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Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: [centres] Free Libre Open Source Software WAS Overpric


From: Philip Hunt
Subject: Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: [centres] Free Libre Open Source Software WAS Overpriced, overhyped, over here
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:45:00 +0000

On Friday 09 January 2004  1:58 pm, Adam Moran wrote:
>
> Educational Benefits
> --------------------
>
> The main point about FLOSS is that it is Free Libre; that is you can:
>
> *Study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
> *Improve the program, and release your improvements to the public.

Not only that, but everyone else in the world can do the same
things. What this means in practise, is that for any widely-used
FLOSS program, any features you might want to add to it have
probably already been done. 


> Tony Slatcher wrote:
> > ...  Unless
> > you think they should challenge and overthrow Microsoft, by either (a)
> > converting the world to Linux ...
>
> Microsoft appears to be the dominant producer of software because they
> hold currently a dominant market share of the PC market. Linux / Apache
> hold 67 % of the web server market compared to Microsoft's 21 % [2]; in
> a very real way the world has already converted to Linux.

Certainly for web servers it has; the vast majority of web servers
run Linux or other varients of Unix (which are functionally identical
in terms of web administration). For other internet servers such as
nntp, ftp, email, dns, etc, the story is similar.

Furthermore, to use Open Office, you don't have to use Linux: Open Office
also runs on Microsoft Windows and MacOS X.

Open Offfice is also easy to use: when I first used it, I had several
years experience with Microsoft Office; it took me just a few minutes 
to learn to use the word processing and spreadsheet facilities of Open
Office. Peoplev who don't have prior experience with MS Office would
probably find both packages equally easy to learn.

If there is resistance from a user base to switching over to Open
Office, I would suggest making it voluntary for existing employees
to switch over, but giving ones that do a bonus of say 50 quid; this
would, I'm sure, generate sufficient enthusiasm within a workforce
to effect a rapid changeover without negatively affecting morale.

-- 
Phil Hunt, address@hidden





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