It means it's time for businesses to figure out how to use LibreOffice
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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I forced it on our office over maybe 15 years ago, I've finally just about stopped receiving complaints. The vast majority of the push back was document compatibility, but not in the way you think. The problem was the original document was created by a fucktard or opened by one, so many people don't know how to correctly format a document using styles, know how to use page breaks, line breaks, etc etc. that's us recieving documents and creating documents. To be fair I didn't initially fully understand this as well, but it literally took me 4 hours to read the manual.
Other problems include Microsoft's fuckery using a supposedly open standard and allow proprietary code/content within the same open standard.
The number of people who move text around by adding spaces is too damn high!
Who needs align right when you can just hold the space-bar till it's there, or if you are a pro tab then space for perfect alignment
I have spent the last several weeks re-creating documents like this there were developed and maintained by one guy for 38 years.
There's a half page drawing done in word that is lines and boxes and text all as text and positioned with spaces and tabs. I think I took a screenshot of it and just made it all one picture
Did they learn to type on a typewriter?
Or OnlyOffice. It lacks a lot of features but is an easier sell in a lot of cases because of the much more modern interface.
Libreoffice with the ribbon interface looks about the same to me.
OnlyOffice is basically an electron browser app IIRC which is why the performance is so poor.
It's a trade-off for sure, but they're both free/FOSS. So it's worth test driving both.
I used primarily open office and Libreoffice 10-15 years ago and it was dated then but competitive. Trying it this year left me feeling like it hadn't gotten much interface work in that time.
I really wish the team would invest in a serious overhaul that's long overdue. The back end, especially when it comes to huge files, outperforms onlyoffice by a mile. But for me, only office is faster to use because the navigation is so much easier.
onlyoffice was on my list, but the privacy rating was a dealbreaker for me.
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I really don’t like Microsoft, but the two products I think Microsoft got mostly right are Microsoft Office and Visual Studio. I really can’t find comparable products.
Open office and forks feel like Microsoft Office 97. While usable, it takes me twice as long to do things. I would almost prefer to use a LaTeX editor over word. Excel? Idk
From a business perspective, it doesn’t make sense to switch to libre office. W10 support also ends 10/25. It is highly irresponsible for an IT department to continue to use EOL products so they should be changing to W11 and new Microsoft office
For individuals, I mean…. I just installed a W10 VM to give me more time to find a Linux compatible alternative to turbo tax and to use visual studio so idk
Freetaxusa.com does pretty much what turbo tax does. Federal filing for free, pretty sure they just charge $15 for state. If your taxes are too complex for freetaxusa you probably shouldn't use turbo tax anyway.
Another vote for Freetaxusa. TurboTax might be marginally easier to use, but it is far more expensive and Intuit is a horrible company. If you hate filing taxes (because of the complexity), that is because Intuit and H&R Block lobby congress to keep things complicated so they can sell you their products.
To replace TurboTax I reccomend freetaxusa.com.
Works exactly like TurboTax without giving any money to Intuit. Federal filing is free but you do have to pay to file state taxes through them ($14.99). It will ask several times if you want to buy their audit protection but you can just select no and keep going.
So I did consider that before going with the VM. My big issue with that is that it looks like a lot of sensitive information is stored online, whereas TurboTax stores my information on the local machine and only transmits as needed.
Any feedback to the contrary would be appreciated
You shouldn't trust TurboTax so much.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/01/turbotax-privacy-tax-return-2024/
They also keep trying to trick you into giving consent:
https://www.moneytalksnews.com/are-turbotax-and-hr-block-sharing-your-personal-info/
They also lobby to keep taxes complex.
Sounds.. typical. The last one is really why I don’t like TurboTax to begin with. But I don’t know how to find a tax consultant so… TurboTax it is for me
If you're in any of these states:
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Connecticut
- Florida
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Kansas
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Washington state
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
You can use the IRS' new Direct File service. It's what we should've had ages ago, letting citizens file their taxes directly without a for-profit middle man. There are still a couple of scenarios they don't support, since it's still in development and is only in it's second year of use, but in my experience it's already competent and helpful.
And, as a bonus, you don't have to give any money to Intuit/TurboTax to keep lobbying the government to make our tax code as arcane as possible so that people need their services to file taxes.
Apparently my state is lagging behind the times
Visual studio code has vs codium, which is a free and open source alternative. I've tested it a bit and it's really nice! But yeah, not vs
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I hate every minute I need to use VS. Jetbrains IDEs work infinitely better for me
My experience was with C#. What’s your language and which IDE do you use?
nowadays I use Java, Rust, Python, for these I use IDEA, RustRover and Pycharm. but when I used C# and C++, I didn't like VS, and instead used Reshaper and CLion
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It would save them so much money!
Came here to answer this :D surely didn't read that article
There is also only office looks modern behaves almost like Microsoft office.
You have the same options you always had. Upgrade to Windows 11, switch to Apple, switch to *nix.
I just nuked windows off my last computer and went pure Linux.
Fuck windows for doing that; I unintentionally switched to MacOS
But all of that is just delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, you'll have to move to Windows 11 if you want to keep your PC secure and protected and reliably run the applications you need, including Office.
Lol, no.
To me it means letting people know that Mint is free and comes with Libre Office, also free.
LibreOffice works on MacOS too!
LibreOffice FTW screw Microshaft!
Oh no, we'll have to use something other than terrible, AI ridden MS office? How terrible
365 is not equals office ltsc. fuck off with the clickbait titles.
Windows 10 will become unsupported but I still anticipate it working fine even without updates. I suspect office will work the same on existing machines.
You can safely use Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC or Windows 10 IoT LTSC perfectly safely until 2032--as that's when the LTSC will stop receiving updates.
But the versions will always work. They simply won't be protected against new threats or bugs.
You will continue to receive Windows Defender updates. I have a Windows 8.1 tablet that keeps updating Microsoft Defender antivirus. It's only used to connect to RTSP streams for music.
I can see a lot of smaller companies (and maybe one or two reasonably big ones) opting for air-gapped networks of old operating systems and older versions of Office. A fool's errand, sure, and for a number of reasons, but it's cheap, and upper management likes cheap.
Problem for them is under the current subscription model, the apps need to periodically phone home to check the license status or else they cease work.
The alternative is paying Microsoft for an expensive perpetual license of the last set of offline-only apps, which are from 2021.
I mean has a word processor really changed much since 2021?
I think the question is more "Will Microsoft ever make an offline release again?"
I’d say yes given that Office 2024 (perpetual) and the LTSC versions have already been released. Trying to find the FAQ again where they said they reconsidered and will still release perpetual offfline versions.
At that point I'd just use one of the tools to bypass checks. Would still have legitimate licenses and everything.
I'll keep on using Google docs like I do now. BAM
Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC and/or Windows 10 IoT LTSC end of life: 2032.
We good.
Office is not supported on those platforms at all so won't make a difference to your support.
What if you pay for ESU?
I wonder if this also means that specialty license of 10 that isn't stopping support. I was considering using that before going to 11. The name escapes me of what it was, though.
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