On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 10:04, Patrick Dunford wrote:
The reason why cost saving is not a big deal is that most people I know in church circles aren't that tight.
Although in practice that's a fine answer, and it's quite likely the right answer for you, there's a fine line between having plenty of money to adress a problem with, and wasting money.
<rant temperature="solar"> <disclaimer> Please don't attack this argument *personally*, this is an impersonal rant ... no _specific_ offence intended. Although it is offensive. I don't have anything against organised churches. </disclaimer>
Wasting money is a moral crime. If your church has excess cash, I presume it spends it on doing good for the community. The more excess it has, the more it can spend on doing good. Therefore the less it has, the less good it can do. Therefore the choice of Microsoft/commercial software as opposed to equivalent[1] OOS is a choice to do less good, which is evil.
The same argument should be used of government, of course, replacing "good/evil" with "providing services to the population/increasing the profits of already-rich influential people".
[1] The watchword is "equivalent". If you genuinely can't get your job done with OOS tools, and you can't write them yourselves (which is true of 99% of users, of course), then you have to purchase software. On the other hand, if all you have to do to use the OSS tools is to change your working habits a little bit, then the refusal starts to sound like laziness, which is effectively a sin.
</rant>
Without wanting to sound to offensive... I haven't found "logic" to the the strong suit of most church-goers...Evil is what the minister/priest/pastor says it is.
Anton
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