Migration to free

[Nick Hockings]

Hi,

Several valid points have been made by all parties:

1)H.F. is right there's little point aiming for less than 100% free.

2)A.D. is right WINE can be useful. The main use is to maintain productivity by 
allowing users to continue using the apps they know until they have time to 
learn the free alternatives. This important, because you can't just retrain all 
the users on a network over night.

3)H.F. is right that DemoLinux is not a tool for daily use. It is a 
demonstration tool that allows a newcomer to see what free apps are available 
on GNU/Linux. As such it is useful for publicity, but does not deliver the 
speed of an installed system. eg to run Open Office, DemoLinux requires a P3 or 
better, where as a P1 can run Open Office if Debian Potato is correctly 
installed.

4)The Seul case studies list is useful, but mixing free and non-free projects 
causes confusion. Would the Offset team have time to get include all the 100% 
free projects from the Seul case studies in a free software case studies list?

I should explain that my publicity project involves sending a CD of DemoLinux 
with free software of relevance to the recipient. The CD is to be accompanied 
by a letter asking for further discussions and explaining what is to be found 
on the CD, (lots of philosophy documents, URLs, plus the GPL'ed apps most 
useful to the Teacher/Politician...).

Those who reply can then be visited by the volunteer nearest to them. If they 
like what they see & hear, then the volunteer will install a machine with 
Debian Woody and the apps needed. If that goes well then we help them convert 
their whole LAN. 

In this way we hope to win a significant number of converts to both our 
philosophy and our technology. If we succeed it will no longer be possible for 
government to say "but there is no alternative to proprietary software".

Nick Hockings
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