4 ms·

Our business side uses MS Office simply because the rest of the world uses Office and we frequently get sent Excel documents. Engineers use LibreOffice and boy

Our business side uses MS Office simply because the rest of the world uses Office and we frequently get sent Excel documents. Engineers use LibreOffice and boy oh boy, it's a tremendous pain when the business side sends over Excel documents of reports that they would like to get done. Even Word documents are formatted correctly and it's been a painful experience overall. Sure, they save money from the software licences but what about the poor experience and time wasted? I agree that I don't believe that F/OSS is cheaper. There's a lot of costs that don't get quantified in the analysis.

at-fates-hands 13y ago
I moved from Office and started using LibreOffice several years ago and still run into issues where people can't open the LO docs I send over - even after I've saved in the MS Docx format. I can only imagine the headaches they are about to incur with this switch.
- username42 13y ago
  Have you reported the bug ? Can you provide such an example, or is it FUD ?
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    Sometimes "I can't open" means, I opened it, and the formatting was changed, so now I'm telling you this...
kilburn 13y ago
You are missing a point though: this is the public administration side. They can (and should) demand any document sent to them to be formatted in a public open standard (such as ODF). If anyone, it's the companies interfacing them that will have to bear those "interoperability" costs. At least until they also switch to LibreOffice or something compatible enough. IMHO this is much better than them requiring Office-formatted documents.
- tixocloud 13y ago
  I agree that we should demand an open public standard but essentially it is still a cost nonetheless. We're just pushing around the costs to other companies instead of absorbing it within our own company. I think the government does stand a chance in demanding which standards they will accept though but for small companies looking to do business, it's gonna be a challenge trying to get customers, suppliers, partners etc to give you a format that you specify.
  - kilburn 13y ago
    I totally agree with you, but this is a chicken-and-egg problem. Unless someone starts demanding such standards, the challenge will always be there. Letting the administration be the pioneer in this front is sensible both morally and practically. Morally because the administration should be pushing for the greater good for all citizens, and practically because people/companies can not just "choose another provider and sidestep the issue". Once nearly everyone is forced to have processes in place to interface with the administration using open standard formats, small companies looking to do business will have a much easier time asking for these formats too.
AnthonBerg 13y ago
In this case, the flaw is not with the software, but a bad document format with a closed standard, as well as an undefined and misdefined standard of how to render the documents.
- tixocloud 13y ago
  True. I think you hit the nail on the head of the "undefined and misdefined standard of how to render the documents". If the documents are completely interchangeable between MS Office and LibreOffice, I would buy the cost savings a little better but because there's a loss of productivity from dealing with incompatible formats, I would argue that it's not just a straight forward swap of software and the cost of the software alone.
  - AnthonBerg 13y ago
    Yes, agreed - except for the longer term, the practical repercussions are the same, whether the software or the standard is to blame (philosophically, almost). But it's a distinction that is important to keep - for me - not least to learn from.

at-fates-hands 13y ago

I moved from Office and started using LibreOffice several years ago and still run into issues where people can't open the LO docs I send over - even after I've saved in the MS Docx format. I can only imagine the headaches they are about to incur with this switch.

username42 13y ago
Have you reported the bug ? Can you provide such an example, or is it FUD ?
- stcredzero 13y ago
  Sometimes "I can't open" means, I opened it, and the formatting was changed, so now I'm telling you this...

kilburn 13y ago

You are missing a point though: this is the public administration side. They can (and should) demand any document sent to them to be formatted in a public open standard (such as ODF). If anyone, it's the companies interfacing them that will have to bear those "interoperability" costs. At least until they also switch to LibreOffice or something compatible enough. IMHO this is much better than them requiring Office-formatted documents.

tixocloud 13y ago
I agree that we should demand an open public standard but essentially it is still a cost nonetheless. We're just pushing around the costs to other companies instead of absorbing it within our own company. I think the government does stand a chance in demanding which standards they will accept though but for small companies looking to do business, it's gonna be a challenge trying to get customers, suppliers, partners etc to give you a format that you specify.
- kilburn 13y ago
  I totally agree with you, but this is a chicken-and-egg problem. Unless someone starts demanding such standards, the challenge will always be there. Letting the administration be the pioneer in this front is sensible both morally and practically. Morally because the administration should be pushing for the greater good for all citizens, and practically because people/companies can not just "choose another provider and sidestep the issue". Once nearly everyone is forced to have processes in place to interface with the administration using open standard formats, small companies looking to do business will have a much easier time asking for these formats too.

AnthonBerg 13y ago

In this case, the flaw is not with the software, but a bad document format with a closed standard, as well as an undefined and misdefined standard of how to render the documents.

tixocloud 13y ago
True. I think you hit the nail on the head of the "undefined and misdefined standard of how to render the documents". If the documents are completely interchangeable between MS Office and LibreOffice, I would buy the cost savings a little better but because there's a loss of productivity from dealing with incompatible formats, I would argue that it's not just a straight forward swap of software and the cost of the software alone.
- AnthonBerg 13y ago
  Yes, agreed - except for the longer term, the practical repercussions are the same, whether the software or the standard is to blame (philosophically, almost). But it's a distinction that is important to keep - for me - not least to learn from.