, it will certainly not be exhaustive. Nor will it be at a pace in which software is typically released.
    - guappa 1y ago
      It's funny that you think proprietary code is audited.
      - amelius 1y ago
        Well, I suppose there is a tighter control on who is allowed to commit.
        GTP 1y ago
        Yes, but you have less people that can look at such commits. It's not so easy to claim that one is intrinsically more secure than the other. As someone in the cybersecurity field, I prefer FOSS software. But the situation is more nuanced than how you present it.

cyberkar 1y ago

Well open-source projects are free. Why pay for editing Software while you can get it for free in 2025 ??

Disposal8433 1y ago
You're very very wrong nowadays, see https://code.gouv.fr/fr/ https://code.gouv.fr/fr/ and https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/socle-interministeriel-de-logiciels-libres/ https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/socle-interministeriel-....
- kergonath 1y ago
  Thank you. Baseless cynicism gets tiring. Not that governments are perfect, but overall it works better than people credit them for. The French government has been investing in open source for quite a long time now, just not on sexy and high-visibility projects.

tormeh 1y ago

Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia are switching to OpenTalk for teleconference. It's really wild to see things actually happen - not just research grants and talking.

v5v3 1y ago
[flagged]
- mass_and_energy 1y ago
  GIYF
  - v5v3 1y ago
    [flagged]
eigenspace 1y ago
It's *almost* like those research grants and talking laid some groundwork ;)
- notarobot123 1y ago
  sure, but international politics was probably a little more than the straw that broke the camel's back.
hyperman1 1y ago
I noticed a similar thing as an European with COVID. Noise from a new disease came from China, so everybody is a bit scared and does nothing. Then Italy got the full blast of it, overloaded hospitals and all. This somehow made it real. People in our ingroup were suffering. At that point, governements got actively involved. The Microsoft vs ICC situation seems similar. IT independence is now taken serious at governemental organisations. Our ingroup got a problem.
- 1y ago

amelius 1y ago

It would be fair if we'd see an increase in government funding of open source projects. Or at least the government could pay for security audits.

tormeh 1y ago
Governments don't generally get Bob from accounting to install it on a spare laptop they have lying around. There's a contractor involved that will also be tasked with fixing bugs and other improvements and change requests. As long as the software is GPL improvements will flow back upstream somehow.
- Muromec 1y ago
  Sometimes the contractor is a different department of the same government or a state enterprise. The point is -- somebody has to own the risk
  - bboygravity 1y ago
    I thought that in government everybody and thus nobody owns the risk?
kergonath 1y ago
I think you are not familiar with how governments work. They are not going to rely on a random git repo, they are going to have contractors to ensure a basic level of support and bug fixing. And some contractors to ensure development and availability of tooling. And deployment and integration. They are also going to test, audit and validate updates, not just pull from remote. Also, in some cases there are research agencies doing some work as well (sometimes they have been doing it for a long time on not-so-sexy but vital projects like Inria and the open source tax code in France).
- Hilift 1y ago
  The product is a vehicle. Governments are looking for an assurance. That comes from the reputation of the system integrators/contractors. That said, Birmingham UK turned a £38 million Oracle Financials project into a £90 million failure after including re-implementation costs. That kind of stuff probably isn't replaceable, simply because they spent all the money.

lionkor 1y ago

Finally, the year of the Linux desktop!

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

buyucu 1y ago

I said this before, but will say it again: Trump is pure evil, but he is having positive (unintended) consequences. One of them will be is the migration he is triggering away from Big Tech.

madaxe_again 1y ago
Everyone is either pure good or pure evil now, huh? Red team or blue team, compromise is anathema, the centre a desert. FWIW I’m no fan of Trump, but I’m even less of a fan of this bipolar tribalism.
- Kuinox 1y ago
  You are for or against fascism. The bipolar tribalism is in the viewpoint, there are tons of political groups out there that are not fascist, saying that Trump is pure evil doesn't exclude being open to multiple alternative and having various aligments with thoses.
- justinrubek 1y ago
  Nope, nobody claimed that everyone is pure good or pure evil. The claim was just about Trump.
- rb666 1y ago
  There's been plenty Republican presidents who did evil things and mixed it up with acceptable or even positive change. Trump is the first one who's actually an evil fascist at heart. That's the difference.
- buyucu 1y ago
  I'm not an American and could not care about your petty rat races.
TiredOfLife 1y ago
Away from AMERICAN big tech
- 1y ago

nxobject 1y ago

Do they need an intranet wiki/web page solution to replace Sharepoint as well?

hermanzegerman 1y ago
I don't know. But if they do, they would probably go with the french XWiki. It is also already part of the german OpenDesk Project
guappa 1y ago
I think even a .txt file over a shared directory would work better than sharepoint.

sublimefire 1y ago

I found it hard to even bid to solve problems for councils locally. The requirements are mental sometimes, there is a reason the company would focus on consumers rather than gov sales. This in turn makes it easy for the large corps to win over contracts. There needs to be more willingness to engage locally with the engineers to help them setup and run OSS systems. With the new generation this could become true.

v5v3 1y ago

Article says they are switching to OnlyOffice. It looks and feels very similar to ms office (So easier to adopt than libre) https://www.onlyoffice.com/document-editor.aspx?docs=download https://www.onlyoffice.com/document-editor.aspx?docs=downloa... https://www.onlyoffice.com/spreadsheet-editor.aspx?docs=download https://www.onlyoffice.com/spreadsheet-editor.aspx?docs=down... (Edited to remove statement saying paid product, as it's free with enterprise offerings as below)

GTP 1y ago
You can actually use it for free, I don't know if that's just for private use, or if it's something like Nextcloud that you can self-host for free.
- v5v3 1y ago
  Thanks, found the GitHub for it https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/ https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/
bni 1y ago
I thought at first it was a typo of OpenOffice. Turns out that is not the case. I think OnlyOffice focusing on web based collaboration only is on point. It is what organizations want today and what users expect.

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

glitchc 1y ago

What's the open-source equivalent of a collaborative platform like Sharepoint? Without that, it's going to be tough to migrate most organizations.

computerthings 1y ago

[dead]