"Software Freedom" Scores!

[Jim Kuzdrall]

    About a year ago, I sent a Software Freedom CD to my patent lawyer, 
because his WordPerfect could not read the doc files I was exporting 
from OpenOffice.  I suggested that he could copy and paste from my doc 
format into WordPerfect if he had a copy of OO to display them.

    He reluctantly put the software on one laptop (so as not to 
contaminate the office XP and jeopardize his support.)  He also 
questioned me at length about my authority to grant him "rights" to use 
OO.

    Yesterday, I spent another session with him and his staff.  At the 
end, they wanted copies some documents I had written.  I had them in 
pdf, but confessed I had not exported then to doc; they were only in 
odt.  What flavor of doc did they want me to provide?

    The answer was, "Oh, why don't you give them to us in odt."

    It turns out that all of the office computers now have OO installed 
and two of the staff put it on their computers at home.  They are now 
eager to have a presentation on switching completely from WordPerfect 
to OO for all of their legal compositions.

    I guess the relevant point may be that getting Linux accepted for 
the desktop may be a 2-step process.  First get people using open 
source software on Windows.  Then, since few users deal with the 
operating system other than clicking icons, it would be painless to 
switch to Linux, motivated by licensing cost savings - especially for 
an office.

Jim Kuzdrall