Reverting Gravity: Lessons for LibreOffice adoption
In his talk, Georg Greve will speak about the obstacles that face LibreOffice adoption, including the issues around document formats and the network of mutually reinforcing applications that make entry into an existing environment aking to defying gravity. Greve argues that by working together amongs key players in the Open Source field, we can revert that gravity on the grounds of a ubiquitous Open Standards adoption.
Details of the Talk
Adoption of LibreOffice is hindered by a wide variety of issues. An
obvious aspect are format incompatibilities pushed onto LibreOffice
users through system and solution wide default format choices. But these
are far from the only issues facing LibreOffice in its uphill battle
towards adoption. Another essential aspect is the application ecosystem
and artificial ties established through licensing choices of proprietary
solutions, such as the tying between Microsoft Office & Outlook. These
create an environment where LibreOffice always has to be "cheaper than
zero cost" because that is what Microsoft Office is from the user's
perspective. In other words: To replace Microsoft Office, LibreOffice
also needs to see that Outlook is replaced by a solution that offers
much the same advantages, i.e. platform independence and fully Open
Source. Very few applications fill that bill and now that Mozilla has
publicly knocked the legs out from Thunderbird & Lightning, one of them
has been sent back into the race with empty tank and flat tires. In
order to revert gravity and give LibreOffice a fair chance at convincing
on the grounds of its merits, the professional Free Software community
needs to come together and jointly tackle the network of applications
that are mutually reinforcing otherwise. That's the only way for us to
"revert gravity" or else we are left with isolated successes that
crumble under the networking pressure, as we have repeatedly seen in the
past.