--- On Tue, 2/10/09, Keith E Gatling <keith@gatling.us> wrote:
>
>
> 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.
As Jason points out in his email, when the price is 50/license, sold individually, then we can say that the cost for Office is 50/person. An search of amazon.com gives you a price of 79/person, but that's still not the same thing. Details matter, especially when we are in the position of making recommendations or (in the case of software required by schools) requirements for how people spend their money.
>
> 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.
Many people are frustrated with how Office works, and they have no freedom to make it better. If you really want to have fun, file a feature request with Microsoft. For extra fun, follow up a week later to see how it is being received.
>
>
> But is open source for everyone?
Nothing is for everyone. Tastes differ in just about everything, and software is no exception. This is not an open source/proprietary thing, this is an "I'm human with emotional tendencies" thing.
> 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.
Two things here: First, choose the tool based on the task. For most writing needs, the word processor you use doesn't really matter. Most of us would be perfectly content with a version of WordPerfect circa 2000. If a school is actively involved in teaching word processing skills as a stand alone element of their curriculum, I would strongly urge them to merge the skills piece into another part of their curriculum.
Second, open source is more than Open Office. A lot more. Every time you use the internet, you use open source tools, most of the time without knowing it. Think apache, php, mysql, ruby, etc. If you're reading this on a recently minted Mac, your machine is leveraging open source code. The question of whether open source is ready to be used on a "production basis" is dated. Open source is here; now can we move on to the discussions about how we best support teaching and learning in the most efficient ways possible?
Cheers,
Bill
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