[Opensource] FOSS - different arguments

[Jim Maunder]

Lots to comment on here (not that my comments will help anything!)

Glen Turner wrote:
> Cameron Bell wrote:
>> Bugger 24 hours too late.
>> I was having a "robust discussion" ;) in the staff room yesterday and 
>> was told by those "in the know" that big business still use MS Office 
>> and *always will*.

> 
> Just a few years ago if you'd looked on the other side of the average
> customer service desk you would have found a mainframe terminal.
> Schools didn't see that as a reason to run mainframes, or even
> teach people how they operated 

If you look over the counter of an average shop these days you are 
likely to see a POS app running on DOS (well, in character mode).


>> I think I am going to put in place a policy of "I don't care what 
>> Application you use, as long as the files it produces are: odt, pdf, 
>> jpg, <insert lots of open file formats>"
>> Specifying acceptable file types rather than acceptable Applications 
>> may be a better way to go. People can choose the app they are most 
>> comfortable with, although some apps are better than others for 
>> certain file types. ;)
> 
> I've been down that road and it ends up at PDF. The reason is that
> it's one thing to be e-mailed the document in .DOC/.DOCX/.ODT and
> another thing entirely to be e-mailed the fonts referenced by that
> document. That's especially so for presentations, where you might
> download some fonts from the web.
> 
> The big fly in that ointment for a school is the money or complexity
> in producing PDF documents from Office 2003.

I set the default file type in Word/Excel 2007 to .doc and .xls in our 
laptops and the few office machines running '07. I also install 
'fileformatconver.exe' on machines running Office2003. As for PDFs, I 
install PDFCreator (as a 'print to PDF printer') on all machines that 
need it. Works here. Also set them to 'Embed fonts in the file' while 
your at it. Of course some will fall through the gaps (mostly due to 
kids sending files from home), and the recipients will be the ones who 
'steam'. I just install the appropriate converter etc as above, and 
promise them it will work from now on (fingers crossed).

> If multiple people need to edit a complex document then it really
> sucks if the editing platforms are different, even if the document
> format is identical. It's not just the small incompatibilities, but
> the different ways of working (eg, templates in ODF actually work,
> but they don't work in Office, so no Office user uses them).

Hard to see how that scenario would occur in a typical school.

As for teachers being free to choose whatever platform/application they 
want ... would they allow their students the same sort of freedom? 
Would the school be prepared to pay for the extra support needed for 
non-standard platforms/applications? (ours is not - students who bring 
in a laptop bought outside the school laptop program are charged $100 
setup and support fee)

A bit of PD for those having trouble adapting to Office07 helps.

rgds
Jim (I'm not mad on Office07 either - I was happy with Word6)



-----------------------------------------------------------
We have to use this Disclaimer

Views, opinions, etc. expressed reflect those of the author and not
Ruyton Girls' School
-----------------------------------------------------------

Jim Maunder
Laptop Technician
Ruyton Girls School
Melbourne, Australia
ph 9290 9374