On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Indranil Das Gupta wrote: > Actively advocating an exclusionist FLOSS policy is IMHO being as bad as the > worst of MSFT/proprietary world.
Here in bangalore, we once followed a OSS-only policy. It got us nowhere. Then we got smart. After LB/2002, we made available slide shows in both PPT and SXI (OpenOffice) formats, with a link to OPenOffice.org (http://linux-bangalore.org/2002/schedules/talkdetails.php?talkcode=D503 for a sample) The logs showed something interesting - may people downloaded the PPT versions, of course, but a lot also downloaded the SXI versions, and (even more interesting) we started getting lots of reports from people that they also clicked on the OpenOffice link, checked it out, downloaded OO for Windows or Linux, and found it very useful. So, while being open to both worlds, we have actually stared making people aware of the open alternative, and even influencing people into trying it out. Bigotism is one of the *WORST* possible forms of advocacy. In order to make people see things your way, you *have* to bend a bit. Believe me, it works. Atul -- ------------------------------------------- Atul Chitnis | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exocore Consulting | http://www.exocore.com Bangalore, India | +91 (80) 344-0397 ------------------------------------------- -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/node.php?id=3
