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Hi 
I thought a few people here would be interested in the article spotted by Jean of the Docs, Marketing and Memberships Teams.
I have been looking for this all week and at last found it again :) So, hopefully there is likely to be much greater uptake of LO by Mac users.
Regards from
Tom
It is nice to see that MacWorld Australia states that LibreOffice is a "must have" app/package. I wonder if the MacWorld for the USA and Europe would have the same statement.
Be nice to have LO listed in the "must have" category in the various Windows magazines. We could use more Windows users, and free advertisements towards Windows users, as we can get.
It would be nice to have a booth in a Windows version of the big software shows that happen for Linux and Mac. But those booths may be very expensive to "rent" for such an event.
Am 11.10.2012 20:46, webmaster-Kracked_P_P wrote:
It is nice to see that MacWorld Australia states that LibreOffice is a
"must have" app/package. I wonder if the MacWorld for the USA and Europe
would have the same statement.Be nice to have LO listed in the "must have" category in the various
Windows magazines. We could use more Windows users, and free
advertisements towards Windows users, as we can get.It would be nice to have a booth in a Windows version of the big
software shows that happen for Linux and Mac. But those booths may be
very expensive to "rent" for such an event.
Windows users can run MS Office easily and for little money (if any). Why should they use LibreOffice if all they want is cheap MS Office? Idealism? Masochism?
I do not know about you, but LO is free and MSO is not. Then there is the bloatedness of MSO that was giving me problems with MSO2003, now it is even worse, as I have been told. LO is a good FREE alternative to buying MSO. I know a lot of people that cannot afford to spend good money on software they use for other things.
I know of many people who choose MSO and the fee, since they did not know there was any package that they could use instead of MSO. If given a choice, they now would have never paid the MSO fee and just installed LO instead.
We need to get the word out to Windows users about how good LO is. Then there are those people who have to deal with several computers in their household or small business. How about the free community computer centers? How many of those places can afford 5, 10, 15, etc., licenses of MSO when the money is not there, or is needed to keep the computers repaired.
Then there are all of the free language spell checking dictionaries and free language packs. How much would it cost a person to have a version of MSO that is uses English, Spanish - Puerto Rico version, French, and Hebrew, menus and spelling dictionaries? I once talked to a lady from Israel that needed to deal with English, French, and Hebrew, for her tourism center she worked for. She was amazed that one package could do what she could not get MSO to do for her.
How many of LO's user could use the price to buy a full version of MSO-2010 for something else? I do not know where you will find a legal copy of MSO for no cost, so your "if any" comment is not valid. The last price I found for a version of MSO I would use was going to cost me more that it cost me for my new 23 inch monitor I needed, or the cost of the internal 2-TB drive I needed to replace a dead drive.
As a person with a fixed income, I cannot afford to pay MS for their office package when I can get LO for free. I know a lot of people that feel the same way.
LO is not "a cheap MSO". It is a free alternative to MSO and is a FOSS package. There are a lot of European governments, and other governments in the world that are no using a FOSS office package instead of MSO. Our USA federal governmental leaders are now looking at FOSS as a solution to their software needs. A mandate for "The White House" is for looking into FOSS for their software needs before looking at buying something. The need to reduce the budget is just one reason to look at packages like LO.
SO, it is not "Idealism" or "Masochism" in looking towards LO for the office package in a Windows environment. Of course, there are those who rather see MS do everything their way and make sure people pay them for all their computer needs. I do not want to give MS more control of my life and my computers as they are doing their best to force people to do, if they want to use a computer.
I an a Linux person. I still have a couple of Windows systems, but rarely use them. On those Windows systems, other than the OS, I rarely use any products that came from MS. I prefer FOSS. I prefer to go legally free software over paying for some package that I can find/use a good, or better, free one that does the same/similar job.
MS is even trying to claim that they own the rights to a huge chunk of the Linux core code to get people to pay them to use distros like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, even Red Hat, to avoid the "threat" of MS taking that business to court and doing everything to drag out the case till the small company [and larger ones as well] folds due to running out of money to pay the court costs in the fight for what is right. a few million in court costs is pocket change to MS, but not the small/medium business owners. Now who would be eager to give MS more of their money, with that type of business model/attitude towards people they want as customers? Give us money we legally have no right to, or we will take you to court and ruin your business with the legal fees and court costs defending your legal rights.
Hi
I prefer LO on Windows even though i have a choice of MSO 2007 and 2010 on the same machine. All 3 installed but LO handles graphics better. Plus it doesn't keep changing styles, languages, indentations, size of bullet-points and it keeps track of numbers better in numbered lists. Also better compatibility. Each version of MSO stuffs up documents created by the other. If i write in LO then save as doc then both versions of MSO display the file the same way. I find the menus easier although some things are just as easy on both.
Regards from
Tom
They can also run WordPerfect, Lotus Smartsuite, Abiword and a number of other applications. Why should you be so anti Windows users running LO?
The cheapest version of MS Office in the UK is Home and Student and costs about £75. The free version (Office Starter) is crippled adware (and only contains Word and Excel anyway), and that only comes with a machine that has a trial version of Office 2010 installed. You can't download it from anywhere.
Surely it's better to get them running LO rather than a crippled version of proprietary software? When I post in the MS Answers forums in reply to certain questions I always suggest that if they can't afford to upgrade to the latest Office version, that they have a look at LO. One or two MVPs do this as well.
Once Windows users begin to realise that they don't NEED MS Office products, then it's only a short step to not needing Windows at all.
Registered Linux User no 240308
GBP's alternative computing:http://gbplinuxfoss.blogspot.com/ Say No to OOXMLhttp://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9594#mpart8
I only accept odf or pdf documents by email
Hi
WOW!!! I wish i had thought of it. It's brilliant!
Re: costs, my 'work' place (does it count as work if you enjoy it?) just bought several MSO 2010 licenses for about £15 each. The newer MS office comes out soon so there are all sorts of special offers, such as for charities, students, and other vulnerable people. We have a chap that is excellent at sniffing out such deals and being able to buy in bulk helps.
Regards from
Tom
I have not found any deals for me or my associates that would bring buying MSO for under $100. It looks like your people had bought MSO-2010 and just bought the right to add in on a few more systems.
With the new pricing structure that MS is doing, i.e. renting that was in a different thread, it will become expensive to buy MSO soon.
When I was using Windows for all my computer needs, I "sniffed out" as many free packages as I could. I was not able to afford to buy the software I needed and had to find legally free sources. I still maintain a Windows software list page for such free packages, but I do not look for those packages actively any more.
MS is talking about a "family plan" license for renting and installing MSO on all of your household system for one low-price-per-year, but I hate the idea of renting my software. [this idea was beaten to death in a different thread so do not start it again here].
Hi
For me the best part of Gordon's post was about the MVPs.
The costs are the least important bit for me. If the finance department want to spend loot on something i don't want and the Board agrees then i'm in no position to stop them however annoying i think it is. I just keep using LO because it's better [shrugs]. I'm just lucky to be able to install it myself on my system. On my own system i use LO too and the fact that it's free is just a bonus. It's not the main reason for my using it.
That MVPs have occasionally recommended LO is really cool! Also it was interesting to hear that there are good Windows forums.
Regards from
Tom
but MSFT products are NOT cheap - their limited editions are
included on new PCs due to some agreement BGates made with the
manufacturers; once the trial version runs its course and/or the user
desires more than the trial version offers they must purchase the product -
and the product is only good for a limited number of downloads - therefore
if you must replace your computer more than once, you must re-purchase the
product.
Am 11.10.2012 20:46, webmaster-Kracked_P_P wrote:
same here.
Hi
I have my still my doubts on graphics, but all the other remarks of Tom I fully agree.
By the way is there a list of MSO bugs we can have a look at? I doubt!
Am 14.10.2012 03:33, anne-ology wrote:
but MSFT products are NOT cheap - their limited editions are
included on new PCs due to some agreement BGates made with the
manufacturers; once the trial version runs its course and/or the user
desires more than the trial version offers they must purchase the product -
and the product is only good for a limited number of downloads - therefore
if you must replace your computer more than once, you must re-purchase the
product.
Just ask your personal Windows geek how to get a free copy of any
MSOffice product.
Hi
'Surprisingly' for something done by MS it doesn't quite work like that. It only kinda works for some MS products, not all of them and even then you still get hassled and can't get updates.
Regards from
Tom
MSFT does not list their bugs; they deny them ;-(
I have my still my doubts on graphics, but all the other remarks of Tom I
Hi
I really don't mind if people disagree with me or even if it's not that strong, just a possible uncertainty about something i said. The important thing imo is to get enough good answers out there that the op can pick and choose or get inspired by one or more in order to solve the problem and move on. The important bit is getting questions solved.
Blind obediance is what got us into this mess with MS, Adobe, Oracle and the rest in the first place. It's passionately disagreeing with each other that helps us develop good choices.
"Diversity breeds serendipity"! If we were all the same it would be really boring!
Regards from
Tom
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Am 11.10.2012 20:46, webmaster-Kracked_P_P wrote:
[...]
It would be nice to have a booth in a Windows version of the big
software shows that happen for Linux and Mac. But those booths may be
very expensive to "rent" for such an event.Windows users can run MS Office easily and for little money (if any).
Why should they use LibreOffice if all they want is cheap MS Office?
Idealism? Masochism?
Mostly, common sense.
F.
Thanks
and I agree with the way you think
I did not want to express it that explicitly.... what you wrote is