Re: Microslosh vision of the future
at Monday, August 12, 2002 2:17 AM, David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> was seen to say:
Microsoft can have whatever vision of the future they want and can use any resources at their disposal to bring their vision to light. Everybody has that right. Nope, monopolies don't - the rules for a monopoly are tighter for the very good reason the customer *can't* go somewhere else, he has to decide to buy from them or go without (and in a world where not accepting MS-formatted documents can lock you out of contracts you need to keep in business, the pressure to go with the crowd is very high indeed. There *is* a gun pointed at their head, but it is financial (and smoking :)
StarOffice to the rescue. David Howe wrote:
at Monday, August 12, 2002 2:17 AM, David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> was seen to say:
Microsoft can have whatever vision of the future they want and can use any resources at their disposal to bring their vision to light. Everybody has that right.
Nope, monopolies don't - the rules for a monopoly are tighter for the very good reason the customer *can't* go somewhere else, he has to decide to buy from them or go without (and in a world where not accepting MS-formatted documents can lock you out of contracts you need to keep in business, the pressure to go with the crowd is very high indeed. There *is* a gun pointed at their head, but it is financial (and smoking :)
-- May God Bless you and everything you touch. My "foundation" verse: Isiah 54:17 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.
StarOffice to the rescue. Requires interoperability to be possible - if M$oft protects their file
at Monday, August 12, 2002 2:41 PM, William Warren <hescominsoon@adelphia.net> was seen to say: formats legally (via the DMCA) or technically (via Palladium only allowing "trusted" MS apps to access the documents) then there is little you can do and stay inside the quite draconian laws the americans seem to want for this sort of thing (and which to our shame the europeans seem to be trying to match)
At 9:41 AM -0400 2002/08/12, William Warren wrote:
StarOffice to the rescue.
Only until they change the file format again. Microsoft can afford to change the file format on an even daily basis, and come out with patches for the previous patches, and call them all "security patches" so that everyone is either forced to apply them or dump Microsoft altogether. Open source projects can't possibly afford to keep up, if Microsoft decides to go down this road. -- Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E W+++(--) N+ !w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++) tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)
Brad Knowles(brad.knowles@skynet.be)@2002.08.12 22:47:31 +0000:
At 9:41 AM -0400 2002/08/12, William Warren wrote:
StarOffice to the rescue.
Only until they change the file format again. Microsoft can afford to change the file format on an even daily basis, and come out with patches for the previous patches, and call them all "security patches" so that everyone is either forced to apply them or dump Microsoft altogether.
Open source projects can't possibly afford to keep up, if Microsoft decides to go down this road.
opensource projects need to converge efforts in designing new data formats, file formats being just a serialized representation of data in mem. being fully portable between several (OSS) applications will bring the giant to its knees. of course, all of you know that, and this is not operational content, i'm silent again ;-) regards, /k --
Q: What do you get when you cross Dracula with a used car dealer? A: autoexec.bat WebMonster Community Project -- Reliable and quick since 1998 -- All on BSD http://www.webmonster.de/ - ftp://ftp.webmonster.de/ - http://www.rohrbach.de/ GnuPG: 0xDEC948A6 D/E BF11 83E8 84A1 F996 68B4 A113 B393 6BF4 DEC9 48A6 REVOKED: 0x2964BF46 D/E 42F9 9FFF 50D4 2F38 DBEE DF22 3340 4F4E 2964 BF46 REVOKED: 0x4C44DA59 RSA F9 A0 DF 91 74 07 6A 1C 5F 0B E0 6B 4D CD 8C 44 My mail is GnuPG signed -- Unsigned ones are bogus -- http://www.gnupg.org/ Please do not remove my address from To: and Cc: fields in mailing lists. 10x
Karsten W. Rohrbach said:
opensource projects need to converge efforts in designing new data formats, file formats being just a serialized representation of data in mem. being fully portable between several (OSS) applications will bring the giant to its knees. of course, all of you know that, and this is not operational content, i'm silent again ;-)
Wasn't that what OpenDoc was supposed to be about? Curtis
Curtis Maurand(curtis@maurand.com)@2002.08.14 11:33:02 +0000:
Wasn't that what OpenDoc was supposed to be about?
``you can get some coders out of a trailerpark, but you can't get the trailerpark of some coders...'' eg. it's a community communication thing. regards, /k --
Black holes are where GOD is dividing by zero WebMonster Community Project -- Reliable and quick since 1998 -- All on BSD http://www.webmonster.de/ - ftp://ftp.webmonster.de/ - http://www.rohrbach.de/ GnuPG: 0xDEC948A6 D/E BF11 83E8 84A1 F996 68B4 A113 B393 6BF4 DEC9 48A6 REVOKED: 0x2964BF46 D/E 42F9 9FFF 50D4 2F38 DBEE DF22 3340 4F4E 2964 BF46 REVOKED: 0x4C44DA59 RSA F9 A0 DF 91 74 07 6A 1C 5F 0B E0 6B 4D CD 8C 44 My mail is GnuPG signed -- Unsigned ones are bogus -- http://www.gnupg.org/ Please do not remove my address from To: and Cc: fields in mailing lists. 10x
Well, I contend open source is much better positioned to make these changes, and in less time than M$ to the offending file format....I've seen changes made available in hours as opposed to weeks in the M$ case. If M$ decides to do this, they risk pi$$ing off a whole cadre of corporate customers who are slow to upgrade anyway. At 22:47 8/12/02 +0200, you wrote:
At 9:41 AM -0400 2002/08/12, William Warren wrote:
StarOffice to the rescue.
Only until they change the file format again. Microsoft can afford to change the file format on an even daily basis, and come out with patches for the previous patches, and call them all "security patches" so that everyone is either forced to apply them or dump Microsoft altogether.
Open source projects can't possibly afford to keep up, if Microsoft decides to go down this road.
participants (6)
-
blitz -
Brad Knowles -
Curtis Maurand -
David Howe -
Karsten W. Rohrbach -
William Warren