Interesting article, g-c.

I recently chatted to somebody involved in adult education; activities funded by the local authority.

Folk at the organisation concerned are delighted that an "upgrade" from MS Office 2003 to the 2010 version has been promised. (Be interesting to see whether they trade XP in for W7 while they're about it.)

With my usual skill for engaging mouth before brain/tact, I wondered aloud why on earth Powers That Be simply don't seem to consider free software.

Ah, but people learning computer skills are most likely to end up using MS Office, I was told. Fair enough, I responded, but to be honest, a word processor is a word processor; a spreadsheet a spreadsheet. It doesn't have to be a specific version in order for people to learn the basics - and if you can grasp the basics, you're quite capable of "converting" to proprietary software if necessary.

That did occasion slightly thoughtful looks, but then came the clincher.

You need Office 2010 to open documents etc created with Office 2010. Apparently. And since that is what most people use, everybody needs it...

Oh, I tried to mention that Libre/OpenOffice would probably cope with most Office 2010 stuff (I had to own up that I didn't know where problems would arise - the only serious one I know of is with the presentation software, but I'm sure there are others. And what do I know, anyway?) I suggested that local and national authorities, educational institutions and the rest really should only issue stuff created to open standards. I suggested that correspondents whining that they only had Office 2010 could be sent - for free - LibreOffice. (I never did get as far as the Ultimate Heresy of suggesting ditching the whole Windows/MS Office thing for GNU/Linux.)

Talking about f*rting against thunder. Talk about the success of the policy of vendor lock-in.

These are highly intelligent, highly educated and highly motivated professionals - way above my own level. And they just don't seem to accept that there might just be a way other than the Microsoft way.

So I'd have to say that Microsoft is pretty safe. That they're right about not having to worry about Linux.

Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates can continue to rest easy. And computer users of the planet can continue stoking the mighty proprietary software money machine, whilst keeping their systems administrators and other IT professionals too tied up in software/licensing audits and paperwork to ever give them a chance to try their hand at creating, say, specific code for specific needs. Or simply administering all the extra computers a school/council/college could buy with the money saved on licences.

*Sigh*