RE: Linux on the desktop

[PV] Of course there are plenty of standards. I'll try to rephrase my
argument.

I expect some of us agree that .doc and .xls are what every office suite is
after in terms of compatibility. I'll also assume for practical reasons that
some of us also agree that the only way of not having "surprises" surfing
the net and especially using web apps is by running Internet Explorer.
(That's what I called "de facto standards", maybe going too far in the
meaning of "standards", but I hope now I've explained myself about what I
was meaning.)

So, there I go again: :-)

Imagine Microsoft's .doc, .xls, etc. files, and Explorer apps being
reverse-engineered or anything so Microsoft couldn't simply be ahead and/or
lockup anyone by changing the formats. What would be "worst" for the "evil
empire"?

I'm not implying by any means these formats are good (or bad). I'm only
meaning there are ways to undermine Microsoft's power and I'm suggesting one
would be fighting them in their own field. In a way, that's how Microsoft
has taken over the market in every area they dominate today. For instance,
they first cloned Netscape, then they wiped it from the face of the Earth.
Of course they used many tactics that are unavailable to open source
developers, but they are also weak in front of those open source developers
in some respects (I believe everyone, including Billy, would agree that the
quality of Linux is much higher than MS OSs). While Microsoft has almost
infinite amounts of money, the open source community has virtually infinite
amounts of energy, talent and programmers (and some money too, now big
corporations like IBM, Novell, Sun, etc, are willing to have some part of
the cake too).

I believe we're talking here about what keeps Linux from being massively
adopted in consumer desktops. I've given a humble opinion. I'm sure there's
a way to win Microsoft in its own domain. And I'm convinced we need to do
that before we set the standards on the internet, on office suites file
formats, etc.

Best regards everyone.

Pablo



> 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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