The problem is Office. It is actually a problem of two sides.
1) Libre/OpenOffice was never satisfactory. It is ugly and crashes. Tried many times using it since 1999 and it gets worse and worse. Pity, because StarOffice was a perfectly usable alternative back then.
2) Office-like products are addictive in corporate environment. People love to make ramsom-note style documents and presentations. An old typewritten document seems way more professional in direct comparison... People add so many 'hairs' in documents that not even Office365 can open them anymore, so you have to resort to native MS-Office. And sometimes it must even be the Windows version, because the Mac version does things a little differently and messes up a really complicated document. (The second last version for Mac consistently broke when review mode and table changes were mixed, and I worked in an environment where review mode was extensively employed.)
Any migration away from Windows would have to tackle these problems before even the operating system. The rest of the desktop UI is ok in Linux - people use mostly the browser anyway. Google Docs is an option - no documents more complicated than GDocs can handle should be allowed.
I actually preferred the documents were all generated, either by software, or at least using markup like HTML or LaTeX, that are diff'able. But I know this is impossible to impose on the layman.
I've observed the same but regarding fancy Office documents my experience has mostly been with amazingly complex Excel spreadsheets.
People who have no programming background, no knowledge of modern tools like jupyter somehow are very proficient at crunching data and making graphs in Excel.
I've seen some outlandish things like all invoices being generated by Excel templates and data gathering done by vbs. Or an entire datacenter mapped up in Excel, like a poor mans racktables.
Granted the vbs was done by a programmer but that's a tiny slice of what I've seen done in Excel.
So if you're going to force these people that I work with into google docs then you need to offer an alternative they can understand. Either a devops department that can script these things for them easily, or training in new tools.
Basically M$ tried over the years with a lot of force to convert them back, they even sent Balmer as CEO back then to convince them, but failed. Then M$ moved their German Headquarters to Munich city and the city major changed (now from to another party that is M$-aligned). The major engaged a M$-owned agency to assess the current state, and they suggest to switch to W10 and Office, which will cost 25+m more. Now you can call 1 + 1 together. Exactly that Heise.de news media did, the did a lot of investigative objective research and uncovered the scandal. Guess what happens, ...nothing.
Google Docs (and other cloud services) as the enabler of the "open source" desktop is a bit ironic though, considering it is neither open source nor do we even have control over the binaries.
>Google Docs is an option - no documents more complicated than GDocs can handle should be allowed.
At least in my experience the GDocs is rapidly eating Office. Deployment is cheaper and easier. All you need to do is send a link and someone can edit your document. It works everywhere.
It’s OK on generic hardware. By “generic” I mean CPU & GPU that are more than 2 years old, USB mice/keyboards keyboard with standard set of keys/buttons, maybe a USB mass storage, no printers, no web cams, no custom hardware.
Agreed compatibility with MS Office is always "the stumbling block" for the average user. When the Munich transition was made LibreOffice (OpenOffice) didn't handle Office compatibility too well. These days compatibility is much better. But that is not the issue, too many people sling .docx files around, not really understanding what they are doing. Document collaboration is more typically emailing and at best using the review functionality.
In my experience even reasonably computer literate people need to be asked, repeatedly, to send me documents as .PDF not .DOCX. Hate to think how hard that would be when we are dealing with hundreds of disinterested public servants.
> I actually preferred the documents were all generated, either by software, or at least using markup like HTML or LaTeX, that are diff'able. But I know this is impossible to impose on the layman.
I agree with that. Regarding MS Office compatibility however, you don't need to stick with Libre/OpenOffice. There is also SoftMaker Office.
Yeah for software engineers, scientists, 3D animators and web developers linux on the desktop is arguably superior but for typical office users its a train wreck unless they are using emacs org mode, which requires a significant investment in training.
1) Libre/OpenOffice was never satisfactory. It is ugly and crashes. Tried many times using it since 1999 and it gets worse and worse. Pity, because StarOffice was a perfectly usable alternative back then.
2) Office-like products are addictive in corporate environment. People love to make ramsom-note style documents and presentations. An old typewritten document seems way more professional in direct comparison... People add so many 'hairs' in documents that not even Office365 can open them anymore, so you have to resort to native MS-Office. And sometimes it must even be the Windows version, because the Mac version does things a little differently and messes up a really complicated document. (The second last version for Mac consistently broke when review mode and table changes were mixed, and I worked in an environment where review mode was extensively employed.)
Any migration away from Windows would have to tackle these problems before even the operating system. The rest of the desktop UI is ok in Linux - people use mostly the browser anyway. Google Docs is an option - no documents more complicated than GDocs can handle should be allowed.
I actually preferred the documents were all generated, either by software, or at least using markup like HTML or LaTeX, that are diff'able. But I know this is impossible to impose on the layman.