[Beowulf] Wired article about Go machine

[Gerry Creager]

I'm not even sure why I'm entering into this...

Vincent, I use OpenOffice on a daily basis, interact with Windows users 
w/ Word, and have no problems.  I do considerably more than printing 
labels, too.  We trade documents and spreadsheets back and forth, in 
support of my projects.

The only application I've seen trouble with was a document created using 
Office (not OpenOffice) for the Mac, by a user who sent the result out 
in RTF.  I'm not sure what he did but I couldn't process it in MS Office 
on *my* iMac at the office, nor on OpenOffice on the iMac, my laptop, 
nor my home systems.

My family uses OpenOffice, including my kids for whom "Office" is a 
school requirement.  They have no problems, and their teachers see no 
difference.  My wife is not an IT professional (she delivers babies as a 
midwife) and her frustration with Office is greater than with OpenOffice.

If you don't like open-source solutions, fine, but why don't you stop 
trying to convince a reasonably large group of reasonably intelligent 
folk to follow your lead?

gc

Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
> You pay a fulltime sysadmin to solve your problems in that case :)
> 
> pay as in 'salary pay'.
> 
> Though i'm very positive about for example Sun's open office,
> and open source in general,
> it's quite clumsy to use practical for simple things like printing name 
> labels
> to stick on envelopes ('etiketten' we call 'em).
> 
> If experienced IT guys don't manage within 1 day to get something like 
> that done with it,
> for sure office personnel with less of an experience there will fail. 
> Then additional the
> documentation totally fails there.
> 
> Now i won't bother you with the fact that i have an apple macbookpro 
> laptop with
> open-office for it, and that despite hours of googling, it just doesn't 
> work.
> 
> Good old win2000 + old word version had to solve it.
> 
> In short open source can work only if you have experienced Linux guys 
> who make ready
> whatever you need on it, and if the functionality you need is sufficient 
> and documented.
> 
> This usually is the case for the top1000 companies.
> 
> Netherlands has about 1021 (roughly) companies of 1000+ personnel, not 
> to mention
> governments. For these open source is a possibility.
> 
> Not for the majority of users and companies.
> 
> Clusters and Beowulf type systems are definitely the exception here; for 
> them modifying that kernel
> and a security that only allows intelligence agencies to enter and no 
> one else, is important.
> 
> On Mar 23, 2009, at 7:58 PM, Douglas Eadline wrote:
> 
>>
>>>
>>> Also, if you get what you pay for -- exactly what do you get when you 
>>> use
>>> Open-source software?
>>>
>>
>> Interesting question. How do you define "pay" ?
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Doug
>>
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983
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