there's a nifty plugin for M$ Office that allows it to read and write odt, ods, and odp. <br><br>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).<br>
<br>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.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Rich DeMARS <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rich.demars@stonebranch.com">rich.demars@stonebranch.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">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.<br>
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.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Rich DeMARS<br>
IT Manager<br>
</font><div class="im"><br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: "Lightner, Jeff" <<a href="mailto:jlightner@water.com">jlightner@water.com</a>><br>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:25pm<br>
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <<a href="mailto:ale@ale.org">ale@ale.org</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [ale] A Real Sad Loss for Open Source in the Atlanta Area<br>
<br>
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In a former life I was an accountant in Hotels that probably have<br>
budgets not better than schools. I became a spreadsheet power user<br>
simply because we didn't have programmers - you'd be amazed what you can<br>
do with macros in built in HAL programming in Lotus 123. Since I made<br>
the move to full time IT before M$ had started giving away Excel I'm not<br>
sure how good it is in this regard but I'd be surprised if it didn't do<br>
as much (now). My guess is there ARE power users in schools simply<br>
because they had to be to get anything done without 50 committees and a<br>
session before the school board.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Not saying this wasn't a stupid decision - just arguing the power user<br>
point.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
________________________________<br>
<br>
From: <a href="mailto:ale-bounces@ale.org">ale-bounces@ale.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:ale-bounces@ale.org">ale-bounces@ale.org</a>] On Behalf Of Jim<br>
Kinney<br>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2010 2:03 PM<br>
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!<br>
Subject: Re: [ale] A Real Sad Loss for Open Source in the Atlanta Area<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
You're probably right. For some people that's "HTML" but it's not.<br>
<br>
I find it hard to believe there are "power users" of excel in any school<br>
system.<br>
<br>
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Brian Stanaland <<a href="mailto:brian@stanaland.org">brian@stanaland.org</a>><br>
wrote:<br>
<br>
The article doesn't say but I'd put dollars to donuts that "learning<br>
management system" has a Sharepoint back end. Ensuring continued use<br>
of Microsoft's crap.<br>
<br>
--Brian<br>
<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>-- <br>James P. Kinney III<br>I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.<br><br><br>