[OT] MS Office (XP): the sad truth
The sad truth is that MS Office, and Word in particular, has become a de facto standard in much of big business and government, both in the USA and (it appears) in other countries such as Great Britain. Documents get exchanged in that format, and if you don't have the latest version (soon to be XP) you can't work with them. The behavior is self-reinforcing. Star Office isn't a solution, and won't be until and unless it is able to both import and export the most recent MS formats. I wish that would happen, but I don't expect it to. Please don't get me wrong. I lament this state of affairs as much as anyone here. The only solution I can see is a new antitrust action that would force Microsoft to publish its data formats for all Office products 90 days before releasing any new ones and would explicitly permit anyone else to use them. Paul
Please don't get me wrong. I lament this state of affairs as much as anyone here. The only solution I can see is a new antitrust action that would force Microsoft to publish its data formats for all Office products 90 days before releasing any new ones and would explicitly permit anyone else to use them.
Paul
Hey Paul, The other approach might be that Linux needs to have a split in it's users....so that there is a community of gurus who do servers and all kinds of whacky stuff......and then a separate community of Linux users who are desktop users. I'm not suggesting a *division* really, but more of a way to allow new users who just want to be desktop users, a different community to build and learn and gear the hardware and installations toward that end. In my opinion, the only way Linux is going to get strong enough to hold itself together against MS is that it needs millions and millions more desktop users. We already have the guru community. But the sad fact is, the guru community is not the preponderance of the user out there, and most of the time the guru isn't who makes the decision to form a standard. People who sit around polished tables do that. And as long as they keep putting things like: "The document standard for [corporation name] until further notice will be Microsoft Word format". Uh, well. That's the way it's gonna go. (that's an actual standards quote from a giant corporation in San Jose-who's name I won't mention because you would all know it). But if linux got so easy to install and use [for the desktop user] that the guys sitting around the polished table were running linux in their laptops and on their desks, then it would all turn around. I think it's getting there. But just for the sake of discussion and comment, and thinking about it, I just thought I would throw that out there. -- Regards, Richard Saint Clair, Co-Founder Technical Manager Internet Users Society Niue Chairman, Pacific Island Chapter ISOC -------------------------------------------- stclair@niue.nu www.niue.nu Voice (68 3) 1157 Fax (68 3) 4237 Internet Service Provider, Niue Island -------------------------------------------- ISP/C, ISOC, APIA, NCOC, ISOCNZ, PICISOC -------------------------------------------- No computers were harmed in the making of this message.
On Thursday 31 May 2001 03:14 pm, Internet Niue wrote:
Please don't get me wrong. I lament this state of affairs as much as anyone here. The only solution I can see is a new antitrust action that would force Microsoft to publish its data formats for all Office products 90 days before releasing any new ones and would explicitly permit anyone else to use them.
Paul
Hey Paul,
The other approach might be that Linux needs to have a split in it's users....so that there is a community of gurus who do servers and all kinds of whacky stuff......and then a separate community of Linux users who are desktop users.
I'm not suggesting a *division* really, but more of a way to allow new users who just want to be desktop users, a different community to build and learn and gear the hardware and installations toward that end.
In my opinion, the only way Linux is going to get strong enough to hold itself together against MS is that it needs millions and millions more desktop users.
We already have the guru community. But the sad fact is, the guru community is not the preponderance of the user out there, and most of the time the guru isn't who makes the decision to form a standard. People who sit around polished tables do that. And as long as they keep putting things like:
"The document standard for [corporation name] until further notice will be Microsoft Word format".
Uh, well. That's the way it's gonna go.
(that's an actual standards quote from a giant corporation in San Jose-who's name I won't mention because you would all know it).
But if linux got so easy to install and use [for the desktop user] that the guys sitting around the polished table were running linux in their laptops and on their desks, then it would all turn around.
I think it's getting there. But just for the sake of discussion and comment, and thinking about it, I just thought I would throw that out there.
I'm going to take something that you said here, and shine some light on it. <SHINE>
But if linux got so easy to install and use [for the desktop user] that the guys sitting around the polished table were running linux in their laptops and on their desks, then it would all turn around. </SHINE>
Yep, that's what I thought you said. So let's bring this a little further out... why is "Microsoft Word" the standard? Because "everybody" runs it. Well, what happens when not "everybody" is running Word anymore? Maybe a new standard will emerge. Maybe Star[Open] Office's Star Writer or KWord's format will emerge as the "standard", once a ton more people are using Linux. I'm very much looking forward to seeing that happen :-) Have a great day! -Steven
My opinion may count for nothing, but I very much believe that any one application's format should not be the standard. A standard should be autonomous. Not connected to an application free or otherwise. As soon as a format is connected with a particular application, other developers will be jealous and want to develop their own. Let IEEE, Ansi, ISO and whatever other stadards body make a universal format, and let all abide by it. Only then (I think) will all get along. Regards Anders On Thursday 31 May 2001 22:58, Steven Hatfield wrote:
On Thursday 31 May 2001 03:14 pm, Internet Niue wrote:
Please don't get me wrong. I lament this state of affairs as much as anyone here. The only solution I can see is a new antitrust action that would force Microsoft to publish its data formats for all Office products 90 days before releasing any new ones and would explicitly permit anyone else to use them.
Paul
Hey Paul,
The other approach might be that Linux needs to have a split in it's users....so that there is a community of gurus who do servers and all kinds of whacky stuff......and then a separate community of Linux users who are desktop users.
I'm not suggesting a *division* really, but more of a way to allow new users who just want to be desktop users, a different community to build and learn and gear the hardware and installations toward that end.
In my opinion, the only way Linux is going to get strong enough to hold itself together against MS is that it needs millions and millions more desktop users.
We already have the guru community. But the sad fact is, the guru community is not the preponderance of the user out there, and most of the time the guru isn't who makes the decision to form a standard. People who sit around polished tables do that. And as long as they keep putting things like:
"The document standard for [corporation name] until further notice will be Microsoft Word format".
Uh, well. That's the way it's gonna go.
(that's an actual standards quote from a giant corporation in San Jose-who's name I won't mention because you would all know it).
But if linux got so easy to install and use [for the desktop user] that the guys sitting around the polished table were running linux in their laptops and on their desks, then it would all turn around.
I think it's getting there. But just for the sake of discussion and comment, and thinking about it, I just thought I would throw that out there.
I'm going to take something that you said here, and shine some light on it.
<SHINE>
But if linux got so easy to install and use [for the desktop user] that the guys sitting around the polished table were running linux in their laptops and on their desks, then it would all turn around.
</SHINE>
Yep, that's what I thought you said.
So let's bring this a little further out... why is "Microsoft Word" the standard? Because "everybody" runs it.
Well, what happens when not "everybody" is running Word anymore? Maybe a new standard will emerge. Maybe Star[Open] Office's Star Writer or KWord's format will emerge as the "standard", once a ton more people are using Linux.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing that happen :-)
Have a great day! -Steven
My opinion may count for nothing, but I very much believe that any one application's format should not be the standard. A standard should be autonomous. Not connected to an application free or otherwise.
I agree completely. But is it too late?? So now I'm really curious....is there an ansi standard for what a document is? -- Regards, Richard Saint Clair, Co-Founder Technical Manager Internet Users Society Niue Chairman, Pacific Island Chapter ISOC -------------------------------------------- stclair@niue.nu www.niue.nu Voice (68 3) 1157 Fax (68 3) 4237 Internet Service Provider, Niue Island -------------------------------------------- ISP/C, ISOC, APIA, NCOC, ISOCNZ, PICISOC, ARRL -------------------------------------------- No computers were harmed in the making of this message.
Keith Edmunds wrote:
MS Office XP apparently uses XML as its document format. If that's the case, we have a standard format.
That's hardly more of a standard than 8-bit ASCII. Yes, XML has a nicely structured syntax and some very general semantics. But the fact that XP uses XML doesn't imply that every XML document is a Word document, or even that there's a descriptive schema for Word documents in XML. In the continuum from arbitrary bytes to Word-conformant documents, XML probably goes 15% of the way from the arbitrary bytes. There's another issue lurking here: the question of whether, even within Microsoft, there exists such a thing as a specification of a Word document. It's possible, if you make the right mistakes, to generate documents within Word that Word itself can't interpret correctly later on. It's happened to me. Paul
On Thu, 31 May 2001, Internet Niue wrote:
My opinion may count for nothing, but I very much believe that any one application's format should not be the standard. A standard should be autonomous. Not connected to an application free or otherwise.
So now I'm really curious....is there an ansi standard for what a document is?
We used to have a perfectly good one. It was called ASCII. The US Government funded the development of SGML, which was supposed to be a standard for document exchange, I think. Since XML was derived from SGML, might not XML be a good choice for a vendor-independent exchange format? Of course, Micro$oft would have to be prevented from making proprietary extensions.... Regards, Lew Wolfgang
-> ->Of course, Micro$oft would have to be prevented from making ->proprietary extensions.... -> If people don't think they won't embrace and extent XML in OfficeXP and make it difficult for the rest of us..then that person would have to pull their head out of their bum. M$ can do it .. I had forgotten how bad the zombie M$ofties are..until I went to work for a big corp. again. Man, there are SO many M$ apologists around here and defenders of the faith it makes me sick. Good thing I wore my Banishing Microsoft shirt today..I will put up a pic of it later..oh man..these people hate this shirt. But as I am in Engineering on the Unix side..they can go Frell themselves. ;) -- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- If two men agree on everything, you can be sure that only one of them is doing the thinking.
At 03:20 PM 5/31/2001 -0700, you wrote:
-> ->Of course, Micro$oft would have to be prevented from making ->proprietary extensions.... -> If people don't think they won't embrace and extent XML in OfficeXP and make it difficult for the rest of us..then that person would have to pull their head out of their bum. M$ can do it .. I had forgotten how bad the zombie M$ofties are..until I went to work for a big corp. again. Man, there are SO many M$ apologists around here and defenders of the faith it makes me sick. Good thing I wore my Banishing Microsoft shirt today..I will put up a pic of it later..oh man..these people hate this shirt. But as I am in Engineering on the Unix side..they can go Frell themselves. ;)
Keep up the good work dude. You should get yourself a "UNIX: Live Free or Die" license plate and other such geek gear :-) Oh, don't forget to cover up all the "Made for Windows **" logos with SuSE stickers :-)
-- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- If two men agree on everything, you can be sure that only one of them is doing the thinking.
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the archives at http://lists.suse.com
---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com Central Texas IT http://www.centraltexasit.com
I took the little padded plastic Tux from Loki put it over the Intel sticker on my case (no WINTEL here). and the only MS logo's to be seen are on the disk - which has been touched in a while. Just a little nonsense to breakup the monoteny. Curtis :) On Thursday 31 May 2001 05:45 pm, Jonathan Wilson wrote:
At 03:20 PM 5/31/2001 -0700, you wrote:
-> ->Of course, Micro$oft would have to be prevented from making ->proprietary extensions.... -> If people don't think they won't embrace and extent XML in OfficeXP and make it difficult for the rest of us..then that person would have to pull their head out of their bum. M$ can do it .. I had forgotten how bad the zombie M$ofties are..until I went to work for a big corp. again. Man, there are SO many M$ apologists around here and defenders of the faith it makes me sick. Good thing I wore my Banishing Microsoft shirt today..I will put up a pic of it later..oh man..these people hate this shirt. But as I am in Engineering on the Unix side..they can go Frell themselves. ;)
Keep up the good work dude. You should get yourself a "UNIX: Live Free or Die" license plate and other such geek gear :-)
Oh, don't forget to cover up all the "Made for Windows **" logos with SuSE stickers :-)
-- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ----- If two men agree on everything, you can be sure that only one of them is doing the thinking.
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the archives at http://lists.suse.com
---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator
Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com Central Texas IT http://www.centraltexasit.com
I took the little padded plastic Tux from Loki put it over the Intel sticker on my case (no WINTEL here). and the only MS logo's to be seen are on the disk - which has been touched in a while.
I found an excellent use for my MS Office 2000 CD. It makes a really handy little mirror if I need to comb my hair before going into a meeting. ;-0
RTF is an ansi standard, I believe. As far as I can see it covers all the features a document needs, but not, of course, the OLE embedded things microsoft insists is essential in a word/excel/minesweeper(?) application The problem with XML, at least as far as I can understand things, is that <MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY> binary data here </MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY> would be valid XML. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding of XML can correct me, but as I understand it, the actual interpreter of that data need only be named in the definition, not provided (I have to admit I haven't spent too much time researching this. Perhaps it shows). There is nothing in the XML spec that says it has to be platform independent, or open, or anything at all for that matter, as I understand things. Regards Anders On Thursday 31 May 2001 23:59, Internet Niue wrote:
My opinion may count for nothing, but I very much believe that any one application's format should not be the standard. A standard should be autonomous. Not connected to an application free or otherwise.
I agree completely. But is it too late??
So now I'm really curious....is there an ansi standard for what a document is?
Anders Johansson wrote:
RTF is an ansi standard, I believe. As far as I can see it covers all the features a document needs, but not, of course, the OLE embedded things microsoft insists is essential in a word/excel/minesweeper(?) application
The problem with XML, at least as far as I can understand things, is that
<MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY> binary data here </MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY>
would be valid XML. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding of XML can correct me, but as I understand it, the actual interpreter of that data need only be named in the definition, not provided (I have to admit I haven't spent too much time researching this. Perhaps it shows). There is nothing in the XML spec that says it has to be platform independent, or open, or anything at all for that matter, as I understand things.
Right. And the problem doesn't depend on using binary data in the above, either, or even in using a particularly mysterious data format. There's no way to know all the possibilities except through experiment, and MS can create special cases that you can't anticipate whenever they want to. Paul
Hi: On the subject of Microsoft, this is a hillarious cartoon by Doonesbury on the demise of M$: http://www.uclick.com/client/det/db/2001/06/01/index.html -- Cheers, Jonathan
On Friday 01 June 2001 01:15, Anders Johansson wrote: [snip]
The problem with XML, at least as far as I can understand things, is that
<MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY> binary data here </MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY>
would be valid XML. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding of XML can correct me, but as I understand it, the actual interpreter of that data need only be named in the definition, not provided (I have to admit I haven't spent too much time researching this. Perhaps it shows). There is nothing in the XML spec that says it has to be platform independent, or open, or anything at all for that matter, as I understand things.
SGML and XML are great if you stick to the spec. In true Microsoft fasion, they have take the W3C standard and modified it so that it only works on MS products. SGML and XML, when based on the international standards are just a text file with your data, and standard tags defining the various chuncks of info. The DTD you apply to it defines how it looks on your screen. In simple terms, XML is just a refined subset of SGML designed initially for distributing SGML on the internet. It uses the same rule set and DTDs as SGML... just less of them. Until MS came along that is... they introduced a totally new bit called Schemas.... oooops... now you have an intermediate step that manipulates that data totally different again. C.
Clayton Cornell wrote:
On Friday 01 June 2001 01:15, Anders Johansson wrote: [snip]
The problem with XML, at least as far as I can understand things, is that
<MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY> binary data here </MS_PROPRIETARY_THINGY>
would be valid XML. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding of XML can correct me, but as I understand it, the actual interpreter of that data need only be named in the definition, not provided (I have to admit I haven't spent too much time researching this. Perhaps it shows). There is nothing in the XML spec that says it has to be platform independent, or open, or anything at all for that matter, as I understand things.
SGML and XML are great if you stick to the spec. In true Microsoft fasion, they have take the W3C standard and modified it so that it only works on MS products. SGML and XML, when based on the international standards are just a text file with your data, and standard tags defining the various chuncks of info. The DTD you apply to it defines how it looks on your screen. In simple terms, XML is just a refined subset of SGML designed initially for distributing SGML on the internet. It uses the same rule set and DTDs as SGML... just less of them. Until MS came along that is... they introduced a totally new bit called Schemas.... oooops... now you have an intermediate step that manipulates that data totally different again.
Are Microsoft's schemas different from those in the spec recently issued by W3C? The W3C spec is hardly a MS creation. Paul
SGML and XML are great if you stick to the spec. In true Microsoft fasion, they have take the W3C standard and modified it so that it only works on MS products. SGML and XML, when based on the international standards are just a text file with your data, and standard tags defining the various chuncks of info. The DTD you apply to it defines how it looks on your screen. In simple terms, XML is just a refined subset of SGML designed initially for distributing SGML on the internet. It uses the same rule set and DTDs as SGML... just less of them. Until MS came along that is... they introduced a totally new bit called Schemas.... oooops... now you have an intermediate step that manipulates that data totally different again.
Are Microsoft's schemas different from those in the spec recently issued by W3C? The W3C spec is hardly a MS creation.
As far as I know... no. They should be the same, although I haven't actually sat down and compared them. Ha.. I shouldn't send emails at 6 in the morning... I am not all that coherent then. The XML spec as it existed was taken by MS, and adapted.. some may say improved by adding schemas. That addition was (as far as I have been able to tell) later accepted by W3C and added to the XML spec. It was available in MS products long before it was ever included by W3C. That was the dilemna that we faced where I work... we wanted to use only full W3C spec tools, but some people really liked the idea of Schemas.... it was only available in MS supported tools. Now that it has been added to the W3C spec... well, that is a good thing. C.
Anders Johansson wrote:
My opinion may count for nothing, but I very much believe that any one application's format should not be the standard. A standard should be autonomous. Not connected to an application free or otherwise. As soon as a format is connected with a particular application, other developers will be jealous and want to develop their own. Let IEEE, Ansi, ISO and whatever other stadards body make a universal format, and let all abide by it. Only then (I think) will all get along.
I'd certainly be happier if MS Word wasn't a de facto document standard -- but wishing it were otherwise won't make it so. Much as we Linux-ers wish that MS didn't have such a stranglehold, they do. There seems to be some law of economics that causes de facto standards, once they gain a certain level of acceptance, to increase their hold on the market. Look at how the PC architecture has taken over, although in this case there are multiple vendors of it. Paul
On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 06:01:01PM -0400, Paul Abrahams wrote:
I'd certainly be happier if MS Word wasn't a de facto document standard -- but wishing it were otherwise won't make it so. Much as we Linux-ers wish that MS didn't have such a stranglehold, they do. There seems to be some law of economics that causes de facto standards, once they gain a certain level of acceptance, to increase their hold on the market. Look at how the PC architecture has taken over, although in this case there are multiple vendors of it.
Paul
Some law of economics? -- it's called monopoly power, and is the major problem with pure free market theory. Pure free markets tend to magnify initial inequalities, especially when there is information disparity and inefficiency (which there will always be; sometimes it is legislated, as, e.g. "intellectual property" laws). The other part of the problem is just game theory -- it's to my advantage to use format X if everyone else is using it. When a monopoly uses its power to create initial disparities of advantage, game theory takes care of the rest. BTW, the Canadian government still uses Word Perfect. That didn't save Corel, however. Corvin -- Corvin Russell <corvinr@sympatico.ca>
On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 12:48:44AM -0400, Corvin Russell wrote:
Some law of economics? -- it's called monopoly power, and is the major problem with pure free market theory. Pure free markets tend to magnify initial inequalities, especially when there is information disparity and inefficiency (which there will always be; sometimes it
As the sharper reader will have noticed, a market in which there is inefficiency is not a "pure free market". However, let's say a very free market instead -- anyhow, pure markets are impossible, even theoretically, unless you make highly undesirable assumptions (which many economists do in fact make), like that all agents have the same choice function.
is legislated, as, e.g. "intellectual property" laws). The other part of the problem is just game theory -- it's to my advantage to use format X if everyone else is using it. When a monopoly uses its power to create initial disparities of advantage, game theory takes care of the rest.
-- Corvin Russell <corvinr@sympatico.ca>
Corvin Russell wrote:
On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 06:01:01PM -0400, Paul Abrahams wrote:
I'd certainly be happier if MS Word wasn't a de facto document standard -- but wishing it were otherwise won't make it so. Much as we Linux-ers wish that MS didn't have such a stranglehold, they do. There seems to be some law of economics that causes de facto standards, once they gain a certain level of acceptance, to increase their hold on the market. Look at how the PC architecture has taken over, although in this case there are multiple vendors of it.
Paul
Some law of economics? -- it's called monopoly power, and is the major problem with pure free market theory. Pure free markets tend to magnify initial inequalities, especially when there is information disparity and inefficiency (which there will always be; sometimes it is legislated, as, e.g. "intellectual property" laws). The other part of the problem is just game theory -- it's to my advantage to use format X if everyone else is using it. When a monopoly uses its power to create initial disparities of advantage, game theory takes care of the rest.
That's a very good explanation of what is going on, and also shows why antitrust action is likely to be the only solution. If not for Theodore Roosevelt and the Sherman Antitrust Act a hundred years ago, we'd probably still be living under the thumb of Standard Oil and the Union Pacific Railroad. An interesting question is what the right kind of antitrust action would be and what economic interests might support it. Breakup is the obvious solution, but preventing Microsoft from setting monopoly de facto standards would probably be equally effective and easier to achieve. If Microsoft was allowed to publish a Word standard and then required to hold off on releasing new products based on that standard, there's little doubt that a Linux version of Word, capable of handling all Word documents perfectly but most likely based on a better (paperclip-free) user interface, would appear very shortly. Paul
Hey Steven,
So let's bring this a little further out... why is "Microsoft Word" the standard? Because "everybody" runs it.
Excellent question.....I think that happened when the first release of Windows 95 came out. Before that, it was Word Perfect and dBase that were all the rage. That's when it happened....I don't know why it happened.
Well, what happens when not "everybody" is running Word anymore? Maybe a new standard will emerge. Maybe Star[Open] Office's Star Writer or KWord's format will emerge as the "standard", once a ton more people are using Linux.
We can all hope.....but maybe it should be shoved along a little by doing something like what Steve Jobs did with the Apple in the late 70's and early 80's. What I'm talking about is when he donated gazzilions of computers to the school systems. That's already being done with Linux, but I think it should be an all out campaign. I don't know. It's a complicated world, and a complicated situation. Just bouncing around some ideas.;-) But we need about 50 million more linux desktop users. How we gonna get 'em? Uh, and I'm running Star Office 5.2 and I have no trouble at all doing Office 95, 97, 2000 documents and spreadsheets to and from my associates who run MS....but of course access databases are a different story. Fortunately I don't use them much. -- Regards, Richard Saint Clair, Co-Founder Technical Manager Internet Users Society Niue Chairman, Pacific Island Chapter ISOC -------------------------------------------- stclair@niue.nu www.niue.nu Voice (68 3) 1157 Fax (68 3) 4237 Internet Service Provider, Niue Island -------------------------------------------- ISP/C, ISOC, APIA, NCOC, ISOCNZ, PICISOC, ARRL -------------------------------------------- No computers were harmed in the making of this message.
* Paul Abrahams <abrahams@acm.org> (Thu, May 31, 2001 at 11:08:03AM -0400)
The sad truth is that MS Office, and Word in particular, has become a de facto standard in much of big business and government, both in the USA and (it appears) in other countries such as Great Britain. Documents get exchanged in that format, and if you don't have the latest version (soon to be XP) you can't work with them. The behavior is self-reinforcing.
Sorta so. However 1) many people are still on '97. Office 2Ks format is '97 compatible. XP will be using XML (although that obviosuly will not be standard XML but rather standard XML with just enough M$ proprietary sh&t to make it incompatible with the rest of the universe), but unless evryone upgrade to XP , they have to use backward compatibility mode 2) Many corporations aren't happy with the XP licensing /pricing scheme, so the big move to XP might be (much)_ further away than M$ wishes. 3) In fact many compnaies are investigating alternatives to M$ office. I know we are , and I would be very happy if we did move to something else.
Star Office isn't a solution, and won't be until and unless it is able to both import and export the most recent MS formats. I wish that would happen, but I don't expect it to.
The moment Sart Office gets 100% compatible on office97 docs we move in a flash. Currently listening to: the hum of my computer Gerhard, <@jasongeo.com> == The Acoustic Motorbiker == -- __O You can manage a snake, though its poison might kill =`\<, It's amazing how humping a camel will thrill (=)/(=) You can go with a snail if you slow to a crawl But the hedgepod can never be buggered at all.
Hi Paul: On Thursday 31 May 2001 10:08, you wrote:
The sad truth is that MS Office, and Word in particular, has become a de facto standard in much of big business and government, both in the USA and (it appears) in other countries such as Great Britain. Documents get exchanged in that format, and if you don't have the latest version (soon to be XP) you can't work with them. The behavior is self-reinforcing.
The *really* sad truth is that Microsoft never really had any competition. Apple suffered from not being able to get Motorola chips, because of a lawsuit. They wouldn't allow their computers to be built by third party vendors, thus limiting there dissemination. Finally Apple got hijacked by a Pepsi Cola salesman who ran the company into the ground. I can't really say why OS/2 didn't make it. But the UNIX distros, (Linux, FreeBSD and presumably MacOSX) are in a different league all together. Consider this: 1) China, the nation collectively, won't pay for software licensing. I belive they just ignore the single machine install restriction. If XP is not capable of pirating, they will just not use it. China, I believe, has it's own Linux distro called Red Flag. 2) India is moving toward widespread use of Linux. 3) All the claptrap about the Linux desktop being dead is just nonsense. First of all the GNOME and KDE desktops are beta. That's how open source works, release often, release early. So the judgments about the Linux desktop are being formed on, as yet, unfinished software. I am running KDE 2.2 Alpha 2. You know this desktop is Alpha in name only! For being prerelease software it runs damn good. Question: How come the Linux desktop is pronounced dead when KDE 2 is nearing perfection and GNOME is not far behind? Why did they not say the Linux desktop was a fruitless quest when we ran KDE 1.1 and GNOME used Enlightenment. Now that GNOME and KDE are making significant progress there are all these articles on how the desktop is dead. I'll tell you why those articles are there; somebody stands to lose a whole lot of money. You know it's funny Mr. Gates calls one of his products hailstorm because in reality Linux is like a bad hailstorm for M$. They can't run from it, they can't hide from it and they can't make it stop. BTW some more editors for Linux: http://www.nllgg.nl/Ted/ http://cooledit.org
Star Office isn't a solution, and won't be until and unless it is able to both import and export the most recent MS formats. I wish that would happen, but I don't expect it to.
Please don't get me wrong. I lament this state of affairs as much as anyone here. The only solution I can see is a new antitrust action that would force Microsoft to publish its data formats for all Office products 90 days before releasing any new ones and would explicitly permit anyone else to use them.
Cheers, Jonathan
Jonathan Drews wrote: Question:
How come the Linux desktop is pronounced dead when KDE 2 is nearing perfection and GNOME is not far behind? Why did they not say the Linux desktop was a fruitless quest when we ran KDE 1.1 and GNOME used Enlightenment. Now that GNOME and KDE are making significant progress there are all these articles on how the desktop is dead. I'll tell you why those articles are there; somebody stands to lose a whole lot of money. You know it's funny Mr. Gates calls one of his products hailstorm because in reality Linux is like a bad hailstorm for M$. They can't run from it, they can't hide from it and they can't make it stop.
I don't think the issue is the quality or usability of the desktop. It's the positive feedback loop that Microsoft has gotten going. The major PC vendors like Dell and Gateway get good deals from MS on pre-installed systems, which for them are just an unavoidable prerequisite to selling hardware. That creates public acceptance (or passive acquiescence) among the great masses of computer buyers, who then expect MS software because that's what they know. Add to that the software vendors like Intuit who only support Windows and the hardware vendors who sell Winmodems. And then, because Windows is so widespread, Word documents become a de facto standard. In a contest between technical excellence and cozy familiarity, cozy familiarity will win among the masses every time. That's why operating systems may be a natural monopoly, like the distribution (though not the production) of electrical power. The reason Linux is gaining in the server market but not in the desktop market is that the server market, by and large, is driven by technical considerations. The desktop market isn't. Paul
On Friday 01 June 2001 10:03 am, Paul Abrahams wrote:
Jonathan Drews wrote:
Question:
How come the Linux desktop is pronounced dead when KDE 2 is nearing perfection and GNOME is not far behind? Why did they not say the Linux desktop was a fruitless quest when we ran KDE 1.1 and GNOME used Enlightenment. Now that GNOME and KDE are making significant progress there are all these articles on how the desktop is dead. I'll tell you why those articles are there; somebody stands to lose a whole lot of money. You know it's funny Mr. Gates calls one of his products hailstorm because in reality Linux is like a bad hailstorm for M$. They can't run from it, they can't hide from it and they can't make it stop.
I don't think the issue is the quality or usability of the desktop. It's the positive feedback loop that Microsoft has gotten going. The major PC vendors like Dell and Gateway get good deals from MS on pre-installed systems, which for them are just an unavoidable prerequisite to selling hardware. That creates public acceptance (or passive acquiescence) among the great masses of computer buyers, who then expect MS software because that's what they know. Add to that the software vendors like Intuit who only support Windows and the hardware vendors who sell Winmodems. And then, because Windows is so widespread, Word documents become a de facto standard. In a contest between technical excellence and cozy familiarity, cozy familiarity will win among the masses every time. That's why operating systems may be a natural monopoly, like the distribution (though not the production) of electrical power.
The reason Linux is gaining in the server market but not in the desktop market is that the server market, by and large, is driven by technical considerations. The desktop market isn't.
Paul
Very good.. excellent response :) -Steven
participants (13)
-
Anders Johansson -
Ben Rosenberg -
Clayton Cornell -
Corvin Russell -
Curtis Rey -
Gerhard den Hollander -
Internet Niue -
Jonathan Drews -
Keith Edmunds -
Lewie Wolfgang -
Paul Abrahams -
Steven Hatfield -
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