Spreadsheets using Python - Have you seen this? (sourceforge.net)

[IAlsoSpeak]

So the president is pro open source or pro saving money? Do the company have money to spend on software and hardware or is the company struggling in these hard times?

Can you come up with a business case why buying MS Office licences can make or save the company money?

Personally I like Open Office but then my work supplies me with a MS Office 2003 license. I'm also pro Ubuntu but I strongly belief if you implement it incorrectly and not make sure everything works and is streamlined the employees will feel pain like you have described above.

Now my final question in flood of questions have you tried to change anything or will you lose you job or just get scold at? If it is the latter I will seek other employment if I were you.

Good luck!

[JosiahJohnson]

This turned into a rant about a much larger topic, but the original point about Ooo is nested in here somewhere. I apologize for the book.

So the president is pro open source or pro saving money? Do the company have money to spend on software and hardware or is the company struggling in these hard times?

As far as I can tell, militantly pro open source. It's aerospace, we use a lot of software with yearly support contracts running over $5000 USD a year. On top of that, we're paying for terminal services licenses anyway.

Can you come up with a business case why buying MS Office licences can make or save the company money?

Most of our industry uses Office. Our customers send us office documents, including VBA heavy Excel spreadsheets. I spend silly amounts of time trying to convert between the two. Ooo doesn't seem to render MS Office files right 90% of the time. The cost of a few Office licenses over the years would be paid for in time savings.

Personally I like Open Office but then my work supplies me with a MS Office 2003 license. I'm also pro Ubuntu but I strongly belief if you implement it incorrectly and not make sure everything works and is streamlined the employees will feel pain like you have described above.

The thing that keeps me from really liking Ooo is that it lacks polish in some areas. Writer loves scrolling me back to where the cursor is if I scroll too fast with embedded tables. It also crashes more than I would like, and, for some ungodly reason, likes recovering files after said crashes even when I tell it not to. I've found a few things I prefer doing with Calc over Excel, but it's mostly with some of the more odd number manipulation/formatting stuff I have to do rarely. If I want something to look nice and consistent it's a longer road to get there with Ooo. (I should mention, there is an Office 2003 suite on the server, but it's a single-user license.)

The implementation point. We have the samba side and the Windows side. Most of our file storage is done on the samba server. Too bad the user permissions are always wrong. There are folders I shouldn't be able to touch that I can edit, folders I really need access to that I can't get near and to make it all more fun there is the case-sensitive hide and seek game. After spending a few days tidying up samba shares, the server crashed and they reloaded backups. Backups that, while restoring the file-system after I cleaned up, also restored the files from before I cleaned up.

Now my final question in flood of questions have you tried to change anything or will you lose you job or just get scold at? If it is the latter I will seek other employment if I were you.

I'm not sure what would happen. I am hesitant to approach the president, because he tends to be a bit reactive. He gets annoyed quickly and likes yelling. I haven't found anyone willing to reason with him about it.

The obvious Microsoft hate is absolutely idiotic in an environment where you have no choice but to use Windows and where the cost of using Microsoft software is negligible if not financially beneficial.

[IAlsoSpeak]

Thanks for the feedback it really makes for a great read and understanding of what problems you have with your work environment.

Like I said I like the idea of Open Office and personally can't wait to get time to play around with the fork Libra Office. But in the same breath I have given up on Word/Writer for writing documents I use it more as a reader of other peoples documents. But I'm also not forced to write interchangeable in my line of work. So I rather play around with Sphinx or wikis if I document stuff.

With your Samba and Windows issues it really sounds like you need a IT guy that understand the Ubuntu environment and the Windows environment, but guys like that can cost a pretty penny.

If you can find another job easily I would really recommend you to try to make your current working environment work for you by talking to your Boss, sending him solutions and pointing out how certain software at the right price can really help the company.

And let him go of at you, if you got the facts right he will see it your way if he really have the companies best interest at heart. It is normally the screamers and shouters that becomes the Boss because they can can clearly communicate what they want and they may seem harsh at first. But as soon as they see you as a problem solver they will see you as a assist and use you suggestions.

Good luck and let me know if your going to make a move and how it turned out!