The Document Foundation Officially Drops Branding For LibreOffice 7.0 "Personal Edition"

[abott]

how dare they went to earn money to continue developing software and pay for the server cost
lets boycotting them to learning them a lesson

They can do that without making a separate anything. If it's all the same, no need for any branding at all. There's only one edition, the edition you run.

[edwaleni]

Business is probably ticking up for licensing.

MSFT stopped providing Office media last fall so everyone has to use subscription. I have gotten 2 inquiries on Office alternatives because they don't like the subscription model.

Believe it or not, they told me they last bought MS Office in 2013 with one of those key cards at Lowes. (!)

[stormcrow]

Business is probably ticking up for licensing.

MSFT stopped providing Office media last fall so everyone has to use subscription. I have gotten 2 inquiries on Office alternatives because they don't like the subscription model.

Believe it or not, they told me they last bought MS Office in 2013 with one of those key cards at Lowes. (!)

Not true. You can get Office 2019 for a one time $150 which gives you the same thing the original Office SKUs home/student had: Word, Excel, & Power Point. If you want all those extra bells and whistles like Outlook, Teams, Access etc etc, which were additional cost anyway, then you can get the subscription and it works on more than one device. You're not legally tied to a single device. How do I know? I actually looked. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/micr...ab%3aprimaryr1

What's in a name? People judge everything by name. This is why marketing is such a powerful tool and why successful marketing agents are so highly paid, and why corporations that have reputation problems continuously change theirs.

[Awesomeness]

how dare they went to earn money to continue developing software and pay for the server cost
lets boycotting them to learning them a lesson

And why would you need to give the false impression the "Personal Edition" was only for uncommercial use? Because that's exactly what they counted on.

One of the upstream contributors, CIB, manages to sell LibreOffice in the Microsoft Store without the need to imply that the version from libreoffice.org was for personal use only: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/li...b/9n91kzk25007

[Teggs]

Just as well. Small businesses are unlikely to want or need 'Enterprise Edition', but it isn't helpful if they look at the build names and think they have to get Enterprise, because the other is only allowed to individuals or something (and then decide not to bother with LibreOffice). The Document Foundation acknowledges that naming is powerful, but their names need to convey the correct meaning. Some people will not look beyond the name if it turns them off.

In fact, I argue that 'Enterprise Edition' is actually the Personal Edition, because that's the one someone at a business gets to pay money to personalise for their use.

[quikee]

One of the upstream contributors, CIB, manages to sell LibreOffice in the Microsoft Store without the need to imply that the version from libreoffice.org was for personal use only: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/li...b/9n91kzk25007

Funny, considering that CIB is one of the main supporters of the idea. They sure are selling it , but how much money they make from that? Their main target of income are enterprises to sell them support, this is just something they do on the side. They are also selling LibreOffice "Vanilla" on the MS Store - on behalf of the TDF.

[skeevy420]

Just as well. Small businesses are unlikely to want or need 'Enterprise Edition', but it isn't helpful if they look at the build names and think they have to get Enterprise, because the other is only allowed to individuals or something (and then decide not to bother with LibreOffice). The Document Foundation acknowledges that naming is powerful, but their names need to convey the correct meaning. Some people will not look beyond the name if it turns them off.

In fact, I argue that 'Enterprise Edition' is actually the Personal Edition, because that's the one someone at a business gets to pay money to personalise for their use.

What's funny is I can completely attest to that theory. I, myself, have been known to buy software based on their 37 pieces of flair. It's like when given the option of Windows 10 Pro for Free via my 7 Key or pirating Windows 10 LTSC, yo, I need two hos and a bottle of rum.

I though of Windows as an example on that because, at least for me, Microsoft Home and Personal Editions of software have always felt substandard and incomplete (because they are) which gave me a bias that I tend to project onto other software regardless of where it's from.

[Awesomeness]

but how much money they make from that?

Nothing but that's because nobody ever buys non-Xbox stuff from the MS Store. Their wording is still better than what TDF proposed.

[torsionbar28]

Naming conventions aside, I would gladly pay for some optional premium features/extensions. For example, the Microsoft document import/export works pretty well for basic stuff, and really most all home/student usage, but stumbles on large complex documents with custom layouts. If they developed some premium business-grade import/export for the proprietary Microsoft formats, where it was basically flawless, I think they'd gain a lot of paying customers eager to escape the annoying "365" subscription model.