{"id":14687,"date":"2026-10-26T01:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14687"},"modified":"2026-10-23T17:52:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T21:52:53","slug":"vendor-lock-in-or-user-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=14687","title":{"rendered":"Vendor lock-in or user freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n

I’ve been hooked on open-source productivity tools for years\u2014first OpenOffice, then LibreOffice when The Document Foundation<\/a> forked the project. And honestly? I’ve lost count of exactly how many years it’s been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2009, while serving as Technology Director at a small public K\u201312 school district here in Western New York State, I made what might sound like an unusual decision: I enrolled at St. Bonaventure University with one goal in mind\u2014complete my graduate degree using primarily open source software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was trying to prove something to the doubters\u2014that open source could hold its own alongside Microsoft Office in serious academic and professional settings. Little did I know how personal a challenge this would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me give you some context: our school district made Microsoft Office mandatory\u2014part of the standard desktop image for every Windows machine, staff and student. I had actually directed our IT team to roll out OpenOffice across all our machines earlier on, but the status quo won that battle. The argument went something like this: “Big businesses and universities run on Microsoft Office, so everyone from our students to our staff needs to be fluent in it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here’s what I’m proud of\u2014two years later, I graduated at the head of my cohort with a perfect 4.0 GPA. And guess what? I wrote most of my academic papers and research projects in OpenOffice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During those graduate school years, LibreOffice emerged from the fork, and it’s been my go-to ever since. That’s what I use personally today, and that’s what I continue to recommend to everyone I work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After retiring, I’ve transitioned into technology consulting\u2014helping individuals, local government agencies, and small businesses navigate their tech challenges. And the recommendation remains the same: LibreOffice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do encounter some skepticism from time to time, but most people see the value once they use it. The real beauty is in those open formats\u2014that’s what keeps me coming back to these tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I helped two female business owners who were absolutely frustrated after Microsoft announced it was discontinuing Publisher. These women had invested countless hours creating documents for their small businesses\u2014commercials, flyers, marketing materials\u2014and suddenly faced the reality that vendor lock-in threatened their long-term access to that work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my open-source friends pointed me toward some excellent articles by Italo Vignoli from The Document Foundation. What a treasure trove that turned out to be! The Document Foundation actually has answers to the problems these business owners faced with their Publisher<\/a> files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This got me wondering\u2014just how many document formats can LibreOffice Writer actually import? And the answer is genuinely impressive: through built-in filters, it can open native OpenDocument files, Microsoft Office documents, plain and rich text formats, web files, and even vintage word processor formats from decades past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Document Foundation has incredibly thorough documentation<\/a> on this topic if anyone wants to dive deeper. It’s one of those tools that keeps getting better over time\u2014something I’ve personally verified over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to leave you with one final thought: technology isn’t about choosing the loudest brand name\u2014it’s about selecting tools that actually serve your needs and values. Over the years, from my days as a school technology director to my current work helping small businesses navigate digital challenges, I’ve come to see open source productivity solutions not as an alternative to what comes pre-installed on our computers, but as something far more meaningful: software built with transparency, community collaboration, and user freedom at its core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journey hasn’t always been straightforward\u2014facing organizational inertia, vendor lock-in realities, and occasional skepticism from colleagues who’ve never stepped outside the Microsoft ecosystem. But each time I’ve helped someone migrate their documents to open formats, or a client avoid being stranded by a discontinued product like Publisher, it’s reinforced my conviction that these tools deserve far more attention than they currently get. The tools keep evolving\u2014new import filters get added regularly, compatibility improvements land with every release cycle\u2014but the core philosophy remains unchanged. And I don’t intend to stop recommending them anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been hooked on open-source productivity tools for years—first OpenOffice, then LibreOffice when The Document Foundation forked the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":11464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux"],"modified_by":"David Both","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14688,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14687\/revisions\/14688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}