> I would pay $29.95 for OpenOffice. I agree that there are things it does
> not do as well as Word (e.g. tables) and it can be slower. There are also
> some issues that would not be tolerated from word (e.g. wysiwyg loss of
> spacing after periods). But there are three issues to factor in:
>
> 1. Once out of college, most students will not have access to preferred
> pricing. This means $140 (list) or nearly triple what a school pays for the
> home version. And to get the full version will be around ($400). Those are
> very different costs that we implicitly steer students as a side effect of
> offering them access to the gold standard.
Actually, if you consider what used to be called the Student/Teacher version
of Office, it's available for $150 and gives you three, count'em, three
licences of Office to be used within one family. That means $50/person. Not
at all unreasonable. I know that people are defining family rather loosely
in order to get that price, but that's another issue, and nowhere near the
$400 you cited. When Microsoft finally came up with student/family pricing,
I could finally recommend Office to people in good faith.
2. There will be a small number of students who are frustrated enough to
> consider improving the product. Because it is open source they can make it
> better. There will be a smaller number still who have the talent and will
> act on that impulse. But that is the promise of working with open source.
But is open source for everyone? Not yet, I don't think. If open source
doesn't provide anywhere near the usability of "closed source," then it's
worth asking why you're using it on a production basis.
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