[Stones] Comms

[David Swindlehurst]

Reply to davidms at uwclub.net
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Dave Shugarts wrote:

I learn from all kinds of messages, so I appreciate this, although it is 
off-topic.

I am immediately inclined toward anything that breaks the great 
stranglehold that Microsoft has. But my big concern would be that these 
free and open-source programs would have to include rock-solid 
conversion routines, so as to be able to go to, and from, Word's native 
format (e.g., .doc). And of course, the spreadsheet would have to do the 
same for Excel documents, etc. What might you know of this question as 
it relates to these programs that have been mentioned?

--Dave Shugarts

PS---It would be nice to construct a standard---the Universal Document 
Format, for instance---and require that all software companies conform. 
But Microsoft has dominated for so long that it would be very hard to 
undo their influence.

Using OpenOffice is not yet as simple as the MS Office Suite but it's 
getting there, and opens any Office Suite doc, xls etc and allows saving 
to the same format. So it's worth a look. As for your suggestion about a 
standard, go to this

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseapps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207001577

and read the comments at the bottom. It's all very geeky, but you can 
see that Microsoft is yet again trying to prevent the introduction of a 
genuine open-source standard in order to protect its monopoly position.
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