Comment by rolph

You can do all those things. But as someone who used VBA extensively and often got hired because of my automation skills, not having VBA and other aspects of excel would be a non-starter.

It's not a question about implementability.

It's a question about compatibility.

As long as xlsx files have to be modified, libre office is a non replacement.

No business would even dare to risk this from an operational perspective. That's my whole point, and the whole argument why Microsoft created their own "dip" with it.

If you as an open source promoter within the company tell C-staff that "you found a solution that might be compatible" they gonna ask you what exactly needs what amount of time. And believe me when I tell you, even getting a sharepoint workflow to run with libreoffice is almost impossible without replacing pretty much everything underneath it.

Making MS office as uninteroperable as possible is the reason companies cannot switch, because they have a legal requirement to archive and access the document for at least 10 years (in some industries up to 20 years when it comes to book keeping and accounting).

So if you propose libreoffice as a solution that

- isn't compatible 1:1

- isn't even guessable how long it takes

- forces unpredictable infrastructure changes

- ends up not rendering your documents that are _legally mandated_

Then guess what the response of your CEO will be.

No amount of downvotes or "opinions" on what is better will change this.

I'm a proponent of open source, but leadership of libreoffice does not seem to understand _why_ companies are using Microsoft office. And that is the core problem that has to be fixed.

There needs to be a predictable and guaranteeable migration path. And as long as there isn't even a converter wizard or anything that helps you with that, libreoffice is a non starter.