OSSDI to Distribute OpenOffice.org in Schools

Xampper writes to tell us that the OSSDI (Open Source Software Distribution Initiative) is a new organization that has cropped up to help not only spread the word about Open Source Software, but to help distribute the OpenOffice.org office suite starting with less fortunate school districts. The OSSDI describes their current status as still being in its "infancy as an organization. Because of this, all of our current resources are focused on gaining supporters, raising funds, and recruiting volunteers. Plans are under-way for our first software distribution, but we must first cover our operating costs. We are also interested in becoming a registered not for profit corporation so that donors will receive tax breaks for their gifts, but the registration process can also be very costly and time-consuming."

Come back when you've grown up

[Harmonious Botch]

Ok, your heart is in the right place, but you seem a bit unprepared. I mean, if you can't cope with the bureaucracy of registering as a non-profit, how are you going to cope with the bureaucracy of school management?

Why just Open Office?

[planetmn]

I like the idea. Though it certainly is not going to be easy to find districts willing to install and support the software on their own if they don't have experience with it.

But why just Open Office? Why not do something with (or like) Edubuntu, and distribute an entire platform that has the administration and management tools built in? People are definately hesitent to change, but if they are going to learn something new (in this case Open Office), it might be a good time for them to jump right in (especially if you, or a group of local volunteers can spend time training them).

-dave

Re:Come back when you've grown up

[garcia]

I mean, if you can't cope with the bureaucracy of registering as a non-profit, how are you going to cope with the bureaucracy of school management?

What's the difference if they do that or not? I'd rather have them be an unregistered social club that gets the job done than worry about being registered as a non-profit.

Unless they are looking to avoid paying taxes and sales taxes, there shouldn't be a real need for that anyway.

Re:Distribution on CD?

[lcsjk]

Give a person a CD and they will probably give it a try. Tell them that there is a nifty program on a website somewhere that they can download, burn to a CD and they will walk away and do it when they have time, which is never.

Have you ever wondered why AOL sent so many CDs instead of telling people that the program is on the internet?

Hardware requirements?

[Anonymous Coward]

"... but to help distribute the OpenOffice.org office suite starting with less fortunate school districts"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't "less fortunate school districts" usually having some really old hardware? Is OO.o going to help, given that it supposedly takes ages for any of the bundled apps to start even on fast machines due to high hardware requirements? I mean, if you're installing OO.o on a machine with 128 or 256 MB RAM, this probably isn't going to go well. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't individual OO.o apps actively using 50-100 MB of memory with just simple documents loaded? I haven't actually tried them as Abiword is enough for me and I have no need for spreadsheet apps, so all I heard would qualify as hearsay. I don't even have a clue on how much memory MS Office apps need. Can someone provide some numbers, please? KOffice too, if possible...

Re:Will this be OpenOffice for Windows?

[BecomingLumberg]

Because currently, you can distribute a Linux distro to the small percentage of people interested in running linux. You can give away OO.o to almost anyone with a computer, and they can use it. Plus, there are many students in college that must use windows for one reason or another, or are scared to switch. This will be an introduction for the time being with maybe a conversion down the line.

Training costs, or, "why change is always bad."

[Kadin2048]

I suspect that an even larger part of school's budgets than software, are the salaries of the people who are responsible for maintaining everything; IT-types but also teachers, librarians, etc.

Those are the people who need to be "sold" on Linux or even other OSS projects like OO.org; in my experience it's a lot easier to get management on board with a solid presentation highlighting the cost savings and feature parity, but it can be quickly scuttled by the rank-and-file if they're resistant to change.

A few days ago I read another post that I think highlighted the problem. The major impediment to any sort of even slightly radical IT change, is the huge number of users who do not understand computers, or the technology they use on a daily basis. At best, they've been trained to complete certain tasks, but there's no more understanding of what's going on there, than a rat understands what goes on outside its cage when it presses on the food pedal. Do this, this happens; there's no conceptual grasp of the process, just of the procedure. This is a huge stumbling block, because it turns what someone who understands the system perceives as a trivial change, into a major one, with massive retraining costs. Something as simple as changing some menus or the "look and feel" of a dialog box can send 'trained' users back to management, demanding retraining on the new software.

I've worked on some big software projects for government users, and there have been times when entire systems have been gutted and rebuilt, but the one thing that absolutely, positively, could not change, no matter what were the user interfaces. Ripping out all the infrastructure behind the scenes was a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of sending all the users to retraining courses, which is what they would demand if they noticed anything different. (In reality, this was mostly an excuse to demand a paid psuedo-vacation; travel on an expense account to someplace where they could sit around in a classroom and space out for a few days. But that's the way it works.)

Concentrating on the 'top down' and costs savings will only get you so far. Unfortunately, people at the bottom are going to resist any change at all, unless you can figure out a way to paint it so that it's to their personal advantage.

OPM = BIG EVIL

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the same can be done for distributing OLPC's software platform easily. If a large part of the cost of computers in schools is the software and the continual upgrades that come with it, wonder what can be done for schools that already have computers, just not the latest and greatest...

as a naive child, i thought i'd buy the same vehicle the city police used b/c they obviously invested lots of time evaluating vehicles based upon MERIT and surely bought the best vehicles available.

isn't that funny naive?

look, schools are budgeted OPM (Other Peoples' Money) and the spend other OPM.

what INCENTIVE do they have to REDUCE THEIR BUDGET?

NONE, NADA, ZIP, ZILCH.

my friend went on a last minute trip to new orleans and stayed at the ritz... why? training budget had to be spent or it would be lost. did he need the training? no, but he caught a free vacation, stayed at one of the best hotel chains in the world and got to kick back, new orleans style... all on OPM.

oh, and the budget for the following year wasn't cut so the managers had more dough (bigger feifdom) to play with the following year. everybody wins but the OPM guy and gal.

this *is* how the government operates and NOBODY has the ability to get elected AND the character to change the broken system.

iow, don't expect budget cuts for schools (pay raises for OPM contributors - tax payers) anytime soon. in order to do something like that, the consequences of "playing the system" will have to be grave - like losing one's head.

Re:If Only...

[Chandon Seldon]

The very simple fact is that you don't need Word, Access, Outlook, Powerpoint, Excel or any clones of them to accomplish any legitimate work. Heavyweight word processors are seriously overkill for most tasks they're used for, and not well equipped for more complex tasks like document processing and desktop publishing. I'm still not sure what the niche for Access is supposed to be; either you're a programmer and need a scripting language and SQLite or you're not and need to hire one. Outlook is sort of bloated for an email client, and I'd probably lean towards webapp for a calendaring / scheduling tool. Powerpoint is neat, but I see it abused far more than it's legitimately used. Excel is the most legitimate app of the bunch - the ability to do light number-crunching as a non-programmer is useful; on the other hand, like Word, Excel trys to stretch beyond that niche and people end up using it with data sets that deserve something a little bit more robust.

In conclusion, most people would be better served by lighter weight or domain specific applications, and it's only the massive marketing push towards "Office Suites" on the 90's that's stuck us with Microsoft Office and Open Office. It'd be nice if people realized that, and it would be even nicer if people stopped getting automatically trained on this crap.

Re:and when no district can turn down a FREE offer

[ElleyKitten]

MSFT will go out of business and the OSSFS movement will have an effective monopoly on office software.

However, with the default file format of OpenOffice being an open file format that anyone can use that will mean that if OO ever becomes the most common office suite then other office suites can still easily compete because they can implement the same file format everyone uses with OO, instead of the way it is now where competing office suites have to scrap to attempt to emulate a closed format. Right now, OpenOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, Google Docs and SS and others all read ODF, so there's no way for them to lock each other out of the market like MS Office has locked most other office suites out. It's also not like MS Office would have to die if OO gained marketshare. MS could implement ODF into Office, and then put in features people want at a price they're willing to pay (you can't tell me that businesses wouldn't pay for a professional product done right instead of hoping some free download will meet their needs). Then, it's just like regular competition. Been a long time since we've seen that in office software.