2008/12/7 greg ward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Hi James, I did purchase "Open Office" for the sum of AU$11.00. It is the > latest version and on the "help" page all references for help/support are to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] or www.sun.com/star/support > > Regards, G (Greg) Ward.
<snip> Unfortunately this is one of the less attractive "tricks" the fake sellers of OpenOffice.org get up to: they chage you, they require you to register and then they abdicate their responsibilities for support by pointing their customers at us. I'm afraid your only recourse is via the company from which you bought the "product". Depending on the consumer protection laws in your country you may get some assistance from your credit card company, assuming you paid that way. OpenOffice.org is free. You can download it from <www.openoffice.org>. Installation instructions are available on that same web site. When you install it, it asks you to register but you don't have to do that - just say "never register". Pretty much the only reason for registering is to provide the software's authors with approximate information on the number and possible locations of people using the program. You gain no real benefit. All the documentation on the web site is free although there are also books you can buy. Support is free via this mail list which is run by users of the software who volunteer time to help others. There are other free support groups listed on the web site. Some of those require that you register before you can ask questions but there is no charge. If you have a slow/expensive/unreliable internet connection you can buy the software on CD. A list of suppliers is on the web site. Of course you pay for that - a few pounds/dollars/euros to cover the cost of producing the CD plus P&P. But the software itself is still free. Please note that we don't recommend or guarantee any of the suppliers I just mentioned. I have to say I think he A$11 you mention does not sound at all unreasonable a price just for the CD. You can also get OpenOffice.org on many of the CDs/DVDs that come "free" with computer magazines. I have also to say that I think your idea of rocket science is very different from that of the more than 10 million people who have downloaded version 3.0 since its release in September. OpenOffice.org is no more complicated than MS Office and has the additional benefit of being free and supported for free. Have you looked at any of the Getting Started guides at http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/userguide3/index.html ? I'd say that on their own they are worth the A$11 you paid. But that's just one person's opinion. -- Harold Fuchs London, England Please reply *only* to [email protected]
