Subject: was: Distributing OpenOffice to schools
From: Peter Q. Olsson (olsson@koyukuk.at.uaa.alaska.edu)
Date: Wed Aug 13 2003 - 15:17:16 AKDT
Bryan-
I agree with you in theory, but employers are more and more looking at ed.
institutions to provide "off-the-shelf" employees that are good to go straight
out of the box. Putting experience with OpenOffice on your resume just doesn't
sell like hands-on experience with M$ office suite.
On another tangent, why is the open-source community so happy w/ OpenOffice
anyway? Disclaimer: I use StarOffice 6.0 (which is more or less OpenOffice
functionally but with less warts and at a small price) routinely on both Solaris
and Linux environments. Have to, cant get away from .doc files anymore. But...
whenever possible I use FrameMaker on Solaris. In fact I would retire my Ultra-2
in an instant if I could get Frame on any other platform than Winblows. My point
is that being a more-or-less M$ Word clone is NOT a very high bar for a work
processor.
Seems to me that what the open-source community really needs is a piece of
software that kicks butt over M$ Office, at least for word processing. Frankly,
I would even be willing to PAY (perish the thought) for a really good word
processor that worked in Linux. (And lets be realistic, when possible we should
be willing to pay for software that increases productivity in the
business/research/educational arena, though free/GNU is always welcome...)
One of the darkest days in Linux history was when Adobe had a port of FrameMaker
(high-class software) all but ready to go for Linux (the free beta worked great)
but then pulled the plug on the project (pressure from M$???). Linux users
deserve a new innovative paradigm in office productivity.
There, I got it out of my system!
>I see your point, but I don't entirely agree. Education is a lot
>more than just job training. As an example, Pascal is used (and in
>fact designed) for teaching programming skills. It's rarely used
>in the job market, but once a person learns how to program, moving
>to another language is not so hard. The general skills and thought
>processes are what the education is about.
>
>As another example, Apple II series computers were used forever in
>schools, even into the 90s, when IBM PCs and compatibles were the
>norm in business. Once you know how computers work, moving to a
>new platform is no big deal. It's the same with productivity
>software. Once you know how to use office programs effectively,
>how much effort does would it take to move from OpenOffice to MS
>Office?
>
>Besides, the open source movement is making rapid progress. By the
>time today's freshmen graduate, Linux and OpenOffice may be, if not
>as popular as MS products, at least widely used alternatives. Would
>it have made sense to avoid teaching students about this new Windows
>thing that's catching on while most businesses were still using DOS?
>
>--
>Bryan Medsker
>bryan@ak.net
>
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__________________________________________________________________
| |
| Dr. Peter Q. Olsson, |
| Chief Scientist, Alaska Experimental Forecast Facility |
| University of Alaska Anchorage |
| 2811 Merrill Field Drive |
| Anchorage, AK 99501 |
| voice: (907) 264-7449 |
| fax : (907) 264-7444 |
| olsson@aeff.at.uaa.alaska.edu |
|__________________________________________________________________|
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