An administration that were really looking to liberate itself of proprietary software and develop a sustainable policy would analyze its needs and look for software that matches them, not shape their needs around the proprietary software they’re already using.
If you start by thinking “what software does things exactly the same as this one I’m using” of course you’ll never move on. Microsoft obfuscates their software on purpose so you can never find 100% compatible stuff.
You’re living in a fantasy land. The software you’re referencing, largely doesn’t exist how a corporate environment utilizes it. Even just excel, the employees need it, you can’t teach someone 5 years from retirement a new spreadsheet program. Sure you could buy licenses from MS, but I bet if big organizations started doing it, they would stop. Or only sell the entire MS suite at some insane price. Adobe? Haha
As much as I like FOSS it’s significantly harder to fund.
With proprietary you keep the source code, ship the app, collect data & sell it, and charge for a premium /subscription. They then use that money to fund talented devs and give them deadlines to make good software.
With FOSS it’s largely contribution work by people who work on it in their free time. They use donations or paying for enterprise support, and if they do add a subscription service / premium version you can just modify the code and get it for free.
That’s largely why FOSS software is behind, what’s the direct incentive for someone to make it good?
Because there is seldom a good replacement for the majority of software that enterprises use.
An administration that were really looking to liberate itself of proprietary software and develop a sustainable policy would analyze its needs and look for software that matches them, not shape their needs around the proprietary software they’re already using.
If you start by thinking “what software does things exactly the same as this one I’m using” of course you’ll never move on. Microsoft obfuscates their software on purpose so you can never find 100% compatible stuff.
You’re living in a fantasy land. The software you’re referencing, largely doesn’t exist how a corporate environment utilizes it. Even just excel, the employees need it, you can’t teach someone 5 years from retirement a new spreadsheet program. Sure you could buy licenses from MS, but I bet if big organizations started doing it, they would stop. Or only sell the entire MS suite at some insane price. Adobe? Haha
As much as I like FOSS it’s significantly harder to fund.
With proprietary you keep the source code, ship the app, collect data & sell it, and charge for a premium /subscription. They then use that money to fund talented devs and give them deadlines to make good software.
With FOSS it’s largely contribution work by people who work on it in their free time. They use donations or paying for enterprise support, and if they do add a subscription service / premium version you can just modify the code and get it for free.
That’s largely why FOSS software is behind, what’s the direct incentive for someone to make it good?