On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 03:58:11PM -0700, Zack Gilburd wrote:
Content-Description: signed data
> On Monday 30 June 2003 02:51 pm, Janne Johansson wrote:
> > What that means is that they really couldn't buy a computer without OS
[snip]
>
> Yes, they would. They would ask you why on earth is it so hard
> to use and why can't I open XYZ.doc that my friend sent me? It
> works just fine for [him|her]!
Because it is a carefully guarded, proprietary data format, that
a malicious monopoly protects like a pack of wild dogs,
specifically so we /won't/ have a choice.
Yes, the unfortunate fact is that a large percentage of the
computer-using world is clueless about the issue of proprietary
data exchange vs. open document formats, and yes, most of these
types are mindlessly producing .doc after .doc.
But in no way is it a shortcoming of Linux that it has difficulty
opening these pieces of s*#t! It is not a good example of why
"Linux is not ready yet". By this ridiculous standard, Linux
will not ever be ready, unless Microsoft completely loses on
other fronts and finally sells Word for Linux.
But also worth noting is that one version of Word can't even read
a document created by another version of Word half the time
without crashing. Sometimes it can't even read its own documents
without crashing because they're so convoluted and forked up!
> I've tried getting my father to use Linux. The drawbacks and
> the reason why he went back to Windows was because of
> compatibility with other computers. He's a business man, he
> needs to receive docs, etc on a regular basis.
There is never going to be a superior alternative to reading
specifically proprietary Microsoft Word documents to Microsoft
Word. But if things are to _ever_ improve, we need to send .doc
the way of the dinosaur, and quickly!
We demand interoperability already in almost every other product
arena - save the other completely out-of-control monopolies.
If I buy a bolt from company A, I am not also forced to by the
nut from them. All games vendors are not forced to write their
games to the Nvidia or ATI video card (OpenGL, DirectX, SDL). If
I browse the web, i can _usually_ view a given web document with
whatever HTML/javascript/etc.-supporting browser I choose:
although Microsoft is trying like hell to change that one.
> > My mom has managed to get an anti-virus software installed by herself,
> > following instructions from her ISPs website, but I doubt if it was
> > easier than: emerge f-prot (not taking into account that linux doesn't
> > really need a anti-virus software).
>
> What a terrible assumption. A well thought out and planned attack can be
> executed and completed sucessfully against Linux than it can Windows.
> However, your box is not being rooted every five minutes because virus are
> not developed against Linux due to the fact that a very small percentage of
> people use Linux.
For those that choose to take great care against script-kiddies,
it looks to me as if you are better off with an open source OS.
Plugging known security holes is the kind of thing that the open
source model does quite well. You can wait around weeks, months,
or forever for Microsoft to decide that a particular exploit is
important enough to address, all the while simply praying for
luck, or you can receive e-mail every day about the latest
security holes that someone found, and oh, by the way, fixed and
distributed the fix in the time since you last checked your
e-mail.
[snip]
> LOL they are using Mozilla so now they are ready to take on a command line
> with nothing being familiar to them? HAHAHAHAH... I only ask that you open
> your eyes. Linux is NOT the best choice for everyone, and god help us the
> day that it is.
Again, I simply do not agree that Linux is significantly harder
to use. Keep in mind that you have lived with the horrors of
Windows for going on 13 years or more now (depending on when you
started). You may have lived with Word and Excel for longer.
These programs are a BITCH to learn. They don't do what you
expect often. They crash when you try to do things in an unusual
way (try messing with figures, floating, wrapped text, jpegs,
captions - you're guaranteed to crash and have trouble modifying
the document in any way before long).
And if I have to trouble-shoot one more problem in that damn word
processor where it is trying to correct my "mistake" and I have
to find a way to tell it, "No! That is really what I want!"
(e.g., I don't want a capital letter at the start of that bullet
or table box! I don't want to move that figure 5 pages further
up in my document! I don't want to talk to your anti-christ
spiral wire thing AGAIN!).
And if you're answers to these questions are, oh, that's easy to
fix, just ..., then think about it as if you didn't find the
answer each of these problems sometime during the last 15 years,
but instead this is the first time you've ever seen this
exasperating, behemoth, vat of software and UI bugs (Word, in
case you didn't follow that rant)!
If these types of things were the typical experience in Linux,
I suspect you wouldn't even still be here.
And finally, on the other side of the coin, pretend that you had
spent the last 13 or 15 years getting used to man pages, simple
text configuration files, and HTML documentation in
/usr/share/doc/program-name/.
Now imagine trying to find the configuration settings for a
typical Windows program. Well, some are on C:\documents and
crap\me\applications\thisapp\..., some are in 16 different places
in the registry, and some are apparently just chosen randomly at
startup using the system clock, because I sure can't find them.
And if it's proprietary software, you can bet the file formats
for any application-specific config files in the filesystem are
in an intentionally undocumented, binary format.
Obviously I'm having some fun here, and exaggerating Windows
shortcomings and avoiding Linux shortcomings, but in my
experience, it is simply NOT the case that Linux is harder to
use. It's just not what everyone is used to in this particular
country. Yet!
- richard
--
Richard Kilgore
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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