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

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Thu, 2010-10-14 at 14:53 -0400, Rich DeMARS 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. 

I get DOC and XLS documents from people who use Word and Excel all the
time.

I have yet to receive a document that required more than a minute or two
of touch-up before being æsthetic, and all of them were functional.

	--- Mike