Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!gt-news!cc.gatech.edu!cc.gatech.edu!byron From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) 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: 2 May 1996 19:43:07 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology - College of Computing Lines: 110 Message-ID: <4mb38b$680@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4lmu6m$3cp@complete.org> <4m61bv$12q6@news.missouri.edu> <318851BF.4E8724A7@gramercy.ios.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gemini.cc.gatech.edu NNTP-Posting-User: byron Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22842 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:904 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3622 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3469 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18571 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47764 In article <318851BF.4E8724A7@gramercy.ios.com>, Bryan Seigneur <freds@gramercy.ios.com> wrote: >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. Any free Wordprocess that doesn't can't help Free Unixes make a move in the desktop market. I believe I've wrrten three times before that the intent isn't that chase Microsoft's tail. The intent is to support the existing mountain of documents. Do Word 6. And word 6 only. do it before microsoft comes out with a competeing format. Infact don't even write word 6 documents. Write RTF or whatever other format you want. But you have to read Word 6 docs. If you don't you're not competing. That's the only reasonable criteria. > >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. Pray tell: How do you do that conversion without booting up Windows? To use word 6 to do the conversion is self defeating. I don't have Windows nor Word 6 but I get quite a few Word 6 attachments. What do I do then? BTW I'll accept critiques on the following Linux WP * EZ * WordPerfect 6 for SCO * WordPerfect 6 for Linux (from Caldera) * Cicero * LyX Have you tried any of them? They do WP jobs quite nicely IMHO. But to anyone that is in a microsoft environment they are worse that useless because the hundreds and thouseand of docs they already have cannot be used on any of them. And if they have to use word to convert them, then why should they bother to switch to a Free Unix (which is the real objective). > >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. I agree that standard doc formats are a good thing. I also know that there are several billion existing documents in the old crappy format. Now I don't believe that we should perpetuate the next crappy format but we have to deal with the legacy that's already in the current crappy format. > >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. Not the latests. Just Word 6. That's all. Come up with a standard WP format, a converter for Word 6 into that format, and a WP that runs both on free Unix and Microsoft platforms. Then promote the hell out of it before there are a billion more document in the next crappy format. Think about it. BAJ -- Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of... Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel - And Using Linux! Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 Internet: byron@cc.gatech.edu