For both long-term data security/resilience reasons and philosophical reasons, we should eventually change to a free & open-source software stack for the entire team. Currently we use Google's suite of apps/software extensively (Google Docs, Google slides, etc.) since they are simply so ubiquitous and there is no real open-source alternative that covers all of them. However, we should eventually migrate off them. My thoughts are essentially this:
- We already use Codeberg to store much of our organizational data and our team wiki, so we don't actually use our Google drive much for writing documents. I think there is no reason we need to change this as Codeberg is our native platform and Git already offers collaboration & online sync.
- At one point we considered Outline (which is open-source) as an alternative for collaborative documents but I think this is simply unnecessary, we can just use Git/Codeberg instead and it's worked well so far
- However, we do use GSuite extensively to store files, spreadsheets, and make our meeting slides, for which we use Google slides heavily
Hence our priority is to find software that can replace the latter functionalities of GSuite: specifically Google drive, Google sheets, and Google slides.
- Proton drive can replace Google drive
- In addition, it comes with Proton docs and Proton sheets, which can replace Google docs and Google sheets and can directly import Google docs/sheets
- It also comes with Proton pass which can sync our passwords (we probably want to go for the "Pass Essentials" business plan since we are an organization, although we are not-for-profit)
- Replacing Google slides will be more complicated since there is no "simple" alternative.
- Markdown-based slides are probably the simplest, and can be presented with a tool like Fusuma (which, as a bonus, also allows for QR code generation as well as LaTeX formulas and diagrams) or Obsidian slides. These can integrate with Codeberg reasonably well, and the slides can be viewed on Codeberg (although they would be rendered as markdown documents, not as slides)
- If we really need to edit PowerPoint slides we can use LibreOffice and put those slides on Proton drive to sync.
Other apps we looked into:
- Immich can replace Google photos
- Jitsi can replace Google meet/Zoom
- Zulip can replace our Discord (see #37)
- Plane can replace the spreadsheets we're using for task tracking
- Grist is another possible replacement for Google sheets
More discussion is welcome!
For both long-term data security/resilience reasons and philosophical reasons, we should eventually change to a free & open-source software stack for the entire team. Currently we use Google's suite of apps/software extensively (Google Docs, Google slides, etc.) since they are simply so ubiquitous and there is no real open-source alternative that covers all of them. However, we should eventually migrate off them. My thoughts are essentially this:
- We already use Codeberg to store much of our organizational data and our team wiki, so we don't actually use our Google drive much for writing documents. I think there is no reason we need to change this as Codeberg is our native platform and Git already offers collaboration & online sync.
- At one point we considered [Outline](https://www.getoutline.com/) (which is open-source) as an alternative for collaborative documents but I think this is simply unnecessary, we can just use Git/Codeberg instead and it's worked well so far
- However, we do use GSuite extensively to store files, spreadsheets, and make our meeting slides, for which we use Google slides heavily
Hence our priority is to find software that can replace the latter functionalities of GSuite: specifically Google drive, Google sheets, and Google slides.
- [Proton drive](https://proton.me/drive/google-drive-alternative) can replace Google drive
- In addition, it comes with Proton docs and Proton sheets, which can replace Google docs and Google sheets and can directly import Google docs/sheets
- It also comes with [Proton pass](https://proton.me/pass) which can sync our passwords (we probably want to go for the "Pass Essentials" business plan since we are an organization, although we are not-for-profit)
- Replacing Google slides will be more complicated since there is no "simple" alternative.
- Markdown-based slides are probably the simplest, and can be presented with a tool like [Fusuma](https://hiroppy.github.io/fusuma/) (which, as a bonus, also allows for QR code generation as well as [LaTeX formulas and diagrams](https://hiroppy.github.io/fusuma/docs/guides/math-chart)) or [Obsidian slides](https://obsidian.md/help/plugins/slides). These can integrate with Codeberg reasonably well, and the slides can be viewed on Codeberg (although they would be rendered as markdown documents, not as slides)
- If we really need to edit PowerPoint slides we can use LibreOffice and put those slides on Proton drive to sync.
Other apps we looked into:
- [Immich](https://immich.app/) can replace Google photos
- [Jitsi](https://jitsi.org/) can replace Google meet/Zoom
- [Zulip](https://zulip.com/) can replace our Discord (see https://codeberg.org/elaraproject/project-issues/issues/37)
- [Plane](https://github.com/makeplane/plane) can replace the spreadsheets we're using for task tracking
- [Grist](https://www.getgrist.com/) is another possible replacement for Google sheets
More discussion is welcome!