[Fsfe-uk] Bill Gates has just learnt the best things in life are free

[Paul Mobbs]

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Hi,

John Naughton's having another goos M$ bash in todays Observer see -
http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,841431,00.html

P.

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The Networker

Bill Gates has just learnt the best things in life are free

John Naughton
Sunday November 17, 2002
The Observer


My modest proposal that people should boycott Microsoft products brought in 
some despairing emails on the lines of 'yes, but how can we?'

'Get real', wrote one exasperated reader. 'My company is locked into Windows. 
We circulate draft documents in Microsoft-proprietary formats. Expenses 
claims are done via Excel sheets, etc. There just isn't an alternative.' 

Wrong. Of course there are people who need the more arcane features built into 
Microsoft Word and Excel, but the vast majority of users employ less than 5 
per cent of those facilities. For them, the open source (ie, free) OpenOffice 
package would be more than adequate. And those readers who felt that open 
source software is too technical for them might be surprised to learn that 
Evesham - a High Street computer retailer - now sells a PC with Linux and 
OpenOffice pre-installed for £250, including VAT. 


<SNIP>


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"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - address@hidden
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey.html
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