Alexandro Colorado wrote:
So a few months back I was very excited by a random blog from a PC
magazine who written a blog about Obama having OOo on american
government offices.
I was forwarding on the news and publish through my 101 communication
channels to publish the news even against some engineers prioritizing
the issues of whenever this blog was acurate versus the fact that
great PR fastrack warpzone to put OOo into the public concern.
Well certainly if you google now "Obama and OpenOffice.org" you will
get TONS of links re-forwarding this single post. And as of now
Microsoft is terrified that this could be truth sending their single
biggest costumer switch to free and open source technology.
Now that Obama is elected president this rumor come again to the
centerpiece having assigned a a CTO and probably getting bombarded by
vendors (i.e. Microsoft) brainswashing him to keep with Microsoft.
Question comes now, are we going to move anything about this or just
stuck our head in the ground like the past PR chance. What do you think?
Alexandro,
In my view, this is a poisoned chalice. Unless Obama is willing to back
OOo when questioned, any PR we try and generate will simply be
hear'say. Sure, there may well be much truth in the statements, but in
the cold light of day when MS get their marketing machinery in gear, and
some journalist is made to ask a well-structured question...
I think that someone from Sun, IBM and OOo Community should meet in
order to work out a strategy. We need to be careful how we 'frame' this
statement of intent. We should aim to deliver some kind of strategy,
rather than just salesmen.
I was shocked to read that Obama may be the first president to use a
laptop in the Oval Office, and the first president to email. This isn't
a change from a status quo, this is a blank slate which we have the
chance to mark. Whilst his backoffice probably all use MS, it'd e a
_very_ bold statement for the first president of the USA to use a
Laptop, to then use OpenOffice.org ... but hey.. we can dream.
I think this is one of the few cases where I'd recommend pushing the
principles ahead of the product. Even if Obama decides not to go with
OpenOffice.org - he'll have a better understanding of the whole ethos of
Open Source Software (especially if he's already interested, giving him
more information is something he's likely to read).
Sorry if my thoughts appear fragmented.
Regards,
Andy
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