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On Monday 16 October 2006 20:34, Simon Waters wrote: > David Bell wrote: > > Perhaps of interest to the foss enthusiasts: > > > > http://foss.ciac.org.uk/article43.html > > Interesting, although not that surprised, except perhaps how many CVS > groups use Access extensively. > > Always surprised when end users use Access, because; People use Access because it works for them. I know it only does 1/10th of what you need and will really be a lock-in but it takes most users a couple of years to find this out by which time its 'too late'. The same goes for Word/PDF but that seems to take a lot longer - the FOSS movement is actively pushing ODF still rather than supplying an HTML faced document/spreadsheet/database 'document' management package. Its gonna look funny in a few years time when people finally get out of the MS Office mindset and start asking why so much effort was wasted on a free alternative to it! Tom te tom te tom > > 1) It sucks (compared say to creating the same application in Microsoft > VB proper as was, Access is harder, less flexible, and generally more > user unfriendly, although marginally cheaper). > > 2) It is a very poor choice for a database system, as the default engine > (JetDB or whatever it is called this week), accesses the files directly, > rather than via a server process (such as MySQL, Oracle, MS-SQL, > Postgres .....), which leads to reliability and performance issues, and > in severe cases data loss. > > Perhaps we need to evangelize proper database practices along side > deployment of GNU/Linux. Certainly there is work to do here. > > Evolution is still flaky -- they needed to wait for the users to tell > them that?! It is too big, complex, and tries to do too much, with too > many processes. The result is it looks like Microsoft Outlook, and it > crashes like Microsoft Outlook does as well. Not helped by Ubuntu's > release it before it is ready approach. > > System integration is hard work - especially when the vendor of the > system you are trying to integrate with doesn't want you to integrate > with their software. > > The way to kill the system integration work has to be thin client, with > a more "big bang" like deployment. So more "just works" out of the box, > and the integration work is "make one server work with the Windows > systems". If they get some nice functionality "out of the box" they > don't have with Windows, even if it is just like "Instant Messaging" set > up for everyone logged in at the same time, and the ability to work > remotely via VNC (web VNC), they have some sort of "win" over what they > had before. Doesn't have to be stuff they couldn't of had with Windows, > it just has to be set-up by default, so it is now a "no-brainer". > > Interesting that having integrated PDF support in OpenOffice is so > appreciated. I mean I think not have "Save As PDF" is something I > relieved my Met Office users from in 1993 or there about, but I really > never found it that useful myself. Maybe it is the ISP mentality, but we > take our customers data from any format they provide and convert it > into HTML, or other formats native to the browser, precisely to avoid > Word, PDF, Flash, SVG, or any other format not likely to be properly > supported by the majority of browsers, or that requires third party > plugins or other dross (people simply don't install missing plug-ins > these days - either paranoia, ignorance, or experience). > > Maybe these groups are lacking the document sharing, and content > management tools they need, and are using PDF as a substitute? Similar > to the situation with databases. I know at least one Devon charity pays > a lot for a database system that really isn't that sophisticated, and > could easily be supplied via the web by someone like Aaron, for less > money, and less grief. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html