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 ;)"

Comments

Backstory

[mfh]

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.

Re:Backstory

[fembots]

Does that mean that the best way to lobby for OpenSource is to lobby for cutting funding in education?

The ministry probably can't even get StarOffice if the budget is cut to $500mil, maybe then they'll start considering OpenOffice :)

Re:Backstory

[NanoGator]

"The bottom line is, the sooner we can de-indoctrinate (is that a word?) people from Microsoft products, and in greater amounts, the sooner they will go away."

Oh brother. So your motivation is "destroy Microsoft"? You just hate them, so be gone with them? +5 Insightful?

Look, I'm not exactly in love with Microsoft here, but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories, as long as people are complaining that the alternatives are missing features then the Microsoft 'doctrine' is going to remain quite strong.

It's cool that somebody took a leap and started using Open Office, but man, don't turn this into a "ding dong MS is dead" pitchfork party.

Re:Backstory

[benjj]

I don't know about Canada, but here in the UK we have major problems with teacher recruitment and retention. The argument for teacher pay rises comes not from socialism but simple free market economics. If people are not paid enough then they will go and do something else instead. And at the moment, in teaching, plenty of people do.

Re:Backstory

[wolftone]

I'd love to say an anti-socialist system works any better. Here in the public schools of Seattle, teachers are paid peanuts, textbooks still refer to the Soviet Union as current politics, the buildings are poorly maintained (in favor of a current rebuilding/remodelling phase which was thirty years overdue), the boys' bathrooms don't have paper towels or doors to the stalls, but (almost) every classroom has at least one nice and shiny Dell with WinXP.

Now there is no problem with paying teachers and administrators more money, but don't you think they should do a better job to earn it?

Sure. But cut their classes in half (from an average of thirty students to an average of fifteen) before judging their teaching ability.

Re:Backstory

[1u3hr]

but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app.

Many, myself among them, would say that it's more to do with bundling and intimidation of OEMs who offered alternatives. Certainly MS Office does the job, but given an hour to get used to it, WordPerfect's suite, IBM's SmartSuite, or several other lesser-known ones would satisfy the vast majority of users. If you've ever been in a real office and watched people using it, most never stray from: enter text, style by clicking on the formatting bar, print/save/send.

Re:Backstory

[16K Ram Pack]

I don't support the "destroy Microsoft" line, but creating a genuine choice based on open standards would be a very good thing.

The problem I can see for Microsoft is that once something like Open/Star Office reaches a certain point (say 20%), Microsoft could get into deep trouble. At that point, everyone will know someone who uses Star/Open Office.

The biggest challenge for Open Office isn't quality of product. It's awareness and confidence.

Re:Backstory

[nathanh]

Look, I'm not exactly in love with Microsoft here, but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories, as long as people are complaining that the alternatives are missing features then the Microsoft 'doctrine' is going to remain quite strong.

I'm no lover of Microsoft either but there's no denying that some of their products are quite good. Microsoft haters need to realise that Microsoft makes stuff that is "good enough". It isn't always the best but similarly it isn't always the worst.

Of course, this "good enough" mentality in customers is what will destroy Microsoft. Free software like Linux is also "good enough". So Microsoft might invest considerable effort to make their products better but the vast majority of customers just won't care. Superior quality didn't save Microsoft's competitors in the 80s and 90s and it won't save Microsoft now.

However, I will make a point that Microsoft got this large mostly through luck. They owned the popular OS which ran on the hardware platform that grew from the expected run of several 1000 IBM units to several 100 million cloned units worldwide. That success could have just as equally gone to Apple if the Apple II was a clonable platform, or to Digital Research if the Kildalls hadn't balked at IBM's NDA. Mr Gates was in the right place at the right time and knew someone willing to sell him the right product. You might call that "business genius" but honestly I think Gates isn't that smart. He might have had some inkling the deal with IBM was "important" but I doubt he realised it was worth tens of billions.

Re:Backstory

[christophersaul]

StarOffice comes out in regular, supported editions, much easier than managing a large deployment of various OpenOffice versions with noone to fall back on for advice.

Re:Backstory

[Daengbo]

What's really sad about this is that normally it's not the case. The K12LTSP mailing list is full of members pitching a thin client system to underfunded districts, saying that they can reuse all the machines currently in the school and accept donations from parents, while spending a relatively small sum on a couple of high quality servers.

The overwhelming majority choose to totally upgrade their IT structure on MS's timetable while slashing teaching positions, instead.

Some people don't have their priorities straight.

Re:Backstory

[|<amikaze]

Because the error messages are descriptive,

Segmentation Fault.

Re:Backstory

[Ubergrendle]

Teaching in Ontario is considered a cushy, fat paying government job by most of this province's citizens. You're guaranteed 3 months+ per year of time off; there's "Professional Activity Days" where training comes during the school year for teachers, adding up to 5-10 days during the school year where students have 'days off'. This is infuriating as this training does not come during the 3 months paid leave in the summers, but during the children's learning curriculum.

The Ontario Teacher's Union is one of the most powerful unions in the country. Its almost impossible to be fire from the OTU. They're extremely active politically, and have been able to resist most modernisation efforts including: a) regular performance reviews of teachers, b) part time/replacement help, and c) mandatory training and skills progression. Sick days are essentially vacation days...you can accrue them gradually over your career and cash them in for $ or early retirement w/ full pay. I've seen teachers retire after 25 years service with almost a full school year off.

The OTU's indexed pension is LEGENDARY. Last I read it was considered the 2nd best pension in Canada, next to retired Ministers of Parliament. In some odd circumstances some teachers have found their salaries INCREASE upon retirement.

I suspect it is nigh-impossible to find a better location than Ontario to teach in North America. I seriously considered teaching for a long period of time, but ultimately rejected the career choice due to the personal stagnation that would be inflicted upon me by the union rules.

PS I know of several PhD professors from UofT who retired from the university to become high school teachers -- equivalent pay, better benefits, fewer hours. Only detriment was less notoriety.

Re:Licensed...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not get support for very little money. Sun has such a low cost per seat that there would have been no point to using OOo instead of SO. Perhaps you would like to see development in OOo slow down, because if SO does not make Sun money, that's exactly what will happen.

Loss to Wordperfect, not Word

[mini me]

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.

Re:Fools!

[AmNotAScript]

But they want the SUPPORT that comes with StarOffice.

No chance

[lavalyn]

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.

Cost?

[LinuxInDallas]

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.

Re:Cost?

[Zeebs]

Well it is somewhere, the problem is that no one cares to look for it unless the money is declared missing by the opposition party. I believe on a whole we trust our government a slight bit more, until that it is it's brought to our attention. Good thing there is a federal election here on June 28th, god willing a minority liberal government will be in control.

PS for Canadian Slashdot'ers: Voting is as easy as ABC, Anybody But Conservative

Re:Fools!

[sasha328]

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.

Re:Licensed...?

[irokitt]

The difference between OpenOffice.org and StarOffice is that it comes with licensing, support, and the odd extra feature included. Corporations use StarOffice as opposed to OpenOffice for the same reasons they use Red Hat as opposed to Gentoo (I said it, I'm putting on asbestos underwear, you can't hurt me!). In a corporate setting that support tends to save you a few headaches.

Disclaimer: I like Gentoo, I just wouldn't use it as a server OS in a large corporation or an educational setting.

Re:Canadian English

[ForestGrump]

Sadam Heussien- Prime minister
The only road- Highway 1
Dollar-1.25
(ok, you had to see that ep of south park to get it)

Re:Hosers

[Pxtl]

SCTV actually (where John Candy got his start) - it was a Canadian show, but aimed for the American mass market. There was a minute or two of extra time at the end of the show because of the difference between Canadian and American timeslot lengths, so they decided to add something "uniquely Canadian" and put in Bob and Doug in the "Great White North".

Need OO.o to MS filters

[bstadil]

I agree. We need openoffice to MS Office filters though. I am tired of sending .sxw or .sxc files to people and having to later point to OO.c for them to read it. (Sending .doc files is not an option, as it plays to MS)

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"

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[1u3hr]

I am aware of this. The point was to just send native OO.o files. Not some old or half asses fileformat developed for a different purpose.

Those formats were all designed for interchange. Both doc and oo.o files were designed primarily to be used with their respective Wordprocessors. It's following MS's paradigm to send wordprocessing files when a much simpler format does the job without a special plugin.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[jazman_777]

RTF.

I had to think for a minute about rtf. My first reaction: RTF What? The Manual or the Article? It's a short step from RTF to RTFM or RTFA.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[Ckwop]

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"

Yeah.. Microsoft are going to give over that easily. Sure, they'll allow you to read the text in your Open Office document no problem but it wont look right. The font might be slightly different, or the margins might be annoyingly out, or that image you placed in the document might be a little off centre.

Then a few months later you hear the board screaming about these faulty .sxw files. "Why don't those files load properly in Microsoft Office.. open office is a pack of shit" - It doesn't matter what you say in response they've already made up their mind..

Remember, large companies are part of the battle but the real Microsoft heartland is the SME. In a typical UK SME, the IT provision usually falls under the control of the Finance director and in general they have no real desire to know the details of the IT industry. This makes justifying anything that isn't directly related to an impact on bottom line rather difficult.

As a key example.. our main company database doesn't even meet first normal form. It's clear to everyone here that such a database is so deeply flawed that it has to be replaced. However, trying to convince them that the move into a normalised solution a whole host better is like trying to square the circle. It's not that they don't agree the proposed solution is better they simply don't see it as important enough to warrent change. It's very odd.

Simon

Before everyone starts complaining...

[Granos]

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.

Microsoft will retaliate

[tisme]

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.

Re:Canadian English

[Zagadka]

Actually, the Pop vs Soda thing isn't Canadian vs American. Take a look at this map, which shows which term is predominantly used in each part of the US and Canada.

The biggest differences between American and Canadian English that I know of have to do with spelling. eg: colour vs color, metre vs meter, etc. The only differences I've noticed in spoken English are zed vs zee thing, and the nonsensical way Americans use "quarter of" when referring to the time. (to me "quarter of 12" is 3, but to Americans it apparently means "a quarter to 12")

The context in which this occurred

[Qwavel]

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.

Re:Licensed...?

[antiMStroll]

"My former slight thoughts of Canada's intelligence are withering."

Given the tortured grammar of that sentence, Canada feels no loss.

Re:Hosers

[sommerfeld]

It's real. Vowels tend to wander in regional dialects so what sounds like an "au" to you might sound closer to an "oo" to me. Google turned up "Canadian Raising" which explains this particular difference better than I can.

Re:Hosers

[bigdavex]

I have never met anyone in Canada that pronounces "about" as "aboot".

The Canadians I know say "aboot" but they don't know it. One of them asked us about the reference in South park. "What's all that aboot? We don't say aboooot."

CD's?

[phorm]

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.

Open Source and Green Party

[mfuhrer]

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

Parochial school boards

[Jardine]

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.

Re:Negative about OpenOffice

[Anonytroll]

It is true. The original StarOffice was sold by a German company. It was pretty famous for being able to run on most OSes of the time.
Sun bought them out a few years later and opened the code. The OpenOffice code is based on this old StarOffice, even though today StarOffice is a derivate of OpenOffice.org.

Re:Hosers

[MochaMan]

Well, I just come in the log cabin from hunting caribou whilst fending off grizzlies (and a couple o' vicious salmon) and I see some post on slashdot mocking Canadian English, eh. Well, as a born and bred Canadian, I feel it's aboot toime someone set the record straight on this whole sordid affair, 'fore a body ends up with a frozen mukluk to the arse.

I'll give it to you straight -- we may wear toques, sit on chesterfields, and pay for our two-fours in loonies, and we may even say "aboot", but we get more beaver than anyone else on the planet.

This could be huge one day

[Anonymous Coward]

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.