[Techtalk] WHY everyone should use Linux

[Conor Daly]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 06:58:08PM -0400 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
Julia Christianson thought:
> Conor Daly wrote:
> > If you can convince someone with some clout to allow you to, install
> > OpenOffice.org on certain users' machines and tell them it's the latest
> > 'Office'.  They'll put in the extra effort to learning it and pride in
> > 'having the latest version' will prevent them from complaining.
> 
> I'm very close to making the desktop switch in our office (the servers 
> have been Linux since 1998).  The reason we haven't done it before now 
> is that I was waiting for OpenOffice.org to be "ready".  Unfortunately, 
> it's still not, and given the nature of the problems I have with it, I'm 
> not sure it ever will be.

Given the nature of OSS, if your firm is willing to spend some money on
these problems, you could _commission_ someone in the OOo team to either:

1.  Fork a version for your company that addresses your problems.
2.  Write a patch for OOo to address your problem.

Because OOo is 'free' and because OSS developers will happily accept money
to do what they do gratis, it is a reasonable option (not present in the
proprietry model) to _buy_ a fix for your problems.

2 above is the preferred option unless the fix for your problems is not
suitable for the mainstream users.

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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