[MLUG] Fighting the lock-in is hard to do...

[Phillip Kelchen <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Here is a funny episode that I just got finished with. I am doing work in the Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Program and it is now time to get our research presentation abstracts turned in. We were originally supposed to submit the text of our abstracts at the undergradresearch.missouri.edu site by cutting and pasting from a word processor file. That site was well set up and oddly enough, the formatting toolbars only showed up in Firefox (and right next to the instructions, it said to use FF and gave the download link. Nice.) I used Konqueror, so I didn't see nor need the formatting, so it was fine for me.

Then about 6 hours later, after the submit time window had closed, we all got an e-mail from one of the LS UROP staff saying that the Web form did not work correctly and: "What we need to ask each and every one of you to do is send us, by e-mail,  your abstract AS AN ATTACHMENT in WORD." Well, as I had worked on this in my own machine, the original file was an ODT. I sent my ODT version as well as a PDF and said that "I am happy to resubmit my work via an e-mail attachment, but I will not do so using Microsoft Word as my work is done on computers that do not run Microsoft software. Many in my department (biological engineering) do not use Microsoft software due to security, compatibility, privacy, and stability issues. So I am sending you my abstract in an internationally-recognized standard format, OpenDocument, that can be read with a multitude of programs, such as OpenOffice, available to run from the IATS Software Anywhere server {it was a hyperlink}if you do not wish to downlaod and install it on your own computer free of charge. I also attached a PDF of my abstract if you do not need to edit the text."

So I get this response back this morning:

"Thank you for sending your abstract to Chrystal Graves as requested.

However, we can't use it as a PDF.  We really need a typed version.  If you

can't send it as an attached word document, then send it as an e-mail and we

will put it into the right font and fix the line length.  We need to have

this by early afternoon to get it into the book."

Since my point went well over their heads, I sent off the abstract as an RTF. They didn't understand that now requiring people that may have been using a program that's not MS Office to do work on (and I know several in this program right off the top of my head) either go find one to ensure that formatting is absolutely correct with a .doc export just because they screwed up their Web form is pretty smug of them to pull. But I guarantee that they did not even think about that when they sent the e-mail as they used Windows machines or Macs with MS Office on them and they had never even thought that anybody might be using something different even though it is supported by IATS.

So the moral of this story is that the MS lock-in seems to be more with laziness of some users to change one iota than any technical or other issues. Which means that the burden is very, very much on the OSS crowd to get people informed and give them a reason other than just hundreds or thousands of dollars saved in license fees, lots of hair-pulling saved by far fewer security problems, and greater flexibility in usage of the system. And I have to say that I am at a loss as to what else would make people want to switch to any OSS software other than sysadmins for businesses saying "It's what we're using- use it or leave" with OSS rather than MS software as they do now.

Phillip

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