Yesterday I came across a posting by Mike Kavis on Open Source Business Resource under the Q&A section. A reader asked how individuals or small businesses could give back to the Open Source Community. Mike's answer struck a chord for me and coincidentally at a time when I'm getting a lot of benefit from the contributions made by the Open Source Community. Mike had one simple suggestion which fit quite nicely with the work I'm doing at the moment, all volunteer. It was simply to pass along the message that Open Source works. In particular OpenOffice works. A lot of people still don't get it or don't know it.
First I have to point out the obvious, I'm in the consulting business. I'm almost always inside other people's work environments and have almost nothing to say about what tools or data formats are used on the job. I'm expected to conform. The client's needs come first. There is very little accommodation for "new" ways of doing things. When people are paying you consulting rates they don't want to pay for experiments! Still, I feel very strongly that as a small business owner I'm being forced to purchase Microsoft Office products that do not meet my needs. I'm not just talking features here. There's too much fat, too much overhead and too little choice. There's a lot more to it than that but my point is not so much why, but that I did choose to go with OpenOffice, the alternative to Microsoft Office.
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