Re: Cost of MS Office relative to LO, was: Fwd: [libreoffice-users] Re: moving to new version of MS Office

On Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:20:03 -0500
"Virgil Arrington" <cuyfalls@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I wouldn't consider it either cunning or holding people hostage to
> provide them with a free trial of software that is otherwise only
> available for a price. That, indeed, has been the essence of
> shareware -- try before you buy. Anybody obtaining a trial version of
> MS-Office is clearly told that it is a trial version; no cunning, no
> deception.
Actually, I have not found this to be the case. Most of the people I
know that have used this "trialware" have bought a new computer, found
it comes with Office, with no explanation about being trialware, and
started using it, only to find that it starts warning them it will
expire, and that they need to purchase a valid copy to continue using
it. They have no idea that there are alternatives, nor did they expect
to have to pay more once the computer was bought, and now just simply
shrug, name call MS for being penny-pinching b******s, and go buy
whatever version of Office the local computer store sells them.

> I'm no fan of MS, and I'm sure I don't fully understand all of its
> business practices, but I truly hope that disdain for Redmond is not
> the primary motivation for LO and other forms of FOSS. And, yet, it's
> a theme that recurs on nearly every FOSS related forum I read.
I dislike MS's business practices. They've been caught out too many
times doing things that are harmful to the end user. I don't trust them
to give me quality software that will remain quality software without
pitilessly trying to squeez me for evey cent they can. As such, I
dislike using their products, and I most certainly don't pay for
them, other than where it is forced on me simply for buying a computer.
For me, that is one good reason to use FOSS software.

Another is I believe in the FOSS philosophy.

> IMHO, it's better to focus on what's good about LO than what's evil
> about MS.
And that is a third.

When talking to most computer users I know, even ones who do know
computers well, I often find they couldn't care less about MS's
business policy, they either use MS products and tell me about how
they're actually not that bad, or simply accept that everybody else
does, so they must too, and don't know or care about MS's business
practices.

For them I punt the good about FOSS software first, and leave out the
MS business practices debate. That's a personal reason for choosing
FOSS, one that I will explain to people, but don't find to be a major
selling point.

Paul



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