Can I assume then that the bug I filed (2503) concerning Abi not saving the font size code to blank lines in RTF files will not be addressed?
Virgil >From: Dom Lachowicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "Virgil Arrington Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], AbiWord User List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: RE: Abi and RTF standards >Date: 25 Mar 2002 09:46:13 -0500 > >On Sun, 2002-03-24 at 18:32, Virgil Arrington Jr. wrote: > > From the Sane Anarchist, > > > > >I would like to have perfect compatability with Word, just like when I > > >design > > >a web page I want perfect compatability with Internet Explorer. But >not at > > >the loss of complying with the standards that browsers (or word >processors) > > >should be following anyway. > > > > Standards are nothing but man-made arbitrary rules, and they become more > > arbitrary and meaningless if nobody follows them. I know none of us >like to > > admit this, but MS-Word, bad as it is, has become THE word processing > > standard. I work in the legal profession and, while WordPerfect was the > > standard for years with lawyers, we are now being forced into switching >to > > Word because our clients use it and demand that our documents be >compatible > > with Word. I can't very well tell my client that the reason my Abi >created > > document can't be read on his computer is because his MS-Word doesn't >follow > > the standards. My client couldn't give two hoots about standards. > >Defining standards as man-made arbitrary rules is a bit simplistic. More >or less everything is man made and arbitrary in this field. The >important part, however, is that there are standardization committees >and organizations which formulate these rules, formalize them, approve >or reject them, publish them, and ultimately inforce them. > >MSWord is the de-facto standard word-processor out there. Its RTF >implementation, however, is not. RTF is a standard that we strive to >conform with. We do not strive to conform with broken implentations of >the RTF specification. > >OpenOffice is also huge (and growing in popularity), but their RTF >implementation sucks horribly. They took RTF 1.2, branched it, and made >all sorts of horrible incompatible hacks to it. They don't handle our >RTF. Should we break Abi so that they work? I don't think so. > >I refuse to let our standards complaince fall to an OO level. We will >not compromise our integrity to cover up another's mistakes. > >For the record, MSWord is highly complaint with the RTF specification, >so I don't view this so much as a problem. Sure, it doesn't honor a few >of the RTF keywords that Abi uses. But then it just ignores them, for a >minor loss in formatting. That's a small price to pay. > >Finally, I couldn't care if your client doesn't care about standards. He >should. > >Dom >/Strive to bring others up to your level, don't sulk down to theirs. ><< signature.asc >> _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ----------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.
