[ale] A Real Sad Loss for Open Source in the Atlanta Area

[Jim Kinney]

there's a nifty plugin for M$ Office that allows it to read and write odt,
ods, and odp.

In general, schools provide _0_ training on most new technology anyway. But
when there is an opensource initiative, it seems they go out of their way to
kill it by being even less helpful than before. Arbitrary rules like "it
must work EXACTLY like old product foo", "it must have the same screenshots
in this book" and other useless requirements are presented as excuses to go
back to the "stuff that worked" (and eats 80% of the technology budget to
keep working to any level of functionality).

I want to see the deal M$ shafted them with. How much "free" crap they got
and for how long do they get unlimited licenses.

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Rich DeMARS <rich.demars at stonebranch.com>wrote:

> Having worked for the government myself in the past, I can see and conclude
> that same point stated below as being one of the issues here.  Which also
> leads me to consider just how committed the County was truly to success of
> the switch.  I just wonder why there was not more training involved and why
> open source groups (like the ALE) where not engaged for assistance.
> But the other issue that really shines out to me here is the power of
> document formats and many of their closed nature.  As much as open source is
> important, so is open formats.  And I see the lack of open and
> inter-changeable formats in environments today being a great reason as to
> the failure of such endeavorers.
>
> Rich DeMARS
> IT Manager
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Lightner, Jeff" <jlightner at water.com>
> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:25pm
> To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
> Subject: Re: [ale] A Real Sad Loss for Open Source in the Atlanta Area
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> In a former life I was an accountant in Hotels that probably have
> budgets not better than schools.  I became a spreadsheet power user
> simply because we didn't have programmers - you'd be amazed what you can
> do with macros in built in HAL programming in Lotus 123.   Since I made
> the move to full time IT before M$ had started giving away Excel I'm not
> sure how good it is in this regard but I'd be surprised if it didn't do
> as much (now).   My guess is there ARE power users in schools simply
> because they had to be to get anything done without 50 committees and a
> session before the school board.
>
>
>
> Not saying this wasn't a stupid decision - just arguing the power user
> point.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim
> Kinney
> Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:03 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
> Subject: Re: [ale] A Real Sad Loss for Open Source in the Atlanta Area
>
>
>
> You're probably right. For some people that's "HTML" but it's not.
>
> I find it hard to believe there are "power users" of excel in any school
> system.
>
> On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Brian Stanaland <brian at stanaland.org>
> wrote:
>
> The article doesn't say but I'd put dollars to donuts that "learning
> management system" has a Sharepoint back end. Ensuring continued use
> of Microsoft's crap.
>
> --Brian
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
>
>
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
> I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in
> chains.
>
> Proud partner. Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
>
> Please consider our environment before printing this e-mail or attachments.
> ----------------------------------
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential
> information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are
> not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of
> the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you
> have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply
> immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and
> delete it. Thank you.
> ----------------------------------
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20101014/ecdcfbf7/attachment-0001.html