>From: Keith E Gatling <kgatling@MPH.NET>
>Subject: OpenOffice: Beyond the Cost Savings
There's been so many wonderful responses to this question I am not sure i=
f I can add much to the conversation, but it's an interesting question, o=
ne I'm sure I'll get as we transition from MS Office to OpenOffice, so th=
is is a good way to organize my
thoughts. Responses below.
>OK, so I've seen mention on this list from many schools who have jumped =
on
>the OpenOffice bandwagon as a way of saving a ton of money and fighting =
the
>evil empire that comes out of Redmond. But here's the real question: whe=
n
>all is said and done, were you actually satisfied using OpenOffice? Is i=
t a
>product that you might have actually paid *real money* to use, or are yo=
u
>just using it to save money and to spite Microsoft?
Yes. I'd pay for OpenOffice. The days when free, open source equated to i=
ffy quality or crude interfaces is rapidly coming to an end. OO does ever=
ything I need an office suite to do for me. OO3 (mac version) opens faste=
r for me than MS Office 2008,
handles all of the docx formats, and has a library of useful extensions t=
hat I can add on if needed.
I am agnostic about Microsoft products. It's easy to join in with others =
who joke about them or bash them, but I don't consider them the "evil emp=
ire." Cost savings is a factor, and it should be a factor, in deciding wh=
at to use. But I am also dedicated
to the open source model, its transparency, and its community of users an=
d developers.=20
<snip>
>Even one of our die-hard Microsoft-haters says that OpenOffice Writer
>"behaves like a free program." I'm thinking that some of the look and fe=
el
>that I've come to expect over the years had to be avoided so that there
>wouldn't be a lawsuit. Of course, as I think about the fact that it's a
>cross-platform program, and thinking of some of the issues I've had with
>BlueJ for my Java class, it could also be a function of them trying to
>create one interface for all three operating systems.
I'm not sure what you colleague means by behaving like a free program. It=
does behave differently from MS Office, just as any other word processor=
, spreadsheet, or presentation program does. Different does not mean infe=
rior.=20
>
>I've used many word processing programs over the past 22 years, from XyW=
rite
>to WordPerfect, Word, MacWrite, WriteNow, ClarisWorks, NeoOffice, and no=
w
>OpenOffice. As far as I'm concerned Word is the gold standard, doing wha=
t
>95% of the people want to do 95% of the time, and doing it well. Perhaps
>with that in mind, the people in Redmond have earned their $50 per user.
Familiarity is MS Office's greatest strength and, arguably, also its grea=
test liability. In our school, most of our users touch perhaps only 10 to=
15% of MS Office's functionality. For word processing tasks, I suspect t=
hat many users could get by with
Apple's TextEdit program. I think we all get a bit peeved when someone se=
nds us an email with a Word attachment that could just have easily been w=
ritten and formatted in the email program itself. But force of habit is p=
owerful, and some people are slow
to change. Like you, Keith, I've been in the business long enough to have=
seen many programs come and go. I still miss some aspects of the old App=
leWorks. =20
I
>'ll have a little more time to play around with OpenOffice Writer, and t=
o
>explore the joys that await me in their spreadsheet, but for now Word an=
d
>Excel are looking pretty good to me.
>
>I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of others who have worked w=
ith
>OpenOffice.
I cut the strings to MS Office several months ago and have not regretted =
the change. I'm still learning some of the power and more obscure feature=
s of OO, mostly out of curiosity than need.
Let me add that, for simple collaborative documents, I am increasingly us=
ing Google docs and finding that it, too, works well for me in certain si=
tuations.
Thanks for asking the question, and thanks, too, to all of the ISED membe=
rs for their thoughtful responses.
-----
Treat each piece of paper as precious and reduce waste - don't print elec=
tronic documents.
-----
Steve Taffee 650.470.7725 (office)
Director of Technology 415.613.6684 (mobile)
Castilleja School 650.326.8036 (fax)
1310 Bryant Street steve_taffee@castilleja.org =20
Palo Alto, CA 94301 www.castilleja.org | taffee.edublogs.or=
g
Women Learning, Women Leading
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