- The Cost of Windows and MS Office: $500 (and your freedom) - The Cost of GNU/Linux and OpenOffice: $0 (and you get to keep your freedom too)
This is true, but I'm reluctant to push this too hard on the uninitiated because some classes will require copies of their papers in digital form, or they may need to print a document on campus. This is a huge problem for some people. The Office filters for OOo are good, but not great. They're better in the 1.1rcs but still not always reliable.
On the other hand OOo now has native PDF export which makes it really easy to get stuff printed on campus if you know that it does that. I've had to explain to my TAs that I don't own Office (and won't), and that's fine, right up until I have to explain that sometimes my bullets will look funny, or maybe just won't be there at all. Or my numbering will be wrong, or my margins. It's just sad, that's all. And some of my TAs take my papers and mark them up and hand them back, all via email, so a PDF doesn't cut it there.
Don't even start with RTF, M$ screwed that up royally, and figures aren't embedded.
So long as the final product is printed (or PDF is good enough) then OOo totally rocks. Not even just because it's free, or Free, it rocks all by itself. <sidenote>And so do the Bitstream Vera fonts.</sidnote>
On another hand, is it Okay to give out copies of a release candidate to passers-by?
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