Phil Shapiro wrote:
steve, this is a good question. openoffice.org is a gateway drug.
(in a good sense.) people who transition to openoffice.org on windows
are far more likely to transition to openoffice.org on linux down the road.
Umm. I have yet to see data which supports this. In my experience,
people who use OpenOffice.org on Windows... keep using Windows. I end up
having to use Windows a lot myself, mainly because of the market of
users - more than I really like - but the combination of SeaMonkey
(Mozilla evolved) and OpenOffice.org makes Windows pretty robust for the
purposes which I use it for. I can list over 100 (and that's a low
estimate) times I have switched people from Microsoft Office/Internet
Explorer to OpenOffice/Firefox/Seamonkey. I can count on my fingers how
many people/businesses I have helped transition from Windows to Linux.
For either, I have not been chased out of town.
The reason is simple: These options are plug in replacements. Linux is
not. So I wouldn't say that OpenOffice.org is a 'gateway drug'.
In the end, I agree with Torvald's statement that an operating system
should be invisible to a user. And I think the 'OS Wars' that started in
the 1980s and crept into the 1990s are simply being kept alive by the
media. The internet has equalized a lot of this in the last 10 years
(it's been 10 years), and you can use your toaster if you want to - as
long as I can read what you write, listen to what you say, etc.
Operating systems don't matter. Standards do. I'd prefer people focused
on standards that allowed communication instead of operating system holy
wars. :-)
their main work app will have fit them like a glove by then --
and making the jump to linux would be far less intimidating.
I've never seen this.
in the evolution of things, things evolve along certain predictable paths.
in such cases, familiarity breeds attempt.
Being familiar with OpenOffice does not make one familiar with Linux. O.o
--
Taran Rampersad
Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago
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