[Solved] Ownership of documents produced with OpenOffice.org

[Hagar Delest]

After many years using a PC, my wife decided she wants to go back to a Mac. So we go to BestBuy to select the model she wants. She has lots of documents created in MS Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mostly). I've been a PC guy all my life, and all the software we own, including several versions of MS Office, are for PC. I suggested she try OpenOffice, and the sales guy says "all the documents you create in OpenOffice become the property of the 'owners' of OpenOffice."

Any truth to this? I never trust 75% of what those Geek Squad guys say, but wanted to check here. I can't find any reference to this on the OpenOffice.org site.

Thanks,
Jack

[floris v]

That's absolute nonsense. I suppose he said it because he can't make any money out of OpenOffice. You own the documents that you make with any word processor, not only OpenOffice.

[thomasjk]

+1 A lot of BS but that's what I'd expect at Best Buy.

[JohnSUN-Pensioner]

I don't think that the seller wanted to cheat buyers.
Rather, it is simply a misunderstanding.
This sales guy tried to repeat a rumor that he heard somewhere:
ODF-document (native format of OpenOffice.org) can open the user of OpenOffice.org. In that sense, MSOffice not cope with it.
He did not know what tells

[Cactus Jack]

Thanks, guys. I didn't think he knew what he was talking about. I do buy from BestBuy quite a bit, but never before doing my own research. I just don't think most of the sales people know what they're talking about.

Jack

[robweir]

After many years using a PC, my wife decided she wants to go back to a Mac. So we go to BestBuy to select the model she wants. She has lots of documents created in MS Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mostly). I've been a PC guy all my life, and all the software we own, including several versions of MS Office, are for PC. I suggested she try OpenOffice, and the sales guy says "all the documents you create in OpenOffice become the property of the 'owners' of OpenOffice."

A few years ago it was reported that Microsoft was giving BestBuy "anti Linux training" in order to promote the sales of MS Windows. I wonder if the same is going on with Office?

In any case, as the author of a document, you own it. The only exception might be if you have assigned ownership of your work to an employer or it is a work for hire, in which case they own your document. But there is absolutely nothing that would hand ownership of your document over to the OpenOffice project.

-Rob