On Monday 15 December 2003 01:56 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: > M$ marketing apart, it is a fact of life that most programmers have > put their effort into M$ compatible apps, because that's where the > sales and the money is. Simple economics. Let's hope that before > long the message will get through that there are good sales levels to > be had outside M$ - but OTOH, so many people believe that linux apps > should be free as in beer, that it might never happen.
With the GPL, software availability is not likely to ever mimic the Windows world. Again, I think that is a Good Thing, because mirroring variety of software in windows would likely require the same proprietary restrictions. Personally, I think that anyone that is unwilling to make some investment or sacrifices to escape from that world should stay where they are at. > > Again, I view that as part of the price that you pay instead of > > money. > > Point taken - to a degree, but as my daughter would say, if I want to > use a hammer I have to learn which end to hold, but I don't have to > learn the physics that dictate how hard I hit. That's the user > viewpoint. Yes, to a degree, I agree. However, the devil is in the details. > I may well talk to you later on that one, Bryan. I do miss my Lotus > Approach databases. I used them for so many things. For the main > part I'm living without them, but just occasionally I have to dip > into windows to use one. It may seem stupid, but one of the things I > most miss is to be able to select the name and address fields and > display them in label formats, 21 or 24 to a sheet. It was simple > under Approach, but I think there would be no easy answer under > Linux. I don't have a problem with paying, Bryan, if I can find the > right app. Kind of interesting you mention this. I recently printed out Xmas mailing labels to stock label media using OpenOffice with an interface into a Gnome Card address database using mail merge features that pull name, street address, city, state zip, etc. First time I realilzed that OpenOffice could duplicate that particular functionality that I used to use in MS Word. > > But I will TRY to improve. > > Smile, damn you! We all get our chains pulled sometimes <g> Yeah, but I'm of Irish heritage. You should realize that our smiles are widest when the fighting is thickest. <g> "God bless the Gaels of Eire, for the men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad." -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
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