[ILUG] opensource too costly for Irish gov

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michele Neylon :: Blacknight Solutions (michele at blacknightsolutions.com):

> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1570801,00.asp
> covers some very valid points in relation to Open Source vs Windows, where
> they compared Office 2003 with Open Office. 
> 
> The more advanced users of tools like Excel found Open Office totally
> inadequate for their needs, while those that were at the lower end seemed to
> be satisfied with it. 

Most of us learned a decade ago that _many_ users, if allowed to do so,
will define acceptability criteria for software as follows:  "Candidate
replacements must be indistinguishable from what I have today."  In
other words, "Please go away, IT Dept.; you're bothering me."

That is of course a sucker punch, and rational organisations find better 
bases for their software decisions.  Sometimes, these result in
employees learning to use new things.  They get over it, or they're
welcome to find employment elsewhere.

One notes that eWeek Still Doesn't Get It:

    No licensing costs:  As a free-software project, OpenOffice.org has
    no licensing.

<sigh>  Well, it _is_ Ziff-Davis.

-- 
Cheers,
Rick Moen                      "vi is my shepherd; I shall not font."
rick at linuxmafia.com                               -- Psalm 0.1 beta