[Klug-general] answer to my FOI request from Kent County Coucil

[Jonathan Kaye]

Paul Littlefield wrote on 14/10/14 10:01:
> On 13/10/14 19:38, Jonathan Kaye wrote:
>> FYI here is the response I received from Kent County Council
>> regarding the decision to continue using Microsoft products. Any
>> comments?
>
> I am amazed that you had such a detailed reply, which explains a LOT
> and does not suprise me about Microsoft.
>
> Open Source is not for everyone, yet.
>
> Maybe one day...
>
> :)
>
> But well done for getting THAT reply!
:) Thanks. I'm glad you find it interesting. I certainly do.

Just finished another stint of volunteer work at the Margate library.
I'd say 95% of the end users sitting at the library machines are using a
browser. Explorer vs. Firefox/Chrome/..., really is this an issue? The
remainder are using Writer for fairly basic stuff. Haven't noticed
anyone doing advanced work involving writing their own macros that
require the Writer macro language rather than the Libreoffice macro
language. I could go on but I guess/hope you get my point. If we're
talking about end-users I don't see the basis for the claim that
switching to free software would be a problem. A minuscule portion of
the end-users are doing anything that requires photoshop or the like. If
you're using a computer at a public library the most technical task
you're going to be doing is printing out a boarding pass. I fully agree
with your statement that free software is not for everyone but surely
you're talking about people who  have  their own equipment and/or people
who do their techie stuff at work.
Jonathan
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