[Gllug] Voluntary work

Gordon Joly gordon.joly at pobox.com
Fri Nov 14 09:14:34 UTC 2003


At 21:59 +0000 2003/11/13, Mike Brodbelt wrote:

>Given a greenfields site, I'd install OpenOffice in a heartbeat, and I'm
>none too keen on spending any of my employers money on more MS Office
>licenses, but these days there's really no such thing as a greenfields
>site in the UK, and there's usually no good argument for chaging from
>one already paid for Office suite to a similar free Office suite.

Exactly! My brief was to dump the existing hardware, install on a spare box that was higher spec. I do not install Windows Server 2003, since I have pride. So I installed SuSE 8.2 and OpenOffice.org. I also planned to build a simple backup system using the spare disk space (I was running NFS and NIS and hence /home/ was free on the desktop mahcines, and so I could backup the central server).

I was told to do and do it fast. I did, but the extant users complained. One was very open and she seemed very happy with OpenOffice.org. After all, a single sheet A4 document and a 10 page report are not going to stretch Abiword, Openoffice.org (Writer) or Microsoft (Word). Most users do not use the bulk of the features in word processing packages (hence the suggestions of "part ware")


>Being a viable alternative is a necessary precursor to getting
>OpenOffice a bigger market share, but doesn't provide the impetus to
>switch unless and until companies are considering paying for new
>licenses. If they are just using already paid for commercial software,
>there's no reason to move. The PDF support in OpenOffice 1.1 is a big
>draw - we need more features like that.


Indeed.

>That said, I have a lot of users
>who generate PDF output, so I was hoping I could introduce them to
>OpenOffice. It doesn't do hyperlinks in the PDFs though, so that went
>out of the window :-(.


But why? Surely some users would love PDF output without the hyperlinks???

>To persuade companies to make the switch en
>masse, open source has to produce better products. *Almost* all the
>features of the Windows equivalent doesn't cut it.

The average user uses what percentage of the features of Microsoft Word (say 97)? Any research been done?

>I was also recently saddened to see that MS do a better job (for the
>average business) at providing a portable office suite than OpenOffice
>does. Want MS Office on Windows and Mac - no problem. Want OO - 1.1 for
>Windows, 1.0.3 only for Mac OS X. Oh, and it needs X11, and you have to
>start it by running a script from a terminal. I bought a new Mac laptop
>for someone in my office recently. I installed OpenOffice on it. When
>I'd finished, I gace up in disgust and went and paid 300+ quid for MS
>Office for OS X. It wasn't even close to being viable for that user.


Please come back here in 12 months and report on progress.

:-)

>As a tecnically proficient user, I can make nice noises over OpenOffice.
>As someone whose job it is to provide useable systems to people whose
>job is not playing with machines, I have to judge things on their (non
>philosophical merits). It wasn't even close. On Windows (or linux) it's
>much better, but it's a shame the open source community can't do a
>better job at crossplatform support than MS.


Like I said above, maybe this will come later?

>
>> I haven't got Linux yet, but I was playing with a Redhat installation
> > yesterday - with a Gnome desktop I believe - and I was really impressed with
>> the general design, functionality, ease of use, and speed of the thing.
>>
> > It's all there, except for Word and Excel - especially Excel.
>
>We have *almost* all the features of Excel. But then see above.....
>
>Mike.
>
>

Openoffice.org scored for me on the HTML output, and also the PDF that you mentioned.

I am sold:-)

gordo



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