Carlos E. R. wrote:
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On Tuesday, 2009-12-15 at 13:31 +0100, lynn wrote:
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Hi Clayton. Don't know where you are but in my part of the world that doesn't happen. It's very encouraging though.
No, it varies a lot. I found a coworker that had installed ubuntu on his personal portable, on his own. He is not "technical". And double boots to windows something. I was quite surprised.
Another day, a computer maintenance person (windows) was talking on the phone to somebody who complained that on his new computer the "office" had stopped working. When he hung up, I commented to him about installing openoffice instead... and he new what I was talking about. We commented that portables often come with office "demo" preinstalled. It works for a month or two, then one day it stops working and you have to pay the license if you want to use it. Owners are very surprised at this when it pops up.
You know why windows is so prevalent here? If you haven't noticed yet, Windows is free⁽¹⁾ software here ;-P
So yes, openoffice is known here. I use it myself exclusively, at home. Recently I installed it for a coworker who lost Office that way. But many people don't care, they just install free office instead (free: see above). Often schools install OOo.
- - ⁽¹⁾ Gratis.
The canonical "Free as in beer." There's an ad in the linux magazines lately proudly proclaiming their product is "Free as in beer" and there's a picture of a stout looking fellow holding a nice mug of beer. I always laugh. It's a perfect example of marketing people not knowing the product they are selling or the people they are trying to sell to and thus saying things that are the exact opposite of appealing to their intended audience. Most people reading a linux magazine will have some understanding of the difference between "Free, as in speech." vs "Free, as in beer.". And so they know the pitfalls of free as in beer and they _hate_ free as in beer. It's one of the core tools behind much that is wrong with the software wold today. It's what keeps inferior products like Microsoft's in dominance. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org