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Ontario Schools License StarOffice
An anonymous reader writes "Sun Microsystems has signed a contract with the Ontario Ministry of Education in one of the biggest deals yet for its StarOffice software. It covers 72 public and parochial school boards in Ontario. All will be licensed to use StarOffice 7 on all school-owned PCs. Financial details weren't disclosed but Ontario school officials said the cost is 'minimal.'" Reader Apostata adds that the move "will see the application suite used by 2.5 million students. No word on whether it ships with 'Canadian English' pack ;)"
I think this move is the most enlightened move the Ministry of Ed has made since inception. Sadly it's only motivated by the shoddy budget for education, and not a move in ideology, necessarily. The backstory to the Ontario Ministry of Education using Star Office has to do mostly with politics. Even with $2bil increase to spending on education in the 2004 budget, this is still a lot less than years prior, due to Tory cuts to education. It's really a sad state of affairs for children today, in Ontario.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It's about time some major organization, even a non-profit, started using StarOffice, or OOo.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
What, they haven't heard of OpenOffice?
My former slight thoughts of Canada's intelligence are withering.
'Canadian English'?
Will StarOffice append '", eh?" to every sentence? Or does it simply replace "about" with "aboot"?
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
After all, the copies licensed at Canadian Universities do.
The Ontario school board used Word Perfect in the past, which made sense, giving money to an Ontario company. I don't know why they didn't just use OpenOffice now. Unless times have changed since I was in the Ontario school system it will only be used for word processing anyway.
But they want the SUPPORT that comes with StarOffice.
It's all about the colour of money - but I'm glad to see the ministry of Ed is waking up. --Good show Calgary Flames --
.\.\att Clare
So.. yes this is offtopic, but not really if you consider the topic word processes...
Anyway, when do we get OpenOffice native on Mac OS X, again?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Corel had a huge deal with the Ontario Board of Education a few years back, to get WordPerfect onto every computer. They got it installed... but nobody used it. The Microsoft hold was too strong by then. And this was like 2000. I don't think this had changed...
I recall talking to the "computer" teacher/sysadmin at the time, suggesting WordPerfect or StarDivison's Staroffice on the additional Word licenses the school held. His answer was basically "but nobody will use it." Educators after all aren't accountable for costs like private businesses would be.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Yeah, how dare Sun try to destroy OpenOffice, a competitor to StarOffice, by licensing StarOffice to people.
And, by competing against our community, Sun must be the enemy.
What has Sun done for the community? Nothing.
Long Live OpenOffice!
Just because I'm bored I'll post some canadian-american english translations
American - Canadian
Soda - Pop
11th Grade- Grade 11
well thats all i can think of, that sure killed 2 minutes
I know as a fact, that computer systems in schools cost a huge amount of dollars (buying licenses for hundreds of computers at a time). I think the move to open source for schools will reduce the amount of prices associated with computers and allow for that money saved to be put towards something other than software (like gym equipment, or something more useful). When they move to open source operating systems, that will dramatically decrease problems associated with Windows (as there are right now)...
Interesting that the Canadian government can choose not to disclose the money spent on the contract. That's definitely in contrast to here in the US where even a teacher's pay is public record.
Never been to the east coast then, eh, b'y?
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Ontario's Ed policies on sex ed aggravate me, yet this makes me happy....
And who would you have look after re-training required?
Sun also has included some forms of training (and training for teachers as well)
There's a story at ITBusiness.ca that has more information.
Just in case the server crashes and burns (like they usually do),I have put up a mirror.p ps/opensource/0,39024866,39149910,00.htm is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_808/www.zdnet.com.a u/insight/toolkit/businessapps/opensource/0%2C3902 4866%2C39149910%2C00.htm . ca/eng/welcome.html o ftware/star/staroffice/
The mirror of http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/toolkit/businessa
The mirror of http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/welcome.html is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_808/www.edu.gov.on
The mirror of http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/ is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_808/wwws.sun.com/s
Note to Mods: When I post mirrors, it's a best guess. I don't know for certain whether or not the site will go down!
I would be much better if you could suggest a filter that they could use within MS Office to read and write OO.o files directly.
Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"
Help fight continental drift.
Before everyone starts complaining about why they didn't use a free alternative like OOo, look at the Star Office 7 link in the summary. It IS free for educational use:
Education No license fees; cost of media and shipping
It was probably cheaper than trying to burn and distrubute thousands and thousands of OOo CDs, since most schools don't have CD burners available that would be able to produce a quantity like that. They bulk of the 'minimal' amount of money probably went to a support contract.
A few years ago, I added a spell checker to an application I wrote. I tried to find a Canadian English wordlist, either complete or as a supplement to a British or American dictionary.
It's very difficult to find. I eventually concluded I was going to have to contact some Canadian publishers, and around that time I decided not to bother.
Presumably, other Canadians did what I did -- use the American dictionary and correct it from time to time.
Microsoft is not going to let this happen, and I think I know what they will do. First, drastic price cuts will be implemented followed by the creation of additional tools and resources for schools and teachers.
The reason Microsoft will refuse to give in, even if it means that they might lose a load of money in the short run, is because they understand that if they can get students hooked while they are young, they can keep perpetuating a monopoly. My younger siblings want Microsoft Word/Powerpoint/Excel on their computer/laptop simply because they know it from school.
It will be a tough fight if larger inroads are made, because Microsoft will certainly retaliate. Another problem is schools are still able to opt for Microsoft Office instead, which many of them will certainly do.
It is not "Canadian English", it is "The Queen's English" that pretty much every other English-speaking country other than the US uses.
I hate sigs.
For anyone interested, here's (my interpretation of) the political and economic context in which this happened. This is a big win for OpenOffice, and I think this contextual information is relevant to the school boards decision to stop using MS Office.
Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, has had almost a decade of right- wing government: tax cuts and spending cuts. The economy has, on the whole, been pretty good but the debt and deficit have continued the rapid rise that began with the 89-93 recession.
Over this period the government has fought its main battles with the powerful teachers union to try and save money on their education budget.
In the recent election, both the incumbent right-wing party and the centrist party lied outrageouslly about what they could do in spite of the state of the budget. It seems that you have to do this to get elected these days. (The only party that told the truth about the budget got clobbered.)
The centrist party won the election and then had to come thru on its promises, which included a better relationship between gov't and teachers. This was clearly impossible, so they had to look at every conceivable way to save money without hurting teachers or letting any more schools fall apart. As usual, this exercise in cost cutting didn't yield even a fraction of what was promised, but it did get them to drop MS Office.
So, maybe debts, deficits, cuts, and politians aren't all bad.
But don't expect to see anything similar in big businesses. In my time doing systems consulting I found that, while government, small businesses, retail, and manufacturing were pretty strapped, most sectors of big business were wallowing in cash. The amount that these big companies are wasting on MS software is a tiny fraction of what they waste on all sorts of other things.
eh?
This needs modding up. That's a pretty big detail to have been overlooked.
... Training students with a suite of programs that (unfortunately) aren't used by most of the corporate world?
Yes, it's good for StarOffice to gain a foothold in the next generation. But being proficient in it won't get you a job.
I drove west across the Trans-Canada Highway in '98 on my slightly roundabout way to California, and there was a definite patch of people saying "aboot" in Western Ontario. It was a long time ago now, but I think it was mostly between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay.
Yea, like zdnet and sun are really going to get slashdotted.
Don't bash people who want the support version. Just in case some teacher can't use the suite, Sun probably has someone take calls (and it co$ts them to take those calls to).
Ok OK.... geeks would never EVER call a support centre (not without wasting a day trying first), which is why they simply cannot understand the need to pay for support...
BUT, the average folk WANT this support everytime they mistakenly save their file in Open Office format and their MSWord buddies can't read it - or they do something silly on the PC which has NOTHING TO DO with Star Office, but they blame Star Office anyway. They have NO TIME to fix it, and they want someone else to do it.
To a geek, paying for this boggles the mind, but to the average user it makes perfect sense to PAY for this support AND they are prepared to pay for it. Sun is doing them a favour by offering it.
Believe it or not, that's a business plan with no ??? in the middle.
What's also unbelivable is that many businesses use Windows server and still intend to use it.... but we'll save that for "Ripley's believe it or not!"
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Its aboot time aye
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Generally Canadian don't give a dam about software piracy. As a result most high school student have office XP on there home computers and only know how to use word when they get to school. Using star office is good because it might just be close enough to Office XP for student to switch. If they leave evan an old copy of Microsoft office on the computers student will go with what they are comfortable with and Star Office will never be used.
Its for schools. They havn't been trained at all yet.
Get em while they're young :)
The point is to avoid sending .doc files Word97 or otherwise. Send native OO.o files and let the MS folks screw around with the filters.
Help fight continental drift.
I think you took my post wrong. As an IT worker for an educational system, I understand how valuable it is to have a "one number" sytem in place. That's my point.
Our school district uses OO, and we don't burn CD's. That's what network shares are for. For unconnected machines, sure - you can use a CD - we techs have them. A user could burn a copy if needed.
It's easier to network-install 3-5 copies rather than popping CD's in and out anyhow, and I'd imagine most PC's are not standalone these days.
Expect to see more such moves if the Green Party of Canada comes to power in this month's federal election. Not that they will actually win the election, of course, but the Greens do explicitly support open source software in their platform
For the record "Canadian" english is actually just english. It is only "American" english that has been bastardised to the point that it requires distinction.
I don't think so. Sounds remarkably informed to me!
I wasn't attacking you. Just directing my attention for people who don't get the concept of support yet. Let's start again!......
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Since when was OpenOffice based on an early version of StarOffice. They're the same thing, if anything OpenOffice (I'm running 1.1.2 on my Mac and it is fabulous) is more up to date than StarOffice.
Sometimes you have to wonder where these chumps get their information. The quoted statement puts down OpenOffice in the same way as saying that Netscape is in competition with Mozilla (Mozilla being based on an early version of Netscape). While strictly true, it distorts a positive attribute into something that appears negative.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
as a canadian, i have to admit it's probably true. sure the way we say "about" sounds natural to us, but after you hear a couple of americans say "a-bay-ow-tuh" you have to wonder how our pronunciation sounds to them. and i used to think that the "eh" thing was just a stupid joke till i started noticing how much i do it myself. it's just that it's a purely verbal thing so it seems ridiculous when i see it written out. oh and one final thing: i assume that the original poster was aware, but staroffice (and most word processing software) does in fact have a Canadian English setting. We spell many words differently than Americans ("color" vs. "colour").
Exactly what language packs might they be referring to? There's no such thing for OOo, or even StarOffice AFAIK.
How many people are going to be using those "advanced" features that are unique to Office? This is going into schools, it will probably be used on a very basic level that differs very little between different office suites. A word processor is a word processor. Font selection, size, maybe color, style, left justify, right, center, double space, etc. Our final in comp sci was to write a word processor in java. The basics are all the same on all programs on all platforms...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
For those who may be confused as to why the Ministry of Education is signing deals for parochial school boards, Ontario has two seperate publicly funded education systems.
There's what is now called the public system (used to be the Protestant system) and the Catholic system. Technically the Canadian constitution has a similar freedom of religion clause to the one in the US constitution which would prevent a publicly funded religious school system but the Ontario constitution also has a clause that allows for one. So we get two sets of school boards. Great fun.
Anybody remeber the "Logo" computer that was developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education. In the eary PC days. (No, I don't mean the Logo language.)
This is great news! Get a lot of people off of Microsoft's office suite, and get them on something else. Anything else! As long as people know that not all documents in existance (including classic literature and the Holy Bible) are written in Microsoft Word, and Excel isn't the only spreadsheet in existance.
Not that I hate Microsoft. I really don't. But I think it should be shut down and its assets distributed among free software projects.
Yeah yeah, mod this -100, Troll, I don't care. Nanny nanny boo boo, Microsoft. The only thing I regret about this is that StarOffice isn't the same as the free OpenOffice.org. But I guess Sun has to make money somehow. May as well be from productivity software.
God Bless America.
my Canadian thoughts on the subject:
:).
Canada: "uh-beh-oot"
US: "uh-bowt"
At least I think that's where Americans get the 'oot' sound from
(I'm running 1.1.2 on my Mac and it is fabulous)
1.0.3 for X-Windows is ugly and unresponsive and a pain in the ass to use on a Mac. (Is it that much to ask to use CMD instead of CTRL?) Then again, since you're running a test release, I guess you're probably the kind of guy who wouldn't be particularly sensitive to these issues.
I love OpenOffice for the PC, but a few more hours using the X version and I would have chucked my darling Mac through a window. I've given up on OpenOffice for the Mac until a native version is released.
Open Office is also lacking all the nice extras that usually come with a word processor package. From clip art, to templates, to bigger dictionaries, and other reference materials (thesaurus, encyclopedia).
It also comes with better documentation (try looking up forms for OO).
---
"Sorry [just kidding], but according to our tests [which are better than our filters, honest], you are trying to post from an open HTTP proxy. [I would have succeeded too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids, and your dog too]"
in Latin, there is no distinction between in, on, into, or onto; all are denoted by the word in; everything else is in context.
That's not true at all: it is determined by whether the indirect object is in the dative or accusative case.
You should give the 1.1.2 test release a go. I couldn't use 1.0.3 sensibly as it was so slow and ugly; I used NeoOffice instead which was OK but still damn slow but it does use the CMD key correctly. 1.1.2 is so fast it is unreal, it starts as quickly as MS Office on OSX does. Yes, the interface is still X11, no it doesn't use CMD, but consider this:- I can now open a document on my 933 G4 iBook and be editing it in 10 seconds! It used to take nearly a 60 using 1.0.3 and that is frankly worth the extra hassle of dealing with CTRL. Oh, and it is also nice to have a version that is not only up to date with the Linux version, but is in fact ahead.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Ya dumb canuck. You probably say it yourself. Everybody here does but you can't notice it.
I was born in the UK in 1957; we moved to Canada in 1964. I moved to Los Angeles in 1979 and was ridicules soundly for saying "aboot". After about a year I noticed I was doing it myself ans started saying "about" instead.
I moved back to Canada in 1990 and noticed how everybody says "aboot". These days nobody seems to.
Hmmmm.....
Need Mercedes parts ?
What can be said about this article but bravo? Whatever the reason may be - whether motivated by money or otherwise - it's a good choice. Anyone who works in the tech industry knows that the people who usually handle money and decisions regarding computing are usually clueless. Far too often they just throw money at Dell or Gateway and say "Send us school stuff." This indicates that there was actual research done and is a good sign that administrators may actually be catching up with the technology.
On a side note, I must remark on all the Canada jokes. I myself am not Canadian, nor have I ever been there - but I find the jokes rather tired. Considering most of us that will be reading this spend our spare time INDOORS on COMPUTER TERMINALS while using terms like l33t and w00t!, I think we lack the necessary leverage to effectively make fun of any country or native persons of said country. Yes, that includes Canada. America Junior has just as much of a right to respect as we geeks do. Pocket protector jokes are just as tired for me as 'aboot' is for them, I'm sure.
Yeah, why should teachers be paid more than plumbers? They only take care of our children, not toilets, which everyone knows are more important.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Gee, why do they need to buy or license star office when Open office is FREE - yep, they can download it for _FREE_ as in no cash, no mula, nada.
Maybe that's why Microsoft is making so much money, because they charge an arm and a leg. Yep - since it is expensive, it must be _GOOD_
just how will we be able to get a purchase order approved for the small cost of the media? My collegues in Ontario Colleges can also get access to educational copies of Star Office. From what I understand each campus or facility is entitled to order one copy of the media and the chances that it is even approved are next to nil. It's also a problem if someone has already ordered the single media copy which makes it unavailable to anyone else to order or access...
concerned teacher in Ontario...
OfficeStar assistance can help you. What is the letter aboot? ____________________________________ ( OK ) ( Cancel )
I wonder if they have same kind of a setup than in my school where both M$ Office and StarOffice are installed. Microsoft provides very cheap school agreements so there isn't a big incentive to choose only StarOffice. And guess which one of the office suites is used primarily in my school.
... doesn't mean they'll use it. The TCDSB (Toronto Catholic school board) IT department is so pro-microsoft that even anything Mac related was not supported. Even when it had to do with cross-platform software like FileMaker (used for elementary report cards, and owned by APPLE!) IMHO, the policy was reversed only because schools were buying Macs out of their own budgets for media use/etc.
Their student information system (Trillium), developed either by the Ministry of Education, or at least by a few school boards, runs on Microsoft (SQL server with a horribly written front end, most likely in VB). The alternative (Oracle) wasn't well supported IIRC.
The grade 9 "intro to computer" and compsci courses are taught with Office & VB and from what I've seen tend to focus on learning those programs, not the general concepts.
(Where would I be if I focused on learning the 1993 version of Works, rather than generic database/spreadsheet concepts?)
Finally, if nothing else, their education agreement probably ensures that licensing is cheap enough and/or forced on every machine, or prevents them from installing competing software.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
The Ximianized 1.1.2 version is quite swift. Ok, I have an XP3200, but it's quite usable on an old P3 450.
How about sending the file in PDF format?
Not really yet ready though.
Generating Word documents using XSLT
Thinking XML
Opening Open Formats with XSLT
Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas Overview
Why You Should Choose MS Office Over OO.org
Why not complicate a complicated world a little more. Each standard unit of complication renders X standard monetary units in someones pockets.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I used to wonder why /.ers would complain about the bias and censorship of the overlords who control this news forum, now I know why.
I submitted this story a week and a half ago and it was rejected. Now an AC submits it and gets the credit. Bastards.
http://slashdot.org/~Canuckanuck
You can download the Canadian English (or even NZ or Australian English) spellchecker dictionary for OpenOffice / Star Office from this location.
Dictionaries for several dozen other languages are also available. Includes some that probably aren't available for MS Word - Moari, Faroese, Setswana, Zulu, etc.
Ideology is for ideots.
it was ugly and unresponsive in other platforms as well.
i'm trying to understand why the only "stable" OOo for mac is still 1.0.3 while for other platforms it's already 1.1.1. doesn't apple have some kind of internal program to build up-to-date native (non-X11) versions of OOo ?
What ? Me, worry ?
Actually, most of the schools were running WordPerfect, although the decision was usually made at a board or district level, so there were undoubtedly exceptions.
For many years the Ontario Teacher's pension fund was a major investor in Corel and Corel basically offered WordPerfect for free to Ontario schools. When Corel was stolen by Vector the pension fund lost over $500 mil. Now with no reason for a special relationship and with the WordPerfect - Student/Teacher version costing $99 and it makes sense that the Board of Education would look for a better deal. Bill Gates and Vector(owners of Corel) probally thought this would force the schools over to MS Office but in this case it back fired on them.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I am the sysadmin for a private, non-profit k-12 in upstate NY. We operate on a shoestring budget. This year we spent thousdands of dollars to license Office 2000 for about 50 computers. I had mentioned to the Principal about using OpenOffice or some other open source suite, which would obviously be free. He was concerned that in the "real world" people use MS Office and the students would have a hard time working between different versions. Also the same problem currently existed because many of the students had MS Office at home. So the idea was shot down after only a few seconds. I didn't know how to convince him otherwise.
She swore that nobody said "aboot", and when I got her to say "about" she was careful to pronounce the "ou" like "ow". But when she was just talking quickly, or even just saying something like "house", I could definitely hear it. It's more like Hose (with the s pronounced s not z).
I bet New Zealanders dont think they pronounce "then", "chips", or "six" funny either. ("thun", "chups", and "sux".. hmm you just have to hear it).
Disclaimer: I'm Australian, so giving New Zealanders shit is one of our favourite past times.
Not only does Ontario have a multitude of high schools...they also have several world-class Universities. University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Queens, and McMaster are just naming a few. I myself go to U of Waterloo and I know that in our engineering labs we're given the choice of using either OpenOffice or MS Office (forced to use OpenOffice in some of the lower budget labs). Now who attends Ontario Universities? Ontario students! If these students develop a preference for Star/OpenOffice, it's likely that you'll start to see MS Word disappear from our institutions of higher learning. Once you have everyone familiar with StarOffice and Netscape 7.x (it's offered as an alternative to IE on all school machines, despite the fact it's clunky as sin), a full switch to a Linux-based environment is just a hop, skip and a jump away. Now if only some of the more specializing companies made linux ports of their software.
I got suspended for "hacking" the o_teacher account in Grade 7. I think that was about as angry as I saw Mr. E that year. Of course, the password was something like "secret" or not set or something. They were relying (as far as I could tell) on not publishing the login for the teachers' account. The student account was o_student, so it wasn't much of a leap.
I was talking to one of the admins on why we don't just go with OO.o, and he agreed with me. Except that a few of the profs were big endorsers of already-popular standards and wanted everybody to use Office. Some other profs preferred Wordperfect, so we had to have that installed on the machines as well...
Recently, our student union had opted to use open-source software wherever reasonable, but this caused a bit of backlash from the non-technical students that wanted to keep using Office and thought that using open-source would give them less freedom of choice. (which I find to be ironic)
It's hard to keep with one method of doing things when everybody's opinion is different. I'm not sure if this will affect my university, but it'll be interesting to see what happens...
My dog ate my sig
I had a client who needed a Word document, so I created it in OpenOffice -- it was almost OK, but there were a few minor formatting problems.
I decided that it wasn't fair to inflict problems on my customer just because of my personal OSS beliefs, so I booted into Windows, dusted off the virtual cobwebs (I sometimes go six months without choosing Windows in LILO), and recreated the same document using MS Word.
This time, the formatting problems were worse on my customer's computer, even though the document was fine in MS Word on my box. I decided to stick with the OO version, since it was more compatible with Word.
Outside the US Microsoft is toast.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
If I was able to use Star Office in High School though, I probably wouldn't have learned to type so quickly due to having to memorize arcane keystrokes.
Well, then again, there was always IRC. :)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
> The amount of corruption and waste that was left behind by the NDP was grotesque, the Tories were just cleaning that up.
This is a totally uninformed viewpoint. The Tories cut education until there was no meat left, only bone and gristle. The NDP tried desperately to fufuil promises when they were elected, and they did for the most part. The NDP has a better track record than the Tories or the Liberals.
> Cutting the budget forces the corruption to shrink so it doesn't get discovered.
Again, you are completely in the dark. The less money that is available, the greater the corruption and crime, in any organization. The more money that is available to educators, the better the morale and effectiveness of teachers!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
"will see the application suite used by 2.5 million students. "
... let alone used by 2.5 million students. It probably won't even be available for use by some/many/most of those 2.5 million students since the suite will have to be installed and many boards simply don't have the manpower to do the install let alone provide on-going support, maintenance, training and upgrades.
The Ministry of Education signs all sorts of licences on behalf of the Boards for all sorts of software. It most emphatically does NOT mean that the software will be used
Well, almost. My father worked for the Board of Education about a decade ago, give or take, and when a move was made for C++ to be used instead of QBASIC (yes, that was how bad our education system was), Microsoft made the offer of "it's free for you to use, and no licensing fees....as long as nothing ever gets released." So basically if anybody wanted to make something and then release it (a game, an app, etc), they had to consult with MS first.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
The Dallas Independent School District, serving Dallas, Texas, has had a site licence for Star Office for more than a year now. [From 1999-2000 stats] there are more than 200 schools in the district servering more than 150,000 students (here and here)
They obtained the licence for the purpose of distributing it on the laptops they supplied their teachers (1,000+). I heard a figure on how much it cost, but it was not from an authoritive source. If the figure is true, then the savings over MS Office was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (read: > $500,000.00+).
Star Office is a wise move for any public institution spending tax-payer monies.
...has standardized on Open Office, I think.
Money starved, large governmental institutions might actually be the first with the clout and incentive to massively move away from MSOffice.
JP http://www.wearerite.com
will see the application suite used by 2.5 million students. No word on whether it ships with 'Canadian English' pack 2.5 mil kids / 72 schools. 34, 722 kids per school. Those must be some big schools.
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
It's funny that the only thing that would keep me from suggesting OSX to a large school board is always the office suite. For moral and bug related issues, I would never sugges M$ Office Mac. Open Office currently running through an X11 layer and as such has very poor printing support. As such, I could never recommend it either.
In the past, Apple has never gotten on board with the OO / Star Office community. If they did, we would already have a native port. Instead, we must wait for a wonderful group of non Applers who are coding their eyes out to build something that Apple would greatly benefit from.
Come on Apple, make the right decision and ignore what those M$ board members are saying. Support OO) and help them accelerate the 2.0 native release timeline. The payback will be recovered 10 fold.
JD
BTW - I am and have been an avid OSX user and supporter. It's the only home machine I recommend to anybody (except hard-core gamers) as their home machine.
Sounds strange, but it works well!
I wrote a blog entry in NeoOffice/J.
-Mark
I'm currently a grade 10 student in ontario...
in our school, we have a few office applications that we can use on the school computers, and our laptops with the school image. Mainly we use Micsoft Office 2000 on desktops and 2002 on newer laptops. We also have Claris Wroks 5.0 on our LAN, which some students prefer to use over MS office...why? that's beyond me. We can also have Corel.
As you can see, we have quite a few "office" application to use, so why do they need to spend more for these type of application? Can't we just stick with MS office. They don't even have to upgrade to the newest version. Just stick with office 2002 for a few more year! I can't see staff and students switching to Staroffice all the sudden since the majority use Microsoft. Unless they remove microsoft office from the system, i don't think anyone would use staroffice. And why startoffice? what about openoffice? It's quite good(not as good as MS tho) and it's FREE!!
I have always felt that publically funded schools at all levels should be using as much Open Source software as possible.
:-)
As a parent I'm always concerned when I see course desciptions like "Cisco Networking" and "Microsoft Business Applications". In fact we should be insisting on similar courses for Open Source software like Linux and Open Office.
Public information should never be tied to any sort of proprietary software be it an OS and especially not a particular application like MS Word.
And BTW... The Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup on Saturday but appartently the Americans officials were too stupid to operate the "sophistamacated" video who jiggies! Then came up with some bullshit rule that seemed to be dreamed up on the fly to explain their obvious bias! Its our game and our cup and by god will have them back... send in Terrance and Philip
It doesn't matter why the Ontario school board chose StarOffice... Personally, I think the key to software is getting people familiar with your product. The more familiar you are with it, the more likely you will use it in the future. In university I used Word Perfect.. Why? Because thats what my university bought..So what did I use at home and buy? Word Perfect. Its the same reason why I think most software companies should make their products free (or very cheap) for personal use. Because it gives them a foot hold and base to grow from. If your company is evaluating new software products, which one are they going to use? Something they haven't seen before or one that a couple of people had installed at home because it was free? The more people that use openoffice/staroffice, the better chance they will try other opensource products. Once these users hit a critical mass Microsoft will be forced to open up their formats or support formats uses with openoffice. These schools may find it easier as well to migrate their OS to linux. Anyways, I only see this as a good thing.. I guess there are some people that just look at the bad side of everything.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
When I used to play Risk years ago, the same scenario would play out again and again. Once someone became the undisputed power ruling over the map, all of the little players would gang up and work together to decimate the big power. They would do this even at the cost of killing themselves.
Now, I'm not saying the Microsoft isn't evil. It is. It's abusive paranoid way of doing business is... not nice to say the least.
But I just think it's interesting to watch all the other players like IBM and Sun doing anything they can to bring down the 'big guy' at any cost. Even if it means spending their resources developing things and giving them away at no profit to themselves.
I think Cringley said it best recently that the only way to beat Microsoft is to NOT focus your efforts and plans as "against Microsoft" in a reactionary way, but to instead focus on "being great" as if Microsoft didn't exist, as Google seems to be doing.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
There are already Danish and Swedish translations of OpenOffice Perhaps a class project could be to take a crack at bokmål, nynorsk or sami gielli depending on your geographic location. Some of these are already under way.
I'm surprised that any particular U.S. company would be allowed to dictate the terms of Norwegian education. Especially for products that are notoriously expensive and high maintenance.
60 workstations can be a lot of money thrown into the sea if they are expensive and high maintenance. It might be a good time to point out that there are more local options, like Skolelinux, which are lower maintenance.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Been there and done that my friend. Here's the reasons I put forth:
.DOC is hardly a 'standard' just ask anyone whose tried to convert old 'Works' documents.
1) Take a look through history - that's the 'real world'. Has it ALWAYS been MS Windows Office? I'll bet not. In fact, I'll bet it's been Wordperfect for DOS and Windows, Xywrite, Word for DOS and Windows, etc. The fact is that computer software evolves quickly, and your principal needs to get over it.
First and foremost, educational facilities shouldn't be pushing a particular brand 'X' software either, particularly from a company convicted of monopolistic practices. Most of what needs to be done in OOo is completely translatable to Word or Wordperfect with minimal effort.
2) Everyone DOES NOT have MS Office at home. That's a crock. What versions might they have - it matters. Do you realize that many people buying a Dell now are getting Wordperfect as a default office suite? What about older, incompatible versions of MS Office?
3) Win over the STAFF and get it in their homes. Let the staff see OOo in operation. Find out what their objections are (there will be some). Eliminate the unrealistic ones. Point out the advantages (they get a free copy, PDF/Flash support, etc.)
4) OOo or StarOffice is great and has been terrific for us because of standardization. Every student, teacher, and staff member uses it and guess what? Everything just works. No document incompatibilities because one document was formatted for someone else's printer. No issues with international characters. No licensing issues.
5) Which staff member was willing to take a pay cut to help finance Microsoft? That's the question I posed and what it was coming down to at the time. We were really in serious straights three years ago financially and things were tight. Money ended up being a prime motivator, but the software has proven itself over time.
Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like to discuss this further. I'm also the tech coordinator of a small all-girls private school here in PA. We converted to StarOffice/OOo three years ago and haven't looked back.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I deal with many of the Canadian Ministries and all I can say is ...
Congrats to StarOffice, too bad it will be something else in 2-4 years.
I can not tell you how many times I have gone into a ministry (health, edu, trans, finance) and they are implementing a "new solution" to a "problem". I use M$ product in the front end because it is what my people are "used" to using. Something so much as a change in GUI and they will go crazy.
I would love nothing more than to implement OpenSource widely into my environment, I have tried to have users "try" different OpenSource offerings, however, they just don't get it. If it isnt their usual looking desktop forget it. Panic, fear and an overall stupidity overcome them.
"Where is word?", "well, you can use this program", "Is it word?", "no, but it is like word", "oh, can you install word?", "ugh"
Another issue I think will arise out of this is attachments. My company deals heavily in sales and procurement and without a common word processor document format, the government will spend more money on front end office support than if they had of bought into the devil.
If your average user actually knew how to use a computer properly M$ wouldn't have this grip. Train people on how to use a computer not how to use an appliance.
Anyways, give'em heck guys.
I really do know KungFu
In 1998, the Ministry did a similar deal with Corel (Here's the link: www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/nr/98.04/corel.html ) The bottom line is that nothing came of it. I never saw WordPerfect actually get adopted in school boards. I think the same thing will happen here. The IT weasels and back-room MS deals go on despite these grand deals made by the Ministry. School boards choose the software they run. They are not in any way mandated to use StarOffice. Also, budgets are not the issue. Take it from me, I am fighting hard to get Open Source looked at as an alternative. AFAIKT, resistance is (almost) futile. The biggest issue here is that Microsoft HAS to be in front of kids in order to get market share. M$ will do ANYTHING to keep M$Office on school computers. Like cigarettes, if you start 'em young, you've got 'em hooked for life. That's what we're up against.
I just hope I can be proven wrong.
Both my parents are school teachers in this province and were given CDs of site licensed utilities and open source software by their IT dept. last september including copies of OpenOffice.
Thanks for the tip! I just upgraded to the test OOo 1.1.2 fix1 version and it really is fast!
I will still keep NeoOffice/J around though.
BTW, I have written 2 of my last 3 published books using OOo. (Using Word to check and re-write the files just before sending to my publishers).
-Mark
Why become a teacher if you don't get payed well? Up here, in vancouver, thanks to unions, you can get payed just as much to be the shcool janitor AND you save yourself 5 years in college. This of course is two sperate problems rolled into one (skilled workers getting payed to little, unskilled workers getting payed to much) but it essentially means that, you are better off not getting a degree and working as a care aid or janitor, OR getting a degree in a trade or business. So why would you teach? The only people who go into teaching now are idealists who want to make the world a better place and it isn't long before they become jaded by the school system.
We need to give teachers a salary proportional to the work and skill that was required to get the job not just to keep them happy but to attract a wider range of candidates
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
"Training" in any stupid app that requires no knowledge or skill to use will not get you a job. There are no job openings for wordologists, knowing how to use one app isn't getting you a job. And if you are so stupid that you can't apply what you know about one app to an almost identical app, your job opportunities do not involve computers anyways.
My mom uses office at work and openoffice at home and required no "training" to be able to switch between them. We are talking about someone who can't burn a cd without help, and has to get someone to install programs for her. If you are below that level, stick to flipping burgers.
Yeah, these are very good points. The problem is that we have government funds to spend, and had a deadline. We had to make a fast decision, and it was decided to purchase Office. If I had had more time I would have attempted to make a more convincing case. I will keep these points in mind the next time something comes up.
Already I have replaced a W2K server with RH9/Samba, which is working out very well. And I am in the process of integrating Mozilla (or FireFox) and Thunderbird instead of IE and Outlook. Most of the staff doesn't care, as long as it works. So I'm all about open source solutions.
I have a couple of teachers "test driving" complete Linux desktops.
Are there any good open source anti-virus programs out there? We could sure use one.
PC Load Letter
Just try using autonumbering of headings and find out how ridiculous the software is.
Good for those Canucks, someone needs to give Gates a run for his money. He has Boardwalk, Parkplace, all the Greens and all four damn railroads. There's no competing for us Baltics and Mediterraneans.
.... when doing business.
Just common sense.
I don't understand why there are so many people willing to ignore common sense (hint: you'll be screwed) with the shaky explanation of "hey their wares are good enough".
Most incredible the wares in offer very often are not good enough, actaully are crap, but the fanboys are like deer blinded by the headlights of the MS marketing propaganda.
Another hint: blinded deer tend to be run over.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Are there any good open source anti-virus programs out there? We could sure use one.
http://www.clamav.net/
You realize there are more than two parties you know.
I am pissed off at the Liberals too, but I am defiantly not going to help voting in a homo-phobic, anti-abortion right-wing wacko. I am voting NDP. And I would strongly urge any Canadian who values civil rights to do the same.
Go go staroffice! :D
I seriously hope this does go into effect at my school, because we've actually got MS and Corel stuff.
With a view like that, you MUST be an NDP'er, right?
How without a clue can you get? If there is lots of money flying around, unscrupulous people find ways for it to stick to their fingers. Crooked contracts, buddy buddy deals, my uncle Horace has a bookstore maybe he can sell all the Little Red Schoolhouse books to the province for cost plus 200%, etc.
If there is very little money, it pretty well has to go into keeping the lights on in the school, doesn't it? I mean if Uncle Horace gets it the school shuts. The schools are not shut yet, despite the very best efforts of the Ontario Teacher's Federation, I'd say its working.
Jeeze, with thinking like yours is it any wonder that the rest of us fear the NDP? How quickly they forget Bob Rae and the 14 billion dollar provincial deficit! (This was a province with like 10 million people in it at the time.) It took the Harris Conservatives five years to dig their way out from under that pile.
The McGuinty Liberal weiners haven't been in office long enough to swing this Sun deal, that has to have all been set up by the Conservative regime as a cost cutting measure. There's no reason on earth why classrooms in public schools need high horsepower machines running on expensive Mickeysoft crapware. There's nothing mission critical in a classroom that can't be done with a pencil, computers are largely wasted anyway. Better they should be as cheap as possible, eh?
Dalton's boys will probably be back to Microsoft by 2005, it gives them better opportunities to steal.