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Los Angeles to Consider Open Source Software

Posted by Zonk on from the penguins-in-the-valley dept.

lientz writes "According to an article at FederalComputerWeek, the city of Los Angeles is considering using Open Source software as a cost cutting measure. From the article: "...city officials could save $5.2 million by switching to OpenOffice... rather than purchasing a Microsoft Office product at $200 per license for 26,000 desktops. The savings would go to a special fund to hire more employees for the police department, a major focus for city officials right now, he added.""

1 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. My experience: OO need less support. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative


    "maybe has a little less support"

    When you have "26,000 desktops", commercial support is not a factor, because you have your own support staff. Also, my experience with Open Office is that the help messages are better and there are fewer serious quirks than Microsoft Word 2000. (I've never tried Office XP because I decided to get off the Microsoft time waste train.)

    I'm guessing governments have not adopted Open Office sooner because most government officials did not have enough technical knowledge to feel confident in committing thousands of desktops to something that didn't come from Microsoft. It is "you can't get fired for choosing Microsoft, even if the software doesn't work well".

    When someone chooses a software package, they are choosing business partners, because so much staff time is invested in becoming comfortable with software and in using it. Officials are beginning to think about this: Is is sensible to want to be the business partner of a company that has been so adversarial toward its customers, and which produces software of amazingly bad quality?

    If you test Open Office, be sure you test the latest version, 1.1.4. Version 2.0 will be available in April or May of this year.

    Generally, when you send documents outside your company or organization, it is better to send PDF files. That guards against accidental changes. To make PDF files in Open Office, just click the PDF icon in the toolbar. To do this in Microsoft Word, install additional software.