[sf-lug] Request for bid

Sun Aug 22 15:32:35 PDT 2010

Hi Christian, Al Stoll, & Stoll-Law people.   :)

May I provide you some thoughts?

=
http://stoll-law.com/
looks like a very professional operation.  Great.  :)

Christian, your post was asking for a bid for services, & that I don't
have a direct reply to.

But, I have some thoughts for you, Al, & your co-workers that might be
helpful.

Since I think you personally do good work, & the Stoll Law office
appears to be a quality organization, I wish that you all have great
success in a switch to using GNU(Linux) free software.

Here are a few thoughts & suggestions for that effort:

=
First, a few quick points on my qualifications on this:

I first programmed a computer almost 40 years ago.  I was awarded a BS
degree in Electrical Engineering by the University of California at
Berkeley.  I've used Microsoft products, including DOS, & Windows from
their earliest days onward.

For more than 10 years I have used almost solely GNU(Linux) software,
and essentially no Microsoft software, for engineering related work,
simple office type work, & personal use.  For several of the common
reasons people use GNU(Linux).

I currently use KUbuntu 10.04 on a quad core computer - a modestly high
end machine.  That works fairly well.  I've used KUbuntu for about the
past 5 years.

In my nonexistent free time I volunteer organize an Free cost, global
community group whose purposes are educational, productive & social -
BerkeleyTIP.  About all free software, hardware & culture.

=
I am not a GNU(Linux) zealot.  But, I do have high enthusiasm for the
GNU(Linux) [& BSD]  free software & communities.

=
Christian - I know of your great work with GNU(Linux) for schools, &
your educational GNU(Linux) videos.  Those are great contributions.

I know you as a highly productive community contributor, & leader, with
respect to implementing educational social systems & technology for Free
software use in community & educational organizations.

You also have a very decent, above average, technical competency with
GNU(Linux) systems - compared to my estimation of those skills possessed
by most attorneys.

=
It is not surprising an intelligent business person:
"is sick and tired of Microsoft Windows problems,
and he is willing to consider a move to GNU-Linux"

I wish you, he & your company all the best in:
"He has asked me to find a
company that could do the initial move, and could provide on-going
support.
We would like to speak with companies that could bid to do this work."

=
"Al is willing to
consider OpenOffice.org, but we would need to be assured that OOo would
be able to be a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Office."

I doubt it is.

I think OO is highly valuable, & could be the foundation for a highly
productive law office.

I think you & the firm will find descriptions of successful
implementations of OO in businesses & government operations on the Open
Office mailing list.

I highly recommend you subscribe & peruse that list.

See below for information on the recent OO thread:
"[users] Need help to Market OOo"

=
"he and the rest of the staff are very much end users,
> and we would need to make sure that we don't put them through a huge
> learning curve.  They need to be able to leave on Friday and come back to
> work on Monday, and get maybe half a day of training and then they need
> to
> be able to be off to the races again, as our office is a high-pressure
> office with very serious personal injury cases (brain damage cases, etc). "

I think that time frame (weekend plus day, given appropriate
preparation) is undoable.

I do think the best approach is to produce, then follow, a graduated,
step by step transition plan to switching to incrementally more & more
free(dom) software.

Some technologies that can be well implemented on a step by step basis, 
making increasingly & incrementally more successful steps to productive
free software use, 
perhaps over a 6 to 12 month time frame, 
are:

1) Starting with the free software Firefox web browser for employees.
2) Implementing back end free sw network administration.
3) Installing a database, & transitioning increasing parts of database
workload to that system.
4) Implementing free software email capability.
... etc

=
Making a good transition plan,
& progressive steps toward success, 
using careful planning & education & training for the employees, 
would likely lead the Stoll Law firm to:

1) Improved systems uptime,
2) Improved office worker & attorney productivity,
3) Happier law firm management & employees, 
due to both better productivity, 
& to the great feelings that come from contributing to the success of
our wider society, 
by using the community produced & oriented, high quality, educational,
productive, GNU(Linux)  - [ or BSD  ;)  ]  -  software & systems.

=
Best wishes to you all.  :)

Please let us know, here on this list, how the steps toward progress are
working out.

=
Giovanni Re

=============================
=====  Open Office mailing list success stories info.
=====  users at openoffice.org
=====  Subject: [users] Need help to Market OOo

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:05:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gregory Forster <gforst.1956 at sbcglobal.net>

I need examples of government entities, 
corporations, educational entities that have actually switched to Open
Office.  
I want to be loaded with uncompromising ammunition of facts to promote
Open 
Office.

== Replies:
"If you have not already found it, http://marketing.openoffice.org/ is a
good starting point.  Also check the mailing list archives from the
page. "

=
"Have a look at:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Marketing_3
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Switching
<http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments>
http://www.openoffice.org/news/ "

=
"Many governments are now requiring open standards if not also open
source. "

=
"It seems to me that I have heard that both Souyth Africa and France 's
government have adopted Oo, and I think there were other national
governments that have also, not to mention various corporations. Added
to that, do your coleagues know that the Open Source file formats are
ISO approved? I have not heard of MS's formats getting such approval,
but that would bear added research to verify.

This overdone system you mention - is it a relational database app? do
you need to bring outside data into an Oo Base database? Does that need
to be password protected?

If I went into what can be done with OoBase here, this would be an
absurdly long post, but email me if any of this is of interest. "

... etc.

=====================================================================
On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:06:06 -0700, "Christian Einfeldt"
<einfeldt at gmail.com> said:
> hi,
> 
> My employer, Al Stoll, is sick and tired of Microsoft Windows problems,
> and
> he is willing to consider a move to GNU-Linux.  He has asked me to find a
> company that could do the initial move, and could provide on-going
> support.
...

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