A modest proposal: Government of Canada Free Software Office Suite

Discussions of Free Software often get bogged down in confusion over the language used and how it can work. Software developers ask how they will get paid if the software is "free". At the same time, software users are not trusting Free Software because they believe that something that is "free" cannot be as good or better than something that is not.

I will use the proposal of the Government of Canada adopting, and participating in the development of, a Free Software Office Suite to offer one example of Free Software at work.

What is Free Software

To quote from the The Free Software Definition from the Free Software Foundation:

``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

In a political context, Free Software is outside of the traditional concepts of "the left" and "the right". Specific language can be used that rings true for subscribers of most political philosophies.

For those on "the right", Free Software is simply an implementation of Free Market competition applied to Software. Free Software attempts to transform the software industry from one that focuses on products and has produced monopolies able to extract monopoly rents, to one that is services based where commercial players compete on merit rather than being favored as the incumbent.

For those on "the left", the Debian GNU/Linux project contains an explanation of What Does Free Mean?, and also contains a Debian Social Contract.

While different groups of people will have entirely different (and sometimes even conflicting) reasons for adopting and/or contributing to Free Software, it is still possible to work together on the same software.

The Proposal

The Government of Canada should redirect some of the money currently spent on software licenses to procuring Free Software based software services.

The Government of Canada is a large licensor of proprietary software. How much money is spent yearly is unfortunately not an easy question to obtain from the government, partly because this information does not seem to be tracked yet. If you agree with me that these numbers should be available, please contact your MP and ask for these numbers.

What we need is the ability to ask the government for things such as the average yearly license fees spent for a specific class of software product (IE: Office Productivity Suites), broken down by vendor and department.

To solidify this proposal, we will eventually need to get some numbers. I believe that the proposal can still be discussed without the numbers.

Take one large government department that currently licenses a proprietary office suite. There is a budget each year for paying the license fees for that suite. For a future budget year, rather than budgeting for paying licenses, the department would redirect that money toward improvements to some existing Free Software office suite.

There are a number of existing Free Software office suites. The most popular are OpenOffice.org, KOffice (Part of the KDE desktop project) and GNOME Office (Part of the GNOME desktop project).

OpenOffice.org becomes the obvious choice for the first stage of this project. It is already ported to multiple operating systems including GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and MacOS-X. It provides some of the best file conversion tools from legacy file formats such as Microsoft .DOC/.PPT/.XLS files. The native file format of OpenOffice.org is XML.

Assuming that OpenOffice.org is missing some features that the department needs, Canadian software developers can be hired to make the required improvements.

It is also possible to make use of existing members of the public sector to make these improvements. Since the software will remain Free Software the choice of public or private sector can be mixed as appropriate.(The advantages of Free Software for the public sector has not yet been understood by the public sector unions, nor the "dumbing down" of the public sector that proprietary software encourages).

It is my belief that the money saved on license fees from a single large government department would be sufficient to improve OpenOffice.org to the level required for deployment in that department. Until we have exact numbers for government license payments, and a list of features that any department feels are missing from OpenOffice.org, it is hard to prove my belief wrong.

What about other departments? Since the software can now be shared not only within that department, but with other departments and the rest of the world, cost savings can be achieved by more than just the department that funded the development. Each department may need to fund some extra software development in order to add all the features that they need, but the costs of these improvements would now be much lower than the costs of software licenses.

This is too radical! The Government will never go for it.

As someone outside of government, this may be a logical conclusion. There is information that the average citizen (and most parliamentarians) are missing in order to realize just how much infrastructure already exists to make this possible.

The Knowledge Exchange Service (KES, previously the Software Exchange Service) is part of Public Works and Government Services Canada. From their website they state:

The Knowledge Exchange Service is . . .

A free service aimed at knowledge professionals at all levels of government who want to share software, best practices, research and information to be more effective in their work, to leverage resources, and to stimulate cooperative effort in the government community.

"Knowledge shared, knowledge gained."

I became aware of KES because Chris Dodsworth, Senior Market Development Officer, gave a presentation at a Government of Canada hosted Open Source Solutions Showcase last May. Her talk was:

"Building on 15 years of facilitating government software reuse". An overview of this free IM/IT knowledgeware brokerage service's recent and planned enhancements and its proposed proactive role as a host for and gateway to government-produced open source software.

A quick look at their Partners page contains links to "Canada's partners pertaining to Open Source Products".

KES already shares government owned software within the government, and with other levels of government. The changes from this to being participants in the Open Source community are small.

• KES would need to include existing Free Software projects in their software catalog. I believe this work is already underway.
• KES would need to contribute government changes made to software back to the Free Software community. This would be a logical part of honoring the software license agreements.
• KES could be involved in helping Government departments publish government created software to the Free Software community. The Government of Canada has already published Free Software, with Simple Assets, Simple Tracker and OPA (Online Proposal Appraisal) being just a few examples.
• part of the license savings that the Government realizes should go into expanding the funding and mandate of KES.

What about software developers? How do they get paid if the software is now free?

Software can always be improved, and those that need those improvements will always be willing to pay someone to get their improvements.

If a software user is small (IE: not the Government of Canada), they may not be able to afford to fund the software improvement alone, but can fund a portion of the work in collaboration with others. They can even hire a company to manage the collaboration such that the customer does not need to think about how the work gets accomplished, just that it does and they pay their share.

Services around software such as training and technical support are always needed, regardless of whether the software is Free Software or not.

For the customer, there are advantages to paying for a value add services to software rather than purchasing a software product. If the current state of the software is "good enough", and they don't need any value added, why should they be paying more money?

While collecting royalties for work done in the past may appear to be beneficial to the software developer, the number of software developers are few compared to the number of people who are dependent on the use of software. Any savings that customers can make becomes money available to add new features to advance the state of software, or simply to go into improving the customers own business.

For our sector to receive respect from the general population, we need to move away from business models where we appear to be getting paid for nothing.

Customers saving money in our economy should not be seen as a threat to software developers. No matter how smart you are, you are a user of more software than you are a creator for, just as you are the recipient of more knowledge than you will ever be able to contribute back.

Copyright

Copyright 2002 Russell McOrmond <[email protected]>

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

Further reading

• Russell McOrmond: submission to the 2002 Canadian Innovation Strategy
• Russell McOrmond: submission to the 2001 Canadian copyright consultation
• Brendan Scott: Why Free Source Long Run TCO must be Lower
• Brendan Scott: Four Free Software Fallacies

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: Russell McOrmond ]

A group of free software activists might get together and go to whichever minister is in charge of this kind of thing - I guess Government Services or something like that? Or is that provincial? Well anyhow, whomever is in charge.

Then offer to completely outfit their office in free software, installation and everything, to show them how user-friendly the applications are (if, in fact, they are).

To do this, you'll have to see what programs they already use, and tailor free programs to their needs. I know from experience that there is at least one database program that has been custom-designed for some government offices - you would have to demonstrate that yours will do exactly the same thing for free.

One of the problems I see is compatiblity and integration with other systems. You can offer a free word processing package, for example, but if it's not capable of opening and creating MS Word files, and does not contain all the features that users expect from Word, then it will never fly.

There's also been a shift in IT thinking over the last decade away from in house development and customization, and towards packaged enterprise wide software solutions, like PeopleSoft and SAP. One of the advantages of these packages is their level of integration. Instead of having to maintain one system to do your HR, one for your Finance Department, one for Payroll, etc., you have one integrated system meeting all those needs. You get away from having to maintain the same information in multiple databases. A software company coming in claiming that they'll customize, and develop to whatever requirements you want is not going to catch the ear of an IT director, because they've probably been down that road, and seen the problems that approach takes.

And then, there is the old saying: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!"

edited to add:
Wingnut, if what you say is true -- and I believe it is -- do you really think that that it is enough to bring about a change?! (Follow Michelle's suggestion!)

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: CyberNomad ]

I have private messaged the originator of this thread with regard to this idea.

It has been stated that there is a technology gap betwen those that have and those who do not. Open source provides an inexpensive solution. The government can copy and distribute open source operating systems and applications and make them available to libraries, schools, community centers, churches, youth organizations, seniors homes and organizations.

And then the Canadian open source community can prove their spirit of involvement and commitment to the software and the community by volunteering to help insatll, train and support those who take advantage of the program.

Some governments recognize that proprietary vendors are often the source of the incompatabilities, and that limitations on their ability to create incompatabilities must exist.

Did you know that in the European Union 1991 directive on computer software that they specifically do not honour copyright on computer 'interfaces' to help deal with this issue?

Whereas the Community is fully committed to the promotion of international standardization;

Whereas the function of a computer program is to communicate and work together with other components of a computer system and with users and, for this purpose, a logical and, where appropriate, physical interconnection and interaction is required to permit all elements of software and hardware to work with other software and hardware and with users in all the ways in which they are intended to function;

Whereas the parts of the program which provide for such interconnection and interaction between elements of software and hardware are generally known as 'interfaces`;

Whereas this functional interconnection and interaction is generally known as 'interoperability`; whereas such interoperability can be defined as the ability to exchange information and mutually to use the information which has been exchanged;

Whereas, for the avoidance of doubt, it has to be made clear that only the expression of a computer program is protected and that ideas and principles which underlie any element of a program, including those which underlie its interfaces, are not protected by copyright under this Directive;

Since governments are also often the largest single users of software, there is also a growing call for governments worldwide to use their procurement policies in order to promote (or even mandate) vendor neutral communications standards.

We need to realize that compatability and integration with other systems is a problem largely created by proprietary vendors who want to artificially create vendor lock in. Far from having a problem in this area, Free Software is often seen as a solution to that particular problem.

Free Software is often called an implimentation of Open Standards. Since the source code for Free Software is publicly available, you cannot impliment an interface that involves a trade secret or a royalty-bearing patent. The source code is itself minimalist documentation for the implimentation, so all Free Software can be considered a reference implimentation for an open standard.

As to general features that may not be available already, the proposal specifically suggested that these features would be added to existing software.

The Government of Canada would not be getting something for nothing without a little bit of investment. They would invest in hiring programmers and adding feature to existing software to bring it to their specifications. We all gain in the longer term by being able to roll out any improvements government, country and planet-wide.

I am curious if you have tried OpenOffice.org yourself? Even if you already own an office suite, it is worth the time to download and install just to check it out and make your own evaluation. You may even find that it already meets your needs, or already does things in a way that you prefer to the suite you are already using.

I use OpenOffice.org almost exclusively these days (I sometimes use GNOME Office as well), including when I need to exchange files with people using Microsoft Office. I have exchanged Microsoft Word files, Microsoft Excel files and Microsoft PowerPoint files using OpenOffice.org on my GNU/Linux office and home computers.

I know of people currently within Public Works that use OpenOffice.org to exchange files with Microsoft users, since OpenOffice.org has better file compatability with Microsoft Office than Lotus Smart Suite which is the suite purchased by their department.

I do wonder, however: when Microsoft comes out with their next version of their office suite, will customers demand that it be as compatable with existing "Microsoft file formats" as people demand of third party packages today?

OpenOffice.org makes use of a publicly documented XML file format. They even promote the formats use by other office suite vendors:

Standardization and Inter-Office Cooperation

There is a office_standards mailing lists hosted on this site, intended to foster cooperation between the various office suites.

Will customers of Microsoft products demand that they offer no less, by demanding that they offer a publicly documented, patent royalty free, XML file format that can be implimented without restriction by everyone including their competitors?

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: Russell McOrmond ]

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Any successful freeware package, or at least successful enough for the government to consider it, is going to have to be able to compete functionally with the major proprietary packages out there. Plus there's going to have to be a large enough pool of people out there trained in developing and supporting the software. Otherwise, the cost savings in the software license are going to be eaten up in development and maintenance costs, not to mention lost productivity due to bugs and issues in the software (which are a lot more common in homegrown and heavily customized systems than they are in packaged ones).

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And if you read the business cases and independent studies, you will fins that open source offers a lower TCO and greater stability.

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: WingNut ]

I think we're looking at office software from different angles. I agree with you completely about open source making great inroads into the enterprise (apache is open source too isn't it? it's been a long time since i've seen a client not running it). But my area is more on the front end, on the functional side, with office software packages for various HR and finance functions.

But here is one news story:

quote:

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Verizon saves a heap of cash by using OpenOffice on Linux workstations

Telecommunications company Verizon Communications saved $6m (£3.6m) in equipment costs by moving its programmers to Linux computers, the company said Wednesday.

The company cut costs by replacing programmers' Unix and Windows workstations with Linux systems that run OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office, said George Hughes, a Verizon executive overseeing the work. The average desktop cost went from $22,000 (£13,000) to $3,000 (£1,800) per developer, he said in a talk at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.

Cost cutting is one of the key arguments behind adoption of Linux. Linux is available for free or at low cost from companies such as MandrakeSoft.

As ZDNet reported yesterday, Air New Zealand is another company that went with Linux to save costs. The company is replacing 150 existing Compaq Computer Windows servers and a 150 more that would been purchased in the next 12 to 15 months with an IBM z800 mainframe running Linux. The overall cost of ownership of the mainframe is more than 30 percent less, chief information officer for Air New Zealand Andrew Care said.

src: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t454-s2120894,00.html

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**Edited to add:
I admit that Open Office and Star Office and certainly Linux is not for everyone. I do not think Bill Gates is Satan just a ranking demon of some sort.

But with Microsoft's subscription licensing model, the costs for business to run applications is becoming prohibtive and in the end a computer is just a tool. I think any business must consider open source alternatives and investigate them even if cost is the soul motivating factor.

Linux has established itself as a performer in every area it has been intoduced so far. First the Internet, now the enterprise with database and mission critical applications. The desktop is the last frontier. And it is almost there.

Put another way sheep, any CIO who fails over the next few years to investigate Linux and open source as a viable alternative isn't worth his/her pay cheque and bonuses.

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: WingNut ]

The next time you're in Kingston, could you please stop by and say hello to my 'pooter?

quote:

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One of the problems I see is compatiblity and integration with other systems. You can offer a free word processing package, for example, but if it's not capable of opening and creating MS Word files, and does not contain all the features that users expect from Word, then it will never fly.

There's also been a shift in IT thinking over the last decade away from in house development and customization, and towards packaged enterprise wide software solutions, like PeopleSoft and SAP. One of the advantages of these packages is their level of integration. Instead of having to maintain one system to do your HR, one for your Finance Department, one for Payroll, etc., you have one integrated system meeting all those needs. You get away from having to maintain the same information in multiple databases. A software company coming in claiming that they'll customize, and develop to whatever requirements you want is not going to catch the ear of an IT director, because they've probably been down that road, and seen the problems that approach takes.

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Most of those free packages do read .doc files now. And as Micrsoft plans to base their tools around XML anyway, this need will diminish quickly. Actually, right now one can get away with using HTML instead of proprietary file formats for a lot of things.

You refer to those big integrated ERP systems like SAP.... well, they made big hay in the late 90s, but sales are on the decline these days. What is replacing those styles of architectures are open standards-based workflow and business process executables. Many organizations recognized that they could get their processes into ERP systems. However, changing them to meet changing business needs was pretty difficult -- harder than changing custom-built systems. They also don't offer much in the way of support for processes that cross enterprise boundaries.

quote:

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Put another way sheep, any CIO who fails over the next few years to investigate Linux and open source as a viable alternative isn't worth his/her pay cheque and bonuses.

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Couldn't agree more Wingy.

quote:

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You refer to those big integrated ERP systems like SAP.... well, they made big hay in the late 90s, but sales are on the decline these days.

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Very true, but the late 90's aren't all that long ago, and there's still quite a few gasps left in the ERP market. However, one of the main reasons that sales are off is that most of the corporations, governments, etc. that have need of these systems already own one. There's practically nobody left to sell to. Thus, the bulk of ERP revenues today is coming from upgrades, which, in my opinion, are often solutions looking for new problems. The ERP vendors are also jumping on the XML bandwagon too. PeopleSoft is fully internet and XML based now. The new releases of SAP will be also.

An intersting site though paxamillion. Thanks for the link.

I hate to bring this up to, because I'm not trying to rain on Russell's parade, but I think one of the major flaws in his scheme is his pilot client. The Government of Canada. Governments, when it comes to doing business, have a well deserved reputation for being non innovative thinkers, slow to respond to new ideas, resistant to change, and hopelessly mired in bureaucracy. I've worked for enough to know this for a fact. No matter how many good points you could make for using an opensource replacement for Word, you're gonna have some manager sitting in a corner office who's been there for 30 years, complaining "where's the little dog that shows you how to type a letter? I want that little dog!". And these people, within government, wield a lot of power.

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: sheep ]

And why not? All they get is shat on by people like Stephen Harper every day who vote Canadian Alliance because it feels good to beat up on defenceless government employees.

[ October 23, 2002: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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Maybe they're so conservative and unchanging because right-wingers have so successfully trashed the notion that government can be a force for positive change that nobody of any creativity and intelligence wants to work in a government job.

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Maybe they're so conservative and unchanging because right-wingers"...

This may explain positions of some public sector bureaucrats, but what about the positions of the political parties and MP's themself?

There are currently 5 political parties with seats in the federal government. I have had meetings with 2 Liberal MP's and 1 NDP (Bill Blaikie) so far (only 295 MP's to go ;-), and the reception has been positive so far.

Rather than putting left-right labels to these issues, why not pick a party (with seats in parliament or not) that is closest to your views, and work with them to understand the issues and form a position.

My challenge to everyone is that if it is true that your chosen party or political philosophy is more innovative in their thinking, then their policies will prove this. Given that many posting here on Rabble identify themselves as "left wing", I fully expect to see positions on Free Software (or even just office suites) coming out of the left-wing parties soon. *smile*

SHEEP wrote:

Governments, when it comes to doing business, have a well deserved reputation for being non innovative thinkers, slow to respond to new ideas, resistant to change, and hopelessly mired in bureaucracy.

The best way to ensure success at anything you to is to first believe it is possible.

Have you looked at the Knowledge Exchange Service of PWGSC that I referenced in my article? Do you believe that your statement also applies to them? What about the Government of Canada participants in the PWGSC hosted Open Source Solutions Showcase?

We have moved quite far already in the last year, and continue to move forward. This is not just an isolated suggestion I am making on Rabble, but part of an ongoing campaign that has received a fair bit of publicity already. Do a search on the net for GOSLING (Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments) to find out what our current informal group (part public sector, part private citizens) is doing.

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A pilot scheme which could see police forces throughout England and Wales switching to Linux desktops has kicked off with delivery of the first systems to the West Yorkshire force ... the clients themselves are 'stateless,' so a user can log on with their smartcard from any machine on the network, and get immediate access to their personal desktop, which includes Openoffice. For police work this has clear advantages, because it potentially makes mobile connectivity a lot easier.

src: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/10/19/1518241

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quote:

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Linux will be the main operating system for IBM's upcoming family of "Blue Gene" supercomputers--a major endorsement for the operating system and the open-source computing model it represents.
IBM's $100 million Blue Gene program is directed at creating, by late 2005 or early 2006, a new family of supercomputers that will be able to perform a quadrillion calculations per second (one petaflop).

src: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-963285.html

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[ October 25, 2002: Message edited by: WingNut ]

Philippe Aigrain (European Commission, Information Society DG) has written an article on this topic that is posted to Free/ Open Source Community online papers:

A Framework for Understanding GPL copylefting vs. non copylefting licenses

This article provides a framework to discuss the consequences of licensing choices that are applied to publicly funded libre choices. It disucsses these choices from the angle of general public interest and policy. It concludes that one is led to prefer GPL for any libre software component that is publicly funded and when its is providing functionality as part of the common infrastructure of the information society.

The most interesting paragraph is as follows:

It all breaks down to one simple question: is it legitimate in the digital world for governments to support and protect the existence of commons, of public resources that can not be appropriated? If one thinks governments are only servants of economic players, and should serve them regardless of what are the effects on society, culture and the economy as a whole, one can accept the prospect of enclosure of essential public resources. If one thinks government should serve citizens and the public good, including of course the creation of economic wealth by companies, then it is legitimate to contribute to a rich and protected commons domain.

See also:

Talking with Open Source advocates from Peru and Vietnam

Last week, at a conference in Washington, D.C., I listened to a speech by (and had private conversations with) Peruvian Congressman and "Open Source Hero" Edgar Villanueva and an interesting gentleman from Vietnam who both told me, in no uncertain terms, why their countries must switch to Linux and Open Source instead of depending on proprietary software from foreign companies.

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Russell McOrmond ]

The English language site is at http://www.redflag-linux.com/eindex.html

My understanding is that China is very big on "open source". I understand that with China joining the WTO, they've had to crack down on government ministries using pirated M$ software and since they can't afford all of these Micro$lop licenses, it makes sense to move to Linux.

Yes Canada is very behind many other parts of the world in adopting "open source" software and could do more.

But I think as a start, before tackling Canada's federal government, perhaps a smaller "baby step" would be simply to get more folks in the progressive community to start using "open source" software.

And the smallest of baby steps I think is simply to get babblers to download and install Open Office on their machines and just try it out! They don't even have to change their operating systems...they can run Open Office under their Micro$lop Windows operating system.

How about getting the folks who run the "Rabble" site to put a link on the main page to http://www.openoffice.org and encourage folks who visit the site to take this one very small step towards "open source".

I'm running Mandrake Linux 9.0 on this old Pentium 233 with 64 megs of RAM. It runs a little sluggish but it does the job...and it doesn't crash. I've got an XP box but more and more I'm finding myself using the Linux box.

It's kind of fun knowing that in my own little way every time I boot up this machine I'm saying "screw you Bill Gates!!!"

My point is to get the "non-techies" to start playing with Open Office. Most "non-techie" computer users haven't even heard of "open source" software and aren't aware that there is indeed a world beyond using Micro$lop Windows and Micro$slop Office.

IMHO, Open Office is "the" killer application for the open source movement. Changing operating systems is too complicated for the average user. Open source web browsers and e-mail programmes are no big deal since the Micro$lop browsers and Outlook Express are free with every Micro$lop operating system.

And text boxes are just about impossible to use - and their help function is pretty useless as well. They tell you what icon to press to get a certain thing (like say, a text box) but they don't explain where to find that icon. Also, it does not convert tables from MS Word intact.

One of the things I noticed when I gave away WYSIWYG editing for the document conversion cycle of LaTeX is that I stopped wasting time on controlling every silly little thing and trying to do it my way--there are document styles with overarching parameters which are very well-honed and everyone lives with. So I spend more time on controlling the parts of the document that are actually relevant to my work. For instance, I would never contemplate designing my own business card template if I could download an existing document structure. MS Word, Word Pro, etc, etc, would instead be encouraging me to create my own, and I think that's unhealthy, actually.
It's not surprising that tables don't convert properly from Word into Writer. Even different versions of Word have problems with conversions amongst each other, I am told.

I used to use StarOffice, OpenOffice's commercial predecessor. I used it for a very complicated project (drawing a 150-state compiler diagram) and it saved my life. Now I wouldn't contemplate doing it in a graphical drawing program--maybe dia--but it was great at the time. And it should have matured from then.

If the help isn't clear, that's a serious problem--but very common. It's much easier to get people to code enthusiastically, and much harder to get people to write good documentation. I should know. I hate writing documentation, even though I had a job in it once, and am pretty good at it--I think.

You gave a small detail as an example of why you felt a very large piece of software is vastly inferior to another. Are the issues you noticed actually major, or minor issues? Did you check for the templates you were looking for on OO Extras or other community support sites dedicated to this suite?

How much is it worth to you to get it fixed if someone has not already created what you need? Many people have been paying >$300 for office suites at each upgrade (about every 3-5 years). Would you be willing to take your $300 and hire someone local to you to create the feature you need?

If the fix takes more than $300, would you be willing to get together with some friends and pool your resources? Building community and sharing resources in a cooperative fashion is how Free Software works.

A recent posting to the OpenOffice.org marketing list explained things this way:

OpenOffice.org is released under an increasingly popular license that allows you to legally install the software on as many machines as you like.

Unlike many licences that insist on complicated conditions about how and where software is used we want you and your family, work colleagues and friends, to enjoy OpenOffice.org with minimum inconvenience from bureaucracy and legal uncertainties and the lowest possible cost, in this case zero. If you bought a disc, the price you paid is for the convenience of having the software packaged in this way, the software itself is free.

You might be wondering how we can afford to do this. OpenOffice.org is a worldwide network of thousands of volunteers who collaborate over the Internet to maintain and develop this software. Some large companies put resources into our development work because its less expensive for them to have free access to this resource even in common with others than to pay license fees to a competitor for what they see as an inferior product.

You can join in too if you like, simply log on to the web site to find out more. The massive worldwide support we have gained ensures that this software will not only continue to be free for those that want to use it, but that it will be regularly improved to make it run more efficiently as well as fixing bugs and adding features.

Please install this software on as many computers as you want to. There are versions for just about every major computer platform, not just personal computers running Windows. For more information about the worldwide free software movement consult ref1, ref2, ref3 etc.

Freedom in software is the democratic future.

If you are comparing the price-tag and features of OpenOffice.org to an illegal copy of another suite, that is not appropriate.

When you illegally copy software you are hurting all of us. The Software Manufacturing companies have always greatly benefit from what they call "software piracy". Not only do they create captive audiences for their products that they push into the business markets, they are then able to use bogus statistics to go to the government and ask for more power. They are slowly receiving this power - the very democratic structure of the Internet is under threat because of this lobbying!

Please don't illegally copy or use software - it is simply not worth the price we all pay for those actions!!

Note: I have actually refused service from clients who wanted me to service computers with illegal software on them. I also needed to add a paragraph about this in the article that introduces my business: Open Systems, Free Software, and Why?

radiorahim,

Did you send a message to the people listed in the Contact Us section of Rabble about your idea? Would you be willing to write a story in your own words to be included on the site? I would be interested to help you with this to ensure that anything referenced is accurate. It would be better coming from new people rather than the same-old folks.

[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: Russell McOrmond ]

As others have mentioned just doing a conversion from one version of M$ Word to another can be a royal pain in the butt...so don't judge Open Office too harshly in this respect.

And the more complex a document, the more difficult it is to do a conversion. I don't do alot of very complex documents so for my purposes it suits me just fine.

The other thing to keep in mind, is that Open Office didn't cost you a cent, while MS Office costs hundreds of dollars. The question for most folks is, if Open Office will do 80-90% of what you want to do, is the hundreds of dollars you spend for M$ Office worth it for that extra 10-20%? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

And, if you're trying to do something a little more complex, by doing some hunting around the net you might just find another open source programme that will do just what you want it to do.

I often find that the "help" menus in M$ aren't particularly helpful anyway...and when you've paid for software you expect some half-decent help menus!

If you want to get a little bit more "adventurous" and happen to have a second maybe older PC around you might want to try out the Linux operating system. From my limited experience so far, Mandrake is probably the easiest version of Linux to install for folks who are used to M$ Windows.

I've got a pile of old "junk box" computers lying around the basement and that's what I'm using to teach myself Linux. Taking the "long term" view of things, I tend to think that "open source" software is going to be a big part of computing in the future. What ordinary person can afford this continuous cycle of software and hardware upgrades.

If you're running Linux on your PC, there is a plethora of open source free software around that will do just about everything under the sun. You just have to learn to think outside of the "Micro$oft box" that most of us have been stuck in and do things maybe a little bit differently.

The other neat thing about "open source" is that there is a community of software developers out there...some paid, some volunteer. So if there is something that drives you crazy about a particular piece of open source software you can e-mail the developers and you just might find that your suggestions have made it into the next software revision.

Open Office is only on version 1 right now...well 1.01 maybe 1.02 (haven't visited the site recently). As they move to version 2, 3 etc. its only going to get better.

No, I'm not a programmer...don't know squat about it. But I do know a good idea when I see it and am quite thankful to all of the open source programmers out there coming up with all of this cool stuff I can use!

And yes, I will drop a note to the "comments" section.