re: Windows '95 MS Office or Freedom

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

>>>>> "TMatsumu" == TMatsumu  <TMatsumu@example.com> writes:

    Craig> While, the cross-platform office may be still a bit in
    Craig> the future, when it does come, we will be there ready
    Craig> for it.

    Craig> Justification for why I use Linux in the office -- not
    Craig> bad huh?

    TMatsumu> I don't see what's cross platform about Linux.  Because
    TMatsumu> it runs on '386 and '486?  Every MS app, os and server
    TMatsumu> also runs tcp/ip, and runs on a half dozen CPU's Linux

Microsoft Word runs TCP/IP!!  You heard it here first!

    TMatsumu> doesn't, not to mention OLE functionality, cross
    TMatsumu> platform graphics and multimedia that are here today
    TMatsumu> without recompiling.

You're missing his point.  His point was that TCP/IP is a
cross-platform standard.  Linux figures only as an example of the set
of oddball systems that TWICS would like to be able to support.

MS is still trying to dominate every possible software market.  But
recently, they've found that they can't do it.  Netscape has blown
them away on browsers, there is no reason to use MS to serve HTTP.
The MS Network was still-born.  So if you standardize on MS apps, and
they make another big mistake, you risk getting left behind.  Very
samll risk for Adaptec internally; big risk for TWICS who would like
my business as well as yours.  If you make sure that all your
platforms handle TCP/IP properly, and your IPC for networked
applications uses TCP/IP, then you can integrate across platforms.
Big cost in tech support.  Adaptec shouldn't do it; they can
standardize internally at very little risk.  TWICS probably should do
it, they have to have the techs anyway.

AFAIKBIDKVM (henceforth abbreviated to A9M ;-), MS Word is *still* not
cross-platform.  Mac Word files still cannot be read, *not* edited,
and rewritten on a DOS machine without munging them.  (At least,
that's what my buddy complained about in january, back when dinosaurs
still roamed the earth.)  As of a year ago (only a few minutes after
Creation, I know), MS Word in Japanese, any version any platform,
would alter English files by reading in and writing out without any
user edits.  Going the other direction destroys the file.

Yes, MS Office is a great product (albeit one that I cannot stand).
But *Emacs + TeX + DVIPS*, not Word, is a cross-platform DTP standard.
Most of the world can't stand to use TeX, and even more can't even
remember how to exit the minibuffer if you accidentally press
<ESC><ESC> in Emacs.  So much as I love that combination, it's not a
great standard.

Cross-platform work is going to be complicated for the forseeable
future (ie, until next week).

-- 
                           Stephen John Turnbull
University of Tsukuba                                        Yaseppochi-Gumi
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences  http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com