On Sunday 08 June 2003 22:42, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: > >> Seriously - the "average person in the street" isn't aware about the > >> alternatives. The "standard" costs the tax payers a lot of money and > >> locks out the competition. This is what brought us to the current > >> situation. > > Government decision that all schools should use OpenOffice would also cost > the taxpayers (maybe less) and lock out the competition. The only visible > difference is that "we" win and "they" lose. That's OK, but speaking in > these terms and speaking about public benefit and freedom in the same time > doesn't sit well.
openoffice is intrinsically better than msoffice. It's not just a matter of us vs. them. Consider: 1. The really important thing IMHO isn't the program used by the file format. If schools embrace the native openoffice format instead of .doc, we'll all be much more free because at home we'll be able to use just about any app we want - export filters to openoffice are/will be widely available, and you can write your own. You can also use msword at home if that's what you like. Eliminates the problem of having to run some specific app at home. To emphasize: using msoffice locks out the competition because support for msoffice file formats is, or at least was, poor in free programs. Using e.g. openoffice with an open, documented file format encourages competition to write a better app that uses/supports the same format. Nothing will then prevent people from using that new alternative app at home, and the schools might eventually switch to it if it's much better than openoffice. 2. openoffice is available for multiple OS's, including free ones. Eliminates the problem of having to manage a windows installation or mess with wine/vmware/crossover/whatever (at students' home). 3. Also allows the schools themselves to run OSs other than windows. Because the school usually just needs an office suite and a pascal or C compiler/gui, after getting rid of msoffice we can happily get rid of mswindows as well and allow (not require!) schools to switch to linux or another unix. More freedom. 4. After getting rid of msoffice and/or mswindows, a big saving in _our_ tax money (including forced h/w upgrades). 5. openoffice being free eliminates the problem of teachers telling kids to violate copyright (not to mention paying hundreds of NIS for ms software). 6. openoffice being free, a school could modify it for some reason, etc. 7. Schools are actually meant to teach something, hopefully beyond using a word processor in this particular case. If they use openoffice, they might teach children about free software - not just about its (basic) philosophy, but its very existence. It's safe to assume everyone who uses _some_ wordprocessor already knows what msword is and what it looks like. We should teach people about alternatives. There remains of course the issue that a school has to teach students to use some one app, which is then a case of them or us. In view of all the above reasons, which stem from the basic fact that openoffice is a free program and msoffice isn't, I very much prefer that my children use and learn about openoffice. -- Dan Armak Matan, Israel Public GPG key: http://cvs.gentoo.org/~danarmak/danarmak-gpg-public.key
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