[Scottish] The Future of the LUG

[Willie]

On Thursday 11 December 2003 10:11, Colin.Speirs at scotland.gsi.gov.uk wrote:

>
> As an IT person working in IT for the Scottish Executive I'm saying
> nothing. However I think your chances of getting anything done in the short
> term considering there has just been a massive Microsoft based OS roll-out
> are minimal to say the least.
In the short-medium term, we aren't asking them to junk the MS desktops, we 
want them to consider 
(1)using the .RTF file formats 
or
(2) saving a copy of each document in OpenOffice formats

(1) takes a bit of discipline but _could_ be mandated for minimal cost  *
(2) at its simplest could be done with a couple of boxes with Open Office 
loaded, converting each document. There has to be scope to automate this 
function especially if these "freedom boxen" are installed centrally. Colin 
may know the details of this even if  (understandably) he may not be able to 
share them with us. We may even be able to offer to donate a couple of boxen 
to trial this. How big a box would we need for this purpose?

Our "political" messages here are

		Proprietary formats BAD,  Open formats GOOD  
		-- expand good and bad to security, "lock-in"  freedom, openness etc etc
and 
		Value for money
		-- expand ad infinitum :-)

Maybe we should start putting together a list of IT-savvy politicos. We have 
Patrick Harvey and Nicola Sturgeon already. Anybody got any contacts in the 
Labour Party or that other mob, you know who I mean, the ones with the 
leaders that look like aliens? Much as I hate to say it, that McLetchie guy 
can talk a good argument and if its a stick to beat the Labour party with 
he'll grab it with both hands. After all they are always blathering about 
"freedom"
We can rely on the LibDems to do whatever is necessary to grab some sort of 
power out of all proportion to their vote. They will tell whatever story they 
think suits their purpose at any one time. Of them all, they are (in my 
entirely biased opinion) to be of the least use to us and the most likely to 
take any form of bribe from M$.

* probably a stupid question, but is there a registry setting that could be 
manipulated to make the default "Save As.." .rtf?

Rule 17 The only stupid question is the one you don't ask

-- 
Best Regards
Willie Fleming