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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!goliath.apana.org.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!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: Thu, 02 May 1996 02:10:07 -0400 Organization: SONETECH, Inc. Lines: 63 Message-ID: <318851BF.4E8724A7@gramercy.ios.com> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <DpsKyx.1Jo@catzen.gun.de> <tporczykDptpAL.8uG@netcom.com> <4l0fv9$1bfs@news.missouri.edu> <4l2u61$fdg@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <4l4crd$nus@miso.cs.uq.edu.au> <31769650.284D5C90@lambert.org> <4lg7ev$isk@news.missouri.edu> <4lmu6m$3cp@complete.org> <4m61bv$12q6@news.missouri.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-49.ts-4.dc.idt.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b3 (X11; I; Linux 1.3.20 i486) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22764 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:895 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3603 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3458 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18525 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47665 Justin Rhys Thuryn McNutt wrote: > > John Goerzen (jgoerzen@complete.org) wrote: > > : : So you just write two modules: tex2msw6.o and msw62tex.o. Distribute > : : them pre-compiled with the source for the rest of the package. Be > : : happy. The Linux word processor just has to be capable of reading and > : : writing Word docs. It doesn't have to reveal how it's done. > > : Why? > : Word isn't a standard under Windows. Around here, most people I know run > : WordPerfect. > : The only true multi-platform, popular, familiar, and publicized standard > : capable of handling all necessary information for multiplatform document > : transfer, conversion, and processing that we have to date is PostScript. > : And we already have GhostScript. > > Aye, but LOTS AND LOTS of people are going to want to read their old Word > 6 documents into this fabled WYSIWYG word processor for Linux. My > response is, why not support popular (if proprietary) formats IN ADDITION > TO PostScript and TeX? I posit that this whole thing is silly because the Word format changes every two days anyway and is proprietary. I don't see any free WProc project incorporating the ability to read and write the latest Word files. Free projects never support proprietary formats, it doesn't happen, it shouldn't. Concentrating on the issue would suck valuable resources. Something that could read and write to all the free formats would be more useful than something whose features are limited because the hacking-team is busy trying to figure out MS's latest changes to the Word format. If one needs to access old docs, one should textify or rtf-ify or html-ify or WP6-ify the docs from within Word. We're just slaves to MS if we continue to promote their piece of crap format as a standard. I just want a stinking WYSIWYG WProc. Standard doc formats are a GOOD thing. Part of the lure of free software is to get away from all these formats that are hostile to one another and that change every ten seconds. There is no reason for MS to continually change their format continually except to !@#$ the competition (and the customer), if we support MS, we will continue to be !@#$ed, as we are not only the customer, but the also competition. My point is that to read and write the latest Word docs is going to be a ROYAL PITA, because it's exactly what MS doesn't want us to be able to do. It's masochistic! It would be a PITA, and then you would have to do it all over again in 6 months when MS released the next version! It's a job for a commercial endeavour, not a free hacking project. We're trying to fun, too, after all! That's why it's not gonna happen. It's masochistic and it runs contrary to free software. So let's get on, we need another angle. > -------- > If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. > Got a Linux problem? Or can you help others solve them? Visit the Linux > Common Problems page at http://vortex.cc.missouri.edu/~rhys/linux.html > rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu Bryan -- Y W8 4MS? LNX4FREE!