open source alternatives to well know software ,

wakandem

Open source software is coming of age, which is why MS products are available at such discounts. I know it is the fashion to have a go at MS at the mo but since the release of IE7 , vista & to a point ofiice 07, one has to wonder if they have lost their way & they have certainly abused the trust of their customers with their recent arrogance.

superscaper

digitig wrote: »

There is a difference, but their statement is correct. Open source is always freeware, but freeware is not always open source.

Nearly always but not quite. E.g. Red Hat Enterprise is open source but definitely not free.

deklan99

Someone muddied the waters earlier in this thread.
There is "Freeware" "Free Software" and"Open Source"
No practical difference between Free Software and Open Source apart from ideological, but the authors of Freeware retain control of their product.
Red Hat Enterprise is Open Source and by definition free to distribute, sell, amend etc., almost the same as Free Software.
With Red Hat you pay for ongoing technical support and also specifically in a business situation where there is an intellectual property issue with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and another developer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-Linux_controversies).
More or less same package available free as Fedora.

JOel_2

Don't for get that OpenOffice is also based on a commercial product - Sun StarOffice.

For me in a corporate environment, Office 2007 can stay on the shelf for a while yet. There are far too many random small, yet potentially damaging bugs.

Prime example, those with Excel 2007. Try doing the following sum, in excel and on a calculator

[SIZE=-1]850 x 77.1

[/SIZE]Although it may be just a visual bug (times the result cell by 2 in the next cell), and the chance of it happening is pretty small, for the risk isnt worth it, a minor error in our finance figures and it could cause big problems for us.

I can understand that there will always be bugs in software, but the advantage of the OpenOffice and other alternatives is a) Its not a commercial product, so they are'nt tied to a release date (Not that Microsoft worry about things that like :P), and its usually quicker to get a fix.

The other problem is cost, we currently have about 4000 licenced copies of office 2007 in our organisation, which as you can imagine, is a fair chunk of money on Licencing, even with our discount agreement. Out of commercial environments 200+ is a heck of a lot of money for a basic office package.

For your average Joe at home, OpenOffice is practical, cheap, reasonably easy to use and very powerful. The problem is that Microsoft dominate the market, so its what almost everyone uses, and therefore, are used to. A lot of comments about OO not being very good, or not doing x,y or z, are often down to the fact it doesnt do it in the same way as MS Office, which unfortunaly puts a lot of people off.

Joel

[Deleted User]

JOel - turn on your windows update, they fixed that bug already

superscaper

ringo_24601 wrote: »

JOel - turn on your windows update, they fixed that bug already

Fixed in service pack 1 (for office) I believe.

wakandem

MS products can be likened to intensive factory produced chickens wheras open source is organic. The only difference is, the MS products are overpriced and the organic free. Yet still people go for the tastless option.

[Deleted User]

MS Office 2007 cost me 17.99 through work. I don't feel very ripped off.

wakandem

that is clever marketing & ocnsolidating their position. If you could only get office at retail then most workers would probably opt for something like open-office on their home pc's, get to know it and pressure their companies to use It. It is the getting to know it that scares MS.
As for giving discounts to nhs & schools/students, it is for the same reason.
Brilliant really, I'd do it .

[Deleted User]

It's also why MS allow the pirate market to exist.. it gives them a userbase

Does OpenOffice allow for advanced scripting, like VBA?