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5000 OpenOffice.org Seats for Singapore Government

Posted by timothy on from the just-gimme-a-few-dozen dept.

kurtz_tan writes "This story on Linux World says the Singapore Ministry of Defence (Mindef) has installed the OpenOffice productivity suite on 5,000 new desktop computers. This move is aimed at giving employees in the ministry an additional choice in productivity software. It will also help Mindef make 'significant' savings in terms of capital costs. Singapore is acknowledged as the second best world wide for e-Government. Hope all other world wide government follow suit."

7 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Am I the Only One... by sepluv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not trolling and I'm sure OO.o us useful in getting MS-Office lovers weaned off that to something that is at least free software.

    However, am I the only one that things--however great the work done on it--OO.o is just a bad imitation of MS Office with all the lack of usability included (but,that, like all imitations, doesn't work quite as well as the original).

    Does anyone here use really OO.o a lot and/or prefer it to say LaTeX (or other typesetting systems), Abiword (which at least used to import MSWord better than OO.o) or Scribus. It seems to me that OO.o not only copies all the worst bit of the word-processing model, but all the worst bits of the notorious MSWord sub-model.

    Anyway, it is really good to see that governments are getting the message that it is worng for them to use proproetary software (especially to store gov. data), or at least they are getting the message that free software is cheaper and more reliable.

    --
    Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
    [This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
    1. Re:Am I the Only One... by Knights+who+say+'INT · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It isn't, precisely because it's an inferior version of what is already available.

      It gives people the general idea that open source = inferior.

      While I'm not particularly fond of word processors either, MS Office is a great productivity suite that gets things done in minutes.

      (I love the smell of karma in the morning) It's NOT "wrong" to use proprietary software, specially if data is released to the general public in more open (CSV/RTF/HTML) formats. I mean, time _is_ money, you know.

    2. Re:Am I the Only One... by tclark · · Score: 3, Interesting

      First, you can't really compare OOo to LaTeX or Scribus - different functions. Abiword is a very nice word processor, but OOo is a full office package, so the comparison there is weak too. If you only need a word processor, then Abiword is a fine choice. I hope that Abiword and OOo Writer get cross-compatibility soon.

      I prefer OOo to MS Office. OOo runs on all the computers in my office, MS Office does not. OOo file formats are easier to work with than MS Office formats. Finally, I have found the style properties in OOo writer to be more intuitive than those in MS Word.

      YMMV

    3. Re:Am I the Only One... by 0x20 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nobody ever said it was 'wrong' to use proprietary software. What is wrong is to do what Microsoft does, which is to use bullying, cheating, lying, strongarming, and monopolization as regular business strategies. And it's even more wrong done on such a large scale. Which makes it 'right,' in a way, to refuse to support them.

      This is why governments are turning away from MS to open source and Free software. Not just because of the initial cash savings, but because they know they won't be at the mercy of Microsoft's draconian licensing practices in the long term, which is where the real cost shows up. If you've ever been in charge of purchasing software for a large organization as I have, you probably know what I'm talking about. They literally act like heroin pushers to get their claws into your company, and they're just as sleazy.

      Sure, Open Office is not as polished as MS Office - yet. It will be better in time. But here's something you and the grandparent don't appear to understand. Most Free software is publically developed. If you don't like it, don't bitch and complain about it, contribute to making it better. If you're not willing to do that, then you don't really have any place to say crap like "It gives people the general idea that open source = inferior." Either use it, help to fix it, or just shut up.

  2. Why one company switched back to MS Office by jgoemat · · Score: 2, Informative
    A company I worked at decided to switch at least some users to Open Office. Saving $300 * 40 licenses seemed like a good idea. Then someone opened a document from an executive and saw some rather embarrassing comments an executive wrote in MS Word but deleted. Well, MS Word doesn't really delete them, they stay in the document. Open Office displayed them to other people and the executive was none too happy. No more Open Office.

    I imagine this little "bug" was probably intentional on M$'s part...

  3. Who's the best e-gov? by davegaramond · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Okay, this begs the question. If Singapore is the second best, who's the first. (Also, who's 3rd, 4th, and 5th)?

    1. Re:Who's the best e-gov? by Necroist · · Score: 3, Informative

      THE TOP 10

      1. Canada
      2. Singapore, United States
      4. Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden
      8. France
      9. United Kingdom, Netherlands


      According to this news article, Singapore is also the best Asian country in e-government services.