Without a viable MS Office/Google Docs alternative it's all rather performative. If those get blocked the entire bureaucratic machine stops dead. Hell block just excel and entire countries might actually collapse.

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adrianN an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The dependence on US companies is deep and multifaceted. I don’t think we should attempt nothing until a perfect solution is available.

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omnimus an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have seen transitions from MS suite at universities and I don't think what you are saying is true.

First assumption is that there are no alternatives so you can't replace Excel as a software. Obvious ones for Excel - LibreOffice, Collabora, OnlyOffice or Grist (which i highly recommend). The paradoxical problem is there is no clear THE ONE so organizations get into decision paralysis and never move anywhere.

The other assumption is that even if there were alternatives people will not adopt them. In reality this is rarely issue. Turns out users/employees/students actually don't care much what software they have to use. They just use what is available or what they are told to use. So the reason why people use MS Office is actually because it's mandated from the top. Lawyers use it because state/gov/court communication requires it. Students use it because they need to submit thesis in MS Word. It's socially locked in.

I've been at a university which switched over the summer from MS Office to LibreOffice. The results were boring. 40k people just adopted it, no drama, some liked it more (works on linux yay), took some people few weeks to learn/adjust. People are used learning new things.

So can we stop with that story that 40 year old software which barely changed in last 20 years can't be replaced?

This whole digital sovereignty is i think extremely scary proposition for Microsoft because just as they are now mandated solution by most western world... they are one law away (all state/university communication must be with libre software) to be on the other side of their current mandate / lock in.

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moffkalast an hour ago | parent [-]

Well I hope you're right, the transitions I've seen proposed were mostly shot down because people refused to learn anything new and due to nebulous certification requirements that Microsoft of course has.

Speaking of OnlyOffice, I've seen it crop up more and more lately and apparently it's Latvian, so maybe that will be the one eventually. Though my experience with it has been that it's not very stable (lots of crashing around embedding video anyway) and has a smaller feature set.

	▲	XorNot 25 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's the point though: there was never a particularly compelling reason to move so no one did. 5 years ago "what if America starts making threats?" would've been a ridiculous notion.
	▲	ZenDroid an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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pjmlp 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

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Imustaskforhelp an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Proton.

Also, Collabora office looks really great too.

	▲	mark_l_watson 11 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Proton drive is fine, their docs service is usable but could use improvement. Their secure and private file and docs sharing with other Proton users could be a great feature, if you need it. EDIT: I just re-tried Proton docs and spreadsheets - much improved docs, and I think the spreadsheets are a new feature; looks OK but I am on mobile right now so minimal testing.
	▲	pjmlp 18 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Proton, only as transition technology.

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Zardoz84 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Fucking Libre Office!

	▲	moffkalast an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah if only.