Do you think gnu/Linux is a good cause ?

[lmintnewb2]

Came upon this trolling the #! ( Crunchbang Linux) forums. Somebody was trying to get Uk residents to sign on this epetition to try to get the Uk govt to switch to using more opensource and Linux. Thought I'd repost it a few places, in case any Uk based LM folks, felt like signing or spreading it along.

[hellfire695]

to be entirely honest, I completely agree with that idea. especially because the government holds alot information on most of its citizens, and without going into the realms of conspiracy I can garaunte that kinds of information that they hold on say half the population of canada(where i live) is worth allot of money. I for one would be very concerned if the government was running mostly windows. especially because they have my address, social insurance number(canadian equilevant of social security number), birthdate, where i work. lots of sensitive info. not only that but governments seem to really want to cut the budgets lately (well debatable) and when a xp license is 40 a pop and win7 200 a pop, then over the the course 1/4 to 1/2 million computers then your talking a TON of money. so in short the government running windows is a liablity and is wasting money. i'd love to sign a petition like that for canada.

to be exact if you were to licensee windows 7 on 500,000 machines it would cost
100000000
and if you wanted to use office pro on those, (which isnt even as good as libreoffice in my opinion).
then that is 349 a pop so that would be an extra
174500000.

[Bigou]

i'd love to sign a petition like that for Canada.

Same here: I'd love to sign a petition like that for France. (And more or less for same reasons.)

if you wanted to use office pro on those, (which isnt even as good as libreoffice in my opinion)

It's not my opinion. Ok, Calc is better than Excel, but the french dyslexic which I am can assure you that last version of Microsoft Office spelling checker is far better than alls freesoftwares & opensources spelling checker. (And that, even though nowadays our free (& free) spelling checker are pretty good-working.)

[hellfire695]

if you wanted to use office pro on those, (which isnt even as good as libreoffice in my opinion)

It's not my opinion. Ok, Calc is better than Excel, but the french dyslexic which I am can assure you that last version of Microsoft Office spelling checker is far better than alls freesoftwares & opensources spelling checker. (And that, even though nowadays our free (& free) spelling checker are pretty good-working.)[/quote]


Well in the end is a matter of preference, i have friend who is a french writer and uses open-office, and I know developers who hate open office. for me its the office interface, I feel that keeping an interface simple is best, (again my opinion not solid fact) I just find ms-office convoluted. I would also like to mention, that with libre office 3.5 the spellchecker is better, up with ms, im not quite sure.

[Bigou]

I'm don't speaking about the UI, like you said: "is a matter of preference". (And the Ms Office UI is a nightmare for me, since version 2007.) And for spellchecker, I speak about fr-fr versions, and Ms is still better for this, in this variance of french. (Maybe it's not the same about Canadian french.)

[Shibblet]

To answer your question directly, I think GNU/Linux is a great way to keep commercial software companies on their toes.

If free software wasn't available, commercial software would be crap. If free software wasn't done well, neither would commercial software. GNU/Linux/FREE Software keeps the industry putting out better products. It better be "better" if I have to pay for it.

But to answer the flip-side of that coin. Any business that uses commercial software such as Office, needs to be compatible with other businesses that use the same software. Now, we all know that Libre Office and OpenOffice are compatible, but not "entirely". And businesses are more focused on the business in general, not learning new software. It's more important to have the report written, than it is to figure out how to make sure the boss can open it with his software. It's hard enough trying get the boss to learn how to download his email attachments, let alone show him that Libre Office can be just as simple as MS Office.

Business owners KNOW that new software means having a learning curve. So they stick with what they already have, and understand. Most businesses in the US are still embracing Windows XP, and that came out in 2001 !!! So many businesses in the US didn't want to upgrade to Vista or 7, that Microsoft actually had to push forward their support date from April 2009 to April 2014.

So, it's not always the comparison, or the quality of the software. Sometimes, it's just good ol' fashioned human doubt. (FUD)