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On Monday 22 April 2002 22:55, Annie Young attached a modest Word document
to an email to the list.
I didn't mind the size of the attachment (thank the gods for a cable
modem). However, I am one of those people who does not use Microsoft
products in my private life. Thus I cannot read this document even though
I managed to download it quickly.
If you have material that is relevant to civic process, I would encourage
you to provide it in a platform agnostic format, plain text (with diagrams
as JPG image files) or HTML (I'm told Word can save documents as either
text or HTML). With an HTML document there is unlikely to be a computer on
the Mpls-issues list that cannot read the document-- and then you'd have
something you could post to a link to rather than pushing large documents
over strained modems.
In fact, I encourage our local government to seek non-Microsoft options
whenever possible for any computing needs. I think the City could save a
lot of money over time by looking at alternatives like the GNU/Linux
operating system (more info available at www.gnu.org and www.debian.org,
also www.redhat.com) or a BSD-based Unix like OpenBSD (see
www.openbsd.org)-- especially in our schools, where money is extremely
tight. I'm not saying to immediately retrofit (the money is spent after
all), but when purchasing new systems alternatives really ought to be
considered.
Many cities and countries around the world are taking this step in response
to either financial need or concerns over Microsoft security/ethics. I
hope it is something Minneapolis will consider as time goes on.
- -Michael Libby ( Cleveland/North Mpls )
- --
______Michael_C_Libby__{_x_(at)_ichimunki_(dot)_com_}______
| my website: http://www.ichimunki.com/ |
|____ public key at http://www.ichimunki.com/public.key ____|
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