On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 01:26:02 +0530, Tathagata Banerjee wrote: > i'm sure linux zealots wouldn't do that (you are one of them, surely?),
Luckily I'm not a Linux zealot or a OSS zealot. ealotry for any thing stinks :( OSS is a very nice thing and it has its place - but I'd prefer to use whatever the job requires. If my job is done easier by using some closed source s/w I'll use that. If I can get the job done with open s/w then all the better. > though GNU/Linux zealots might. and if you thought for a moment about > people who devoted their life's work to realising their dreams, perhaps > you'd think twice before ridiculing their ideals. I dont think I ridiculed it - all I said, is that ideals and idealism is very nice, noble and some thing to be admired. But in the end you're going to have to translate that ideal into practical terms at one point. It might mean a compromise; in such a case Idont think a person is betraying his ideals - I dont beleive in sudden changes. Things involving sudden changes present too much stress to a system - I think it makes more sense to have a step by step progression to ones ideal situation. Frankly, IMO if a persons dream is to see that the only type of s/w is OSS, then I'm sorry, but I will giggle a bit :) > "OSS", as you call > it, is not a particular brand of software. the OOo file specifications > are there for everyone to study and use. that makes them not OOo file > formats specifically, but a freely available and well-documented file > format specification that can be used by any program. it is incidental > that only OOo is using it at present. So for simplicities sake lets call this format the OO format - once other peices of s/w start implementing it then we can decide what it should be termed as. Thus if I dont have OO I cant read it - but since its open all I have to do is to just write up some parsing code and display the slide. Hmmm....sorry, dont have the talent or the time. Thus I'm, back to where I started - either I get OO and view the slides or just skip them. > i'm certain many free programs in > the future will adopt it rather than re-invent the wheel. so it is Abosolutely true. > the only way to force them to do so will be not to come to any > compromise with them, while continuing to develop and disseminate > quality free software. Nice. Sounds like an 'ideal case'. But in the end what you're doing is just sticking to your format, just as the propriety companies are sticking to theirs. OK, so your format is open and free - but if only one program reads it, I need that program. Sure, one day maybe everybody will have an OO filter - but right now your stand is simply the equivilant of what Microsoft says - to read our format use Powerpoint. > > But this comment stinks of zealotry! > ^^^^^^ > are you sure that's the word you wanted to use? let us do this in a > civilised manner, shall we? Hmm...I did'nt know that things were so sensitive out here, but my comments are not to be taken personally. If you're statement is arrogant I'll say that. And in this case, the original statement was very much so and the word to 'stink' was a nice way to describe it :) Regarding the original statement, consider this. Say you and I are the only people who know Swahili out here. And I publish stuff in Bengali. And you seem interested in Bengali and would like to know more- you come to me and ask me something in Swahili. So according to your statement in the previous mail I would say - 'Oh you dont understand Bengali? Well grab some books learn it and then come to me. I'm not going to explain it all in Swahili to you. When you know bengali come and talk again'. Now is this arrogant or not? Its also very unhelpful and it would certainly decrease my audience for my Bengali publications. > right. and we aren't saying that people *have* to see our slides, or > *have* to use OOo, but merely that if they want to see them they can > > use any program that reads free formats. But right now since OO is the only program that does read OO format slides, we're back again - use OO or get lost!! > as i explained earlier, there ain't no such animal as an OOo format. See above - until we have 'MyOffice' or 'YourOffice' which can read OO slides the OO format is more or less OO's format. (Hmm...sounds circular :) -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/node.php?id=3
