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Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice

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  Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-09-19 18:56 +0000
    Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Jason H <jason_hindle@yahoo.com> - 2025-09-20 19:09 +0000
      Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-09-20 19:55 +0000
        Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks> - 2025-09-20 20:53 +0000
          Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-21 13:00 +0100
            Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-21 13:56 +0100
              Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-21 17:29 +0100
                Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-21 18:34 +0100
                Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-21 19:01 +0100
                Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-21 19:04 +0100
        Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-21 20:10 +0000
          Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2025-09-22 10:06 -0700
            Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2025-09-22 17:26 +0000
              Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2025-09-22 10:30 -0700
              Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-23 12:30 +0100
    Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2025-09-22 07:10 +0200
      Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-22 07:34 +0000
        Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2025-09-23 09:26 +0200
          Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-23 07:36 +0000
            Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-23 10:57 +0100
    Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jaworski1978@adres.pl> - 2025-09-22 07:44 +0200
      Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-09-22 11:58 +0200
        Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jaworski1978@adres.pl> - 2025-09-23 18:44 +0200
          Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-09-23 22:04 +0200
            Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jaworski1978@adres.pl> - 2025-09-23 23:52 +0200
              Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2025-09-27 14:56 +0000
          Re: Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2025-09-23 23:41 +0100

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#74574 — Austria's AF To Switch To LibreOffice

The armed forces of Austria (which is not in NATO) will switch
from Micro$lop Office to LibreOffice (LO):

<https://www.heise.de/en/news/Austria-s-armed-forces-switch-to-LibreOffice-10660761.html>

The reason is not to avoid cost but to keep everything "in house"
rather than rely on remote servers that are controlled by a corrupt
corporation.

I suppose that it is a commendable idea, but will it persist?

LO is good, but its Calc pivot tables have an awkward and clumsy
interface and it is pivot tables that are highly valued by
spreadsheet users (even though a database approach would be used
by a professional).

LO does not have a database per se, but it allows interfacing
to external databases.  However, the LO database GUI forms
interface is admittedly very clunky.

I am not condemning LO but its roots are ancient, having been 
a clone of StarOffice way back in the 1990's.  All attempts since
then have essentially been a spackling over a crumbling edifice. 

LO is great for my needs, both personal and business, but I am not
a giant organization.  I really doubt that LO can fulfill the needs
of the Austrian AF in the long term.

What do you think?


-- 
Gentoo: the only road to GNU/Linux perfection.

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#74655

On 19/09/2025 19:56, Farley Flud wrote:
>The armed forces of Austria (which is not in NATO) will switch
>from Micro$lop Office to LibreOffice (LO):
>
><https://www.heise.de/en/news/Austria-s-armed-forces-switch-to-LibreOffice-10660761.html>
>
>The reason is not to avoid cost but to keep everything "in house"
>rather than rely on remote servers that are controlled by a corrupt
>corporation.
>
>I suppose that it is a commendable idea, but will it persist?
>
>LO is good, but its Calc pivot tables have an awkward and clumsy
>interface and it is pivot tables that are highly valued by
>spreadsheet users (even though a database approach would be used
>by a professional).
>
>LO does not have a database per se, but it allows interfacing
>to external databases.  However, the LO database GUI forms
>interface is admittedly very clunky.
>
>I am not condemning LO but its roots are ancient, having been 
>a clone of StarOffice way back in the 1990's.  All attempts since
>then have essentially been a spackling over a crumbling edifice. 
>
>LO is great for my needs, both personal and business, but I am not
>a giant organization.  I really doubt that LO can fulfill the needs
>of the Austrian AF in the long term.
>
>What do you think?
>

Normally I would call this out as an attempt to get Microsoft to lower their
 pricing, but the Trump Administration has certainly made data sovereignty a
 thing. It contrasts with Britain's chilling embrace of the US tech
 broligarchy.
 
-- 
--
A PICKER OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES

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#74659

On Sat, 20 Sep 2025 19:09:54 -0000 (UTC), Jason H wrote:

> 
> Normally I would call this out as an attempt to get Microsoft to lower their
>  pricing, but the Trump Administration has certainly made data sovereignty a
>  thing. It contrasts with Britain's chilling embrace of the US tech
>  broligarchy.
>  

As indicated in the article, cost is not the primary reason.

The goal is to keep data local and not stored on remote servers.

My original point is that Lo, based on "ancient" code, may not
be able to satisfy the needs of a large organization.




-- 
Gentoo: the only road to GNU/Linux perfection.

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#74662

On 20 Sep 2025 20:17:17 GMT, Stefan Ram wrote:

> 
>   (Usually I do not responded to threads with offensive abbreviations
>   such as "AF" in the subject, but this time I will make an exception!)
> 

Whoop dee do!

The "AF" is merely an abbreviation for "Armed Forces" but if you
have interpreted it differently then all I can say is that your momma
must have conditioned you to grotesque degrees.

>
> Here's a snapshot of some of the features the Austrian military built
> for its own use and then handed over to the LibreOffice project:
>

As I have already indicated, because of the LO "ancient" code base,
such features amount to nothing more than spackling over a crumbling
infrastructure.

I LOVE Libreoffice, but I doubt that it will serve, in the long term,
the needs of a large organization.



-- 
Gentoo: the only road to GNU/Linux perfection.

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#74711

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
>   Here's a quote from a website that talks about an older Coverity
>   scan of LibreOffice from 2017:
>
> |If you've been around open source for a while, perhaps your
> |understanding of the quality of open source code is based on
> |older projects like the infamously unstable OpenOffice.org
> |codebase. Times have changed however and evidence of this can
> |be found in the work of code improvement vendor Coverity.
> |They recently announced that LibreOffice, (four years old
> |this weekend and based on the old OpenOffice code), has a
> |defect density of just 0.08, compared with similar sized open
> |source projects which averages at 0.65 and proprietary code
> |which averages at 0.71.
> |
> |LibreOffice is an outlier, an extreme example of clean,
> |defect free code
>
>   . Today, in 2025, the "libreoffice" page at "scan.coverity.com"
>   even says,
>
> |LibreOffice: 6,240,852 line of code and 0.00 defect density
>
>   (That doesn't mean there aren't any defects at all, it's just
>   that the density is only reported to two decimal places.)

It doesn’t mean that either, it means that the kind of thing that
Coverity is good at finding is 0.00, to two decimal places. It tells you
nothing at all about the number of defects that Coverity doesn’t know
how to find.

-- 
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#74714

On 21/09/2025 13:00, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> It doesn’t mean that either, it means that the kind of thing that
> Coverity is good at finding is 0.00, to two decimal places. It tells you
> nothing at all about the number of defects that Coverity doesn’t know
> how to find.

It's the old philosophical conundrum of the unknown unknowns

"Climate scientists say their *could* be up to 4392 bugs in Libre Office".
As they step firmly away from science and into the realms of metaphysics...



-- 
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all 
private property.

Karl Marx

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#74729

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
> On 21/09/2025 13:00, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>> It doesn’t mean that either, it means that the kind of thing that
>> Coverity is good at finding is 0.00, to two decimal places. It tells you
>> nothing at all about the number of defects that Coverity doesn’t know
>> how to find.
>
> It's the old philosophical conundrum of the unknown unknowns

I think this one is a known unknown by now.  We have a collection of bug
finding techniques: compiler warnings, unit tests, code review, static
analysis (which is what Coverity is), fuzzing, sanitizers, CFI, CHERI,
etc. Every time someone invents a new one they find a new collection of
bugs, which shows off how good their idea is and lets the rest of us
exclude a category of bug from our code ... but it also shows that
previous techniques don’t cover all possible bugs.

By this stage it’d be strange to assume that the most recent one takes
us to 100% coverage: the remaining bugs are unknowns, but experience
tells us they are there.

-- 
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#74734

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:
> Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:
>>By this stage it’d be strange to assume that the most recent one takes
>>us to 100% coverage: 
>
>   "100% coverage" when people talk about test coverage just
>   means

I wasn’t talking about test coverage, so its meaning in that context
isn’t relevant.

-- 
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#74741

On 21/09/2025 17:29, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
>> On 21/09/2025 13:00, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
>>> It doesn’t mean that either, it means that the kind of thing that
>>> Coverity is good at finding is 0.00, to two decimal places. It tells you
>>> nothing at all about the number of defects that Coverity doesn’t know
>>> how to find.
>>
>> It's the old philosophical conundrum of the unknown unknowns
> 
> I think this one is a known unknown by now.  We have a collection of bug
> finding techniques: compiler warnings, unit tests, code review, static
> analysis (which is what Coverity is), fuzzing, sanitizers, CFI, CHERI,
> etc. Every time someone invents a new one they find a new collection of
> bugs, which shows off how good their idea is and lets the rest of us
> exclude a category of bug from our code ... but it also shows that
> previous techniques don’t cover all possible bugs.
> 
> By this stage it’d be strange to assume that the most recent one takes
> us to 100% coverage: the remaining bugs are unknowns, but experience
> tells us they are there.
> 
Well that means they are unknown unknowns, since we dont even know where 
to look...


-- 
No Apple devices were knowingly used in the preparation of this post.

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#74742

On 21/09/2025 18:08, Stefan Ram wrote:
> Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:
>> By this stage it’d be strange to assume that the most recent one takes
>> us to 100% coverage:
> 
>    "100% coverage" when people talk about test coverage just
>    means every single line of the codebase ran at least one
>    time during the tests, and that's literally all it says.
> 
> 
I am not sure it even means that.

It just means that despite repeated attempts, the code did not visibly 
fail.


I've still got known unknowns in some of my code. Certain conditions 
cause it to fail, but I don't know why...


-- 
No Apple devices were knowingly used in the preparation of this post.

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#74765

On 20 Sep 2025 20:17:17 GMT, Stefan Ram wrote:

> (Usually I do not responded to threads with offensive abbreviations
> such as "AF" in the subject, but this time I will make an exception!)

My guess is ... confusion over unfamiliarity with English grammar?

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#74852

On Sun, 21 Sep 2025 20:10:44 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

> > (Usually I do not responded to threads with offensive abbreviations
> > such as "AF" in the subject, but this time I will make an
> > exception!)  
> 
> My guess is ... confusion over unfamiliarity with English grammar?

I think it has to do with the Kids These Days using AF as a shorthand
for "as fuck" - e.g. "the spectacle of a net-goblin whose primary
contribution to the world is profane braggadocio about his kernel build
presuming to weigh in on the productivity-software needs of a large
national defense organization is funny AF."

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#74860

On 2025-09-22, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 21 Sep 2025 20:10:44 -0000 (UTC)
> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> (Usually I do not responded to threads with offensive abbreviations
>>> such as "AF" in the subject, but this time I will make an
>>> exception!)  
>> 
>> My guess is ... confusion over unfamiliarity with English grammar?
>
> I think it has to do with the Kids These Days using AF as a shorthand
> for "as fuck" - e.g. "the spectacle of a net-goblin whose primary
> contribution to the world is profane braggadocio about his kernel build
> presuming to weigh in on the productivity-software needs of a large
> national defense organization is funny AF."

The first thing I think of is "auto focus".

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  Growth for the sake of
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  growth is the ideology
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  of the cancer cell.
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |    -- Edward Abbey

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#74861

On 9/22/25 10:26, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2025-09-22, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, 21 Sep 2025 20:10:44 -0000 (UTC)
>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>> (Usually I do not responded to threads with offensive abbreviations
>>>> such as "AF" in the subject, but this time I will make an
>>>> exception!)
>>>
>>> My guess is ... confusion over unfamiliarity with English grammar?
>>
>> I think it has to do with the Kids These Days using AF as a shorthand
>> for "as fuck" - e.g. "the spectacle of a net-goblin whose primary
>> contribution to the world is profane braggadocio about his kernel build
>> presuming to weigh in on the productivity-software needs of a large
>> national defense organization is funny AF."
> 
> The first thing I think of is "auto focus".
> 

	Anti-Fascist first then As Fuck.

	bliss

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#74960

On 22/09/2025 18:26, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2025-09-22, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, 21 Sep 2025 20:10:44 -0000 (UTC)
>> Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>> (Usually I do not responded to threads with offensive abbreviations
>>>> such as "AF" in the subject, but this time I will make an
>>>> exception!)
>>>
>>> My guess is ... confusion over unfamiliarity with English grammar?
>>
>> I think it has to do with the Kids These Days using AF as a shorthand
>> for "as fuck" - e.g. "the spectacle of a net-goblin whose primary
>> contribution to the world is profane braggadocio about his kernel build
>> presuming to weigh in on the productivity-software needs of a large
>> national defense organization is funny AF."
> 
> The first thing I think of is "auto focus".
> 
Audio Frequency.
Atrial Fibrillation
Air Force
Across Flats (wrench/nut sizes)

-- 
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain

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#74805

On Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:56:00 +0000, Farley Flud <ff@linux.rocks>
wrote:

>The armed forces of Austria (which is not in NATO) will switch
>from Micro$lop Office to LibreOffice (LO):
>
><https://www.heise.de/en/news/Austria-s-armed-forces-switch-to-LibreOffice-10660761.html>
>
>The reason is not to avoid cost but to keep everything "in house"
>rather than rely on remote servers that are controlled by a corrupt
>corporation.
>
>I suppose that it is a commendable idea, but will it persist?

It uses a public format rather than a proprietary one, which means
that they should be able to continue to read documents in future if
they need to. 

How many of us can still read Lotus AmiPro or WordPro documents?


-- 
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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#74811

On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:10:42 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:

> It uses a public format rather than a proprietary one, which means that
> they should be able to continue to read documents in future if they need
> to.

Not just a public format, but a sane public format, defined in a proper 
readable, implementable spec. Not some hastily-cobbled-together multi-
thousand-page hodgepodge of impenetrable verbiage.

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#74926

On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:34:35 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DÿOliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

>On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:10:42 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> It uses a public format rather than a proprietary one, which means that
>> they should be able to continue to read documents in future if they need
>> to.
>
>Not just a public format, but a sane public format, defined in a proper 
>readable, implementable spec. Not some hastily-cobbled-together multi-
>thousand-page hodgepodge of impenetrable verbiage.

Quite, which means that, should the need arise in future and
LibreOffice not be around, someone could write a program to read the
socument. 


-- 
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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#74930

On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:26:18 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:34:35 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DÿOliveiro
> <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:10:42 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>>> It uses a public format rather than a proprietary one, which means
>>> that they should be able to continue to read documents in future
>>> if they need to.
>>
>> Not just a public format, but a sane public format, defined in a
>> proper readable, implementable spec. Not some
>> hastily-cobbled-together multi- thousand-page hodgepodge of
>> impenetrable verbiage.
>
> Quite, which means that, should the need arise in future and
> LibreOffice not be around, someone could write a program to read the
> socument.

Hard to see how any piece of Open Source software could actually disappear 
without trace. Somebody -- more likely, lots of people -- will have copies 
somewhere.

Microsoft Office, on the other hand ...

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#74939

On 2025-09-23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:26:18 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:34:35 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DÿOliveiro
>> <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 07:10:42 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:
>>>
>>>> It uses a public format rather than a proprietary one, which means
>>>> that they should be able to continue to read documents in future
>>>> if they need to.
>>>
>>> Not just a public format, but a sane public format, defined in a
>>> proper readable, implementable spec. Not some
>>> hastily-cobbled-together multi- thousand-page hodgepodge of
>>> impenetrable verbiage.
>>
>> Quite, which means that, should the need arise in future and
>> LibreOffice not be around, someone could write a program to read the
>> socument.
>
> Hard to see how any piece of Open Source software could actually disappear 
> without trace. Somebody -- more likely, lots of people -- will have copies 
> somewhere.
>
> Microsoft Office, on the other hand ...

With Microsoft Office, the main danger is that someone will rely on
misuse of patents in software to get rid of any such tools.

(That along with laws some countries may have enacted that make reverse
engineering less easy. With reverse engineering being necessary because
either formats are not documented in specifications, or the
implementation begs to differ.

And IIRC the latter is (or was?) a problem with Office Open XML, which
is a standard only because MICROS~1 poured money into that as they saw
demanding open formats was actually going to harm their monopoly in some
countries.

And it was standardized despite such complaints about the specification
being incomplete, which were raised at the time; and also despite lack
of chairs reportedly making attending standardization meetings
difficult...)

-- 
Nuno Silva

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