Jacques B. wrote:
Now how does this come into play if someone is running a MS application using Wine or CrossOver Office? Certainly licensing would still be a requirement. But what would be the implications of trying to monitor/enforce same both for MS and for the employer? A bit off the initial subject of this thread ... but I'd love to see the schools adopt Open Office (or Sun's Star Office), at minimum in addition to any commercial office suite they would have. I don't own PowerPoint. So I installed Open Office on both my Linux & Windows partitions (personally I use the Linux one and log the kids into that one as well, but need the Windows one as I can't seem to find a driver for my Xerox GDI printer to work in Linux so I have to go over to Windows to print). But when I save it in PPT format for compatibility with the school, some of the animation does't translate as intended. It's unreasonable to expect parents to have access to PowerPoint for school projects. But it would be very reasonable to allow them to use OpenOffice. It's the end of the school year so I won't push it for now. But next year I'll be urging them to install it on their PCs to provide that option (& support) to parents/students at no cost to the school beyond a bit of time from the techie.
I would talk to the school system now as they will probably be rebuilding systems in the summer. It is a great time to install any new or updates software.
-- Robin Laing
