Christian Testamony

[Jerrysch]

The problem of Christians using pirated software is an issue which sadly needs to be addressed. I have observed, with distress, some who are using software which they do not have the licence to use. Why compromise your Christian witness for the sake of this? I too did not want to pay $$$ for microsoft office but it seems as if they dominate the word processor market, don't they? There are free that is $00.00 word processors out here on the net one is to be found at http://www.openoffice.org/
And it is FREE. Let us honor Him who gave His life for us in every way, and not bring shame on Him over the issue of software.

 

[Tychicum]

The have WordPerfect Office student and teacher editions for free at Futureshop ...

Futureshop is a BestBuy company so they likely have it there too ...

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10074379&logon=&langid=EN

Hard to beat that price ...

 

[Jerrysch]

The have WordPerfect Office student and teacher editions for free at Futureshop ...

Futureshop is a BestBuy company so they likely have it there too ...

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10074379&logon=&langid=EN

Hard to beat that price ...

If you are able to qualify that is great, but many of do not.

 

[TheScottsMen]

The problem of Christians using pirated software is an issue which sadly needs to be addressed. I have observed, with distress, some who are using software which they do not have the licence to use. Why compromise your Christian witness for the sake of this? I too did not want to pay $$$ for microsoft office but it seems as if they dominate the word processor market, don't they? There are free that is $00.00 word processors out here on the net one is to be found at http://www.openoffice.org/
And it is FREE. Let us honor Him who gave His life for us in every way, and not bring shame on Him over the issue of software.

OpenOffice 2.0 is on par with MS Office 2003 in many ways. We use it often at the college I work for and push it as much as we can.

Open Source is beyond free It's free as in free beer and free as in free speech!

 

[TheScottsMen]

Also, on this topic, for those in the educational world:

Moodle - http://www.moodle.org - Great LMS (Learning Management Software) - Open Source. On par with both Blackboard and WebCT.

Joomla - http://www.opensourcematters.org - Great CMS (Content Management Software) - Open Source. Great portal software, large community, bundles well with Moodle for single signon

Focus/SIS - http://www.focus-sis.org - Great SIS (Student Information System) - Open Source. Great all around system for storing student records, schedules, billing, transcripts, you name it. Developer is looking at hooking it up with Moodle to allow a good dataflow between the gradebook and other important information.

And of course, who could forget UBUNTU (http://www.ubuntu.com)! Great all around Debian based operating system! Running Xubuntu myself (low-end laptop). Great Bible software (Bible Time), comes with just about everything E-Sword does - also comes with Open Office (though ABI works well) and thousands of one click install open source programs. No wonder gates is retiring

We use all four at the college.

 

[LamorakDesGalis]

OpenOffice 2.0 is on par with MS Office 2003 in many ways. We use it often at the college I work for and push it as much as we can.

You are absolutely right. At work we have the Microsoft Office apps installed, but I strongly prefer using OpenOffice. It has features in it I use that Microsoft lacks. OpenOffice does a great job translating Microsoft docs back and forth, except for the rare document that someone sends using an obscure or non-standard format.

Speaking of software piracy: I have always paid for the software I use. So its ironic that although I paid for Word 2000 and Quicken 2002, I can't use either one because of "anti-piracy" hassles. Word 2000 simply "expired" and wouldn't "unexpire." Quicken wouldn't come up, and the Quicken CD just absolutely refused to be installed anymore. Commercial software shouldn't ever take that much time and effort. So I found viable alternatives to both, good programs that won't all of a sudden quit on me.

Lamorak Des Galis

 

[Jerrysch]

OpenOffice 2.0 is on par with MS Office 2003 in many ways. We use it often at the college I work for and push it as much as we can.

Open Source is beyond free It's free as in free beer and free as in free speech!

Glad to read you responce, it is indeed so sad to see our Christian brethern using software which they have not paid for, especially when there are free alternatives, God bless you in you ministry