Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3627 mails)

[Olle Viksten <olle@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

fredagen den 15 juni 2001 23:32 wrote Paul Abrahams:
> I'm currently dealing with the following problem: I have a
> document I'm going to be creating that I have to distribute
> to a number of people, most of whom aren't particularly
> technically oriented and (I have to assume) aren't using
> Linux and aren't going to.   I hate to resort to using an MS
> Word file, but I really see no practical alternative.   (No,
> I'm not going to go down in flames as  a Linux evangelist in
> this context.)

In similar circumstances I save the document as RTF, everyone should be able 
to read that.

> But the pickle I'm in made me think of a neat way to use
> Microsoft's own "embrace and extend" strategy against it.
> Suppose the MS Word format were to be adopted as a FIPS
> (Federal Information Processing Standard).   That would
> imply, among other things, that (a) the format was
> completely documented and available for use by anyone, and
> (b) that Microsoft could no longer change it unilaterally.
> If it's a de facto standard, then let's make it a de jure
> standard!

I shouldn't reveal this secret but the majority of humans live outside of the 
USA . :-)