Post by @schymans@mastodon.social
@bms@bsd.cafe @schymans@mastodon.social @dangillmor@mastodon.social
I would like to point out two important things:
-
Important for the workflows of many companies and orgs alike: MS products are perfectly "speaking" to each other.
For example:
Create a meeting in Outlook Calendar, automatically mail invitations to participants, incl. links to conferences in Teams.
Which (independent from each other!) F(L)OSS products are connected on that level?
Or is there a comparable OpenSource software suite that offers that functionality? -
Ask blind users, if they could use any Linux or BSD with their assistive technology.
Unfortunatel, the most likely answer is "No".
It's easy to state that "Nobody has to use Windows", without specifying and addressing individual needs.
@fasnix @bms @schymans @dangillmor
Part of the problem is that Microsoft achieves that level of integration by leveraging their market power and proprietary protocols. There are viable alternatives (nextcloud for instance), but they require a bit of technical know how and could do with better marketing.
@tomdoehler @fasnix @bms @dangillmor Of course, MS is leveraging everything they can, incl. lobbying power, to make us and particularly companies as dependent on their services as possible. This is probably the fundamental difference to any non-profit foundations, e.g. The Document Foundation. There are lots of free FOSS alternatives to MS out there, but of course they are not advertising aggressively, so it is up to us to go and find them. Other than that, they are as user-friendly as MS.
@schymans @fasnix @bms @dangillmor Well said, could not agree more. The problem is - how do we educate non-profits to not buy into vendor lock-in in the first place?
@tomdoehler @fasnix @bms @dangillmor I think pointing to free, as in #FOSS alternatives whenever we complain about the many lock-in and dependence traps set out by #microsoft , #Apple and the likes would be a good start.
@schymans @fasnix @bms @dangillmor Thanks for sharing, a few alternatives here that I did not know about!