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Re: Don't Be Soft On Microsoft



Doron Zifrony writes:
 > > 
 > > A good freeware WYSIWYG wordprocessor is needed.
 > 
 > A good WYSIWYG wordprocessor is not enough.  The problem is the need to
 > be compatible with what other people use.  For example, while studying
 > for my MBA, I have been involved in several projects that were done in groups.
 > Since each member wrote his part which was later combined into a single
 > document, the documents had to be in the same format.  The word processor
 > that eveyone had was WORD, so that is the one that was used.
 > 
 > WORD was the de-facto (I should say is) word processor standard.
 > Not that it was flawless, or that it was the best word processor around,
 > it was simply the most widespread one.
 > 
 > Therefore, the word processor you refer to must, at least, be able to
 > read and write WORD documents and offer similar facilities.
 > 

A good WYSIWYG wordprocessor would certainly be helpful, and I am all
for it being compatible with Word (but will Mr. Gates support the
idea?). I'd like to mention though that Doron's argument is
essentially "Word is popular, so everything else should conform to
it," whereas the thread started from "how to compete?" And the example
is not the most convincing: I doubt that _any_ WYSIWYG editor is a
good choice for a collaborative project (which is essentially similar
to a group development effort); TeX/LaTeX is much more
suitable, doesn't care whether the project  participants use the same
system, allows each to use his favorite text editor, and is not even
hard  to learn.  All of which, incidentally, is why it is used all
over the academia and  academic publishing (collaborative papers are
routinely submitted in LaTeX to various journals  - by email, no need
for hardcopy, same with referee reports - and camera-ready articles
are  prepared for books, too). Mind you, the typical university
scholar is not a "power computer user," though probably more dextrous
than a housewife or his own secretary. But only the most optimistic of
us envisage a Linux box  on _every_ secretary's desk...

To summarize, a good WYSIWYG editor for Linux (especially
multilingual) is a very important application to develop, but for
reasons different than the one given by Doron. I (mostly) agree with
Ira that Linux is at its best as a development/server platform, and
while thinking of "killer applications" one should keep in mind the
population of prospective users who a) need them, b) can climb the
learning curve without too much effort. I don't think that "Now you
can  install Linux and you won't be able to tell it from Win95" is the
right  promotional strategy (though it would satisfy Erez Doron's
friends, I  guess). At the same time, providing personal-use
applications (wordprocessor, personal finance, educational software
etc) in addition to  development-oriented ones (where Linux is already
quite strong) will make Linux _sufficient_ to those of us who need it
and/or like it.  Just how many of us keep Windows only because while
Linux is great for the most important things that we do, it still fails
to provide something we _also_ need?

Oleg Goldshmidt
goldshmt@netvision.net.il


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