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On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 14:21, Fredrik Lindgren wrote:
> I wonder if there is a business case for setting up a company reselling
> free software to get around sceptical management. I mean, without changing
> or really supporting the actual software, just charging for it. ;-).
I definitely think so. Some managers great difficulty understanding that
free software can be any good, or even that software can be free.
The company where I work spends a lot of money on MS Office licences
that we don't utilize very well. I tried to get a manager interested in
OpenOffice, but made the mistake of telling him that it was Opensource.
>From there it went something like this:
"Oh, I understand, it must be like Linux then," he said.
"No", I replied, "it is an Office suite, like MS Office, it's just that
it is Opensource. Linux is an operating system." (My apologies to
everyone that feels strongly about GNU/Linux.)
"But Linux is Opensource."
"Yes."
"Well, then it is like Linux. We don't use Linux."
"No, we don't. That is beside the point. The point is that we could save
money by..."
"No, I don't think so. We don't use Linux here."
At that point I gave up. Perhaps I would have had greater success if I
had told him about StarOffice, perhaps not. At least, he would not have
confused an office suite with an operating system.
/Henrik Mårtensson
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