> I use shitton of MS products, but I cannot switch from Google's gmail, docs and drive to anything.
Here's my libre stack:
- Thunderbird for e-mail (whichever provider you like, i also self-host a mail server for automation etc.)
- LibreOffice, which i use as a local piece of software, because web office apps rub me the wrong way
- Nextcloud, which i also self-host and which has both desktop software and mobile apps
Of course, that's not something that everyone might want to use for themselves, but personally it has worked out pretty nicely for me, allows me to keep my data private (for the most part) and is a rather cost effective way of doing so!
> ...but I cannot switch from Google's gmail, docs and drive to anything.
Is me offering workable alternatives counterproductive or unhelpful? The fact that the software is free and open source is just a nice boon to have and something to mention in my eyes.
Here are the links for the aforementioned software so that anyone may attempt to switch to it, if they so desire.
(the latter needs a server, much like Google Drive does, have a look here for a non-self hosted option if that seems like a hassle: https://nextcloud.com/providers/)
If anyone has thoughts on the viability of any of these solutions, hearing arguments for or against them would also be nice! I know for a fact that many prefer to just use web browsers nowadays as opposed to installing software on each platform locally, which could be one such argument!
LibreOffice also opens up Wordperfect documents. My wife had a church project and one of the teachers had Wordperfect. Office could not read it. So we coverted it in LibreOffice.
Also LibreOffice can edit PDF files so no need for Acrobat Pro.
I've had Libre Office completely destroy hours of work multiple times.
one example: In Excel, I was going great work dissecting raw data provided in another worksheet tab, and apparently writing formulas that LO couldn't understand, so upon opening this file in LibreOffice, LO stripped those cells out. just completely emptied those cells, and then saved the file, all without a warning or a prompt or anything. and, best part was that I was showing someone how LO can open Excel sheets just fine, without worrying. so not only did I prove myself wrong, destructively, I lost all of that work.
I will no longer use anything with "Libre" in the name out of principle.
> I've had Libre Office completely destroy hours of work multiple times.
And I've used it (well, back before it was forged) to clean up things that others had messed up to bad in MS Office.
> one example: In Excel, I was going great work dissecting raw data provided in another worksheet tab, and apparently writing formulas that LO couldn't understand, so upon opening this file in LibreOffice, LO stripped those cells out. just completely emptied those cells, and then saved the file, all without a warning or a prompt or anything.
I've never had LibreOffice save the file without asking.
In fact I think it also usually tries to convince me to make a copy in the official LibreOffice format instead.
I'm going to be extremely blunt here and ask you to look for a PEBKAC.
no pebkac, I assure you. this happened multiple times, to multiple people, at multiple employers. all felt MS Office was too expensive until free solutions cost them thanks to problems like these.
couldn't be the software, huh? you sure? no bugs? ok...
> Is me offering workable alternatives counterproductive or unhelpful?
If it is done unprompted, then I would argue that it at least is an attempt to take over the conversation, and at worst it is saying that the person who has the problem brought it on themselves because they aren't using what you're using.
The following things are very different:
* stating that there is a problem
* stating that there is a problem and asking for help with it.
Confusing the second for the first is a terrible thing that a lot of people do these days, and intentional or not, it is destructive to constructive debate and discussion.
> If it is done unprompted, then I would argue that it at least is an attempt to take over the conversation, and at worst it is saying that the person who has the problem brought it on themselves because they aren't using what you're using.
I don't think that this is a charitable interpretation. If i said that a Python library X doesn't work for parsing nested YAML structures and someone recommended library Y instead, i wouldn't feel like they're blaming me for using X, rather offering a workable alternative.
If i told them that it's impossible for me to use library Y because of reason Z then that's a different discussion, but in lieu of clear information about these constraints, it's perfectly fair to suggest alternatives. That can prevent us from falling into certain dead ends, like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
Furthermore, in a threaded medium, i'd argue that taking over discussions is a moot concept, since you can have any number of branches that the discussion goes in. If most people prefer focusing on a branch that's of no interest to you, then i guess the majority has just decided for things to be so.
> The following things are very different:
> * stating that there is a problem
> * stating that there is a problem and asking for help with it.
> Confusing the second for the first is a terrible thing that a lot of people do these days, and intentional or not, it is destructive to constructive debate and discussion.
I've heard this opinion be voiced in regards to social interaction - for example, when someone is upset about the way things are but doesn't want a solution, only empathy and for the other person to acknowledge how upsetting the situation can be, and therefore feels frustrated when potential solutions are offered instead.
And yet, in regards to technical discussions, isn't solutions what we should focus on most of the time? If i have a problem to solve but have no idea how to do so, i don't want someone to say: "Sure, that seems pretty rough.", instead, i want someone to offer me advice on how to tackle the issue and move on. Mere empathy alone here is kind of useless.
Admittedly, it's perfectly fair to introduce others with your particular circumstances and concerns for others to consider them, though that's a different discussion once again. Describing a problem and not addressing any potential solutions isn't as much of a debate or discussion as it is just stating the fact, the net value of which can be pretty close to zero.
In my subjective opinion, the value add here is to actually discuss how to solve problems, or why a particular solution or a group of solutions might not be valid for the set of constraints at hand, or what their shortcomings could be. For example, a sibling comment brought up a point about the integration between the mentioned non-libre pieces of software being much better, which is a fair point that's worthy of consideration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30146365
I think for the original poster complaining about not being able to switch was because of integration between the different tools which they find too useful to forego. Thus, while free open source solutions will be useful for many people they seem unlikely to be able to fix the issue that is keeping that particular user from switching.
> I think for the original poster complaining about not being able to switch was because of integration between the different tools which they find too useful to forego.
Ohh, that's a good point, something that i didn't consider in detail!
Edit: just to be clear, it's still really cool to see them pulling off something so usable with such limited resources, that speaks positively of how extensible their platform is.
In that regard, perhaps i'm just old fashioned, preferring to use my local file system as the intermediary, though the cloud oriented way of interfacing with software probably shouldn't be discounted either!
Here's my libre stack:
Of course, that's not something that everyone might want to use for themselves, but personally it has worked out pretty nicely for me, allows me to keep my data private (for the most part) and is a rather cost effective way of doing so!