[DC LoCo] Microsoft OpenOffice FUD YouTube video

[Jeremy C.]

Whole-hearted SECONDED for what Thomas said. Users are dumb. Things need to
just work. No decision maker can possibly make a case for "but open source
is the 'right' thing to do" or "but it's free".

As soon as you try to say, "yeah there may be some small concerns but if you
just do this, this and this ...." .... NOPE, "yeah there may be some..." cut
off, end of story...placing our M$ order immediately!

But Kevin's got great points and you're DEAD RIGHT about the speaker's Names
& Titles flashing on screen for mere fractions of a second compared to the
Soviet-inspired, you-need-to-fear-socialism animations! That was one of the
first things I noticed.



On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:39 PM, Kevin Cole <dc.loco at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wish ads like this allowed the viewer to (a) pay attention to what's
> being said rather than dazzle with all the varieties of ways one can arrange
> words and animate them, and (b) not make me stop the video when I want to
> know WHO is making the arguments.
>
> As someone who has very little need for fancy word processing, and has not
> had a problem with spreadsheets, I can't comment much on the practical /
> pragmatic pros and cons of Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice.org.  However,
> virus-free for 17 years goes a VERY long way with me.  And, "compatible
> with" shouldn't be the gold standard.  Particularly if the product with
> which one is seeking compatibility has its own flaws. Here at Gallaudet, a
> portion of the campus moved to a newer version of MS Office against the
> recommendations of the IT department (and most newspapers, other campuses,
> etc.). Our IT department is pretty much a Microsoft shop and doesn't have
> any particular love of Linux.  They were recommending people hold off on the
> latest, and they control a lot of computers on campus.  Unfortunately,
> students and others who did upgrade were circulating documents that over
> half the campus couldn't read.  Microsoft can't stay compatible with itself.
>
> Is FOSS flawed? Sure. So is non-FOSS. And in both cases, you probably get
> better support from the community of users than anyone else. But in addition
> to the cost of time maintaining and fixing problems, Microsoft adds in the
> cost of license per machine.  The claim that somehow paying for the product
> removes the cost of maintenance seems specious. The corporate model they
> still use is it's better to hide flaws / bugs / exploits from the users
> until someone internally can fix them.
>
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