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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!ames!usenet.kornet.nm.kr!news.kreonet.re.kr!news.dacom.co.kr!vyzynz!news.ios.com!usenet From: Bryan Seigneur <freds@gramercy.ios.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 02:55:27 -0400 Organization: SONETECH, Inc. Lines: 57 Message-ID: <317C7EDF.144DC965@gramercy.ios.com> References: <tporczykDpqKHL.7vG@netcom.com> <DpsKyx.1Jo@catzen.gun.de> <tporczykDptpAL.8uG@netcom.com> <4ksupc$a1j@cnn.nas.nasa.gov> <4l4pq5$h3s@sidhe.memra.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-26.ts-4.dc.idt.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; Linux 1.3.20 i486) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21896 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:733 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3375 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3216 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17788 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46489 Michael Dillon wrote: > In article <4ksupc$a1j@cnn.nas.nasa.gov>, > Paul M. Newhouse <newhouse@win126.nas.nasa.gov> wrote: > >>As I said originally, the only thing that can sell UNIX to desktops > >>(besides specialized uses) is applications - common productivity > >>applications, priced *reasonably*. > > > >I agree. We need to see a good spreedsheet and a good WYSIWIG document > >processor at resonable prices in order to really expand the Free/Net BSD, > >Linux demand in the desktop arena. > > Personally, I think we've got to have a good spreadsheet and word processor > PORTABLE FILE FORMAT that several people can write spreadsheet and WP > programs for. In the beginning there was UNIX and plain ASCII stream > files. This was good. Then there was nroff/troff and it was still pretty > good. But then all hell broke loose and every app comes with mutually > incomprehensible file formats that are all so utterly mediocre that they > change from one release to the next. We need a little bit of up-front > design to come up with something that will work for a long time but is > more rigorously designed than HTML and is not so close to the metal as > Postscript. > > -- > Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022 > Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049 > http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com I've been reading this nauseating thread for a while and it seems like many people who are bitching about apps, et al, haven't done an exorbitant amount of research before speaking. Don't we have common dtp formats? Yes. What's PostScript? What's LaTex? Lyx is a sortof WYSIWYG editor that puts out LaTex. I wasn't aware that a lot of what's been mentioned in this thread was a problem. Do some searching and stop spreading FUD. Even in the MS world, you aren't going to get the best product unless you search/shop! Someone was even saying, 'We need to have something that will read and write MS Word 6 and 7 files'. Sheesh. WordPerfect can't even do that! It can handle stuff from older versions, but one of the points of changing file formats every ten days is so poeple like WordPerfect(Corel) and others can't read it. Is their a Word for SCO or Unixware? Run that, and maybe you could do it. It's just an example of how this thread has degraded to the point where we're just theorizing without first taking observations from the real world. I'm sorry to discourage people so enthusiastic about Linux, but even, as I said above, in the MS world, you have to do some research before you take massive action. Look around (thru the net) and you may be surprised at how things don't look as dreary as you think. Bryan Seigneur -- __ _ / / (_)__ __ __ _ __ / /__/ / _ \/ // /| |/ / /____/_/_//_/\___//_/|_|...priceless.