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Re: Don't Be Soft On Microsoft
> One of the more important points of the discussion (IMHO), made by a few
> people in different ways, was that a secretary who does not belong
> to "the chosen few" (as defined by you) needn't have Linux on her machine
> in the first place. Even as we'd love her to. I don't think that many
> people will switch from MS to Linux because a comparable wordprocessor
> or even a whole set of "office" applications is developed for the latter
> (to be prudent: if it is *much* better, they just might). Rather,
> someone who uses Linux because it is significantly better in many
> important respects shouldn't switch to another OS because a particular
> type of application is lacking.
I think it's naive to say that a person would stay with an OS because
it is good. The entire world (except us computer-savvy people) doesn't
care about how good an OS is. Most of the world can't even distinguish
between the OS and the application. Most of the world wants
FUNCTIONALITY, i.e. the availability of quality software that fulfills
their needs. And another thing - the fact that Linux is better than
Win95 in many aspects is old news, and we ARE aiming at the humble
secretary. Linus mentioned in a recent conference that his goal (and
ours too, I believe) is world domination. That is, to replace OSs
in whatever function they perform. Now I know that's a bit futuristic,
but the idea IS to push for office-quality apps and convert people to them.
> Right. Recall though that the original suggestion concerned a _free_
> application. Applixware also lacks Hebrew (Chinese, Cyrillic, etc), the
> general problem mentioned by Doron Zifrony. In fact, Hebrew is just about
> the only reason I still have Windows on my home computer (I guess I am
> technology-savvy enough to use LaTeX for English, even though I have
> Applixware at work :). The Hebrew HOWTO doesn't sound terribly
> encouraging. Any suggestions as to how to write a letter in Hebrew
> under Linux?
Well, in the practical sense of the question, you're right. However,
try looking at it globally. The US market is SO big and SO important
that foreign language support (and specifically Hebrew) seems so small
and tiny. And anyway, if we WERE to gain America domination, foreign
language support would also pop up ;-)
Shay
--
Shay Rojansky, roji@cs.huji.ac.il Finger for PGP public key
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