On Sun, 3 Mar 2002 17:41:39 +0800, Federico Sevilla III wrote:
>Fellow PLUGgers,
>
>I got this on the PH-CyberView mailing list. It's an interesting piece and
>is perhaps quite valid, too. Comments?
Valid in some points. It is sad indeed that the desktop platform has already
been "conquered" by Microsoft that many users have since become so
dependent on Microsoft software, such as the Office desktop suite, which
of course happened through Microsoft's muscling of the market.
However, I would say that the writer's attitude was a "defeatist's"
sight into things. If no one would attempt to break the shell, the shell
won't be broken. And the shell would break faster given more who'd
engage in breaking it.
There's always a price to pay when freedom is sought. Not buying the
excuse of the immaturity of free software desktop applications is
the first step. Sure it would entail sacrifice... it was never meant to be
easy when you're dealing with a company that "hides" their APIs in
their trusted practice of cornering userland applications.
>Personally I'm "happy" with the bare-bones-basic stuff of Linux on the
>desktop. But perhaps that's because I don't need much from my desktop,
>anyway. I feel there's a void in the area of the office suite, though.
>
>Sure, StarOffice 5.2 is out there and is free, with "acceptable" Microsoft
>Office compatibility (unfortunately this "acceptable" compatibility didn't
>cut it here in our setup where not just formatting but a lot of
>spreadsheet functions we had wouldn't work and porting everything would
>entail too many manhours). There's news about StarOffice 6.0 not being
>free except on Solaris, though.
I hope it would remain speculation...
>Yes, we can pay for it (and I think those of us who will find StarOffice
>6.0 to be good and usable should pay to keep things going) like this guy
>Coursey says, but the future of a free desktop platform seems to become
>even more bleak. Is OpenOffice ready for primetime? How about the
>"smaller" counterparts (AbiWord, Gnumeric)?
Not yet. Far from ready, I think. OpenOffice 641 sometimes doesn't
even open SDD files properly (well, if they were made using StarOffice
5.2), and the Linux port really bombs out on some important issues
(well, I consider support RTF as important - being a sane file format
supported by Microsoft that doesn't have room for macro viruses).
The Windows port, on the other hand, doesn't open MS Office files when
you click on them in the explorer interface (nor does it try to register them
- I don't have MS Office at home anymore).
Far from ready doesn't mean it's not fairly usable. Tolerable at some
point, but sometimes it gets pretty darn annoying. But I'd rather prefer
that solution... sure it would take some time for things to settle and a
lot of festered reactions from people who are so hopelessly
addicted to MS solutions and still don't get it but at the very least
it is still a step to freedom. People would understand in time.
I don't think Linux on the desktop would be bleak, though. Maybe for
a good lot of games, yes... but for desktop publishing suites, it's
approaching to a good state. I wish issues concerning OpenOffice
development would be resolved real soon.
-->paolo
Paolo Alexis Falcone
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