letter to the Telegraph

[Rob Lembree]

On Jul 6, 2005, at 11:30 AM, Rob Lembree wrote:

> I have no idea whether or not they will publish it, but I sent
> this to the Nashua Telegraph today.

A followup:

The letter was published yesterday, Sunday, Jul 17.  Somehow they
got the idea that I live in Manchester -- this is incorrect, I'm in  
Nashua.

r

> regards,
> rob
>
>
> An article in today's Telegraph reported the theft of a number of
> "PowerPoint" projectors from a local high school.  "PowerPoint" is
> software from Microsoft geared to delivering presentations from a
> computer, and is part of Microsoft Office.  As the article correctly
> points out, the projectors can be used for anything that can be put
> onto a computer screen.
>
> So why were they called "PowerPoint" projectors?  In my view, the
> reason is that most people are of the belief that there is only one
> software company on the planet, blinding us to good, inexpensive
> alternatives.
>
> An excellent alternative to Microsoft's Office (list price $499 per  
> computer)
> is OpenOffice (list price: FREE).  A superb alternative to Adobe's
> PhotoShop (list price $560 per computer) is the GNU Image Manipulation
> Program (GIMP, list price FREE).  The examples of free and open source
> alternatives to expensive software are nearly boundless.
>
> Consider how much money schools and government would save if we
> switched away from software costing hundreds of dollars per computer,
> to free software.  No longer would municipal employees need to justify
> another expensive copy of Microsoft Office at taxpayer expense.  No
> longer would classroom computers have to be specialized by the
> expensive software on them.  No longer would "software upgrades" be
> a large part of every city department's budget.  Consider that EVERY
> computer could have word processing, image manipulation, presentation
> software, etc. on it, without spending a nickel on licenses.
>
> I would challenge us, especially our budget-tightened governments and
> school districts to break free of software myopia, and consider  
> alternatives
> that can save all of us a lot of money while at the same time  
> dramatically
> improving our computer environments.
>
> Robert Lembree
> Past Chair, Greater NH Linux Users Group
> www.gnhlug.org
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