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Re: Don't Be Soft On Microsoft



Shay Rojansky writes:
 > First, regarding the need for a WYSIWYG word processor, and other "office"
 > application. The Unix world (actually, more specifically, the Linux 
 > world) has finally shaken the illusion (and quite a stupid one in my
 > opinion) that La/Tex can serve as a standard wordprocessor for the
 > masses. 

LaTeX was mentioned (at least by me) not as a wordprocessor, which it is
not, but as a tool well-suited and widely used for collaborative projects
(albeit not only). I am not aware of the "illusion," let alone of how it has
been "shaken" by Linux...

 > NO ONE can expect a secretary (or anyone else save a few 
 > technology-savvy people) to master anything of that complexity (and 
 > comparing with MS Word, people, it IS complex). 

I don't quite agree. We are not waging a LaTeX vs. WYSIWYG religious war 
here (at least *I* am not), so I won't elaborate in a list posting. 
If you are _seriously_ interested in why I don't agree, send me a mail. 

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.

 > Several new and interesting
 > alternatives have risen. First, Applixware, an Office suite sold by
 > Redhat is available (although commercially). It includes a WYSIWYG word
 > processor worthy of being used by anyone (including filters for word
 > documents), a spreadsheet tool, presentation tool, etc. 

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?

Oleg Goldshmidt
goldsh@netvision.net.il



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