[ubuntu-uk] Searching for a Killer App

[alan c]

Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> Alan,
> 
> On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:10:15 +0000, Alan Pope <alan at popey.com>
> wrote:
>> Hi Matthew,
>> 
>> On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 12:56:13PM +0100, Matthew
>> Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
>>> They use Microsoft Publisher.
> 
>> Use or Used? Could they use Scribus under Linux?
> 
> They could use scribus but they won't make the jump until they can
> take their content with them!
> 
>>> Whilst there are many tools out there that will act as a
>>> replacement, I
>> am unable to find a program that will load and save MS Pub files.
>> 
>> 
>> Do they need to use publisher specifically? Can they do a
>> one-time conversion of their old stuff to PDF and create new
>> content in scribus?
> 
> Only if they can edit the PDFs afterwards.  Basically they do a lot
> of work for their local churches and other charity organisations,
> all of which seem to have fallen into the "It's Microsoft AND it's
> cheap[0]...It MUST be good!!" 

Maybe its time to tell them about monopolies and vendor lock in, and 
the various consequences of this.

I was in the queue at the local colledge enrolement enquiries event 
this afternoon. The two people in front of me wanted photo editing. 
They found they would need Photoshop (elements) on their home PCs - 
which they realised was expensive (for them).  The course tutor had no 
open source offerings, and did not mention it anyway. :-(

I gave them an opensource Free Software information Leaflet, which 
cheered them up a bit......  :-)

An IT tutor upstairs was very happy to accept some information too - 
which would be given to students soon (after the exams).
The information was  7.04 Ubuntu desktop CD, Copy of audio stream of 
BBC's OpenSource broadcast (April) copy of video stream of current BBC 
Click (includes Ubuntu and Mark Shuttleworth interview), Popey's 
updating ubuntu screencast example, a few amusing Get Firefox clips, 
and some other docs.

Good luck with your persuading!
-- 
alan cocks
Kubuntu user#10391