Richard Forth wrote: > I love that "open" mind bit, classic. Honestly, I think open mind is what we should aim for, choose Windows if you want to, but choose it don't just take it because you have no choice.
We often here in the media of apps like OpenOffice.org and O/S like Linux, described as "good enough on a budget" or similar, and in some cases this is true (the FOSS option isn't as good as the mainstream option), in other cases it's better (Firefox vs IE anyone?), in some cases it depends what you want to do (OOo is far better for many of the things I do than Excel is, for example). If you want to play games then use a toy operating system, I don't have a problem with people making that choice! > Perhaps at the next meeting we can draft up a standard letter and bang > a few out to local schools and colleges? Catch 22: we still need somewhere for the next meeting :-) > The trouble with schooling today is that everything focuses on > Microsoft. CLAIT and ECDL both focus on Office and Windows, it would > be cool if we had similar Computer driving licences that covered Linux > and OpenOffice, or even better, having modules introduced to these > already established courses that cover the likes of Gnome, KDE, OOo > and Koffice. They use MS because they get it really cheap (cheaper than FOSS? unlikely) and because it's what they know. They need showing that they can use OOo in place of Office without any (or just minimal) changes in the lessons, and then they will find they can use Linux instead of Windows to run OOo. A key thing for me is that schools can legitimately send home a CD to all their kids with all the software they need, free or for a school fundraising fee, completely legitimately, rather than expecting their kids to download a dodgy copy of MS Office from Piratebay along with all the porn and viruses they'll find there alongside it. Put like that, most schools will consider the alternatives! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
