Ontario Schools License StarOffice

An anonymous reader writes "Sun Microsystems has signed a contract with the Ontario Ministry of Education in one of the biggest deals yet for its StarOffice software. It covers 72 public and parochial school boards in Ontario. All will be licensed to use StarOffice 7 on all school-owned PCs. Financial details weren't disclosed but Ontario school officials said the cost is 'minimal.'" Reader Apostata adds that the move "will see the application suite used by 2.5 million students. No word on whether it ships with 'Canadian English' pack ;)"

Backstory

[mfh]

I think this move is the most enlightened move the Ministry of Ed has made since inception. Sadly it's only motivated by the shoddy budget for education, and not a move in ideology, necessarily. The backstory to the Ontario Ministry of Education using Star Office has to do mostly with politics. Even with $2bil increase to spending on education in the 2004 budget, this is still a lot less than years prior, due to Tory cuts to education. It's really a sad state of affairs for children today, in Ontario.

Re:Backstory

[Orgazmus]

In our school(Norway), we have about 60pc's running licenced versions of WinXP, while we're out of everything else :\
Its sad..

Re:Backstory

[fembots]

Does that mean that the best way to lobby for OpenSource is to lobby for cutting funding in education?

The ministry probably can't even get StarOffice if the budget is cut to $500mil, maybe then they'll start considering OpenOffice :)

Re:Backstory

[Daengbo]

What's really sad about this is that normally it's not the case. The K12LTSP mailing list is full of members pitching a thin client system to underfunded districts, saying that they can reuse all the machines currently in the school and accept donations from parents, while spending a relatively small sum on a couple of high quality servers.

The overwhelming majority choose to totally upgrade their IT structure on MS's timetable while slashing teaching positions, instead.

Some people don't have their priorities straight.

Re:Backstory

[neilcSD]

It doesn't matter what the motivation is. They could have switched from Microsoft because little green men from Mars made them. The bottom line is, the sooner we can de-indoctrinate (is that a word?) people from Microsoft products, and in greater amounts, the sooner they will go away.

Re:Backstory

[NanoGator]

"The bottom line is, the sooner we can de-indoctrinate (is that a word?) people from Microsoft products, and in greater amounts, the sooner they will go away."

Oh brother. So your motivation is "destroy Microsoft"? You just hate them, so be gone with them? +5 Insightful?

Look, I'm not exactly in love with Microsoft here, but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories, as long as people are complaining that the alternatives are missing features then the Microsoft 'doctrine' is going to remain quite strong.

It's cool that somebody took a leap and started using Open Office, but man, don't turn this into a "ding dong MS is dead" pitchfork party.

Re:Backstory

[tftp]

Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories

I'd use a different analogy: "MS gave users enough of their drugs so that the users are addicted now, and can't withdraw even when they are ravaged by some virus every other day."

There is nothing wrong in curing a drug addict (assuming that it is possible.) Similarly, there is nothing wrong in weaning the users from the MS alcohol, even though it tastes great.

Re:Backstory

[Trent05]

Why should Windows users be "cured". It's an operating system that is easy to use, is widely supported and easy to support. I have a Red Hat 9 box that runs like a champ but can be a pain in the butt sometimes and I'd hate like hell to support it over the phone to family. I haven't had a virus since ?Elvira? back in 94 or 95, and that's though using various Windows boxes from 88' to present.
I'd LOVE to see Linux become mainstream, but it still ain't there yet. It's a differnt OS for a different purpos

Re:Backstory

[|<amikaze]

Because the error messages are descriptive,

Segmentation Fault.

Re:Backstory

[1u3hr]

but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app.

Many, myself among them, would say that it's more to do with bundling and intimidation of OEMs who offered alternatives. Certainly MS Office does the job, but given an hour to get used to it, WordPerfect's suite, IBM's SmartSuite, or several other lesser-known ones would satisfy the vast majority of users. If you've ever been in a real office and watched people using it, most never stray from: enter text, style by clicking on the formatting bar, print/save/send.

Re:Backstory

[16K Ram Pack]

I don't support the "destroy Microsoft" line, but creating a genuine choice based on open standards would be a very good thing.

The problem I can see for Microsoft is that once something like Open/Star Office reaches a certain point (say 20%), Microsoft could get into deep trouble. At that point, everyone will know someone who uses Star/Open Office.

The biggest challenge for Open Office isn't quality of product. It's awareness and confidence.

Re:Backstory

[nathanh]

Look, I'm not exactly in love with Microsoft here, but the reason that they're in this monopoly in the first place is they have made a VERY useful app. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories, as long as people are complaining that the alternatives are missing features then the Microsoft 'doctrine' is going to remain quite strong.

I'm no lover of Microsoft either but there's no denying that some of their products are quite good. Microsoft haters need to realise that Microsoft makes stuff that is "good enough". It isn't always the best but similarly it isn't always the worst.

Of course, this "good enough" mentality in customers is what will destroy Microsoft. Free software like Linux is also "good enough". So Microsoft might invest considerable effort to make their products better but the vast majority of customers just won't care. Superior quality didn't save Microsoft's competitors in the 80s and 90s and it won't save Microsoft now.

However, I will make a point that Microsoft got this large mostly through luck. They owned the popular OS which ran on the hardware platform that grew from the expected run of several 1000 IBM units to several 100 million cloned units worldwide. That success could have just as equally gone to Apple if the Apple II was a clonable platform, or to Digital Research if the Kildalls hadn't balked at IBM's NDA. Mr Gates was in the right place at the right time and knew someone willing to sell him the right product. You might call that "business genius" but honestly I think Gates isn't that smart. He might have had some inkling the deal with IBM was "important" but I doubt he realised it was worth tens of billions.

Re:Backstory

[kubrick]

. Spare me the "Oh they made a monopoly out of nothing and then put a gun to millions of people's heads" theories

don't turn this into a "ding dong MS is dead" pitchfork party

I didn't see either of these statements in the post you were replying to. Nice collection of strawmen you have there -- are they made from official astroturf?

Re:Backstory

[kiwaiti]

In many cases, MS Office is bought because users are assumed to be more familiar with it than with alternatives, not because it has any cool features alternatives would lack.

Give millions of students a chance to take their first steps in Open/Star Office, and alternatives to MS may seem more viable as a choice for large office environments, where user confusion is a major cost threat.

Kiwaiti

Re:Backstory

[kiwaiti]

Schools don't care what their students are used to, nor should they. They're there to learn, after all.

I was talking about the companies these students will one day be working for. Imagine you are to buy something to allow basic word processing. If 80% of your workforce know MSWord, while 20% have never really used a computer at all, it's obviously easier in terms of training to buy what most know than to retrain them all. That's what people accuse Star Office of - not being MS.

If students familiarize the

Re:Backstory

[NanoGator]

"i should i have clarified for the peanuts gallery that "they" are monopolistic organizations that conspire to limit choice, forcing people to use their overpriced (and in this case, unstable) products."

I agree, you should spend more time making yourself clear. Now I know my statement was true.

As for 'forcing people', sorry bub, the market forced that. Microsoft tried (is trying?) to help it along, no denying that, but the the simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft could not possibly create a mon

Re:Backstory

[Florian Weimer]

They still have too much too much money if they license StarOffice, instead of just installing OpenOffice for free.

Re:Backstory

[christophersaul]

StarOffice comes out in regular, supported editions, much easier than managing a large deployment of various OpenOffice versions with noone to fall back on for advice.

Re:Backstory

[monkeyneck]

"spelling and grammer errors brought to you by California's finest public education" Make that: spelling and grammar errors brought to you by someone who'd rather blame the system than learn some shit on his/her own.

Those damn teachers

[phliar]

Yeah, why should teachers be paid more than plumbers? They only take care of our children, not toilets, which everyone knows are more important.

Re:Those damn teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about that carefully. You'll take a lousy teacher over a lousy plumber any day of the week and you know it. Plumbers get paid more because they fix the immediate concern. Your child won't show the effect of lousy teachers until years later. But you saved a few bucks in the meantime and your toilet didn't overflow. And thats whats really important. Screw the children if you can't keep a female from running out of the house screaming.

Re:Backstory

[benjj]

I don't know about Canada, but here in the UK we have major problems with teacher recruitment and retention. The argument for teacher pay rises comes not from socialism but simple free market economics. If people are not paid enough then they will go and do something else instead. And at the moment, in teaching, plenty of people do.

Re:Backstory

[Ubergrendle]

Teaching in Ontario is considered a cushy, fat paying government job by most of this province's citizens. You're guaranteed 3 months+ per year of time off; there's "Professional Activity Days" where training comes during the school year for teachers, adding up to 5-10 days during the school year where students have 'days off'. This is infuriating as this training does not come during the 3 months paid leave in the summers, but during the children's learning curriculum.

The Ontario Teacher's Union is one of the most powerful unions in the country. Its almost impossible to be fire from the OTU. They're extremely active politically, and have been able to resist most modernisation efforts including: a) regular performance reviews of teachers, b) part time/replacement help, and c) mandatory training and skills progression. Sick days are essentially vacation days...you can accrue them gradually over your career and cash them in for $ or early retirement w/ full pay. I've seen teachers retire after 25 years service with almost a full school year off.

The OTU's indexed pension is LEGENDARY. Last I read it was considered the 2nd best pension in Canada, next to retired Ministers of Parliament. In some odd circumstances some teachers have found their salaries INCREASE upon retirement.

I suspect it is nigh-impossible to find a better location than Ontario to teach in North America. I seriously considered teaching for a long period of time, but ultimately rejected the career choice due to the personal stagnation that would be inflicted upon me by the union rules.

PS I know of several PhD professors from UofT who retired from the university to become high school teachers -- equivalent pay, better benefits, fewer hours. Only detriment was less notoriety.

Re:Backstory

[wolftone]

I'd love to say an anti-socialist system works any better. Here in the public schools of Seattle, teachers are paid peanuts, textbooks still refer to the Soviet Union as current politics, the buildings are poorly maintained (in favor of a current rebuilding/remodelling phase which was thirty years overdue), the boys' bathrooms don't have paper towels or doors to the stalls, but (almost) every classroom has at least one nice and shiny Dell with WinXP.

Now there is no problem with paying teachers and administrators more money, but don't you think they should do a better job to earn it?

Sure. But cut their classes in half (from an average of thirty students to an average of fifteen) before judging their teaching ability.

About damn time

[asit+ler]

It's about time some major organization, even a non-profit, started using StarOffice, or OOo.

Need OO.o to MS filters

[bstadil]

I agree. We need openoffice to MS Office filters though. I am tired of sending .sxw or .sxc files to people and having to later point to OO.c for them to read it. (Sending .doc files is not an option, as it plays to MS)

I would be much better if you could suggest a filter that they could use within MS Office to read and write OO.o files directly.

Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[aled]

And a standalone viewer would be cool. MS used to have standalones viewers for office, don't know now. Perhaps a simple app that xsl openoffice to rtf to open with wordpad would not be difficult.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[1u3hr]

I agree. We need openoffice to MS Office filters though. I am tired of sending .sxw or .sxc files to people

• plain text
• HTML
• PDF
• RTF

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[1u3hr]

I am aware of this. The point was to just send native OO.o files. Not some old or half asses fileformat developed for a different purpose.

Those formats were all designed for interchange. Both doc and oo.o files were designed primarily to be used with their respective Wordprocessors. It's following MS's paradigm to send wordprocessing files when a much simpler format does the job without a special plugin.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[mrchaotica]

While I sympathize with your desire to punish MS users, they have to really want to read your document for that to work.

Maybe you should get a big stack of mini-CDRs (or business card size ones) and give them a copy of OpenOffice with every document!

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[Ckwop]

Once OO.o reaches a 15%-20% marketshare, the battle is won as you can then demand they read your files not that they need to be "translated"

Yeah.. Microsoft are going to give over that easily. Sure, they'll allow you to read the text in your Open Office document no problem but it wont look right. The font might be slightly different, or the margins might be annoyingly out, or that image you placed in the document might be a little off centre.

Then a few months later you hear the board screaming about these faulty .sxw files. "Why don't those files load properly in Microsoft Office.. open office is a pack of shit" - It doesn't matter what you say in response they've already made up their mind..

Remember, large companies are part of the battle but the real Microsoft heartland is the SME. In a typical UK SME, the IT provision usually falls under the control of the Finance director and in general they have no real desire to know the details of the IT industry. This makes justifying anything that isn't directly related to an impact on bottom line rather difficult.

As a key example.. our main company database doesn't even meet first normal form. It's clear to everyone here that such a database is so deeply flawed that it has to be replaced. However, trying to convince them that the move into a normalised solution a whole host better is like trying to square the circle. It's not that they don't agree the proposed solution is better they simply don't see it as important enough to warrent change. It's very odd.

Simon

Question...

[16K Ram Pack]

When you send people the link to download OOo, what's their reaction?

How about sending the file in PDF format?

And the point is

[bstadil]

The point is to avoid sending .doc files Word97 or otherwise. Send native OO.o files and let the MS folks screw around with the filters.

Re:And the point is

[hawkeyeMI]

Much of an MS-hater as I am (and oh, I am), just try that on a resume or other such application that requires MS or other closed formats.

I mean, maybe you don't want to work for a company with such policies anyway, but often HR is quite separate from where you'll actually be working... if you get the job.

Not that I have real world experience, being a professional student at this point. I'm just pessimistic and cynical when it comes to cracking the MS stranglehold.

Windows free since 2000

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[bstadil]

If you use RTF you play MS' game as you will most likely get a .doc file back. I want to send myfile.sxw and have the MS folks screw around with the filters.

Re:Need OO.o to MS filters

[jazman_777]

RTF.

I had to think for a minute about rtf. My first reaction: RTF What? The Manual or the Article? It's a short step from RTF to RTFM or RTFA.

XML will be an option ?

[foobsr]

Not really yet ready though.

Generating Word documents using XSLT [tkachenko.com]

Thinking XML [ibm.com]

Opening Open Formats with XSLT [xml.com]

Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas Overview [microsoft.com]

Why You Should Choose MS Office Over OO.org [slashdot.org]

Why not complicate a complicated world a little more. Each standard unit of complication renders X standard monetary units in someones pockets.

CC.

Re:Here's a mirror

[1u3hr]

ust in case the server crashes and burns (like they usually do)

It's ZDnet, for God's sake. That can stand anything we throw at it. Save your mirrors for Geocities pages.

Hosers

[momerath2003]

'Canadian English'?

Will StarOffice append '", eh?" to every sentence? Or does it simply replace "about" with "aboot"?

Re:Hosers

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Take off, eh!

Re:Hosers

[Mr. Flibble]

As a Canadian, I was going to make this very joke, but I was beat to the punch.

However, I would like to know from those Americans on Slashdot: Where the heck does "aboot" come from? I have never met anyone in Canada that pronounces "about" as "aboot". Do any of you know where this originates?

(PS: "Zed" not "Zee" ;)

Re:Hosers

[momerath2003]

A lot of the great canadian references come from the movie "Strange Brew," based on characters from "The Great White North" which I believe was a Saturday Night Live skit.

As for hearing anyone but them say it this way, the only peoples who I personally have heard with such an accent are those in Minnesota, which, as you probably know, is geographically very close to Canada. ;)

Re:Hosers

[Pxtl]

SCTV actually (where John Candy got his start) - it was a Canadian show, but aimed for the American mass market. There was a minute or two of extra time at the end of the show because of the difference between Canadian and American timeslot lengths, so they decided to add something "uniquely Canadian" and put in Bob and Doug in the "Great White North".

Re:Hosers

[rowdent]

Actually, it was an SCTV [sctv.org] skit. And yes, I would imagine that "aboot" comes from the Minnesota area, which is actually geographically close to Kenora, Ontario (right across the Lake of the Woods) and parts of Manitoba.

[OT] Re:Hosers

[turg]

Never been to the east coast then, eh, b'y?

Re:Hosers

[Fnkmaster]

I don't know where you live, but I used to travel extensively to Ottawa. I have definitely heard people in the Ottawa area pronounce the word "about" somewhat like "aboot". Don't know if there's a specific part of Ontario they were from, and I know the "aboot" is recognizable as a backwoods Minnesota accent too, but I've certainly heard it in Canada.

Western Ontario

[eisenbud]

I drove west across the Trans-Canada Highway in '98 on my slightly roundabout way to California, and there was a definite patch of people saying "aboot" in Western Ontario. It was a long time ago now, but I think it was mostly between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay.

Re:Hosers

[sommerfeld]

It's real. Vowels tend to wander in regional dialects so what sounds like an "au" to you might sound closer to an "oo" to me. Google turned up "Canadian Raising" [yorku.ca] which explains this particular difference better than I can.

Re:Hosers

[bigdavex]

I have never met anyone in Canada that pronounces "about" as "aboot".

The Canadians I know say "aboot" but they don't know it. One of them asked us about the reference in South park. "What's all that aboot? We don't say aboooot."

Re:Hosers

[Zeebs]

There is more then one "Canadian Accent" Just ask a Newfoundlander, a Quebec'er, ect... Where I'm from Greater Toronto Area Ontario, I don't hear aboot.

Speaking of odd pronounciations though, why do yanks say sarry, like the Indian dress Sarie. SORR-Y :P

Re:Hosers

[0racle]

Talk to some Maritimer then. especially someone with a thick Newfie accent.

Re:Hosers

[Champion3]

At least it will flag any occurances of "y'all."

In all seriousness...

[Trillan]

A few years ago, I added a spell checker to an application I wrote. I tried to find a Canadian English wordlist, either complete or as a supplement to a British or American dictionary.

It's very difficult to find. I eventually concluded I was going to have to contact some Canadian publishers, and around that time I decided not to bother.

Presumably, other Canadians did what I did -- use the American dictionary and correct it from time to time.

Canadian English spellchecker

[Trickster Coyote]

You can download the Canadian English (or even NZ or Australian English) spellchecker dictionary for OpenOffice / Star Office from this location [openoffice.org].

Dictionaries for several dozen other languages are also available. Includes some that probably aren't available for MS Word - Moari, Faroese, Setswana, Zulu, etc.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hosers

[MochaMan]

Well, I just come in the log cabin from hunting caribou whilst fending off grizzlies (and a couple o' vicious salmon) and I see some post on slashdot mocking Canadian English, eh. Well, as a born and bred Canadian, I feel it's aboot toime someone set the record straight on this whole sordid affair, 'fore a body ends up with a frozen mukluk to the arse.

I'll give it to you straight -- we may wear toques, sit on chesterfields, and pay for our two-fours in loonies, and we may even say "aboot", but we get more beaver than anyone else on the planet.

Re:Hosers

[momerath2003]

Oh my that's funny. And so original.

Yes, just like everything else on Slashdot. I have a carefully targeted audience. /bows

Re:Hosers

[lvdrproject]

Actually, America didn't have the chance to 'hold over' the use of -'ise' in verbs. When America was still a colony (colonies, if you prefer), the British actually used -'ize', which was the original form. It wasn't until the 1800s, when they decided to emulate spelling changes in the language of their neighbours across the channel, that they changed to -'ise'. The Americans, of course, had already mostly established their language (and their country), and didn't have the influence of the French like the Br

Re:Hosers

[1u3hr]

Coincidentally, even some British schools of grammar continue to use -'ize'. (Oxford, for example -- the traitors.)

ize [geocities.com]

The Oxford English Dictionary argues that words which carry the sound iz whether from the Greek ending -izein or the Latin ending -izare should hold to the spelling with a z, there being no compelling reason to change.

Fowler notes that the following words need to be spelled with -ise:
advertise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disenfranchise

Loss to Wordperfect, not Word

[mini me]

The Ontario school board used Word Perfect in the past, which made sense, giving money to an Ontario company. I don't know why they didn't just use OpenOffice now. Unless times have changed since I was in the Ontario school system it will only be used for word processing anyway.

Re:Loss to Wordperfect, not Word

[BHearsum]

Far in the past, yes. I was a student in Ontario for many years, and at *least* the past 5, probably much more have been with Microsoft Office. Now, we also had old versions of Corel Office stuff along with it, but everyone just used Office.

Re:Loss to Wordperfect, not Word

[caduguid]

The Ontario school board used Word Perfect in the past, which made sense, giving money to an Ontario company. I don't know why they didn't just use OpenOffice now

You might just have answered your own question. Last I heard, (could be out-of-date now), OpenOffice had no wordperfect filters, but Star Office did. Legacy documents, anyone?

No chance

[lavalyn]

Corel had a huge deal with the Ontario Board of Education a few years back, to get WordPerfect onto every computer. They got it installed... but nobody used it. The Microsoft hold was too strong by then. And this was like 2000. I don't think this had changed...

I recall talking to the "computer" teacher/sysadmin at the time, suggesting WordPerfect or StarDivison's Staroffice on the additional Word licenses the school held. His answer was basically "but nobody will use it." Educators after all aren't accountable for costs like private businesses would be.

Re:No chance

[CoolGuySteve]

I was in school around that time. The problem wasn't so much that Office was good but rather that Word Perfect sucked. It was unstable, would present artifacts on the screen at times, was ugly, and was generally slow to load. Office was fast and relatively nice even though dealing with its autoformatting was a huge pain in the ass.

The NT4 systems just tended to rot away after a while and need reghosting. Maybe the rotting took a heavier toll on WP.

That being said, both word processors had little quirks that made them weird to use for students. To find the word count in Word Perfect, you have to go to File->Properties and click a tab, none which is immediately obvious. In Office, to doublespace a document, you had to go to Format->Paragraph and set line spacing to 2.0. You'd figure both companies would have gotten their acts together enough to make their products appeal to those who would ultimately choose one for a good part of their life.

And as an aside, another argument used against WP was that Office was what was used in business and for some students, high school would be the only access to any kind of computer training in their lifetime, especially if they didn't have a computer at home. Not everyone goes on to post-secondary education.

Canadian English

[teklob]

Just because I'm bored I'll post some canadian-american english translations
American - Canadian
Soda - Pop
11th Grade- Grade 11
well thats all i can think of, that sure killed 2 minutes

Re:Canadian English

[ForestGrump]

Sadam Heussien- Prime minister
The only road- Highway 1
Dollar-1.25
(ok, you had to see that ep of south park to get it)

Re:Canadian English

[Zagadka]

Actually, the Pop vs Soda thing isn't Canadian vs American. Take a look at this map [popvssoda.com], which shows which term is predominantly used in each part of the US and Canada.

The biggest differences between American and Canadian English that I know of have to do with spelling. eg: colour vs color, metre vs meter, etc. The only differences I've noticed in spoken English are zed vs zee thing, and the nonsensical way Americans use "quarter of" when referring to the time. (to me "quarter of 12" is 3, but to Americans it apparently means "a quarter to 12")

OpenSOURCE!

[Piranhaa]

I know as a fact, that computer systems in schools cost a huge amount of dollars (buying licenses for hundreds of computers at a time). I think the move to open source for schools will reduce the amount of prices associated with computers and allow for that money saved to be put towards something other than software (like gym equipment, or something more useful). When they move to open source operating systems, that will dramatically decrease problems associated with Windows (as there are right now)...

Cost?

[LinuxInDallas]

Interesting that the Canadian government can choose not to disclose the money spent on the contract. That's definitely in contrast to here in the US where even a teacher's pay is public record.

Re:Cost?

[Zeebs]

Well it is somewhere, the problem is that no one cares to look for it unless the money is declared missing by the opposition party. I believe on a whole we trust our government a slight bit more, until that it is it's brought to our attention. Good thing there is a federal election here on June 28th, god willing a minority liberal government will be in control.

PS for Canadian Slashdot'ers: Voting is as easy as ABC, Anybody But Conservative

Re:Cost?

[klparrot]

I think the Liberal government burned their good name with the Ontario's provincial election.

It's unfortunate that most people don't seem to realize that the provincial and federal Liberal parties are not the same organization. Paul Martin has publicly disapproved of Dalton McGuinty reneging on his campaign promises. And besides, what choice did McGuinty really have when it turned out that the Tories had been "balancing" the budget by selling off assets? Highway 407 practically printed money for the prov

So? What's you point?

[brunes69]

You realize there are more than two parties you know.

I am pissed off at the Liberals too, but I am defiantly not going to help voting in a homo-phobic, anti-abortion right-wing wacko. I am voting NDP. And I would strongly urge any Canadian who values civil rights to do the same.

Before everyone starts complaining...

[Granos]

Before everyone starts complaining about why they didn't use a free alternative like OOo, look at the Star Office 7 link in the summary. It IS free for educational use:
Education No license fees; cost of media and shipping
It was probably cheaper than trying to burn and distrubute thousands and thousands of OOo CDs, since most schools don't have CD burners available that would be able to produce a quantity like that. They bulk of the 'minimal' amount of money probably went to a support contract.

Well,...

[Mark_MF-WN]

This needs modding up. That's a pretty big detail to have been overlooked.

CD's?

[phorm]

Our school district uses OO, and we don't burn CD's. That's what network shares are for. For unconnected machines, sure - you can use a CD - we techs have them. A user could burn a copy if needed.

It's easier to network-install 3-5 copies rather than popping CD's in and out anyhow, and I'd imagine most PC's are not standalone these days.

Microsoft will retaliate

[tisme]

Microsoft is not going to let this happen, and I think I know what they will do. First, drastic price cuts will be implemented followed by the creation of additional tools and resources for schools and teachers.

The reason Microsoft will refuse to give in, even if it means that they might lose a load of money in the short run, is because they understand that if they can get students hooked while they are young, they can keep perpetuating a monopoly. My younger siblings want Microsoft Word/Powerpoint/Excel on their computer/laptop simply because they know it from school.

It will be a tough fight if larger inroads are made, because Microsoft will certainly retaliate. Another problem is schools are still able to opt for Microsoft Office instead, which many of them will certainly do.

Correction.

[Raven42rac]

It is not "Canadian English", it is "The Queen's English" that pretty much every other English-speaking country other than the US uses.

The context in which this occurred

[Qwavel]

For anyone interested, here's (my interpretation of) the political and economic context in which this happened. This is a big win for OpenOffice, and I think this contextual information is relevant to the school boards decision to stop using MS Office.

Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, has had almost a decade of right- wing government: tax cuts and spending cuts. The economy has, on the whole, been pretty good but the debt and deficit have continued the rapid rise that began with the 89-93 recession.

Over this period the government has fought its main battles with the powerful teachers union to try and save money on their education budget.

In the recent election, both the incumbent right-wing party and the centrist party lied outrageouslly about what they could do in spite of the state of the budget. It seems that you have to do this to get elected these days. (The only party that told the truth about the budget got clobbered.)

The centrist party won the election and then had to come thru on its promises, which included a better relationship between gov't and teachers. This was clearly impossible, so they had to look at every conceivable way to save money without hurting teachers or letting any more schools fall apart. As usual, this exercise in cost cutting didn't yield even a fraction of what was promised, but it did get them to drop MS Office.

So, maybe debts, deficits, cuts, and politians aren't all bad.

But don't expect to see anything similar in big businesses. In my time doing systems consulting I found that, while government, small businesses, retail, and manufacturing were pretty strapped, most sectors of big business were wallowing in cash. The amount that these big companies are wasting on MS software is a tiny fraction of what they waste on all sorts of other things.

Open Source and Green Party

[mfuhrer]

Expect to see more such moves if the Green Party of Canada comes to power in this month's federal election. Not that they will actually win the election, of course, but the Greens do explicitly support open source software in their platform [greenparty.ca]

Re:Open Source and Green Party

[Idarubicin]

Expect to see more such moves if the Green Party of Canada comes to power in this month's federal election.

Well, that's an interesting remark on several levels.

Education policy is in the purview of the provinces, not the federal government. It's a right that the provinces have historically jealously guarded; they would probably defy such suggestions from the feds just as a matter of principle.

'If' the Green Party comes to power? Nationally, they have less than 10% support. As the parent notes, they're not coming to power. If a minority government is elected, they might hold some swing votes in a coalition government.

In Ontario, it was a provincial Liberal government that adopted StarOffice. Based on this precedent, it could be argued that one should vote Liberal for more such moves....

Parochial school boards

[Jardine]

For those who may be confused as to why the Ministry of Education is signing deals for parochial school boards, Ontario has two seperate publicly funded education systems.

There's what is now called the public system (used to be the Protestant system) and the Catholic system. Technically the Canadian constitution has a similar freedom of religion clause to the one in the US constitution which would prevent a publicly funded religious school system but the Ontario constitution also has a clause that allows for one. So we get two sets of school boards. Great fun.

Re:Parochial school boards

[JohnnyCannuk]

Uhmmm, not quite, but close.

Firstly, you've got things WAY out of whack.

First of all our public school system in Ontario is NOT and old protestant system. It has always been a public school system. It was created by Egerton Ryerson (name-sake for Ryerson University in Toronto) in the early 1840s, after the Rebellion of 1837. This public school system was created as part of the reforms brought in by Lafontaine and Baldwin to address the causes of the rebellion.

So the public school system in Ontario is actually older than Canada itself. Religious schools did not recieve government funding.

But during the negotiations for Confederation in 1867, Ontario (predominantly Protestant) agreed to publicly fund a Catholic school system and Quebec (predominantly Catholic) agreed to fund a separate Protestant system. These systems existance were and still are part of our constitution - the British North America Act (1867) (and now the Canada Act 1982). The only issues we have had have been around funding - Ontario would only fund the Catholic system up to grade 10 until 1984, when it funded it fully.

Now, the section of the Contitution dealing with freedom of religion and separation of church and state was added as part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. So the original requirement for funded religious schools is still there until challenged by someone who will take it to the Supreme Court.

One would think it would be easy to get rid of it, since Quebec no longer has Protestant schools - it now has public English and French systems. Even in Quebec, religious schools such as the Catholics must pay for their schools themselves.

Now, as a father of two children of school age, I agree that our province should not be funding both a Catholic and Public system, both on the basis of expense AND on the basis that it give special status to the Catholic religion that no other religion enjoys (and no religion should enjoy special status). I'm quite sure this violates the separation of church and state, but the ability to challenge it has only been around for about 22 years. And the Catholics have a lot of votes in this province. Also, our Charter has specific provisions that state that it applies to the laws of Canada but not to the other sections of the Contitution itself, so even if it is declared in violation of the charter, the charter may not appply to the section of the old British North America Act that deal with this. It may actually take a contitutional amendmant to fix it (and we all know haow easy THAT is).

So I agree that it is an idiotic system and we should put all of our money into a single, excellent public shcool system with no religious affiliations, but your simplistic explaination of it is just wrong. You need to see it in it's context to see how really silly it is.

Logo Computer

[hey]

Anybody remeber the "Logo" computer that was developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education. In the eary PC days. (No, I don't mean the Logo language.)

Picking on Canada?

[gwoodrow]

What can be said about this article but bravo? Whatever the reason may be - whether motivated by money or otherwise - it's a good choice. Anyone who works in the tech industry knows that the people who usually handle money and decisions regarding computing are usually clueless. Far too often they just throw money at Dell or Gateway and say "Send us school stuff." This indicates that there was actual research done and is a good sign that administrators may actually be catching up with the technology.

On a side note, I must remark on all the Canada jokes. I myself am not Canadian, nor have I ever been there - but I find the jokes rather tired. Considering most of us that will be reading this spend our spare time INDOORS on COMPUTER TERMINALS while using terms like l33t and w00t!, I think we lack the necessary leverage to effectively make fun of any country or native persons of said country. Yes, that includes Canada. America Junior has just as much of a right to respect as we geeks do. Pocket protector jokes are just as tired for me as 'aboot' is for them, I'm sure.

only StarOffice?

[latroM]

I wonder if they have same kind of a setup than in my school where both M$ Office and StarOffice are installed. Microsoft provides very cheap school agreements so there isn't a big incentive to choose only StarOffice. And guess which one of the office suites is used primarily in my school.

Just because it's licensed...

[myov]

... doesn't mean they'll use it. The TCDSB (Toronto Catholic school board) IT department is so pro-microsoft that even anything Mac related was not supported. Even when it had to do with cross-platform software like FileMaker (used for elementary report cards, and owned by APPLE!) IMHO, the policy was reversed only because schools were buying Macs out of their own budgets for media use/etc.

Their student information system (Trillium), developed either by the Ministry of Education, or at least by a few school boards, runs on Microsoft (SQL server with a horribly written front end, most likely in VB). The alternative (Oracle) wasn't well supported IIRC.

The grade 9 "intro to computer" and compsci courses are taught with Office & VB and from what I've seen tend to focus on learning those programs, not the general concepts.
(Where would I be if I focused on learning the 1993 version of Works, rather than generic database/spreadsheet concepts?)

Finally, if nothing else, their education agreement probably ensures that licensing is cheap enough and/or forced on every machine, or prevents them from installing competing software.

Corel is the Loser in this Deal

[frank249]

For many years the Ontario Teacher's pension fund was a major investor in Corel and Corel basically offered WordPerfect for free to Ontario schools. When Corel was stolen by Vector the pension fund lost over $500 mil. Now with no reason for a special relationship and with the WordPerfect - Student/Teacher version [businesswire.com] costing $99 and it makes sense that the Board of Education would look for a better deal. Bill Gates and Vector(owners of Corel) probally thought this would force the schools over to MS Office but in this case it back fired on them.

This could be huge one day

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only does Ontario have a multitude of high schools...they also have several world-class Universities. University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Queens, and McMaster are just naming a few. I myself go to U of Waterloo and I know that in our engineering labs we're given the choice of using either OpenOffice or MS Office (forced to use OpenOffice in some of the lower budget labs). Now who attends Ontario Universities? Ontario students! If these students develop a preference for Star/OpenOffice, it's likely that you'll start to see MS Word disappear from our institutions of higher learning. Once you have everyone familiar with StarOffice and Netscape 7.x (it's offered as an alternative to IE on all school machines, despite the fact it's clunky as sin), a full switch to a Linux-based environment is just a hop, skip and a jump away. Now if only some of the more specializing companies made linux ports of their software.

Costs To Schools = Zero

[SoVi3t]

Well, almost. My father worked for the Board of Education about a decade ago, give or take, and when a move was made for C++ to be used instead of QBASIC (yes, that was how bad our education system was), Microsoft made the offer of "it's free for you to use, and no licensing fees....as long as nothing ever gets released." So basically if anybody wanted to make something and then release it (a game, an app, etc), they had to consult with MS first.

Re:Licensed...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not get support for very little money. Sun has such a low cost per seat that there would have been no point to using OOo instead of SO. Perhaps you would like to see development in OOo slow down, because if SO does not make Sun money, that's exactly what will happen.

Re:Licensed...?

[irokitt]

The difference between OpenOffice.org and StarOffice is that it comes with licensing, support, and the odd extra feature included. Corporations use StarOffice as opposed to OpenOffice for the same reasons they use Red Hat as opposed to Gentoo (I said it, I'm putting on asbestos underwear, you can't hurt me!). In a corporate setting that support tends to save you a few headaches.

Disclaimer: I like Gentoo, I just wouldn't use it as a server OS in a large corporation or an educational setting.

Re:Licensed...?

[antiMStroll]

"My former slight thoughts of Canada's intelligence are withering."

Given the tortured grammar of that sentence, Canada feels no loss.

Re:Licensed...?

[drgonzo59]

ROFL Mod the parent up!

Re:Fools!

[AmNotAScript]

But they want the SUPPORT that comes with StarOffice.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Fools!

[sasha328]

And who would you have look after re-training required?
Sun also has included some forms of training (and training for teachers as well)
There's a story [itbusiness.ca] at ITBusiness.ca [itbusiness.ca] that has more information.

Re:Fools!

[jm91509]

And who would you have look after re-training required?

Its for schools. They havn't been trained at all yet.

Get em while they're young :)

Re:Is this such a great idea...?

[BCW2]

They will also be proficient at Open Office and it is comming soon to business near you. There are at least two furniture makers that have switched to OO 1.1 in the last year. They don't want to pay the M$ tax any more. They are also looking hard at Linux for the next time they purchase new computers. Some of the smaller ones have switched too.

More businesses are heading that way, they don't need the expense of M$. They don't see any benifit in paying for Office. Functional and cheap are getting more impor

Re:Negative about OpenOffice

[Anonytroll]

It is true. The original StarOffice was sold by a German company. It was pretty famous for being able to run on most OSes of the time.
Sun bought them out a few years later and opened the code. The OpenOffice code is based on this old StarOffice, even though today StarOffice is a derivate of OpenOffice.org.

Re:Our situation - been there...

[Chordonblue]

Been there and done that my friend. Here's the reasons I put forth:

1) Take a look through history - that's the 'real world'. Has it ALWAYS been MS Windows Office? I'll bet not. In fact, I'll bet it's been Wordperfect for DOS and Windows, Xywrite, Word for DOS and Windows, etc. The fact is that computer software evolves quickly, and your principal needs to get over it.

First and foremost, educational facilities shouldn't be pushing a particular brand 'X' software either, particularly from a company convicte