Question: Public sector and government Ms365 suite adoption effect on open source development and use

raldone01 , 8 months ago

It may have some impact because the cloud files may not be conveniently usable via libre office. But I have no personal experience.

wmassingham , 8 months ago

how does the move to the 365 suite impact the ability to use and develop free/libre open source software?

It doesn’t.

how are the impacts of the integrated 365 suite different than the old installed suite?

In terms of software development, there are none.

Regardless, people doing open source development and use probably aren’t using Office in the first place.

dhork , 8 months ago

I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking here. The cloud-based Office 365 is just like the installed Office suite, it’s just “in the cloud”. Which really just means you have the option to do it all in a browser or a local app, as well as use cloud storage just as if it were local storage.

If your “friend” is in a “large public sector organization”, then it’s likely Department Policy to use whatever they tell you to use, and it is unlikely your “friend” can get any sort of exemption. So the only real options you have are:

• install a local copy of the apps (and important files) if the IT policy allows it. OneDrive can be set up to sync online folders with local folders automatically, so if you do it right you might not even realize the difference between the cloud suite and “Normal” Office.
• save files in older formats that are more likely to be supported in other productivity tools. You may miss some of the newer features when you do this, but honestly, how much has a word processor changed in the last 30 years?
• alternatively, use some of the file formats that are just extensions of text files. There are Word plug-ins for Markdown, for instance, but if you understand enough of the Markdown syntaxes it’s perfectly readable in a standard text editor.