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Virgil Arrington wrote:
So, my computer has Office (Starter version), LO *and* WordPerfect, so
I can talk to just about anybody.
No PC-Write??? 
I'm thinking we've got troll-sighting
I know the feeling. Still, you get in when you can and how you can.
Marco . Fioretti wrote:
Assuming the organization is not SoHo sized, or smaller, unless the person negotiating with Microsoft for licenses is a complete idiot, the license will allow for each employee to install MSO on their home computer, for the duration of their employment, or the corporate license expires, whichever comes first.
may I ask you one real world case where this actually happened?
I'm aware of three companies that did that, of which only one is still around, having been bought out by a competitor. (A Candian outfit whose DBA was Telemart, but whose corporate name was something else, and whose employees identified themselves by a different moniker, and whose local business license was yet another name.)
One SoHo sized business I had a contract with, did have a policy of allowing employees, but not independent contractors to install the software on their home computer. I don't know if that was through their license, or if it simply bought the package from Costco.
That practice is occasionally discussed in the trade rags, usually given as a justification of why Microsoft bases the number of licenses that are required, upon the total number of employees, and not the number of employees whose job requires a desktop computer, or the number of employees who use MSO as part of their daily work routine.
I will grant that in some, perhaps even most cases, neither the IT department, nor HR will tell employees about this "fringe benefit".
There also is the "academic license" option, which, with some effort, is fairly easy for most people to qualify under.
jonathon
James wrote:
No PC-Write???
Oh, stab me in the heart. My 64 bit computer tells me it won't run PC-Write (yes, I've tried). Also, my printers won't recognize DOS printer drivers. At any rate, PC-Write's document files were simple ASCII files with a few formatting codes thrown in; quite similar to today's Markdown (or LaTeX) files. So, when I need access to an old PC-Write document, I just load it into a text editor like NoteTab, and strip out the formatting codes. I can then load it into *any* word processor. I've done this many times. In fact, when sharing documents with others, regardless of their programs, I've often found it necessary to take the documents down to plain text, and then reformat with my own preferred styles.
Virgil
Jonathan wrote:
Assuming the organization is not SoHo sized, or smaller, unless the person negotiating with Microsoft for licenses is a complete idiot, the license will allow for each employee to install MSO on their home computer, for the duration of their employment, or the corporate license expires, whichever comes first.
may I ask you one real world case where this actually happened?
I'm aware of three companies that did that...
It's been many years since I last purchased WordPerfect, but at the time, it's standard license allowed one to install a copy on both a business computer and a home computer (or laptop) as long as the program was only used on one of the computers at a time. I don't know if it still has that license language, but at the time, I found it very freeing. I tend to be a little obsessive about respecting software companies' licenses, which is why I love FOSS.
Virgil
Well, I've been at a couple of companies which most definitely *did not*
allow you to install the software at home. That wasn't part of the
license terms, and they only had enough seats for those that needed the
software. For some products, Visio being one I recall, I couldn't even
install that at work, as they didn't have enough licenses, and only
those that would routinely need it got to install it.
This was a medium sized software development firm, so not some big
corporate, but it sure wasn't common as far as I knew to be allowed to
install MSO at home. Nobody else I knew did it on a company license,
except those that used the same laptop at home and at work.
Paul
I wouldn't consider it either cunning or holding people hostage to
provide them with a free trial of software that is otherwise only
available for a price. That, indeed, has been the essence of
shareware -- try before you buy. Anybody obtaining a trial version of
MS-Office is clearly told that it is a trial version; no cunning, no
deception.
Actually, I have not found this to be the case. Most of the people I
know that have used this "trialware" have bought a new computer, found
it comes with Office, with no explanation about being trialware, and
started using it, only to find that it starts warning them it will
expire, and that they need to purchase a valid copy to continue using
it. They have no idea that there are alternatives, nor did they expect
to have to pay more once the computer was bought, and now just simply
shrug, name call MS for being penny-pinching b******s, and go buy
whatever version of Office the local computer store sells them.
I'm no fan of MS, and I'm sure I don't fully understand all of its
business practices, but I truly hope that disdain for Redmond is not
the primary motivation for LO and other forms of FOSS. And, yet, it's
a theme that recurs on nearly every FOSS related forum I read.
I dislike MS's business practices. They've been caught out too many
times doing things that are harmful to the end user. I don't trust them
to give me quality software that will remain quality software without
pitilessly trying to squeez me for evey cent they can. As such, I
dislike using their products, and I most certainly don't pay for
them, other than where it is forced on me simply for buying a computer.
For me, that is one good reason to use FOSS software.
Another is I believe in the FOSS philosophy.
IMHO, it's better to focus on what's good about LO than what's evil
about MS.
And that is a third.
When talking to most computer users I know, even ones who do know
computers well, I often find they couldn't care less about MS's
business policy, they either use MS products and tell me about how
they're actually not that bad, or simply accept that everybody else
does, so they must too, and don't know or care about MS's business
practices.
For them I punt the good about FOSS software first, and leave out the
MS business practices debate. That's a personal reason for choosing
FOSS, one that I will explain to people, but don't find to be a major
selling point.
Paul
"James Knott":
Ever hear of Linux?
Linux is a clone of UNIX, an epitome of a proprietary operating system.
it's the OS used on the space station.
Proven a hoax by Agency.
Typo there. Obviously you meant to say "non-proprietary."
Peter West
...he saw a poor widow put in two copper coins.
Hi 
Not all of us are native-English speakers so words are sometimes mis-used.
Clone is not quite the right word but it's close enough. This time i
think a more precise word might be "rewrite". To put it in a way that
might be easier for an office user to understand ... Often when
editing an old document it's easiest to just change a few word here or
there but other times it is easier to start again from scratch and
rewrite it from scratch.
Also when people say Linux they usually mean "Gnu and Linux" which the
FSF wants us to write as Gnu/Linux. The Gnu programs kinda sit on top
of the Linux kernel rather than being divided by it so i feel the / is
the wrong character and it might be better to say Gnu&Linux to show
that the kernel is just 1 package amongst many. The Gnu people are
trying to write their own kernel called Hurd but it's rarely used.
Regards from
Tom
"James Knott":
>Ever hear of Linux?
Linux is a clone of UNIX, an epitome of a proprietary operating system.
Wrong yet again, oh trolling one. Linux was derived from minix.
>it's the OS used on the space station.
Proven a hoax by Agency.
Citation? (that means prove it)
Robert Holtzman wrote:
Linux is a clone of UNIX, an epitome of a proprietary operating system.
Wrong yet again, oh trolling one. Linux was derived from minix.
Actually, Linux created Linux in part because he found Minix so
limiting. However, the goal of both was a Unix like environment. The
interesting thing is that many of the GNU apps, developed for Linux,
have found their way to the various commercial Unixes.