[PLUG] OpenOffice in Government

[Kaustubh Gadkari]

<snip>
>
> I think the major intension behind forming open source
> community should be to motivate open source concept in
> the weaker section of our society. Do not you think
> that? I strongly believe that open source communities
> have got lots of social responsibilities. And we must
> play major role to accomplish it.
>
</snip>

I am not sure I completely agree with that statement. IMO, the intent
of free software communities should be to promote free software. And
that includes students and developers too. I certainly agree that free
software and free software communities can certainly be a catalyst in
the progress of the "weaker" sections of society, I maintain that
promotion of F/OSS in the "weaker" sections of society cannot be the
main/only focus of F/OSS communities.

<snip>
> And by rule whenever something
> is available for free even government can not purchase
> the other. In such cases, why can not we force
> government to accept OpenOffice? Can we put the legal petition in the court of > law in the favor of OpenOffice?
>
</snip>

The question is whether the government pays for MS Office at all.
Doesn't Microsoft have a system in place where they make their
software available to governments and schools for free? Also, I
believe that forcing the government to use OOo is against the spirit
of the F/OSS idealogy. If we assert our right to not have anyone tell
us what software to use and how to use it, IMO we cannot force anyone
to use a particular piece of software.  Also, to be purely practical,
do we have the resources to enter a legal fight with the government?

My Re. 0.02.

Kaustubh


-- 
Kaustubh Gadkari
kaustubh.gadkari at gmail.com