Just this week, a corporate customer with whom I am starting a business relationship sent me a ms word document with a form that I needed to fill in order for them to register me as a supplier.
Needless to say, I had to use ms word to open it. I tried to do it in libreoffice but all the layout was messed up, and I didn't want to return my customer a messed up document. Also, the document had a field that was a digital signature, and libreoffice didn't recognize it properly. As many people do, I used to have a windows partition just for cases like this. However, a few months ago my HDD failed and I decided to replace it with a SSD. With space being much more limited on SSD, I decided there was no use in having Windows around anymore. So ... I had to send the documents to my wife and ask her to open them up in windows+office and fill them up. Fortunately, she is also an executive in the company and was legally allowed to digitally sign those papers. Otherwise, I would have had to install a digital signature certificate of myself, in somebody else's computer, and I wouldn't have liked that. I know that some will say that they would have told the customer to send the document in a non-proprietary format. Yeah, right. I would like to see you tell that to a new customer with an important deal. Probably others will also tell me that there were ways to cimcurvent this and still do it from Linux by using certain programs/commands/hacks. That doesn't matter, because even if I were able to do it, your average user wouldn't. So, if you only care about the consumer+mobile world, then probably we could say this bug is fixed. But if you care about professionals, who mainly use personal computers for work, this bug is far from being fixed. Don't get me wrong. I agree that there has been an advance in some areas and I cheer for that. But that is no reason to give a blind eye to the areas where we haven't advanced. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu 4 dz, which is subscribed to the bug report. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1 Title: Microsoft has a majority market share Status in Club Distro: Confirmed Status in Computer Science Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in LibreOffice Productivity Suite: New Status in dylan.NET.Reflection: Invalid Status in dylan.NET: Invalid Status in EasyPeasy Overview: Invalid Status in Ichthux - Linux for Christians: Invalid Status in JAK LINUX: Invalid Status in LibreOffice: In Progress Status in The Linux Kernel: New Status in The Linux Mint Distribution: In Progress Status in The Linux OS Project: In Progress Status in Neobot: New Status in Novabot: New Status in The OpenOffice.org Suite: In Progress Status in Tabuntu: Invalid Status in A simple player to online TV streaming: Invalid Status in Tv-Player: Invalid Status in Ubuntu Malaysia LoCo Team Meta Project: In Progress Status in Ubuntu: Fix Released Status in Arch Linux: Confirmed Status in Baltix GNU/Linux: Invalid Status in “linux” package in Debian: In Progress Status in Fluxbuntu: The Lightweight, Productive, Agile OS: Confirmed Status in openSUSE: In Progress Status in Tilix Linux: New Bug description: See Mark's closure comment here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834 ------ Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug which Ubuntu and other projects are meant to fix. As the philosophy of the Ubuntu Project states, "Our work is driven by a belief that software should be free and accessible to all." "Ubuntu software is free. Always was, always will be. Free software gives everyone the freedom to use it however they want and share with whoever they like. This freedom has huge benefits. At one end of the spectrum it enables the Ubuntu community to grow and share its collective experience and expertise to continually improve all things Ubuntu. At the other, we are able to give access to essential software for those who couldn’t otherwise afford it – an advantage that’s keenly felt by individuals and organisations all over the world." * http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/our-philosophy Non-free software leaves users at the mercy of the software owner and concentrates control over the technology which powers our society into the hands of a few. Additionally, proprietary software stifles innovation, maintains artificial scarcities, and enables malicious anti-features such as DRM, surveillance, and other monopolistic practices. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry. Steps to repeat: 1. Visit a local PC store. 2. Attempt to buy a machine without any proprietary software. What happens: Almost always, a majority of PCs for sale have Microsoft Windows pre- installed. In the rare cases that they come with a GNU/Linux operating system or no operating system at all, the drivers and BIOS may be proprietary. What should happen: A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software. * http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html * http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines * http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/clubdistro/+bug/1/+subscriptions _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~algeriatul Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~algeriatul More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
