Perhaps an in-between approach would do best -- read the document using available tools (i.e OOo Impress), and send back an explanation about why you would prefer *not* to receive documents in proprietary, closed formats and also provide links to OSS solutions that the sender can use -- in this case OOo is the obvious choice.
This way you:
1) Read what you were supposed to.
2) Prove that OSS can handle closed formats (this is crucial for people who consider migrating to OSS)
3) Prove that the FOSS community is not a "bunch of fanatics/children/hackers" as it is too many times portrayed to be by the media/clueless people.
4) Provide a way for the sender to take the first step into the OSS world without the need to completely change his/her environment.



Alon.


Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
Hi Omer,
What are you proving by inconveniencing and irritating your
correspondents? This does a disservice to the FOSS community. Just install
OOo and read the MS-PP yourself.

- yba

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Omer Zak wrote:


Nowadays, AbiWord allows me to read MS-Word attachments which I get by
E-mail.
However, MS-PowerPoint is still unreadable under Linux in my Linux
installation.
I decided to send the following messge to people who send me PowerPoint
attachments:


Hello _______, I understand you invested a deal of effort in your PowerPoint presentation. However, most of the time my PC works under Linux, where I don't have PowerPoint. I boot into Windows 2000 only once in a week to read documents, which were sent to me, and which I cannot read under Linux.

(I avoid working with Windows because I prefer spending my time reading
about your ideas rather than fighting all those worms and viruses.)

So if you can convert your presentation into some format readable under
Linux, it'll be easier for me to read it and give you my opinion.
                                       Thanks,
                                            --- Omer
My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html


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Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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