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- einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42Here's the original German, followed by my rough translation:
Die niederländische Provinzhauptstadt Groningen hat beschlossen, den Vertrag mit Software-Riese Microsoft für die Lieferung des Büropakets Microsoft Office nicht zu verlängern. Stattdessen will die Gemeinde im Norden der Niederlande auf die Open-Source-Alternative Openoffice umsteigen. Nach eigenen Angaben sei Groningen damit die größte niederländische Stadt, die freie Software am Arbeitsplatz einsetzt. Mit der Umstellung spare die Gemeinde 330.000 Euro im Jahr. Knapp die Hälfte dieses Betrags, 160.000 Euro, will Groningen für die Finanzierung der Migration aufwenden.
Gronigen, the capital city of Gronigen Province, has decided not to extend its Microsoft Office contract with software giant Microsoft. Instead, this northern Dutch community will move to the Open-Source-Alternative OpenOffice. According to some reports, this move would make Gronigen the largest Dutch city to move free software to workstations. The community will save 300,000 Euros with this move in the first year. Groningen will spend just under half of the value of the contract, 160,000 Euros, to complete the migration.
Oh, and actually, my math really sucks. Gronigen's net savings is actually 170,000 in the first year, not 140,000, as I said above. - i440, on 10/12/2007, -41/+77Also dropped: half of the features that once existed, and fathomable loading times!!!
Sorry, couldn't resist. Please bury me, please? - Vary, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36Translation.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/75761 - RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -5/+32Exactly. It may be 5 years or it may be 15, but I just don't see people and governments paying out the ass for licensing fees when free open source stuff is out there. The biggest hurdle is educating the masses: people simply don't realizes how much tax dollars can be saved by ditching Microsoft.
- IanLynch, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30They will save more than the license fees. The Principal of a successful independent school giving a keynote at the FLOSSIE conference (UK) on Thursday said their main savings were in the convenience of administration, updates when it suited them and the fact their community and students could use the same software without being expected to pay license fees. This enabled them to routinely set hoemework in the knowledge that all had access to the same tools as they were using in school. The main opposition was irrational eg individuals balming the switch on anything that weent wrong on their computer when most times it had absolutely nothing to do with it. That is why mostly people have not been faster to switch. Change management is something the general population finds difficult and why it takes early adopters to lead the change process. Its like that book, the haunted house by Hugo First ;-)
- pshapiro, on 10/12/2007, -6/+30the shape of things to come.
- hchaudh1, on 10/12/2007, -7/+30You must be living in the 80's or something. Or you are just trying to troll.
Do you really think they can implement an Office Suite and yet leave short cuts and tooltips out. I use OO and well, to state the obvious, they are available. The only think missing is the extra extra long MS schlong in your bum, that is if you paid for MS Office. - chiller2002, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22And to answer your question: At this point in time, 136 people care.
And if you want to know who, click "Who Dugg This" at the top.
Thanks for being an ass. - binarymelon, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24People have to realize that licensing fees be damned. The biggest virtue of using ODF is that there is no proprietary lock-in. Companies do not last forever and Microsoft is no exception. People putting there information in a format which may not be accessible in a 100 years is a dangerous gamble to make. Microsoft's lock-in techniques are irresponsible and in a few (if not many) cases illegal. Is Microsoft villianized more then they should be? Maybe, maybe not, but that's neither here nor there. People can pay Microsoft how ever much they want for their software, but governments agencies should not be storing their information in proprietary formats.
- FreakTrap, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21First, and only.
- blackmath, on 10/12/2007, -8/+24OpenOffice.org download links for you non-enlightened ones.
http://download.openoffice.org/2.0.3/index.html - Arkonnan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17As a long-time Open Office user, I'm glad to see it making the news more often. I'm glad people are taking notice. But my first reaction was that this was a ploy to get a better deal on MS Office licenses. Companies and school districts have been known to make similar announcements with the hopes of doing just that. As is always the case, the moment this sort of thing is announced some MS lackey is out there on the first thing smoking in order to cut a deal and retain their client's business.
In the end, I hope this is not the case. I don't think Microsoft cares much losing a quarter of a mil in license fees as much as they care about the possible domino effect of losing marketshare to some young upstart(and a free one at that). You can bet that they're going to do whatever they can to prevent this deal from going through. - chiller2002, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19Hopefully that's the last time you'll say anything.
- bitswapper, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17Actually, the general population would, I think, rather not deal with change management at all, especially with respect to computers. The reason I use openoffice is that it opens more MS Words documents that MS Word does. In other words (no pun intended) if a document was created in version X of MSWord, and version Y won't open it (a commonplace thing), yet OO will.
The real problem is that people are caught up in the notion that software defines what is to be done, not what is to be done defining the software. As long as that's the case, license fees and document formats won't matter - any software being used will suck by definition. How often do you see a job description that says "must know MS word", rather than "must be able to learn new skills and adapt to new situations"? Life will always present something new, and both MS Office and OpenOffice will just try to impose their way of composing a document on you. Oftentimes this will be a convience. Think of it this way: you want to present a list of options in a section of a document. For MS Office jockeys, they know exactly where to whip out a table or some similar kind of composing tool. Open Office users will have a similar arrow in their quiver of document composition skills. However, both Office suite users will take the same approach - how do I do a table in Office? Depending on how familiar they are with MS/Open Office, they will either know right away, or have to consult a reference of some kind.
However, what they should all do instead is ask, how to I best present these options to the reader? But, since they have been conditioned to accept the pretense that the software defines that task, they don't ask that question.
The problem is that people see computers as a tool, and have an intrinsic concept of what a tool is based on physical tools. The problem with that concept is that computers are information tools, not physical tools. As such, they should help guide the thought process, not dictate to it. The thought process is not about applying preconcieved notions to every situation, but adapting to the unique parameters of each situation - adapting and surviving.
Just like physical tools help us to perform physical tasks, information tools should help us to think, not strap our thinking down. Computers are supposed to help us to adapt and survive in terms of how we think. OpenOffice is just a clone of MS Office, and will just perpetuate the notion that the software defines the task. What is needed is a software tool that restores the proper perspective - that the task defines the software. - analgesia, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20BTW It's Groningen (not Gronigen)
- i440, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12As with most FOSS, older releases are /archaic/. OOo probably improved as much between 1.0 and 2.0 as Microsoft Office has improved since 1998. Try 2.0 you will hardly know you've used an earlier version of the same program before.
Short answer: get 2.0. - judsond, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12OpenOffice isn't as good as MS Office (except in the domain of standards support). Also, MS Office will become increasingly less important. Those things are not mutually exclusive. As much as people want it, OpenOffice:MS Office::Firefox:Internet Explorer simply isn't true. Firefox kicks ass, and is a relevant product.
MS Office will become irrelevant in some part due to OpenOffice, but mostly because the concept of a huge desktop client-side office suite is an anachronism. - LordSkywalker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12xe.com says that's $215,671.72 USD. Almost a quarter millon the first year. Cool.
- zwei, on 10/12/2007, -8/+18If you are worried about looks ...why are you using Windows?
- dizzybastard, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14@pdawg90
You must be American...and having lived both in the US and in Holland, I think its amazing how the common Dutch person knows more about American politics than the common American.
Go ahead... bury me all you patriotic Americans... just stating my observations - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10thats why its moddifiable so you can change all that and show other people how or at least request that it be changeable
- artman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@ilyag 9
"Way to sensationlize the issue, *****. The population of the city is irrelevant. This switch only affects government offices. For a city of that size, only a couple of thousand government-owned computers will be switched over (maybe a couple of hundred, the ones that are required to be switched). Pretty inconsequential, if you ask me."
Well, if you look at the savings the "couple of thousand/couple hundred" will have after this switch (170,000 euros) that could very well have consequences. If they succeed then maybe other companies will follow suit. - Langford, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Get version 2. It has new features, and support for the OpenDocument file formats.
- kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13we, the diggers, care
- Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7http://nl.openoffice.org/about-documentation.html
save them money in figureing out how to use it - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9why is being a cheap bastard a bad thing
esp when its not some cheapy crap thing you find at the dollar store made in china open office is very nice quality esp with the export to pdf, the slideshows in flash, and numerous other things - FreakTrap, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10The title for this article must of been written by an idiot.
The city government is dropping use of M.O. in favor of O.O.
The city is not dropping M.O. in favor of O.O. - slochewie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Are people claiming openoffice is better. Now probably not, as far as familiarity goes. Functionality there is no real difference. That said the biggest reason in the corporate world is the Excel/Calc differences. The only arguable difference is that particular part of the suite. Mainly years of power users using MS basic on macros. OpenOffice is great for home users, but at this point in the development process it makes sense for large scale switch overs such as this to go the StarOffice 8 route. The macro conversion has been greatly improved. Still not 100% but for most switch overs, Excel macros can be converted flawlessly.
Licensing on StarOffice is still a bargain compared to MS office licensing and you get support. Then a year or two later if you truly want to save, make the switch to OO once your users a familiar with the suite. I'm probably biased as my work made the switch years ago (Staroffice 5 days) and has never looked back. - rylin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Here you go:
There's only two things I hate in this world;
people who are intolerant of other people's cultures - and the Dutch!
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! - themacx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5knock, knock... Microsoft at your door.
- Judge373, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Haha...so true!
- hypercube33, on 10/12/2007, -28/+32OpenOffice is still gimpy compared to Office. Lack of "duh" features like shortcut keys or tooltips to show what they are,etc. is quite pathetic, against everything in Windows. I'm prepared to get flamed for those of you who believe that O.O. is Linux fathered but still, design for your platform.
I also refuse to pay a subscription for Office 2007. - zone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Sould I get 2.0.x or stick to 1.1.5? Thanks for any input.
- fires, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Escamillo
The open source code that is written for free is done in people's spare time for fun. That doesn't mean devs are suddenly insisting on working for free, the idea is idiotic. SUN sponsors a lot of the work done on O.O, so the most of the devs working on it get paid for their work. Writing open source code does not mean you have to do it for free. - snuffulupagus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I don't get it - what about home users? If you make the choice to use MS Office, do you get in trouble? If so the title of this article is misleading.
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+51.1.5 also supports ODF, unlike 1.1.4 and earlier.
- dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8I'd rather use Office 2000 than Office 2003. It's a hell of a lot faster, and oddly more stable.
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yay, another deliberately misleading article title posted purely to push the open source agenda, and there I was thinking you'd all left us in peace.
- pdawg90, on 10/12/2007, -10/+13There's only two kinds of people I hate in this world; those who hate other people bases on their nationalities... and the Dutch.
P.S. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
P.P.S. I know I butchered the quote. - ThankTheCheese, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4indeed. OO is slowly becoming more stable and user friendly. When the functionality and usability reach or exceed MS Office, that's when the major shift will happen.
- hchaudh1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@judsond
While I agree with most of your statement, I think you have it the other way around when you say OO does not support standards. Its MS Office which does not support standards and uses propreitery binary code in its documents, even in OpenXML. OO on the other hand supports ODF out of the box. - yvovandoorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm sure they can figure it out, after all they are the most computer literate people in the world :-)
ref: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/21/business/pew.php - yvovandoorn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"
OpenOffice is slow and bloated. I would rather use Microsoft Office 97 than OpenOffice. (FYI: I have been "trying" to use OpenOffice from when it was "Star Office", when it had it's own "desktop".)"
It's obvious that you haven't tried OpenOffice 2 which runs just as fast as Office 2003. - yvovandoorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Have you even looked at OpenOffice 2's interface? It looks remarkeably similiar to Office XP's interface. Plus the Dutch are considered the most computer literate people in the worl (ref: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/21/business/pew.php) that I am sure they can figure it out.
- q3ctf4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"the shape of things to come."
Logic sure seems to point that way. I think enterprises are going to take some time in being convinced though, especially those that rely on office macros.
Here's an interesting article from Forrester: (it's a small pdf file)
http://tinyurl.com/heve9
Basically, enterprises that have .Net Developers are most likely to go with the new office 2007 which is integrated into the .NET Framework 2.0. The license fees account for only 5 percent of costs, it's the price and time of developers that matters most. - radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I don't understand why somebody would be so keen to defend Microsoft. If another product solves your needs, why overspend for a product made by Microsoft like a lemming?
- Chordonblue, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Compatibility with MS Office documents dramatically increased with 2.x I no longer have to be afraid that .DOCs with more than one nested table will be corrupted. MUCH improved!
- SonnyW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Duh, OpenOffice still isn't better than MS Office. That's not what this is about.
You could have known this was about money by just reading the article description. - einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2hi analgesia,
My apologies for misspelling Groningen! - ThankTheCheese, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think you need to look past the numbers. The problem at the moment is that people don't even know there is an alternative to MS office out there. So if this town is promoting OO, then more people will be aware of it, and they will make other people aware of it, and so on.
Not much is going to change from this, but it marks a shift. -
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