Openoffice and Abiword both will save in .doc format Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Moore <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 11:00:23 To: General Linux/UNIX discussion and help,civil and on-topic<[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PLUG] We need more Linux in this town... On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Mike Connors <[email protected]> wrote: > > I want to live and work in a community that thinks about why and how they do > things. What I'm getting at really is the process, or my > perceived lack thereof, of selecting and implementing software for a biz. My > personal approach is to look for the FOSS solution first. If it > doesn't suit my needs or there's just a set of features that I just can't > live without then go seek out a commercial closed source prod My own guess is that most people not aware of/interested in things technological don't view the computer or the software it runs as being integrally involved in "why and how they do things." All the non-profits I've been involved with in the area are using Microsoft products. These are agencies that always go begging for money, devote considerable resources to fundraising (some get government funds, some do not), and in general are as likely to have laid staff off over the past year as your typical small-to-mid-size for-profit business. Almost all are passionate and clear-eyed about what they do, what they see as their missions, and continually are re-examining and revamping procedures, policies, structures, messaging, and everything else about the "why and how" to accomplish their goals -- everything, that is, except the technology they use. If you ask them, "technology" means, broadly, what social media websites/apps-of-the-month they might use to help them help their clients or constituents or help them find more donors. That's as much as they think about it; Linux or FOSS isn't on their radars. I know of only one non-profit that got a computer from Free Geek, and the guy who runs the non-profit promptly put out an email appeal for funds to buy a Microsoft license for the box. And, honestly, I can't think of a good reason why Linux/FOSS should be on their radars, except that it would provide a generally better user experience (IMO, of course -- not everyone would agree with that). Unless or until someone comes along and shows them how much money they could save using FOSS, or shows them something valuable they could do with it that they can't do now, there is no reason for them to bother with the time and expense of replacing their technology infrastructure. Recently, I started volunteering at TPI (Transitions Project, Inc.), which runs three shelters in Portland. On Sundays, I go in to the shelter on Glisan and open up the resource room, which has four Windows boxes the guys staying there can use. (It's a 90-bed men's shelter that provides housing for up to four months; 60% of the residents are veterans.) The computers are pretty slow -- they are machines previously used by TPI staff that otherwise would have been discarded -- but they work. TPI could definitely get better machines from Free Geek, but since resumes have to be in .doc format, I'm not sure how much good that would do the residents. Michael M. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
