[gnhlug-jobs] [NH Jobs List] Job: Network/Database Administrator - Manchester

[Jon 'maddog' Hall]

On Fri, 2007-06-29 at 05:29 -0700, Lori Nagel wrote:
> Free software is for everyone, not just nerds and geeks. If someone
> can use Word, they can use free replacements such as OpenOffice.org.
> For companies, it does not make sense to spend money on proprietary
> software, especially when free replacements are already available. 
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
> Asking for documents in a proprietary format does not make a good
> impression on potential candidates.
> 

Scenario:

The 60-year-old president of a small bank who only has windows machines
on their desk would like to hire a FOSS person to come in and help them
make their whole bank FOSS.  How could the bank president or their HR
department read the resumes of the candidates sent to them?  Sure, they
could put "OpenOffice" on their windows system, but that requires them
to know that OpenOffice exists.  They could require the format to be
PDF, but I consider that format to be almost as proprietary as .doc.
They could require the document to be in html.

>  Perhaps this list should have a policy of not accepting ads that
> request documents in such a format. 

I think you are free to ignore those ads, but I would hate to block a
potential job for a FOSS person just because the format requested is not
open.  I think that choice should be up to the potential applicant.

I will also note that OO both reads and writes .doc format.

md