[Stones] Comms

[David Shugarts]

I appreciate the info.

I think I speak on behalf of millions of Americans when I say, I wish to
publicly apologize for Microsoft¹s behavior. It is kind of similar to our
embarrassment at having Cheney/Bush. (But at least in Microsoft¹s case,
there was no pretense that we had a vote in the matter.)

--Dave


On 4/13/08 3:23 PM, "David Swindlehurst" <davidms at uwclub.net> wrote:

> Reply to davidms at uwclub.net
> 
> 
> 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, Word¹s 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.
> 
> This message has been scanned and cleared by MySecurePC, the antivirus and
> firewall software from the Utility Warehouse. The message has been generated
> in Mozilla Thunderbird, the open-source email service which leaves the
> opposition standing.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Stones mailing list
> Stones at stoneslist.org.uk
> http://www.stoneslist.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/stones
> FAQ available from http://www.stoneslist.org.uk
> If you are experiencing problems with this mailing list please address mail to
> stones-owner at stoneslist.org.uk


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.stoneslist.org.uk/pipermail/stones/attachments/20080413/14438a58/attachment.html