“Hey, I never liked Office 365, Microsoft as a company and all the Cloud shenanigans… And have you noticed how their products all become shittier and more invasive by the day? All while they increase subscription price each year now to finance all the AI stuff I rarely use? I’m a long-term fan of this other product, called XYZ which is just better in every aspect. No offense. If you want me to send you a link…”

(Edit: It’ll become easier after a while. At some point they all know you’re a Linux nerd and disassembled your wifi router at home, dishwasher… To get rid of proprietary spy components. And people will deliberately decide to listen to your opinion and lengthy rant, or make an effort to not bring up the topic 😆 At that point, you’re relatively free to speak your mind… Just read the room a bit. The goal isn’t to annoy people.)

Does this actually cause compatibility issues? If not, no need to explain

I teach, so trying to adjust old ppts for lecture got a little weird because it turned the bulletpoints into mailboxes, and equation formulas are done completely differently so libre just makes them uneditable (a picture?).

When things got wonky in lecture though I managed just fine. My students are much worse, they open shit in non-MS apps all the time (.notes for takehome exams, or like, keynote, whatever) and fuck up formatting all the time, often without even realizing it. (I do provide PDF alternatives at least). Explaining I use libre really easy in that case, lol.

I don’t owe my co-workers any explanation.

If the colleague is provoking you, a dismissal answer could be a good call, like (hypothetical case) “you use iPhone and I use Android and I don’t make a fuss about it”.

Why would it be awkward? Most non-technical people are so thrown by my white-text-on-black desktop theme that they can’t even tell what software I’m using, and the few technical people around know that I have Opinions about software and aren’t interested in talking about it. Keeping everything adequately compatible with the company-issued software is my problem.

I didn’t use Linux in college, but I did use many FOSS tools. LibreOffice is easily my favorite office suite and there’s no contest. So long as you export your documents as .PDF or submit them as .DOCX, nobody is likely to know or even care what you used to type them.

This is likely to be similar for other types of software- as long as your finished product is compatible and looks good on the proprietary software, you shouldn’t run into any issues.

BTW, the university had student access for Microsoft Office. I could have chosen to use their tools at any time and I simply chose not to.

My usual experience with non-computer people is that they really couldn’t care less and glaze over at any discussion of software choices what so ever. I’ve given up even trying to tell them for the most part. If you’re not required to use specific software by your employer (thankfully I’m not), then just use what you want and nobody will care, at least in my experience.

They’ll never understand unless you SHOW them, not tell them: they need to understand through their eyes, not their ears.

_ /\ _

Why would they even need to know? You can save it in .docx if you need to share it with someone.

“I use LibreOffice Writer and other Linux apps”. There, simple as that.

If they ask why and show a more actual concerned interest, I usually mention Microslop history of privacy invasions and history of deliberate incompatibilities in Office, and recommend a few links documenting that stuff as well as some legal hot waters Microslop has gotten into.

What, do i need a reason? Why do you use fitness app X and not Y?

“I use Libre Office”

“I use _____ ______”

I use Libre Office. It runs faster than word.

“Moral issues” or “to leave a better tomorrow” for the ppl I don’t wish to talk to all that much (or just can’t have a proper convo with them).