2008/6/10 Jim Allan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > It is indeed mostly the existence of specialized programs that run only > under Windows or only under Macintosh that provide services that aren't > available under Linux. > > For example, in the business in which I work we must be able to handle > documents created in Adobe In-Design or in Quark Express. > > Converting to another format would not be good enough, unless we do the > conversion and then can manually fix up any changes that occurred. We must > be able to handle any ligatures and alternate glyphs that occur in files > produced by those products. Currently Scribus is far from being good enough. > > We must have Canadian address correction software. There are various > suppliers of this kind of product under Windows. I don't believe there are > any under either Macintosh or Linux. We would like mail-merge software to > drive our high-speed printers. This is specialized software. We could use > the mail merge in OpenOffice.org (or in MS Word) and have used it for > particular jobs, but it is far too slow to use all the time. There are a > large number of products that run under Windows that do mail merge with high > speed printers. I don't know about Macintosh. I have not been able to find > ANY such products that run under Linux. > > Our database work is mostly done using Microsoft Foxpro, which is a > wonderful application for quick and dirty fixes as well as for more complex > application work. > > We have an accounting system and an inventory system that depends on > products that run under Windows. > > We were using Windows 98 until about two years ago, when we switched to > Windows XP and were using FoxPro 6 until about four months back when we > switched to FoxPro 9. > > I think you will find that most businesses have many of the same problems > when it comes to switching to Linux. They are dependent on specialized > software that is ONLY available under Windows and are generally used to > Windows. There are a smaller number of businesses that would say the same > about Macintoshes. Many of them do use specialized "kiiller applications" > for their particular business, that don't run under Linux. > > Also, a large number of free software products are just as available under > Windows as under Linux which means Windows users are not cut off from much > of the free software available under Linux. > > It does not help the matter that a large number of Linux advocates seem to > be nutters who don't have a clue about what is required in business, or what > features individuals may legitimately want, the sort of people who, for > example, since OpenOffice 1.0 were claiming, falsely, that OpenOffice.org > duplicates MS Office in every way. > > Those people are still around, still making their claims, or claiming > instead that no-one needs bloated Word processors at all or that Ajax online > is a suitable replacement for MS Word. > > One member of this forum still claims, falsely, that Windows doesn't handle > foreign languages properly and also, falsely, that this defect affects > OpenOffice. Another one delights in the silly name Mickysoft, as though > using that name indicates anything more than that the member is a > name-caller. > > Unfortunately this nonsense reflects on all Linux advocates who may be seen > as clueless, name-calling nutters. > > Just yesterday I corrected a name-caller in another forum who blamed > Microsoft for introducing the useless character "ÿ" into their character > set. The character is used in French names and was therefore appropriately > included in the ISO Latin 1 alaphabet by the ISO before Microsoft adapted > the set first into the DOS international character set and then into the > so-called ANSI Windows character set. > > In another forum an ignoramus was claiming that certain modern spellings > were the fault of Microsoft who had made them popular in their > Spell-checker, as though Microcosft were not just using the spellings in > current dictionaries. > > A member of this forum was blaming Microsoft for vandalizing UTF-8. > > Bruce Byfield wrote an article attempting to prove that OpenOffice Writer is > equal to MS Word, but unfortunately a new feature of OpenOffice Writer that > he intended to be a killer feature has, unknown to him, been available on > Word for decades. Fair enough. Anyone can make a mistake > > But Bruce then starts justifying his embarrassing error claiming that the > Word feature was obscure because some Word advocates didn't know about it, > as though that means it doesn't count or that almost all Word users who used > mail-merge didn't know about it. I've equally seen Writer advocates in > agreement that something can't be done in Writer, when indeed it can be > done. Why didn't Bruce just admit he had messed up? > > There are the conspiracy nutters who seem ready to jump on Microsoft because > of the possiblity that Microsoft could set up their system to disable > competing products, especially OpenOffice. That people all over the world > are running OpenOffice quite happily under Windows with no particular > problems, and running it under Vista, doesn't stop this. > > (That there are Windows nutters who are equally out-of-it and spouting just > as much untrue positive crap about Windows and derogatory crap about Linux > unfortunately doesn't seem to be noticed, except of course by the smaller > community of Linux users.) > > Jim Allan >
Thanks, Jim. I like to see level-headed discussion of these points, as so many people take their OS choice to religious extremes sometimes it is difficult to get a logical answer. What software, specifically, do you use that is unavailable on Linux? I make it a point to write to one software house or hardware manufacturer a week requesting Linux support. You mention Adobe In-Design and Quark Express, what are the other programs? I've written to Adobe in the past but not about In-Design specifically. Thanks. Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
