Re: [Fsfe-uk] UK Online [centres] feedback: Open Office 1 WAS Free Libre Open Source Software

[Martin WHEELER]

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, Adam Moran wrote:

> Where centres are dependent upon income from provision of
> qualifications it is the demand generated by the learner that dictates
> the software.

Quite simply not true.
Few centres provide qualifications. (They are not examination centres.)
They provide training towards gaining those qualifications.
Such centres send away potential Linux clients, saying: "Sorry; MS is
the world standard; we don't do non-standard courses".
[Please don't try and argue that this is not the case; as a
professional Linux trainer, I pick these people up afterwards. Their
universal cry is: "Thank God I've found someone who'll teach me Linux".]
Such centres are so deeply tied in to the MS certification publishing
industry (£27 per photocopied, plastic comb-bound courseware manual)
that they do not (and will not) hire /permanent/ Linux trainers -- due
almost entirely to the cost to themselves.
[I know because the more enlightened of them hire me on a temporary
basis when they really have to.]
Such centres would gladly sell training in anything -- as long as they
could get the trainers as easily and cheaply as they can get them for MS
courses.
It's the /cheap availability of trainers/ that decides what is available
for sale; not demand from potential learners.


> In general they have PCs with MS Office, as do their employers or
> potential employers.  Whilst I agree Open Office is easy to use, I am
> not persuaded that any move to Open Office would be welcomed by those
> learners. 
> They would probably look elsewhere. 

Wrong.  In my experience, many have heard about alternatives to MS,
are interested; and are desperate to find someone -- anyone -- who can
*really* show them where it's all at with Linux.
They just have one hell of a hard time finding that first contact, is
all.
They're really not quite the dyed-in-the-wool MS junkies you'ld like to
make them out to be.

Cheers,
-- 
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
address@hidden                http://www.startext.co.uk/mwheeler/
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