Re: Linux on the desktop

Thus quoth Pablo Vieira op Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 08:05:35PM +0100:
> Here are my two cents: the problem is the lack of standards.

No, there are plenty of standards in existence of all sorts.

> Who is defining the standards? The ISO? Really? Aren't the standards the
> .doc, .xls, etc. formats? Isn't the standard handling ActiveX, ASP, and
> don't know how many other Microsoft internet business applications methods?
> Every time I've tried to switch to Linux I've seen myself unable to *use*
> the internet properly. I already said that in some other post, but if the
> W3C or whoever else wants to convince Microsoft to do things according to
> their so-called standards I wish them good luck. All I know is I can surf
> the whole internet with IE but I can't with Mozilla (or any other Linux
> browser). End of the story.

The W3C is one organisation with diverse members that defines some standards.
What Microsoft does is rarely setting standards. They merely are the market
leader. If OpenOffice is unable to load a Microsoft document, it is not
because the developers are not trying hard to emulate Microsoft's stuff. 

What many Windows users would like is for Microsoft to create an open 
standard that defines the Win32 (and now Win64) API, and then adhere to it. 
(as opposed to having multiple Windows versions that implement different
versions that almost match their documentation for the Win32 API.

Then again Linux has a pragmatic way of not quite following formal standards.
(or we would all be using OSI networking instead of the Open Source TCP/IP
protocol suite).

> PS: I do think there's plenty of improvement to do regarding word
> processors, but that's another story.

The demise of the FrameMaker DTP package on Linux is an important reason for
starting this thread. 

Kind regards,


Daniel von Asmuth

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