Re: [Fsfe-uk] open office in schools (was Microsoft 'hoovers millions)

[alan]

On 26 Jul 2002 at 17:41, Andrew Atkinson wrote:

[snip...]

> Evaluate fact chance, I am responsible for the purchase of IT at a large
> comprehensive. But when it comes to office do I have a real choice - (not
> yet but I am working on it) Mention that there is anything out there that
> is not MS and I tend to get funny looks and slagged off by most staff,
> governors and parents, but funnily enough only a few pupils. (Suggest that
> there is better well.....) This difficulty I can solve with time, the
> problem that I really have is that the government send everything out in MS
> and expects it back in the same form. This amounts to government
> endorsement and it the really hard bit to break and overcome. I am afraid
> that the schools of this land are becoming indoctrinated into MS and
> schools need help to break this.
> 
> Andrew

That's an interesting point - I've run into a similar problem with the 
government's Housing Corporation quango. Perhaps a campaign is needed to 
make the government use only open, documented standards for government 
documents. 

M$ refuse to document the Word (.doc) format. Their position is that it is 
proprietory, and that if poeple want 
to exchange documents they should use rich text format (.rtf), which is 
documented...

alan
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