How do you deal with "industry standard" software?

It's a world where you can't use another softwares. You need to use this and can't say anything. They are more smarter than you and every thing else and you feel ridiculous with your "Free/Libre/OpenSource/wikipedia/internet software".

Hope that I would do not off topic.

All information input or stored in a computer is "changeable/modifiable". It's a "parasiting" ting to say you can not or are not allowed to do.

You can improve files or software. I'll call them "parasites"!. Windows is "basically" sequence of instruction that your computer can do. It's not a natural/logical thing to stop the user to do certain things on a tool (a computer) that was basically build to "change" information. It change all the time. It's like saying you are forbidden to cook. You need "industrial" meal.

Where there truly is no alternative, I would simply use it; provided you do not pressure or advocate for others to use it you have done nothing unethical, and there are still ways to resist without abstaining: even just stating your ethical concerns to others is extremely powerful!

However, it's also worth remembering industry standards are just fashion for practices. Like clothing fashion, some rules are rational and others are strictly enforced despite not being so reasonable, yet many are merely guidelines that can be broken with bearable or even no consequences.

For instance, while Microsoft's Word and Outlook may be "required", in some cases using LibreOffice and Evolution with the appropriate plugins is often perfectly workable. Unless you are regularly receiving documents with extremely complex and incompatible components, the only consequences will likely be lack of support from standard channels and minor inconveniences for you and occasionally others around you.

Also like clothing fashion, such standards are partly upheld by peer pressure- the "feeling silly" you mention when questioning them. It is incredibly difficult, and something I struggle significantly with too; the best I can offer, for what it's worth, is to remember this is purely an *ethical* and not a factual matter. It is no more arrogant or presumptuous to seek accommodation from your superiors or seniors as a free software user than it would be as a vegan or a religious person.

I don't really have issues with Word documents, since they usually open in Libreoffice without any difficulties. If I had problems opening a Word document, I would probably ask the sender for a PDF. I generally send people PDFs myself. In my field the "industry standard" is LaTeX, so this isn't often an issue.

My university uses Outlook for email, but I access it using a desktop email client (Claws Mail) via IMAP and SMTP, which are standard protocols. So while the university uses proprietary software, I don't have to run it.

Google docs are a big problem. I don't know of a way to deal with them without using proprietary JS, and I'm not sure if there are any good alternatives to it for collaborative word processing. When I am working with people who are familiar with LaTeX (but not version control) I use ShareLaTeX which I believe is free software.

I guess Windows would be an issue if you are forced to use Windows software. This hasn't come up for me recently.

Java isn't nonfree, because while Oracle JDK is proprietary, OpenJDK is free.

I would say the biggest issue that has come up for me lately is Zoom, which seems to be used at all universities nowadays. This is less of a problem now that universities have opened up, but I didn't really have a way of dealing with this during the remote year, because all of my classes used it.

The joys of Zoom! I tried phoning in initially, which might have been workable if not for the terrible audio quality.

For Google Docs, however, could Etherpad or Collabora Online be viable alternatives (assuming everybody else agrees to use them)?

I did use Etherpad once (my previous university has an instance) and it was pretty good. I think it's a good alternative when you don't need much formatting. I wonder if it has support for tables? That would be a useful feature.

I have not tried Collabora. But I don't need to use a word processor very often, since LaTeX is the standard in my field. I only have to use Google Docs when someone else sends me a document.

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=iM-MR0yQvTg

Lol. I like this one. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Oo-cIGVaOYE

Where I live people are more or less like that. I don't like very much : https://yewtu.be/watch?v=b-Cr0EWwaTk&list=PLDF41563FBF004B57&index=2

I prefer this one, it's more "natural" : https://yewtu.be/watch?v=1S1fISh-pag&list=PLDF41563FBF004B57&index=7

>"Lol. I like this one. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Oo-cIGVaOYE"

What an amazing little movie! Brilliant! Too bad it was promoting Java.

Here a lot of people think that you can't do professional work with Free Software or GNU/Linux. It's for "amateurs" or "academia". And the only good thing is to use Microsoft software for "serious" work. I don't know I can deal with that.

(Joke inside: They are all or a lot of the time civil engineers with their complicated software, for everything you can do with your computer).