Re: [school-discuss] FW: OpenOffice in education

[Cameron Miller <cdmiller@adams.edu>]

Tom Adelstein wrote:
> <snip>
>
> > Yes this is all true.  BUT, I cannot give out copies of Star Office to 
> > all my students and staff to take home and install on their PCs for 
> > FREE.  I can with OpenOffice!  This is why we use OpenOffice.
> Richard,
>
> You can give all of your students, their parents, alumni, faculty and 
> friends Star Office for free.  You'll find templates, examples, more 
> fonts, better rendering, etc. with Star Office. You'll also find 
> accredited curriculum, certifications, etc. for free.
>
> The Sun Academic Initiative  can be found at:
>
> http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/programs/sai/
Thanks for clearing that up Tom.  I think the main issue is that in 
education, real value comes from the FLOSS nature of OO.  Education is 
going to be more open to solutions that are, well, more open.  I think 
SUN should concentrate big SO incentives for business and government 
sectors, while supporting OO penetration into education.  Sure some 
school business programs and school administrations will opt for SO over 
MS Office or OO, but for many education uses SO and MSO are overkill, 
while OO is good enough and "free".

- cameron