Linux-Advocacy Digest #846, Volume #26 Sat, 3 Jun 00 00:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: The Mainframe VS the PC. (R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ))
Re: Floating City? (was Re: Canada invites Microsoft north) (Steve White)
Re: Floating City? (was Re: Canada invites Microsoft north) (Steve White)
Re: Why UNIX Rocks ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: The Linux Fortress (Gary Hallock)
Re: Floating City? (was Re: Canada invites Microsoft north) (Christopher Browne)
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From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: The Mainframe VS the PC.
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 03:00:47 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> r.e.ballard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >Meanwhile
> >Linux allows the selection from hundreds of permutations of
> >themes, color schemes, desktop managers, window managers, and
> >application preconfigurations.
>
> www.stardock.com, GEM, OS/2, BeOS, NeXT, GEOS, Desqview...
>
> There have been other choices both with and without Windows.
> One of the problems that Linux is
> going to have to face as it gains
> in popularity is the inconsistencies
> and lack of interoperability between
> those configurations.
Some (not all) of this has already been dealt with. The ICCCM
provides a common infrastructure - sort of a "TCP/IP for Graphics"
common communication protocol to be used between the various X11
components. As a result, your GNOME application will run on KDE,
your Motif application will run under OpenView. You may gobble a bit
more memory, but it will run.
> >Finally, Microsoft has been burning it's own reputation and
> >brand strength on substandard products - many of which are
> >inferior to UNIX equivalents in terms of function, reliability,
> >security, and stability.
>
> In some ways the UNIX model has had quite a head start in
> creation of many products and services. On the other hand,
> it cannot be said that those products were created with
> the concept of "user-friendly" in mind.
Actually, it's just that Microsoft and UNIX have had very
different concepts of "User Friendly". Microsoft things
that Dancing Paper-Clips and BOB are friendly, that IE 4.0
with it's animated graphics and self-installing trojan horses
is Friendly, and that Blue is a friendly color for showing
that the computer is dead. Your computer has died, you've
lost 2 hours of work, but we'll show you the message in a
pretty shade of blue.
UNIX has considered "User Friendly" in terms of delivering
useful information to the customer, quickly, with minimal
effort, and in a form that is useful. The web browser
and the web search engine are perfect examples of this.
The browser is simple, the buttons, menus, and text boxes
are nothing too elaborate, but when coupled with UNIX servers
and networked information, you can perform a function equivalent
to searching through 2 billion pages of documentation for the
25 most relevant pages, have the result in less than a minute
(usually less than 10 seconds), and have it in a format that is
pleasant enough to be printed exactly as displayed, linked into
a related report, or to have relevant segments clipped (with links
to the original available by simply snipping the quote) all without
violating copyrights.
The average useful life of a newspaper page is about 8 hours. The
average useful life of a web page is about 10 years, maybe 20 if
the archive is available.
> Microsoft has in ways, compromised itself in the service
> of that same idea. But it (and other companies) have
> done so to continuing success in providing what many
> end-users are desirous of.
The best analogy is the question "which would you rather have,
the Fiat X19, or the Toyota Tercel". Both are about the same
price. The Fiat is a very sexy looking sports car with really
hot looking accomodations. The Tercel is a plain looking compact
with plain accomodations. The problem is that the Fiat would
require mechanical adjustment every 5-7 days, the Tercel is designed
to go 200,000 miles with nothing more than 4 oil changes and gas.
If you're an American (who doesn't downshift while braking), you
might need to replace the brake pads at 100,000 miles.
Linux and UNIX aren't as glamourous, but they are sensible and
effective at providing the services that are actually required.
> >Each virus, worm, and trojan horse
> >costs Microsoft some of it's reputation, especially when
> >Microsoft claims to have plugged the holes and has not. The
> >repeated attempts to mislead the public, juries, and federal
> >court judges have cost Microsoft much of it's credibility.
>
> While at the same time there is a perception that some of the
> popular MS-bashing is a consequence of being the big kid
> on the block, or is coming from fringe elements who are
> out to promote some other agenda.
Actually, it's perfectly clear that most of the MS-bashing
is coming from mainstream elements who are out to promote
an Agenda. Oracle doesn't like SQL Server, neither does Sybase
or the DB/2 section of IBM. Corel, Applix, WordStar, StarOffice,
and Boreland don't like Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. Sun doesn't
like VB because it diverts people from Java. Caldera doesn't
like Microsoft for what it did to DR-DOS and later Linux.
Back in 1985, the PC market was wide open and hotly competitive.
There were winners, and there were losers, you had to fight hard,
promote your product, and take very good care of the customer. You
had to answer phone calls at 3 O'Clock in the morning, and you had
to upgrade your product every few months, but you knew you had a
chance at carving out a profitable niche and making a little money.
In 2000, Windows 2000 is like a vast wasteland to third party
developers. You could spend a few million to create the product,
spend another million testing and beta marketing it, you could spend
another billion promoting it, and you could spend another few million
adding improvements. Just as the market starts to explode and you're
seeing your picture on the front pages of Time and on CNN, Microsoft
announces a product that's just like yours "only better". They
will be including it in every version of Windows whatever, and
in all of the services packs about to be shipped.
Sure, practically anyone who has written an original program or
helped get one to market has an agenda. They are tired of doing
all the work and watching Microsoft get the glory and the cash.
Microsoft spends $4 billion a year on "sales and marketing" which
includes full-page ads that cost more than the average journalists
salary and even more than the average editor's salary. In some
cases, the ads cost more than the CEOs salary. And Microsoft can
pull them without notice if they don't like your editorial content.
But the papers don't exactly love Microsoft either. They aren't
exactly thrilled with Expedia, Carpoint,and a number of other sites
that steal their classified advertising revenue. And the television
stations aren't exactly thrilled that MSNBC has thrown journalistic
integrity out the window in search of sleazy headlines that no
publisher would have allowed previously. Their trial-by-media
of Bill Clinton, Elian Gonzales and Juan Conzales, the parents
of Jon Bonet Ramsey, and other tabloid stories that even the
national inquirer wouldn't touch and elevating them to the top
of the national agenda by devoting as much as 8 hours/day to
stories that are based on unconstitutional searches, seizures,
interviews, and leaks. Today's example, "Army's only female 3-star
general bids adieu - which then goes on to mention in the next
paragraph:
Kennedy’s retirement planned
before sex-harassment case
No mention made in the the retirement speech, the matter would have
been handled quietly, and yet MSNBC decided to make it an issue.
Maybe we'll be treated to tale of US Generals groping each other.
The fact that Bill Gates also owns a major stake in the
satellites used to distribute television programming has
also endeared the media. No illusions here, left unchecked,
any media company who upsets Bill Gates could lose it's uplink.
According to his "World Domination" plan, first outlined in a
magazine interview in late 1984, Microsoft will control all desktops,
all communications links, all media feeds, and all banking and
cash-transfer systems. You either cooperate or cease to exist
on every computer in the system.
Imagine, you put your card in the ATM, it takes your card because
you no longer exist. You go to work, but your badge sets of alarms
because you don't exist. You ask for personnel records, and they
are gone. Your birth certificate is gone, your drivers license is
gone, your electric is shut off because you never made a payment.
Your telephone, cell phone, and pager are disabled because you don't
exist.
In the movie, "The Net" a woman is who threatens a huge IT
conglomerate suddenly discovers that not only has her identity
been erased, but now everyone thinks she's a convicted felon,
armed and dangerous, and to make things more interesting, there
are people in the conglomerate who are trying to locate her and
kill her. It's a good movie. If there were a merger between
Microsfot and AOL/Time-Warner, it could happen in a heartbeat.
I'd probably be the first to "disappear". If I were really
paranoid, I'd actually worry about it :-).
> >The failure of NT to perform as well as even the most stripped
> >down share-ware versions of UNIX (freeBSD and slackware Linux)
> >has further eroded corporate confidence.
> And yet these UN*Xes in there own way were far behind many of
> the services that the more expensive corporate Unixes were known
> for. Services that MS was at least paying lip-service to while
> building them into their platform.
Actually, that was part of the fun. The fact is that nearly 60% of
the eariest web servers were BSD and Linux systems. About 10% were
Solaris, and 15% were various other flavors of UNIX (AIX, HP_UX,
Ultrix, SCO). About 15% were non-unix systems (Mac, NT 3.51, Win3.1).
Most of the web servers were too underfunded so Linux on 386 and 486
servers were all that could be used. Later, when big bucks were
available, they bought Sun, AIX, and HP_UX systems. They started
with NCSA httpd servers and eventually switched to Netscape
Enterprise or Commerce server. I had a significant role in
helping the first 8000 publishers get on the web. We communicated
through a mailing list (online-news and online-newspapers)
- highlights are on http://www.open4success.com/Olnews/
(-: Sorry about the broken bookmarks :-)
> >The Microsoft server
> >market share has dropped from 77% in late 1997 (corporations
> >were buying NTs by the hundreds just to keep the system from
> >collapsing under the load) to 35%, while Linux went from 17%
> >in 1997 to over 33% today, flanked by the BSDs, Solaris, AIX,
> >and other commercial versions of UNIX. This is a symptom of
> >the dissatisfaction with Microsoft.
>
> Perhaps... you can also factor in the percieved inexpensiveness
> of the BSD/Linux solutions, and the renewed interest on the
> part of commercial UNIX vendors in communicating with thier
> costumer base.
You want it both ways don't you. Actually, many of the early
BSD/Linux publishers tried to switch to NT to be politically
correct, got so badly burned they were ready to go back to
Linux, and because they had money, went to UNIX instead. At
the same time, of those who started with NT and got frustrated
decided to give Linux a shot. Still another bunch of people
stayed with NT while the Linux/BSD camp just built by word-of-mouth.
Linux was a wake-up call to many UNIX vendors. Companies like Sun,
IBM, and Compaq have made it a point to listen to customer input,
and early Linux adopters made lots of noise from behind firewalls
like prudential.com, citibank.com, deutchebank.com, chase.com, and
"most of the other fortune 500".com. When these companies began
to offer limited support for Linux, they were flooded with both
requests for help, and helpful suggestions. Some users even
contributed drivers.
Several years ago, Jesse Berst announced that he had been deluged by
17,000 Linux users when he wrote what appeared to be a biased blast at
Linux. He suddenly realized he needed to look at Linux more carefully,
discovered he liked it, and also discovered that his column was often
referred to by Linux advocates - good or bad.
> >The fact that 33% of the
> >participants in a CNBC poll want Microsoft broken up may
> >indicate a similar level of dissatisfaction with Microsoft
> >Windows and Microsoft Office (especially Outlook) as a whole.
>
> What was the number of pro-MS respondents? Does this poll
> reflect a steady trend, or as "new-bites" go these days, was
> that just a reflection of how long the site was idle before it
> got slashdotted?
Web polls are notoriously biased. But it is interesting to
see substantial numbers of users who care enough to vote.
It's possible that 30% of the population would like to see
Microsoft split. Some would just like to see "Mr Moneybags"
get whacked by the court. Others have legitimate gripes.
Ironcially, if nothing else has come out of the DOJ case, Microsoft
began to realize that end-users were fed up with workstation crashes.
Ironically, many users are already choosing Windows 2000 over Windows
98. This may open a market window, since Microsoft didn't put that
"No modifications of the boot" on Windows 2000. The OEMs could
legally produce a Win2K/Linux box today. And the users seem willing
to pay a little extra for it.
> >An finally, the Boom II generation, those born in the early
> >1980s are entering the marketplace in masse. These kids were
> >using COCOs and Windows 3.0 before they could read books.
> >My own son started playing with my computer before he could
> >talk. Linux isn't a problem.
>
> No, but familiarity/dependency on GUI based solutions will be until
> those who design the OS can build a consistent non-CLI framework
> for most of those 2Boomers to feel comfortable in.
Most of these kids are internet-driven. They use the browser
more than 80% of the time. Even when they are composing, they're
using front-page or communicator instead of Word. Originally that
was because that was all they could afford, but later, they found
that they could communicate in the manner they liked (via HTML
documents) more easily than they could with Word. Cute GUIs are
nice, but "Content is King". Put another way, people use computers
to gather and exchange information, not to play with cute little
pop-up menus. Popups, wizards and dancing paperclips are great
when your using a computer for the first time. But after about
3 weeks, you shoot that paperclip by checking the "never help
me again" checkbox. After about 3 months, dancing paperclips,
popup videos, and cute little animations are just annoying.
> >Finally, Microsoft itself has been running out of steam. It
> >spent nearly $4 billion/year on sales and marketing to keep
> >the public from discovering UNIX and Linux as workstations.
> >Now, the cat's out of the bag. Soon television viewers will
> >be seeing Linux desktops being used the same way Apple Imacs
> >were seen in "You've got mail".
>
> We can hope so; however, historically Microsoft has shown some of
> its best work when challenged. And a breakup/shakeup might
> actually revert it to the type of fast flexible company that
> generated its initial successes.
I would hope so. Personnaly, I'm not interested in driving Microsoft
into bankruptcy. I'd really rather just see it stop trying to prevent
the Linux market through legal and nondisclosure roadblocks and open
it's traditional market to a toe-to-toe get-your-piece-of-the-action
and I'll-get-mine slugfest.
If Microsoft can keep 85% of the market in a totally competitive
atmosphere where the protocols and APIs are public and only the
code/implementation is private, where OEMs install combinations
that serve the widest number of customers, and the user has the
option of flushing what he doesn't need, then more power to them.
If on the other hand, Microsoft wants to continue to protect it's
monopoly of the desktop and extend it into game machines, web-tv
machines, palmtops, laptops, and every other kind of information
appliance - not through competition - but through lock-out contracts,
black-ball tactics, nondisclosure agreements intended to promote
callusion, fraud, extortion, blackmail, and sending hookers and goon
squads to top corporate customers to promote Microsoft-only standards,,
then I think the judge should throw the book at them.
If Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer really believe that they are above the
law, maybe a few nights in a federal marshal's jail would give them a
new appreciation for the law.
Even with everything going against them, after totally blowing
their own defense, after lying to a judge in federal court,
after calling the judge a liar, a fool, and telling the american
public "we'll get away with it", it tells every american on earth
that Justice is for sale to the highest bidder. That is a
dangerous thing. It erodes respect for the law, the courts,
and the law enforcement structure. Tell every gagsta in Newark
that justice is only for the highest bidder, and every kid with
a piece will be packing and loaded for bacon. The cops become
targets, the judges become targets, the prosecutors become
targets, and the outlaws become the good-guys.
This is exactly what happened when the railroads, banks, and cattle
barons started burning out the farmers and the courts let them do it.
Jessie James' father was killed by the "Railroad Men", so were a lot of
other fathers. When Jessie James started robbing the bank, the farmers
would point the possie in the wrong direction. The "hole in the wall"
remained a secret for years because the farmers made sure the possies
never even got close.
I am definately no fan of anarchy, but I'm very concerned that this may
happen if the courts continue executing men because they are poor and
black and then let Bill Gates and the other Microsoft Executives lie to
the judge on national television and then get NOT EVEN a slap on the
wrist - simply because they had the financial resources to turn their
appeals into a three ring circus.
Worse yet, it erodes respect for intellectual property rights in
general. Many people feel it's their right to copy Microsoft software
with proper justification simply because Microsoft has the right to
violate the law with proper justification.
> [snipping some to not make this reply outrageously long ]
>
> >The fruit of UNIX and Linux, the Internet, has made it possible
> >to conduct a global dialogue. There isn't even the ability to
> >censor information, only the ability to participate in the
> >discussion and listen for the formation of ever shifting
> >consensus. Problems get solved instead of just being argued
> >in an atmosphere of unshifting polarity.
>
> However, there is still the problem of encourageing a
> proper flow of information, and managing the spread
> of inaccurate or dis-information.
It's the timeless argument of Censorship vs Debate. Men like Adolf
Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung believed that open dialogue
was dangerous and would pollute the minds of otherwise sensible people.
If the German population were to see the mass extermination of the
Jews, Pols, and Russians, they might feel that this action was too
harsh. If the Chinese people saw the slaughter of the Monks in Tibet,
they might become sympathetic. If the Soviets had seen the harse
realities of forced labor in Siberia, they might be touched with
compassion. No, these discussions are dangerous, the best action
is to keep these things secret and execute anyone who discusses them
with the general public for Treason. These actions will protect the
uninformed public from ideas that may reduce our ability to maintain
order and fulfill our "Great Plan".
People of the Anglo-American tradition have been notorious for
their ability to debate anything and for each participant to take both
sides of any issue. We are often ridiculed for our public scandals,
our criticisms of our political leaders, especially the President,
and for our handling of public demonstrations.
The great thing about the internet, especially the type-written
conferences such as these, is that nearly everything gets brought
out into the sunlight, gets a good examination, and the dirty stuff
(misinformation, lies, and inaccurate facts) gets washed away through
rigorouss cross-examination, as you have done in your response.
Of course, there is one little problem. I might respond to your
questions. Allow you to correct my facts, and even cross-examine
you. But gradually, without violence, consensus is formed, actions
that benefit all are taken, and the world as a whole is a better
place.
If there were no PCs, if Microsoft hadn't put computers into the hands
of millions of users, and if they hadn't created cheap software, along
with the thousands of others who actually created, developed, and
marketed the software that Microsfot now protects so vigorously,
we couldn't have this discussion.
Unfortunately, Microsoft wants to prevent me from sharing my side
of the story, from cross examining you, and from defending the
intellectual rights of the people who did NOT freely and voluntarily
turn over their magnificent innovations to Microsoft in a "do anything
you want" manner. Many of us have written, specified, documented, and
promoted software that was public licensed, but the NCSA changed the
license when it suited them and gave Microsoft carte-blanche. And
now Microsoft is feverishly defending it's right to innovate, and lock
out all of the other innovators from which it has stolen property
beyond value. They've also obtained exclusive digital rights to
the works in the Louvre, to a number of public literatary archives,
and have even attempted to have the Guttenberg project archive
converted to proprietary formats for Microsoft's exclusive
distribution and control.
Microsoft has demanded that members of a number of standards bodies
sign nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from disclosing what
they already know.
The question is, is Microsoft really above the Law? Would the Supreme
Court defend BOTH Microsoft's rights to protect it's own intellectial
property in the Marketplace AND it's right to take ownership of
intellectual property placed in the public trust, AND it's right
to exclude all of these who have unwillingly and generously contributed
to Microsoft's wealth from the marketplace through contracts designed
to force the exclusion of their products from the market place.
I suppose anything is possible.
--
Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet
I/T Architect, MIS Director
http://www.open4success.com
Linux - 90 million satisfied users worldwide
and growing at over 5%/month!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Steve White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Floating City? (was Re: Canada invites Microsoft north)
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 22:17:25 -0500
In article <8h9f8t$5lp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Loren Petrich) wrote:
> Once that is done, Chairman Bill declares this city a sovereign
> nation and exempt from all laws that hurt it, but, of course, no laws
> that help it.
And we, of course, declare a 100% tax on imported software ;-)
steve
reply to: steve[no space]white at mediaone dot net
------------------------------
From: Steve White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Floating City? (was Re: Canada invites Microsoft north)
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 22:18:04 -0500
In article <6kZZ4.1588$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Mike Trettel"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> MS-Ship better have a real good defense system.
e.g., NOT the one the Navy used when it tested WinNT.
steve
reply to: steve[no space]white at mediaone dot net
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Why UNIX Rocks
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 03:13:07 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine) wrote:
> I think you're slightly confused. Unix is over 30 years old (if I'm
> not mistaken, it was first implemented somewhere in 1969 or 1970
> by Bell Labs). Linux is only about 9 or 10.
>
> Not that it matters...it's a great OS. :-)
Really? Then why does it crash so often? Why is the documentation so
poor? Why are the progamming tools so unpowerful? Why it doesn't
support sane I/O? Why does it have so many bugs?
The metrics which are important to me, as a professional developer,
are:
- Reliability
- Quality programming tools
- Excellent documentation
- Utilities which can be used productively
- A consistent and powerful API
Linux does all five of extremely poorly. The more serious systems --
VMS -- do them well. To be fair, I'm sure you're not a developer, and
are mainly interesting in browsing the web and playing games, so these
metrics aren't important to you. But you shouldn't claim that Linux
is "great" including areas which you aren't faimilar with.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 23:28:25 -0400
From: Gary Hallock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The Linux Fortress
Christopher Browne wrote:
> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Colin R. Day would say:
> >Pete Goodwin wrote:
> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin) wrote in
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >>
> >> On the subject of Samba configuration, here's another thought along the
> >> lines of 'ease of use' and the way KDE lags behind Windows.
> >
> >Use linuxconf. It's a gnome app, but it works in KDE.
>
> A _GNOME_ app?!? A _GNOME_ app?
>
Yes and no. linuxconf calls gnome-linuxconf if the DISPLAY variable is set.
So, unless you look carefully at the title bar, you could easily think linuxconf
is a gnome app.
Gary
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Floating City? (was Re: Canada invites Microsoft north)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 03:32:04 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Loren Petrich would say:
> Once that is done, Chairman Bill declares this city a sovereign
>nation and exempt from all laws that hurt it, but, of course, no laws
>that help it.
It doesn't too much matter which scenario you go with, should MSFT
leave where it is now, this has several results:
a) MSFT incurs "removal costs."
For instance, if they decide to move all their employees to Canada,
then this introduces 10K homes into the Seattle real estate market,
thus depressing prices, as an attempt to sell on the order of $5B
of real estate, into one market, will certainly have some effects.
Similar is true for MSFT's attempt to sell its own digs in WA;
introducing MSFT properties to the market will have a depressing
effect.
b) MSFT incurs "installation costs."
Whereever they go, there winds up being likely on the order of
$10B spent to buy up real estate and related resources.
If Bill puts on his monocle, finds a Persian cat, and does the
"Dr No" thing of acquiring oil rigs out in international waters,
I think you'll find that the costs of housing 10,000 people,
along with the services they'd want to have, to represent an
outright _crippling_ cost, even with $300-odd billion to play with.
c) Bill has to make political friends where ever the new place is.
Ten million here for a UBC medical centre; $80M over there to sponsor
building roads to cope with 20,000 people (not just the employees, but
the hangers-on that run Starbucks and Burger Thing and sell them
groceries)...
d) The bereft and bewidowed former suitors, whether at University
of Washington, cities of Seattle and Richmond, Washington state
governments, and the IRS are No Longer Microsoft's Friends.
And _any_ place in the US where buying decisions are made on the
basis of "buying American" will find potent arguments to the point
of looking for alternatives to Microsoft.
This does not lead, in a 24 hour period, to everyone burning Windows
95 CDs, and leaping from the frying pan into the "Lotus Millennium
Edition for OS/2" fire. But what it _does_ do is to make the MS-Office
alternatives that are considered utterly unviable look a little less bad,
which doubtless would result in more licenses to Corel Office getting
sold.
Note: The fact that Corel Office is "based in Canada" is NOT necessarily
a strike against it; WordPerfect _didn't_ move to Canada because Ray
Noorda got snippy with the DOJ and decided he wanted to emigrate to
avoid legal battles with the Utah and US governments. Indeed, the
"emigration" of WordPerfect came as the result of, hmm, isn't this
entertaining... _Microsoft_ pushing it out of economic viability...
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/linux.html>
Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths. --Baroness Edith
Summerskill
------------------------------
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