[darkstar_16]

I really want this to happen but sadly have seen a LOT of govt and private companies trying to move to libreoffice (and OpenOffice and StarOffice before that). None really stuck. The office suite is hard to replace and none of the open source suites are a good enough alternative right now. I hope that changes.

[vodou]

This is true, but only if you try to achieve the exact workflow that Office 365 offers. Maybe it is time to try to be a bit more subversive. Do we really need everything that Office can do? Is Microsoft's abstraction of office work really the holy grail of modern office work or is it causing "empty work"?

[linker3000]

This is an important point but often it's existing docs and files that cause the most grief, with subtle issues like differences in font rendering or line spacing.

For example, I wanted to make a simple change to a Word doc in Libre Office that included a side bar/column of text in a fixed size table on multiple pages. In Word the layout looked great.

Unfortunately due to font subtleties, in Libre Office the side texts overflowed the tables and the last sentences were cropped. It took some fiddling to make things fit and look as good as the original, but in the process I had to make the font smaller which lost some clarity. I did play with line spacing but that got fiddly.

In summary, a 5 second edit of an existing document laid out 'just so' perhaps 5 yr ago ended up becoming 20 minutes of hassle.

New docs could be laid out better and differently to make future edits easy, but that ignores the large legacy of existing stuff that many will have.

[sam_lowry_]

The migration is an opportunity to subvert the "Office" abstraction to start with.

[kkfx]

Me personally I hope for a paradigm change: there is no reason to use an office suite instead training people from the school to use proper typesetting and computing software.

We have LaTeX wrapped in nth way to typeset, we have easy languages like Python, it's about time to teach plain text power and bring org-mode to modern UIs for the masses because we do not need "an alternative to $ProductOrService" but a different paradigm from the current old mainframe model to an older modern interconnected desktop model where people know how to mold a desktop for their needs and desire instead of depend on someone else computer.

[jamwil]

It’s a great idea until you realize the way people are.

[kkfx]

Well... I've managed various people so far and while yes, most are simply way to uneducated/illiterate to work properly in the present world in their roles, they are still capable to learn if properly driven. I've observing that treating people like humans instead of meat-based bots do makes them much more human and a step at a time a team change.

Of course you can't transform things in a snap, but a change is possible if properly conducted. The issue is more the unwillingness of those who conduct than the reactionary ignorance of most.

[surgical_fire]

Out of curiosity, what you can do in, say, Word or Excel that you can't in the LibreOffice versions?

I keep seeing this claim, but it is never substantiated.

I am not trying to be a prick and throwing a trick question in your direction btw. It is an honest question as someone that only needs those applications occasionally, and could switch to LibreOffice without issues.

[darkstar_16]

others have articulated it much better but I think the difference isn't in what it can do. But working with existing docs - subtle things like font differences, formatting issues, working with the rest of the world that is MS dominated, keyboard shortcuts for excel warriers. LibreOffice is very capable on it's own, as a drop-in replacement is where it doesn't work most of the time. And the difference isn't even huge, but people being people give up fast.

[fsflover]

> and none of the open source suites are a good enough alternative right now

AFAIK very few features of MS Office aren't already implemented well enough in LibreOffice. In principle it should mean that most users/organizations can already move.