openoffice is dead?

[William Park]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2011 at 09:26:41PM -0500, Christopher Browne wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 9:00 PM, William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 06, 2011 at 06:34:52PM -0500, phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org wrote:
> >> On one occasion I was in the lineup at Canada Computers and noticed the
> >> guy ahead of me was spending a Vast Fortune on Microsoft Office stuff. I
> >> really had to bite my tongue not to advise him to try OO. The Canada
> >> Computer people probably would have thrown me into the street.
> >
> > This goes to the heart of issue...
> >    How do we get people to spend that kind of money on Linux
> >    applications?
> 
> While I appreciate that you may think this important, I don't actually
> care about that.  I don't care to require people to spend "that kind
> of money" on Linux applications.
> 
> GTALUG doesn't have anything in its constitution about "encouraging
> people to unleash bags of money on Linux."
> 
> To the contrary, the first object our Letters Patent indicates as a
> purpose for incorporation is:
> 
> "To promote interest in, and the use of, Linux, the Free Software
> Foundation, the GNU Public License, and related technologies and
> solutions"
> 
> I believe that people are better off not sending Briefcases Full of
> Money to Microsoft, but rather in using their money for whatever other
> sorts of things they'd like to use their money on.
> 
> If you're trying to find ways to capture those Briefcases of Money,
> that may be quite interesting to you, personally, but it's not
> properly something that GTALUG is supposed to care about.
> 
> And I head back to my old canard that typical computer stores aren't
> really about people that are into computing; they are primarily
> *stores*, that draw in inventory, in the forms of boxes small and
> large, and then, they sell those boxes.  They're not electronic
> engineers - they couldn't build a CPU if their lives depended on it.
> They just bring in boxes that contain things they think they can sell.
> 
> The computer stores that have survived have some modicum of expertise
> at taking some of those boxes (containing motherboards, CPUs, disk
> drives, cases), and assembling them into functioning computers.
> 
> In this context, software costs look a whole lot more like a head tax
> than anything else.  We decided that head taxes were an evil thing
> when applied to people; the same hasn't been recognized generally as a
> truth for computers.  Richard Stallman "evangelizes" the notion of
> proprietary software being an evil, but it's not nearly something that
> people universally agree upon.
> 
> But if our Letters Patent indicate promoting interest in the FSF and
> GPL, we are, formally, as an organization, somewhat expected to
> appreciate that kind of argument.
> 
> And that has certainly gotten expressed in this thread, with people
> considering saying "you didn't need to pay for all that expensive
> proprietary software."  And looking back to organizational "first
> principles," I find myself compelled to agree.  (Not that it took a
> lot of arm-twisting!)
> 
> On the contrary side, I'm not sure how we'd see about twisting
> peoples' arms to give us their Briefcases Full of Money without having
> to head down proprietary roads inconsistent with our objectives.

First, we have to get over this "free" thing.  There is no such thing as
free.  MIT and Sanford are funded by corporate donations and tax, both
of which are not free.

Second, are we just hobbists?  Or, are we here to change something?

> (re-copied)
> "To promote interest in, and the use of, Linux, the Free Software
> Foundation, the GNU Public License, and related technologies and
> solutions"

Biggest roadblock to stated objective is that Linux is not relevant to
most people's income.  The guy at Canada Computers saved his
lunch/coffee money and was spending it on something.  Why?  Because it
has direct bearing on his income.

People complain about "learning curve" on Linux, but endure through
learning curve on Microsoft.  Why?  Because, Linux is not relevant to
their income, but Microsoft definitely is.  Even though the learning
curve on Microsoft is more horrific (we all know), they take it.
Windows8 will be coming out, and they'll take it again.
-- 
William
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