Maybe it is so darn good (and it is) and the majority of the computer-using world so brainwashed by the MS hegemony that some otherwise perfectly reasonable folks think that this is all maybe too good to be true. I must confessed that the thought crossed my mind when I discovered OOo when I got interest in Linux in generally and Ubuntu specifically.
I think you hit one one major aspect here. The vast majority of people only know what is given them on their computer. To them a computer is am appliance. They take what they get. If there is no icon on the desktop, the application may as well not exist (look at all the pleas for help and then amazement when they discover that there are programs listed under Start > Programs). They are told that they have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars, euros, zlotys, shillings, francs or whatever or the software must either of such poor quality that it's unusable, or it's illegal.
Couple all that with the fact that the world has a lot of crooks, and people have been burned... by spyware, malware, credit card scams etc etc. It's not much wonder no one can believe that software can actually be given away for free.
Public awareness is slowly changing though. If it wasn't we wouldn't be so inundated with these questions. These frustrating questions mean that people are actually branching out and exploring the better world of Linux, OpenOffice.org, The Gimp, FireFox etc.
Take a look here... and you will see just how popular the OpenOffice.org website is... http://tools.services.openoffice.org/dashboard/
C. -- Clayton Cornell [EMAIL PROTECTED] StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
