News - LibreOffice 4.2 focuses upon performance and interoperability

[HEXUS]

Also the UK Government plans to swap Microsoft Office with open source alternative(s).

Read more.

[wasabi]

'UK government ditching Microsoft Office?' Been talked about for a long time. Doubt it will happen any time soon. Microsoft Office does not exist in isolation - it exists as part of an ecosystem.

[crossy]

'UK government ditching Microsoft Office?' Been talked about for a long time. Doubt it will happen any time soon. Microsoft Office does not exist in isolation - it exists as part of an ecosystem.

Quite true, but there's things you can easily do to make things better. For one, ban departments from using docx, xlsx and pptx - instead "standardising" on the older MS-Office formats. Next thing is to look seriously at what people actually use their office suite for - you may find that a whole lot don't use those "advanced" features like VBA that would normally mean that it's "MS Office only". In which case there's little real objection to "upgrading" ( ) them to a different suite. TBH, I found switching from pre-ribbon Office to Libre a LOT less hassle than going to the beribboned Microsoft product.

As I've said elsewhere, it's only really Calc that lets the side down. There's stuff around conditional formatting etc that is just done 'better' in Excel than Calc.

Maybe I'm being cynical - but like you I think this is a load of hot air - it wouldn't be that the license is due for renewal shortly is it? Not for one second though am I suggesting that this is just a way to put pressure on Redmond to come up with more acceptable renewal pricing...
... or am I?

[Brian224]

Bearing in mind the UK government's past record with IT projects, I cannot help suspecting that a change to open-source software will involve more spending on consultant's fees and "training" than the MS licences.

[peterb]

Quite true, but there's things you can easily do to make things better. For one, ban departments from using docx, xlsx and pptx - instead "standardising" on the older MS-Office formats.

docx should be encouraged, it is an open source xml format, rather than a semi-proprietory one! Open/libre Office (and other applications) can read and convert to/from docx formats.

As for the licensing issues, a corporate user the size of the UK gov could negotiate substantial licensing agreements, although departments may have their own purchasing arrangements. There have been several initiatives to centralise Government purchasing (Gcat, for example) What doesn't happen is licence re-use, although that may be because the individual licence costs are low anyway. Even so, the costs quoted in the article are high, and if a move to open source software makes overall savings (including cost of ownership) then that can only be a good thing.

The picture is more complicated though, because the management and maintenance of many management IT systems is outsourced - in effect the hardware and software is leased and paid for on a per-user basis, so again, if licensing costs are reduced, it would be reasonable to see a reduction in per-user costs.

[valhar2000]

Bearing in mind the UK government's past record with IT projects, I cannot help suspecting that a change to open-source software will involve more spending on consultant's fees and "training" than the MS licences.

Exactly. You don't even need to blame this on the government's implementation of the upgrade: the people who actually use the software are not geeks, they are civil servants, no better at learning to use a new piece of software than the average Joe off the street.

If they switch over to LibreOffice they better be ready to deal with people who are absolutely lost the minute something is even just a tiny bit different from what they were used to in Office.

Switching may still be a good idea, but thinking that it will mean saving all the money being spent on licenses right now with no downsides is just dangerously naïve.

[peterb]

Exactly. You don't even need to blame this on the government's implementation of the upgrade: the people who actually use the software are not geeks, they are civil servants, no better at learning to use a new piece of software than the average Joe off the street.

If you need to be a 'geek' to use a piece of office software, it doesn't say much for the software and should be ditched immediately.

As for civil servants, I'd suggest they are no worse at learning to use new software than the average Joe off the street, and possibly better.

[McEwin]

All valid points. I just prefer the UK gov spend £200m and 3 years training people to use a free suite than plough on with well marketed one. If Calc is really so deficient then why not improve it!? It's Open Source no?? It's just too convenient to just spend public money imho.

[crossy]

docx should be encouraged, it is an open source xml format, rather than a semi-proprietory one! Open/libre Office (and other applications) can read and convert to/from docx formats

.docx (and the other OpenXML formats) should be discouraged - it's the definition of "semi proprietary standard" - and an unnecessary one to boot. Comments like "OOXML is a rats nest hidden in a fog bank", and it's shortcomings vis-a-vis licensing are well known.

Okay, ye olde .doc (from the pre 2007 Office) files are an unassessed (/de facto) standard, but what the heck is wrong with ODF? IBM seem to think this a good enough standard and, unlike OOXML, the licensing is very friendly to open source developments.

Bearing in mind the UK government's past record with IT projects, I cannot help suspecting that a change to open-source software will involve more spending on consultant's fees and "training" than the MS licences.

As long as Capita are kept as far away as possible.

Exactly. You don't even need to blame this on the government's implementation of the upgrade: the people who actually use the software are not geeks, they are civil servants, no better at learning to use a new piece of software than the average Joe off the street. If they switch over to LibreOffice they better be ready to deal with people who are absolutely lost the minute something is even just a tiny bit different from what they were used to in Office.

Sorry that's a sweeping generalisation and one that isn't borne out in my experience (MoD and DWP). In any organisation you'll invariably get "numpties" and folks who want it "to just work" and hence want to be spoon-fed everything - but that last part of your quote isn't supportable.

And, if you're talking about moving "legacy" folks (i.e. running pre-2007 Office), I'll strongly argue that they will have an easier time with the UI than those poor unfortunates condemned to using beribboned Office (2007/2010/2013/etc) to boot.

[Attila the Bun]

Exactly. You don't even need to blame this on the government's implementation of the upgrade: the people who actually use the software are not geeks, they are civil servants, no better at learning to use a new piece of software than the average Joe off the street.

If they switch over to LibreOffice they better be ready to deal with people who are absolutely lost the minute something is even just a tiny bit different from what they were used to in Office.

I'm not often moved to post negative commentary on forums, certainly not HEXUS...But Wow! What an incredibly sweeping, inaccurate and, to me specifically, insulting statement.

I for one would be quite happy to see the introduction of an alternative Office type application suite and have been advocating it for years as a likely option for reducing day to day costs. I use Open Office at home and overall am very happy with it. Haven't tried LibreOffice but I doubt very much if it's much different in functionality or layout to the others, they are, after all, trying to achieve the same aims.

Whether it happens or not is another thing entirely. The Civil Service IT initiatives are put in the hands of external "private" contractors as per ongoing Government Policy. This means, that regardless of the perceived or actually complexities of implementing a fundamental software change for hundreds of thousands of people, in thousands of locations in the UK and abroad, there will be the usual conflict of profit vs procedure ie. IT PLC is there to make money by supplying the minimum amount of "stuff" at the highest acceptable cost, Ministry of Luddite Equality is there to try and ensure fairness according to the laws of the land whilst introducing policy driven changes constrained by mandatory operating procedures.

"...He also said he thought that the government is currently "paying top dollar for yesterday's technology."..."

He should have said " the government is always paying top dollar for yesterday's technology " especially where IT is concerned.

[crossy]

Whether it happens or not is another thing entirely. The Civil Service IT initiatives are put in the hands of external "private" contractors as per ongoing Government Policy. This means, that regardless of the perceived or actually complexities of implementing a fundamental software change for hundreds of thousands of people, in thousands of locations in the UK and abroad, there will be the usual conflict of profit vs procedure ie. IT PLC is there to make money by supplying the minimum amount of "stuff" at the highest acceptable cost, Ministry of Luddite Equality is there to try and ensure fairness according to the laws of the land whilst introducing policy driven changes constrained by mandatory operating procedures.

"...He also said he thought that the government is currently "paying top dollar for yesterday's technology."..."

He should have said " the government is always paying top dollar for yesterday's technology " especially where IT is concerned.

Problem with government procurements is two fold, (from bitter experience - thankfully in the past now).
1. Administrative overkill. I firmly believe that Douglas Addams (rip) must have had some experience of this, because the description of Vogons is pretty much par for the course. I still find it unbelievable the amount of time wasted getting even the simplest decision signed off. Ex-colleague of mine said that it felt like the whole government project machine was one with the engine from a Flymo and the brakes from a Rolls-Royce.
2. As a result of #1 you end up with scope creep or "feature requests". Meaning that you then have to go back to redo the specs etc, then submit those revised specs to the whole Vogonic review process. Arrrghhh.

And to add insult to injury you then read media articles how the evil contractors "gleefully" delivered an overpriced, technically inferior solution to one that the article's author could have generated from a couple of minutes with Google Search.

[Attila the Bun]

engine from a Flymo and the brakes from a Rolls-Royce.

Don't forget "and a 1000 brains all thinking in different directions".

[wasabi]

There are all sorts of third party things that break if you switch from Office.
Outlook plugins for CTI telephony break. So you need to source a whole new software suite for your customer services department.
Many places use microsoft Dynamics suite for CRM / finance (Great Plains) Heavy integration with Office.
Sharepoint integration breaks.
Many very expensive specialist pieces of software do all sorts of Office integrated whizzyness involving opening docs and pumping data direct from SQL in highly preformatted layouts.
All the Dymo label printer addons etc etc the secretaries use.

This stuff isn't JUST an office suite. It is an ecosystem.

[HalloweenJack]

strange theres no mention of the libreoffice tie in with AMD on the full openCL acceleration.....

[crossy]

There are all sorts of third party things that break if you switch from Office.
Outlook plugins for CTI telephony break. So you need to source a whole new software suite for your customer services department ... [snipped]

And therein lies the problem if you've drunk deeply at the Microsoft public house - when time's called you've got a bill to pay. Smart-alec analogies aside, what you're saying is pretty self-evident. But there's alternatives to most (all?) of what Microsoft punt - you've just got to have the time, money and desire to wean yourself off. And no, I'm not espousing the "Microsoft is bad" party line, there's circumstances where their product is the best-of-class so it makes no sense to choose something else.

This stuff isn't JUST an office suite. It is an ecosystem.

True, but then again you can also expect discomfort everytime MS decide to roll out a new version these days. Heck, look around that the reports of folks doing Windows XP->7 upgrades or 7->8 ones.

I think it's been too easy/attractive in the past to use that "one stop shop" arrangement, when instead they should have been looking at "platform agility" - i.e. using standard interfaces etc wherever possible to prevent vendor lock-in. E.g. with MS Office, your scripting is C# or VBA, whereas with LO there's LO Basic (supposedly provided to make transition from VBA a little easier), Python and Java. And both of those (more-so Python) are standards.

Here's what will happen. They'll abandon Word, Excel & Powerpoint and move to neither Libre office or Open office but a third inferior alternative and they'll 'buy' it from a billion dollar organisation with a profitable (for them) ten year exclusive service contract package.

But they'll also keep using Outlook and thus will still be tied to their current systems and expenditure.

Millions will be made by consultants and billions will be made by big business... and open source software will get the blame as "it doesn't offer the features of commercial software"

Very true (unfortunately).

Actually there's a side point - what's the current recommendation for folks wanting to get off of Outlook? It used to be Thunderbird, but that's gone quiet since Mozilla dropped support of it in favour of doing FirefoxOS (which I still think was a moronic idea).

[Homeking]

If the French National Police can completely switch a reported 72,000 desktops to Linux and all it's open source packages and save a reported 40% of OS costs then why can't our government?

Been a very happy Linux user for years now with very few problems - currently switching my elderly mum over too with the imminent demise of XP and she's having no problems.