On 2003-12-01 08:08:35 +0000 Colin McQueen <cmcqueen@mcqueen.uk.net> wrote:
much more freedom to teach the foundations of computing that are denied to our students by using proprietary software. But it does not give staff more freedonm as they will struggle to use the open source applications. Installing them as well as learning to use them. Adults find it harder to transfer skills. Those that can cope and don't mind changing (they enjoy using their free time this way) probably will anyway.
I guess it depends whether institutional resistance to change overwhelms them first. I really don't see why the above is a viable argument against changing. It applies at least as much to the alternatives. I don't think anyone here will argue that someone who moved from Microsoft Word for DOS didn't relearn almost everything, far more than a small move from Word for Windows to OpenOffice.org, for example. The payoff is that an institutional "OK" to free software use will open a lot more applications to staff. That should be encouraged, as there are useful applications out there. Support and encouragement of initiatives like Schoolforge-UK and Ofset would be an amazing leap forward from the "happy with our single sourcing" attitude seen in many places today.
Yes but is PDF open source and can you manipulate it as is required by the strategy? I wasn't suggesting it was, simply making sure I wasn't just in an anti-microsoft debate ;-). You can manipulate it if you have acrobat or the skills to use the reader to export the data.
Doesn't exporting from PDF require you to mark it up again to use it properly? I've seen things which can recover some vector graphics from PDFs into editable forms (pdftops and ps2edit), but a lot of the QCA materials seem too complicated. That's quite a disadvantage for users of other applications, especially if they're using a published standard file format, unlike Microsoft. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/