Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Fri, 28 Dec 2001, Doug Lerner wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Friday, December 28, 2001): Tech support? Free downloads, but boxed packages that you pay for if you choose? Heh...sound familiar? Just a thought... The company I work for actually doesn't sell boxed sets. The total download is just about 15 MB and we provide updates practically weekly, so they would get out of date too quickly. doug I'm sure, however, that you see my point. I was just mentioning a couple possible revenue stream. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? Lots (most?) non-profit organizations' employees draw salaries. Someone mentioned internet development as an example of free software helping us all. I saw the guy that wrote the mailer program that the majority of isps use on TechTV a couple of months back. He didn't seem to mind that his free software was being used by millions. Although if he had charged $5-$10 for each copy in existance he would surely be a millionaire. Of course there are probbably other programs that do the same thing for hundreds of dollars. I for one am glad that they aren't the only option, as I live in a small town with dialup only and I can see how we could have been severly restricted in internet isps if everything that was available for free... ...Wasn't Red Hat has posted small (and growing) profits over the past few quarters. MandrakeSoft is apparently on target to post a profit next year or in 2003. Considering that the current economic climate is not conducive to profit making, these are not trivial feats. I think the key staff know what the GNU/Linux distribution market is like, and they won't be expecting too much from their share prices. MandrakeSoft is listed on the Marche Libre exchange, which was chosen (AFAICT) for its stability and lack of over-speculation, which is the main problem with the NYSE and OTC (AKA Nasdaq). Investors here generally tend to be more forgiving and don't expect quick, unsustainable profits. How can one (in the United States) purchase a token amount of Mandrake shares (just a couple I am afraid) without going to a stock broker? But, as you have said, the verdict is still out on that. :) It seems that a lot of the big (for profit) software companies (I'm thinking along the lines of Microsoft and Apple here) are like chiropractors. Their entire existance is based on taking people's money to just get them by until the next visit (verion). If they got it right the first time they would all go out of business. Someone said to me, You don't buy a new car and expect to get a free upgrade when the next version comes out, do you? But if I bought a new car and it stalled at least once a day and I had to restart, well, sure I would expect a free upgrade - to a properly working version which is what I would have paid for in the first place. I mean c'mon, why pay a hundred dollars (or more) just to be what amounts to a beta (gamma?) tester?!? Linux, on the other hand, IS free. If I do find a bug, it probbably wouldn't anger me that much to download a newer version. And since the minute you do there are probbably three newer versions out there, it isn't like there is a long wait for bugfixes/upgrades. Microsoft, I hate your OS's (well, I actually LIKED Windows 3.11, and its File Manager (don't like to see my files as icons, y'see) - but I really like your hardware (mice/keyboards are outstanding and cheap if you don't need the absolute newest versions) and games (Flight Simulator, I think I have one of the original DOS versions). It's a shame buying one of their products doesn't give you a voice in the direction of development of their company. Or maybe its just a shame their stockholders (Hmm, Bill?) don't have to use their OS (exclusively). And BTW, WTF is Windows ME for, anyway? Just venting/rambliing, Wes Gregg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Registered Linux User # 252649 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Friday 28 December 2001 09:49 am, you wrote: This list like to MS-bash. A lot. Be careful in your MS-bashing, though; they made most of the tech revolution possible. Without MS the tech industry as we know it would be much smaller (most of us wouldn't have jobs in tech), we would probably all be using OS/2 version 2, and MacOS 6 or 7 would likely be a new product. I don't have a job in the tech industry. Maybe that would change my perspective. I never got to try OS/2 but I heard that it was well-liked by its users. MacOS only runs on Macs (AFAICT) so that isn't something to help me either (mainly because the macs are WAY out of my price range, maybe if I could just write a check for a new G4 my perspective would change. Mac users sure seem to like being Mac users). Not only that, but processor development would have been slower. We would all be using 486/Pentium processors right now. There would be no such thing as desktop 3D-acceleration. SGI and Sun would still be major forces in the computer industry. The Internet boom would never have happened. Linux would never have been developed. At least, not to the point it is now. It would have simply been considered a Unix variant (at best) or an entertaining graduate school project (at worst). I was a fan of MS-DOS. Even (more or less) liked Win 3.11. I like a GUI desktop, I just don't like icons only. I guess I like to pretend I know what is going on. And when it comes down to it I miss my Commodore 128. And the sound on my Commodore 64 wasn't too shabby (midi type I guess). And I could turn it on and it was all set to go. We owe Bill a great deal. Does that mean I like the way his company does business? No. But I still respect him for doing something that most of us are very jealous at (whether we admit it or not), and that's becoming the richest man alive by creating demand for something that the rest of us decided we couldn't live without: computers. How many of you actually remember the pre-MS computer days? And not just Windows; pre-MS-DOS, too. Okay, stop it with the siezures and the coughing and the unpleasant memory-faces. *You* know what I'm talking about. Ok. _I_miss_my_Commodore_128. I think if we were using them ( computers of that era) we would still know Spam as that meat-like food and our time on the internet wouldn't be spent closing pop-up ad windows. Years ago my friend had an account at our local college on their Vax/VMS(?) computer and I learned a little about email/gopher, etc. How many people know gopher as anything but the little rodent today? And all the busy signals I get and slowdowns? If half of the internet users really ARE just downloading porn and such - that wasn't a problem at 320*200*16 colors. And I can't really see the me-too! AOL users rushing to sign up for such a service on a unix-based system. (Note: There are lots (_maybe_ even the majority) of useful human beings that use aol. But) And I wouldn't have to throw away approx. 3 AOL cd's a week. At least when they sent the floppies you could tape over the write-protect hole and reformat it. I wish they would send their crap on cd-rw's - but I ramble. Personally, If I ever met Mr. Gates (or Ballmer or anyone else high-up at Microsoft) I would smile, shake hands, and thank them for what they've done for the world of computers. After all, if they had never shown up I wouldn't have the job I have. And I'm betting that a decent number of you wouldn't either. :) I hear he is actually a nice man if you don't get in his way. But if you get in MY way you will not get run over. But like I said, I only have a problem with his OS's ( the last several at that). I like the hardware and some of the games. And as for unfair business practices(sic): If someone like me could see this situation developing years ago, surely the companies crying foul today could have. Brings to mind Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Not even a gazelle climbs into the lion's mouth. And I suppose if he wanted to he could have squashed/bought/sent to Davy Jone's Locker the developers of free software if he wanted to. And not being a fool, he probbably looks at it as good for the industry. After all, if there really WAS no competition, then we would all be in bad shape. As it is, well, it doesn't bother me. I don't expect to delete my Win98SE partition anytime soon. I just don't see any reason to go any farther than that. I saw a show on WinXP talking about all the problems (from Win98) that had been fixed, they ought to give it away as a bugfix. But this is a Linux forum! We should I suppose not even be discussing these things. For that I apologize to the group and will keep silent on non-linux issues. May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places through which you must walk. -- ancient Egyptian blessing
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 17:29:02 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wasn't even going to respond to the hypothetical about the avaracious drug company withholding medication from poor people, but the logic of the answer bothered me so much I decided to. Even though my question was never answered by anybody (do the investors of time and money in drug research deserve to make a profit for their efforts?) I will answer yours. Your example seems to imply that anybody who puts forth effort and creates something that society finds useful and important then personally becomes liable financially to make sure that everybody who needs it gets it. I say to that - WHAT?! The answer to the problem of poor people not getting drugs from a drug company is not to steal the patent. It is for government and charities and properly run health care systems to acquire the medication and distribute it as needed. As I mentioned earlier, the Brazilian Government made their decision only after all other avenues had been explored. The health system of Brazil (or even for the US for that matter) does not have enough funds to help everyone in the best way possible. Negotiations were made with Roche in an effort to lower the exhorbitant price of nelfinavir. These failed, leaving the government with little alternative. The UN has praised the move, and the USA has withdrawn the official objection they had lodged through the WTO. Other AIDS-striken nations, like South Africa, are investigating similar methods. Again, that it what government, taxes and charities are FOR. Capitalism and social welfare often don't work well together. Generally, here is little or no profit for private corporations in social welfare, and governments are reluctant to put more funds into this vital sphere for fear of alienating the business comunity, who increasingly have the power to divert their investment to other countries at the wink of an eye. Governments, particularly those of lesser developed countries (LDCs) have limited funds. LDCS often have huge debts to pay as well. They don't need the added burden of paying double the real cost of some drug. They _could_ probably get the money, but that would divert funds from other pressing tasks, and would hamper the economy (which would make things even worse in the long run). Yes, you can hypothecate about some drug company blackmailing society over some needed drug. And, in fact, there are already laws allowing the government to license the patent to competing firms in that case. That almost happened in Canada recently over Cipro, but it turned out not to be necessary. But you are talking about the exception, not the rule. I never said it was the rule. However, the few exceptions that _do_ exist warrant some consideration due to their massive impacts. Would you rather that people die? The Canadian example you offer is interesting. There really isn't much difference between this and what is happening in Brazil. I know little about Cipro, but the difference here seems to be that nelfinavir is made and owned by a completely foreign manufacturer. In that case, how can it be licensed to competing firms? Extending the argument that it is somehow the responsibility of the dryg company to also supply it to everybody in need, regardless of financial impact, you could also say that anybody who produces anything that anybody needs somehow assumes an ethical responsibility to make sure they get it. But there is a different between the producing side and the consuming side. Just because a person wants to be creative and inventive shouldn't put the person at financial risk by society. I should first say that I am not arguing that you are wrong. The difference here is simply that we are taking different approaches to the topic. I believe that for a democracy to properly function, everyone and everything in it (including corporations) should hold some responsibility for its functioning. Otherwise, we see what is happening in nations like the USA or Australia (my country): rising social inequality. In the long run, this can only be bad for a society. My view is more like that espoused in Europe and Asia. Take Japan, for example. To the Japanese, your views would be totally alien. In the past fifty years, they have undergone more rapid economic transformation than any other nation, while _maintaining_ social equality. They have done this by making everyone and everything accountable for the welfare of the nation. In the same period, social equality has markedly fallen in Anglo-American capitalist states. No nation has ever moved from an 'underdeveloped' to a 'developed' state by using Anglo-American economic principles (which you seem to embrace). Indeed, most nations that have adopted such methods have gone backward. While your views may be 'alien' to the Japanese (or to many other peoples), it doesn't necessarily mean they are 'wrong', just 'different'. doug
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
ummm... wow. i would love to fire off on this topic, but i just don't have the time now. however, i would like to thank all of you. why? because we are having a awesome discussion about a fascinating topic and everyone is making really intelligent comments observations and this is what i love about this list. i'm really learning thinking as i read this. thank you thank you thank you. adrian p.s. can we do this more often? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Well, I've been living here in Japan for the past 18 years now and I find companies here more capitalistic and less regulated then in the U.S. Everything you buy here is strictly let the buyer beware. There is no such thing at all like money back guarantee like in stores in the U.S. And things are pretty unregulated as far as business goes. I remember some years ago I wanted to import modems into Japan so I contacted JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization, asking how do I arrange for an import license. They said there was no such thing. If I wanted to import, go ahead. In the U.S. you have to have business licenses to open up a small store or business. No such thing here. I ran an Internet cafe here in Tokyo for three years with no regulation hassles at all. As far as maintaining social equality goes, tell that to women who have traditionally been more discriminated against here. When I worked at Fujitsu, women - even the programmers - were expected to come in 15 minutes before the men to tidy things up and start the coffee and tea going. (Fujitsu, by the way, is a great company and one of the more progressive in Japan, with a high percentage of female managers these days.) While the salary discrepencies that exist in the U.S. are not as severe in Japan (and maybe that is what you meant by maintaining social equality), unemployment is at a high right now and the lifetime employment system is falling by the wayside. In addition, the population is aging quickly and the health insurance system is about bankrupt. Lots of problems facing Japan right now. I could go on forever... doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Saturday, December 29, 2001): My view is more like that espoused in Europe and Asia. Take Japan, for example. To the Japanese, your views would be totally alien. In the past fifty years, they have undergone more rapid economic transformation than any other nation, while _maintaining_ social equality. They have done this by making everyone and everything accountable for the welfare of the nation. In the same period, social equality has markedly fallen in Anglo-American capitalist states. No nation has ever moved from an 'underdeveloped' to a 'developed' state by using Anglo-American economic principles (which you seem to embrace). Indeed, most nations that have adopted such methods have gone backward. While your views may be 'alien' to the Japanese (or to many other peoples), it doesn't necessarily mean they are 'wrong', just 'different'. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Amazing how things can digress! Soon we'll throw in religion and whale hunting. :-) doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Saturday, December 29, 2001): I could go on forever... You could, but we're not talking about office suites anymore :) Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 11:02:18 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Well the analogy of the clay pot may not be good at all. Consider this-- I make a clay pot, and I fire it and I go to a lawyer and show him the product and get him to draft a patent so that no one else can glaze clay pots or decorate them in any way without paying me royalties. I file the patent and use the proceeds from my clay pots to threaten to keep anyone else who fires clay pots in court for years of ruinous spending battling my army of lawyers unless they pay me ransom for protection against lawsuit. I believe that patent law requires more than just something new. It has to be something that is not obvious too. In theory this is true. In practice, however, the US Patent Office gives patents for just about anything. As Civileme noted, BT has patents on hyperlinking, and Apple has patents on desktop theming. Unisys has a patent on LZW compression (which is used in the GIF image format), which is a _very_ simple algorithm indeed. Such patents only serve to harm the industry, since the patent owners will sue anyone that breaches them. BT now has the power to sue anyone who's ever made or accessed a web page, and Unisys can sue anybody who makes GIF images (which is why you should use PNG instead). Even colour palettes can be patented: The GIMP cannot do CYMK colours (which are necessary for print) because of patents held by printing companies. Let me ask the opposite question. Suppose a drug company takes hundreds of millions of dollars from thousands of investors and uses the money for research and creates a drug that improves the daily lives of millions of people. Do the people who invested in the enterprise deserve to profit from this? Or should anybody be allowed to come along and make generic copies of the drug without bothering to invest in time and effort to do the research? Okay, then let me ask you this. Suppose a pharmaceutical company holds the rights to a drug that can help the lives of millions of people in lesser developed countries. The only catch is that the cost of the drug is exhorbitant -- far above cost price and far more than those in need can afford. The drug may only get to a tiny percentage of sufferers, but the pharmaceutical company makes billions. In this case, would it be wrong for someone to break the patent so that the drug could be manufactured to help millions? Now, replace pharmaceutical company with Roche (a massive Swiss-based firm) and someone to break the patent with the Brazilian government. The drug is nelfinavir, designed to treat AIDS sufferers. The decision was made after Roche refused to lower the cost of nelfinavir, which was taking up 28 percent (US$82 million) of the health ministry's annual budget. Producing it locally slashed costs by 40 percent. The United Nations has praised the move. The software industry is not much different. Both industries are dominated by a few huge transnational corporations, which charge far more than their products are actually worth. I am not against the idea of intellectual property, but there needs to be some strict limits. The problem does not rest with Intellectual property but with application which has definitely become a reductio ad absurdem. Non-productive drones feast off the efforts of the workers, the software writers, and squelch creativity. This is the reality and it is why anything I write is GPL. Civileme -- Sridhar Dhanapalan And do you not realize that features never get dropped: they just end up increasing the binary size and icache pressure forever? -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
True, but there is also another side to the story. What about the end users, who will _save_ money by using free software. Corporations spend massive amounts of money on buggy, insecure software. If the software was free, all this money could be saved, and the employees could be paid more (or more could be hired). I am not rabidly against charging for software, but in many cases free software can make a lot of sense. If a company chose to write a decent OS (BeOS and OS/2 come to mind) with decent software, I would consider using them. Microsoft on the other hand does not compete on quality, it competes on marketing and lock-in. On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:57:25 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a day-to-day basis, if you want to have a working economy, where people can support themselves then, for sure, it makes more sense to compensate labor and effort which can be attributed. In other words, pay the programmers who create programs. The compensation to society for providing the environment is paid in taxes. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: There is a huge difference between an idea and an instance of putting the idea to use. And which is more valuable, or more worthy of being compensated (for)? Randy Kramer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com -- Sridhar Dhanapalan I've always liked penguins, and when I was in Canberra a few years ago we went to the local zoo with Andrew Tridgell (of samba fame). There they had a ferocious penguin that bit me and infected me with a little known disease called penguinitis. Penguinitis makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them. So when Linux needed a mascot, the first thing that came into my mind was this picture of the majestic penguin, and the rest is history. -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? I'm sorry, but by this logic you could say, Instead of spending all that money on a down payment and mortgage, think of all the money I could save by just moving into the first house I see. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): True, but there is also another side to the story. What about the end users, who will _save_ money by using free software. Corporations spend massive amounts of money on buggy, insecure software. If the software was free, all this money could be saved, and the employees could be paid more (or more could be hired). I am not rabidly against charging for software, but in many cases free software can make a lot of sense. If a company chose to write a decent OS (BeOS and OS/2 come to mind) with decent software, I would consider using them. Microsoft on the other hand does not compete on quality, it competes on marketing and lock-in. On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:57:25 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a day-to-day basis, if you want to have a working economy, where people can support themselves then, for sure, it makes more sense to compensate labor and effort which can be attributed. In other words, pay the programmers who create programs. The compensation to society for providing the environment is paid in taxes. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: There is a huge difference between an idea and an instance of putting the idea to use. And which is more valuable, or more worthy of being compensated (for)? Randy Kramer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com -- Sridhar Dhanapalan I've always liked penguins, and when I was in Canberra a few years ago we went to the local zoo with Andrew Tridgell (of samba fame). There they had a ferocious penguin that bit me and infected me with a little known disease called penguinitis. Penguinitis makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them. So when Linux needed a mascot, the first thing that came into my mind was this picture of the majestic penguin, and the rest is history. -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
Maybe we don´t need enormous software companies to do the job, just idealistic men like the ones moving the opensource world. And if someone offers free houses (and better than the one i'm paying for) wouldn`t you move?? Gonzalo From: Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? I'm sorry, but by this logic you could say, Instead of spending all that money on a down payment and mortgage, think of all the money I could save by just moving into the first house I see. doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 22:27:47 +1100 Sridhar Dhanapalan [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 11:02:18 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Well the analogy of the clay pot may not be good at all. Consider this-- I make a clay pot, and I fire it and I go to a lawyer and show him the product and get him to draft a patent so that no one else can glaze clay pots or decorate them in any way without paying me royalties. I file the patent and use the proceeds from my clay pots to threaten to keep anyone else who fires clay pots in court for years of ruinous spending battling my army of lawyers unless they pay me ransom for protection against lawsuit. I believe that patent law requires more than just something new. It has to be something that is not obvious too. In theory this is true. In practice, however, the US Patent Office gives patents for just about anything. As Civileme noted, BT has patents on hyperlinking, and Apple has patents on desktop theming. Unisys has a patent on LZW compression (which is used in the GIF image format), which is a _very_ simple algorithm indeed. Such patents only serve to harm the industry, since the patent owners will sue anyone that breaches them. BT now has the power to sue anyone who's ever made or accessed a web page, and Unisys can sue anybody who makes GIF images (which is why you should use PNG instead). Even colour palettes can be patented: The GIMP cannot do CYMK colours (which are necessary for print) because of patents held by printing companies. Let me ask the opposite question. Suppose a drug company takes hundreds of millions of dollars from thousands of investors and uses the money for research and creates a drug that improves the daily lives of millions of people. Do the people who invested in the enterprise deserve to profit from this? Or should anybody be allowed to come along and make generic copies of the drug without bothering to invest in time and effort to do the research? Okay, then let me ask you this. Suppose a pharmaceutical company holds the rights to a drug that can help the lives of millions of people in lesser developed countries. The only catch is that the cost of the drug is exhorbitant -- far above cost price and far more than those in need can afford. The drug may only get to a tiny percentage of sufferers, but the pharmaceutical company makes billions. In this case, would it be wrong for someone to break the patent so that the drug could be manufactured to help millions? Now, replace pharmaceutical company with Roche (a massive Swiss-based firm) and someone to break the patent with the Brazilian government. The drug is nelfinavir, designed to treat AIDS sufferers. The decision was made after Roche refused to lower the cost of nelfinavir, which was taking up 28 percent (US$82 million) of the health ministry's annual budget. Producing it locally slashed costs by 40 percent. The United Nations has praised the move. The software industry is not much different. Both industries are dominated by a few huge transnational corporations, which charge far more than their products are actually worth. I am not against the idea of intellectual property, but there needs to be some strict limits. AMEN! -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 9:05am up 11 days, 54 min, 2 users, load average: 0.05, 0.22, 0.26 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, Jesse Angell wrote: i personally think that x windows is a complete ram hog.. As a 166mhz 32ram cannot run it... That's strange I have X on a 486SX/20, 16MB RAM with slackware 3.4 and it works. It is slow but it works :P -- . --- .. |o_o | /_ 0 | |:_/ | Give Micro$oft the Bird \_| // \ \ Use Linux / \ (| | ) | ) | | | /'\_ _/`\ | ) | | | \___)=(___/ |_) (_) | Chad Young \__/ Registered Linux User #195191 (___| @ http://counter.li.org --- Linux localhost 2.4.18pre1 #1 Wed Dec 26 22:44:12 AST 2001 i686 unknown 1:25pm up 25 min, 3 users, load average: 0.07, 0.17, 0.21 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 21:33:06 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? I am not arguing that all software should be free. I am simply stating that in some cases I believe that the free software model is better. Let the market decide. Most free software is developed outside of corporations, and much of it is developed simply as a hobby by the coders (not as a revenue earner). I'm sorry, but by this logic you could say, Instead of spending all that money on a down payment and mortgage, think of all the money I could save by just moving into the first house I see. Ummm... no. The free software model requires a different way of thinking in order to be properly comprehended. It doesn't work as the capitalist model does, and you will never understand it properly if you persist in viewing it in that way. I am not saying that it is incompatible with the capitalist model -- it is simply different. Indeed, companies like Mandrakesoft and Red Hat have proven that they _are_ compatible. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): True, but there is also another side to the story. What about the end users, who will _save_ money by using free software. Corporations spend massive amounts of money on buggy, insecure software. If the software was free, all this money could be saved, and the employees could be paid more (or more could be hired). I am not rabidly against charging for software, but in many cases free software can make a lot of sense. If a company chose to write a decent OS (BeOS and OS/2 come to mind) with decent software, I would consider using them. Microsoft on the other hand does not compete on quality, it competes on marketing and lock-in. On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:57:25 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a day-to-day basis, if you want to have a working economy, where people can support themselves then, for sure, it makes more sense to compensate labor and effort which can be attributed. In other words, pay the programmers who create programs. The compensation to society for providing the environment is paid in taxes. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: There is a huge difference between an idea and an instance of putting the idea to use. And which is more valuable, or more worthy of being compensated (for)? Randy Kramer -- Sridhar Dhanapalan We are Microsoft of Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is- Fatal Exception Error in MSBORG32.DLL Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 21:33:06 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? I am not arguing that all software should be free. I am simply stating that in some cases I believe that the free software model is better. Let the market decide. Most free software is developed outside of corporations, and much of it is developed simply as a hobby by the coders (not as a revenue earner). I'm sorry, but by this logic you could say, Instead of spending all that money on a down payment and mortgage, think of all the money I could save by just moving into the first house I see. Ummm... no. The free software model requires a different way of thinking in order to be properly comprehended. It doesn't work as the capitalist model does, and you will never understand it properly if you persist in viewing it in that way. I am not saying that it is incompatible with the capitalist model -- it is simply different. Indeed, companies like Mandrakesoft and Red Hat have proven that they _are_ compatible. Well, I would say the verdict is still out on that. As both Mandrake and Red Hat will admit, neither have made profit for their investors yet. Both companies you mention are trading stock in their companies. Presumably the people who buy their stock want to make money on it at some point. And the employees too. I bet key staff have stock options and want to see the value of the stock rise. You can't so easily violate conservation of money. :-) doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Thu, 27 Dec 2001, Doug Lerner wrote: If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? Tech support? Free downloads, but boxed packages that you pay for if you choose? Heh...sound familiar? Just a thought... I'm sorry, but by this logic you could say, Instead of spending all that money on a down payment and mortgage, think of all the money I could save by just moving into the first house I see. You could say that, but it wouldn't really be analogous. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): True, but there is also another side to the story. What about the end users, who will _save_ money by using free software. Corporations spend massive amounts of money on buggy, insecure software. If the software was free, all this money could be saved, and the employees could be paid more (or more could be hired). I am not rabidly against charging for software, but in many cases free software can make a lot of sense. If a company chose to write a decent OS (BeOS and OS/2 come to mind) with decent software, I would consider using them. Microsoft on the other hand does not compete on quality, it competes on marketing and lock-in. On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 10:57:25 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On a day-to-day basis, if you want to have a working economy, where people can support themselves then, for sure, it makes more sense to compensate labor and effort which can be attributed. In other words, pay the programmers who create programs. The compensation to society for providing the environment is paid in taxes. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: There is a huge difference between an idea and an instance of putting the idea to use. And which is more valuable, or more worthy of being compensated (for)? Randy Kramer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com -- Sridhar Dhanapalan I've always liked penguins, and when I was in Canberra a few years ago we went to the local zoo with Andrew Tridgell (of samba fame). There they had a ferocious penguin that bit me and infected me with a little known disease called penguinitis. Penguinitis makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them. So when Linux needed a mascot, the first thing that came into my mind was this picture of the majestic penguin, and the rest is history. -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 09:23:45 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 21:33:06 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If software were free how could the employees of the software company be paid to begin with? I am not arguing that all software should be free. I am simply stating that in some cases I believe that the free software model is better. Let the market decide. Most free software is developed outside of corporations, and much of it is developed simply as a hobby by the coders (not as a revenue earner). I'm sorry, but by this logic you could say, Instead of spending all that money on a down payment and mortgage, think of all the money I could save by just moving into the first house I see. Ummm... no. The free software model requires a different way of thinking in order to be properly comprehended. It doesn't work as the capitalist model does, and you will never understand it properly if you persist in viewing it in that way. I am not saying that it is incompatible with the capitalist model -- it is simply different. Indeed, companies like Mandrakesoft and Red Hat have proven that they _are_ compatible. Well, I would say the verdict is still out on that. As both Mandrake and Red Hat will admit, neither have made profit for their investors yet. Both companies you mention are trading stock in their companies. Presumably the people who buy their stock want to make money on it at some point. And the employees too. I bet key staff have stock options and want to see the value of the stock rise. You can't so easily violate conservation of money. :-) doug Red Hat has posted small (and growing) profits over the past few quarters. MandrakeSoft is apparently on target to post a profit next year or in 2003. Considering that the current economic climate is not conducive to profit making, these are not trivial feats. I think the key staff know what the GNU/Linux distribution market is like, and they won't be expecting too much from their share prices. MandrakeSoft is listed on the Marche Libre exchange, which was chosen (AFAICT) for its stability and lack of over-speculation, which is the main problem with the NYSE and OTC (AKA Nasdaq). Investors here generally tend to be more forgiving and don't expect quick, unsustainable profits. But, as you have said, the verdict is still out on that. :) -- Sridhar Dhanapalan ... _no_ major software project that has been successful in a general marketplace (as opposed to niches) has ever gone through those nice lifecycles they tell you about in CompSci classes. Have you _ever_ heard of a project that actually started off with trying to figure out what it should do, a rigorous design phase, and a implementation phase? -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 23:35:55 -0500, Mark Weaver [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 23:52:03 +1100 Sridhar Dhanapalan [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: MandrakeSoft has a policy of not supplying closed-source software. In the download edition, the only exception to this rule (out of necessity) is Netscape 4. i thought netscape was open source software? Netscape 4.x and below is closed source. Netscape 6 and above is based on Mozilla, which is open source. -- Sridhar Dhanapalan When I see any Web site claim to be only readable using particular hardware or software, I cringe--they are pining for the bad old days when each piece of information needed a different program to access it. -- Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
Doug Lerner wrote: A little common sense can apply here. Certainly there are some examples that are obvious. For example, the letter a is obviously public domain. But C code that actually does something useful and was created with the effort of a developer - that is obviously different, isn't it? Dirt anybody can find in the ground. It doesn't mean that a beautiful clay pot that somebody creates then belongs to everybody, does it? OK, I'm getting way off topic here, so feel free to tell me to shut up. The problem, IMHO, is philosophical, and lies in the concept of property itself. Societies based on a more-or-less Western, more-or-less capitalist, more-or-less industrial model tend to regard prototypical property as manufactured exchangable physical objects. Intellectual property is a metaphorical extension of that notion, so we own an idea in the same way that we own a pot. One reaction, popular in Free Software circles, is to say that this analogy is false - you can own a pot but you can't own an idea. I believe this reaction is also based on false premises. If what makes a pot yours is your labour (as Locke claimed) then the labour you have put into a computer program should also make it yours - more so, in fact, since it does not rely on appropriation of common property (the dirt Doug mentions). Or does it? Ideas come from other ideas which are common property in much the same way as dirt is. A pot cannot be _wholly_ someone's property because it contains common property, not only in the form of dirt (or rather clay, which is not as common or worthless) but also in terms of ideas accumulated over thousands of years of ceramics. All this goes to show that property as an absolute concept is unworkable. A society _may_ choose to give certain people exclusive use of certain objects or ideas, and to give them the right to exchange these things, but only if this works for the benefit of all concerned. Ownership is no more than a convenient fiction. Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
Whether a pot is the result of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge about ceramics shouldn't matter. Somebody has to still decide to put forth the labor required to make an instance of the pot. After he or she does so it is the maker's thing to profit from. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: A little common sense can apply here. Certainly there are some examples that are obvious. For example, the letter a is obviously public domain. But C code that actually does something useful and was created with the effort of a developer - that is obviously different, isn't it? Dirt anybody can find in the ground. It doesn't mean that a beautiful clay pot that somebody creates then belongs to everybody, does it? OK, I'm getting way off topic here, so feel free to tell me to shut up. The problem, IMHO, is philosophical, and lies in the concept of property itself. Societies based on a more-or-less Western, more-or-less capitalist, more-or-less industrial model tend to regard prototypical property as manufactured exchangable physical objects. Intellectual property is a metaphorical extension of that notion, so we own an idea in the same way that we own a pot. One reaction, popular in Free Software circles, is to say that this analogy is false - you can own a pot but you can't own an idea. I believe this reaction is also based on false premises. If what makes a pot yours is your labour (as Locke claimed) then the labour you have put into a computer program should also make it yours - more so, in fact, since it does not rely on appropriation of common property (the dirt Doug mentions). Or does it? Ideas come from other ideas which are common property in much the same way as dirt is. A pot cannot be _wholly_ someone's property because it contains common property, not only in the form of dirt (or rather clay, which is not as common or worthless) but also in terms of ideas accumulated over thousands of years of ceramics. All this goes to show that property as an absolute concept is unworkable. A society _may_ choose to give certain people exclusive use of certain objects or ideas, and to give them the right to exchange these things, but only if this works for the benefit of all concerned. Ownership is no more than a convenient fiction. Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Tom Brinkman wrote: On Tuesday 25 December 2001 07:17 pm, Doug Lerner wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug Well the analogy of the clay pot may not be good at all. Consider this-- I make a clay pot, and I fire it and I go to a lawyer and show him the product and get him to draft a patent so that no one else can glaze clay pots or decorate them in any way without paying me royalties. I file the patent and use the proceeds from my clay pots to threaten to keep anyone else who fires clay pots in court for years of ruinous spending battling my army of lawyers unless they pay me ransom for protection against lawsuit. This has happened more than once. Long before hyperlinks were a reality, British Telecom patented the idea of them and could make life difficult for all of us. Does your specilaized software use hyperlinks? or perhaps themes? Well the idea of themes belongs to Apple computing... Patented. As a matter of fact, you cannot write software without significant risk of inadvertant infringement. And the current patent laws set up a legal protection racket whereby technology companies trading in intellectual property with a CEO and a couple battalions of lawyers and _no_ programmers make themselves moderately wealthy by extorting license fees for protection from suit. It even gets as subtle as We hold patent to this technology and your website subscribers might be using graphics in our format created with unlicensed software, but you can buy a license to avoid litigation in the event this does occur for $7.500 The problem does not rest with Intellectual property but with application which has definitely become a reductio ad absurdem. Non-productive drones feast off the efforts of the workers, the software writers, and squelch creativity. This is the reality and it is why anything I write is GPL. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On a day-to-day basis, if you want to have a working economy, where people can support themselves then, for sure, it makes more sense to compensate labor and effort which can be attributed. In other words, pay the programmers who create programs. The compensation to society for providing the environment is paid in taxes. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: There is a huge difference between an idea and an instance of putting the idea to use. And which is more valuable, or more worthy of being compensated (for)? Randy Kramer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): Tom Brinkman wrote: On Tuesday 25 December 2001 07:17 pm, Doug Lerner wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug Well the analogy of the clay pot may not be good at all. Consider this-- I make a clay pot, and I fire it and I go to a lawyer and show him the product and get him to draft a patent so that no one else can glaze clay pots or decorate them in any way without paying me royalties. I file the patent and use the proceeds from my clay pots to threaten to keep anyone else who fires clay pots in court for years of ruinous spending battling my army of lawyers unless they pay me ransom for protection against lawsuit. I believe that patent law requires more than just something new. It has to be something that is not obvious too. Let me ask the opposite question. Suppose a drug company takes hundreds of millions of dollars from thousands of investors and uses the money for research and creates a drug that improves the daily lives of millions of people. Do the people who invested in the enterprise deserve to profit from this? Or should anybody be allowed to come along and make generic copies of the drug without bothering to invest in time and effort to do the research? The problem does not rest with Intellectual property but with application which has definitely become a reductio ad absurdem. Non-productive drones feast off the efforts of the workers, the software writers, and squelch creativity. This is the reality and it is why anything I write is GPL. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
i personally think that x windows is a complete ram hog.. As a 166mhz 32ram cannot run it... _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Wed, 26 Dec 2001 18:04:47 -0800 (PST) Jesse Angell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i personally think that x windows is a complete ram hog.. As a 166mhz 32ram cannot run it... what version of Mandrake are you using? it is stated somewhere in the mandrake site that the recommended minimum for 8.1 is 64MB. if you have older CPUs then it would also be logical to use lightweight window managers like blackbox, xfce or anything like it and stay away from desktop managers like KDE and GNOME as these are the really cpu intensive apps. -- Programming, an artform that fights back. === Anuerin G. Diaz Design Engineer 25/F Equitable-PCI Tower ADB Ave. cor. Poveda St., Ortigas Center, Pasig City, Philippines 1605 Tel no: (632) 6383070 loc 75 === Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to support Java). But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tuesday, December 25, 2001): Doug ; Try Star Office 6.0 Beta (it's a Beta but very stable!) at www.sun.com or better yet, try Openoffice at www.openoffice.org get the 641b version for Linux and/or Windows. Includes full compatibility for MS Office XP ! and it's totally FREE ! In Either case, make sure that you get a Java Runtime Environment package running before you install the office suite. You'll want j2re - 1.3.1 for either Windows or Linux. Get that at www.java.sun.com We've been using it at the office for months without a problem on 37 PC's. Lanman P.S. Merry Christmas ! On Monday 24 December 2001 12:22 pm, you wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
What does openoffice want to know during installation about the Java runtime environment. I can't figure it out... doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tuesday, December 25, 2001): Doug ; Try Star Office 6.0 Beta (it's a Beta but very stable!) at www.sun.com or better yet, try Openoffice at www.openoffice.org get the 641b version for Linux and/or Windows. Includes full compatibility for MS Office XP ! and it's totally FREE ! In Either case, make sure that you get a Java Runtime Environment package running before you install the office suite. You'll want j2re - 1.3.1 for either Windows or Linux. Get that at www.java.sun.com We've been using it at the office for months without a problem on 37 PC's. Lanman P.S. Merry Christmas ! On Monday 24 December 2001 12:22 pm, you wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 10:25:10 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled in frustration: Thanks, Steven. Well, everybody seems quite psyched abotu OpenOffice and StarOffice. I will give those a try. Nobody seems to mention Hancom Office. Has anybody tried them? Of course free is nice, but I am not a fanatic about not purchasing software - particularly if it is nice. I think the success of Linux will depend on people being able to support themselves by developing it, and developing applications for it. I've never tried Hancom, simply because once I tried StarOffice (started w/5.0 and have used them all up to my present 6.0), I didn't look any further. Even 5.x was able to flawlessly open and edit a 55 page Excel budget document, and then when necessary (for less *enlightened* workers) convert *back* to Excel format for sharing purposes. Word docs have been no problem at all and most (though some have been problematic) PowerPoint presentations have worked also!! I think you'll be impressed. If you have a dial-up connection, you may wish to *buy* the disc from Sun (only a few dollars, much lass than the $49 hancom wants), or if you use broadband the download is absolutely free, though you must register (also totally free). Mike -- Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. -- George Bernard Shaw _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
MandrakeSoft has a policy of not supplying closed-source software. In the download edition, the only exception to this rule (out of necessity) is Netscape 4. On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 18:44:09 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to support Java). But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? doug -- Sridhar Dhanapalan Technically, Windows is an 'operating system,' which means that it supplies your computer with the basic commands that it needs to suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, stop operating. -- Dave Barry Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tuesday 25 December 2001 04:44 am, you wrote: I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to support Java). But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? Its possibly a licensing issue. Gerald Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Maybe if they make an exception for Netscape, another good exception would be Java... doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tuesday, December 25, 2001): MandrakeSoft has a policy of not supplying closed-source software. In the download edition, the only exception to this rule (out of necessity) is Netscape 4. On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 18:44:09 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to support Java). But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? doug -- Sridhar Dhanapalan Technically, Windows is an 'operating system,' which means that it supplies your computer with the basic commands that it needs to suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, stop operating. -- Dave Barry Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Michael Scottaline wrote: On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 10:25:10 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled in frustration: Thanks, Steven. Well, everybody seems quite psyched abotu OpenOffice and StarOffice. I will give those a try. Nobody seems to mention Hancom Office. Has anybody tried them? Of course free is nice, but I am not a fanatic about not purchasing software - particularly if it is nice. I think the success of Linux will depend on people being able to support themselves by developing it, and developing applications for it. I've never tried Hancom, simply because once I tried StarOffice (started w/5.0 and have used them all up to my present 6.0), I didn't look any further. Even 5.x was able to flawlessly open and edit a 55 page Excel budget document, and then when necessary (for less *enlightened* workers) convert *back* to Excel format for sharing purposes. Word docs have been no problem at all and most (though some have been problematic) PowerPoint presentations have worked also!! I think you'll be impressed. If you have a dial-up connection, you may wish to *buy* the disc from Sun (only a few dollars, much lass than the $49 hancom wants), or if you use broadband the download is absolutely free, though you must register (also totally free). Mike Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Actually, we wrote to Hancom and tried to get a demo for the 8.1 release, but they weren't yet ready. I will take a look in the next week or so. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tuesday 25 December 2001 11:44, you wrote: But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Probably because it is not free (in the FSF sense of the word), but a proprietary product licensed at no charge (for now) by Sun. Surely everybody wants to use it, right? ^^^ Not really, it's the first thing I switch off whenever I install a browser on any OS. Bandwidth is precious and costly down here and the fewer silly pieces of eye-candy I have clogging it up, the better. Of course I am not entirely consistent in this. My addiction to doonesbury.com finally made me cave in and install Flash! -- Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa) [EMAIL PROTECTED]/unisa.ac.za http://www.geocities.com/clasqm This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n nx dmnstrtn Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: MandrakeSoft has a policy of not supplying closed-source software. In the download edition, the only exception to this rule (out of necessity) is Netscape 4. Just out of curiosity, why 4.* not 6.*? I installed Netscape 6.2 on our office machine (partly so Windows users could use something familiar, partly because of KMail's all-or-nothing policy about deleting mail from the POP server). It's a bit of a RAM-eater, but quite nice apart from that, and much better than that horrible buggy 6.0. Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Doug Lerner wrote: I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to support Java). But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? doug Yes, and everyone with an NVidia card probably wants to use the NVidia drivers, but both have license agrements that make them non-free software. With the exception of Netscape 4.7x, we don't have very many sins like that on the downloadable edition, and we have excised other items that hgave licensing problems, like pine, a very popular mailer, and parts of some video display programs like xawtv and AKtion. Netscape will go as soon as we have a viable substitute, and a free software equivalewnt of Java will be included as soon as one is available. MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! For information on free software licenses and what they mean, go to www.fsf.org. Consider this: Once upon a time, the European Cernter for Nuclear Research wrote a program to allow the use of hypertext transfers across the internet, and the University of Indiana Urbana Campus also prepared some client software for it, among others. It was all government-funded research, so the results were all public domain and were collectively called Mosaic. One company took Mosaic and added a few features to make a very popular commercial browser (at the time) called Netscape. NAother made an enhancement and offered the browser with its internet service, That one was able to sell its version to a company called microsoft for a generous percentage of gross sales. Meanwhile, some people patched and patched again the server side of Mosaic, putting their patches and its source under the GPL. It was very patchy after a while, and being the punsters they are and thinking part of the fun is the name of the software, they called it Apache. The point is that all had their beginnings in free software, actually public domain. One became a closed commercial product which was actually sold, another became an instrument whereby a very rich corporation illegally extinguished competition, and the third just about owns the internet and has continued intensive development without any client lists changing hands or pop-up ads being added Guess which one is free software in the fsf definition? So anyway Java has an unpalatable license and is closed source, which is considered a _bad_ thing by free software efforts. If we cannot see the source, we can't audit for security flaws or maintain the software. If we can't see the source, then we can't protect people from backdoors or booby traps or stability bugs written into the code. As I said, projects are underway to provide a free alternative to Java, and it is there our hope lies. Now the commercial distribution, with demos on CD of real commercial software has StarOffice (with real links to our menus) and Java (several versions) which you can load, but you do have to click on license agreements. We even offer NVidia drivers which really work with full acceleration, but only off the commercial CDs, because they are closed source or partially so and have licenses that make them non-free software. Civileme Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tuesday 25 December 2001 04:44 am, Doug Lerner wrote: I installed the Java runtime environment and it was easy to do and works fine. And now the Konqueror browser runs Applets too (better than IE 5.1 under OS X does, I might add, which is the only OS X browser so far to support Java). But why doesn't Mandrake Linux install the Java runtime environment to start with? Surely everybody wants to use it, right? doug Mandrake does install java (rpm -qa kaffe) If you go to this link http://www.kaffe.org/ you'll see that Kaffe is free as in beer, but more importantly, free as in speech. The other versions of java you can d/l (eg, Sun, Blackdown) are not and are not supplied with the fully open source Mandrake versions (eg, d/l edition). I believe there's probly licensing issues invloved to. 'Course every rule has an exception, so Netscape while closed source is currently included, but probly won't be as soon as Mozilla reaches version 1.0. -- Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas, USA Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
robin wrote: Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: MandrakeSoft has a policy of not supplying closed-source software. In the download edition, the only exception to this rule (out of necessity) is Netscape 4. Just out of curiosity, why 4.* not 6.*? I installed Netscape 6.2 on our office machine (partly so Windows users could use something familiar, partly because of KMail's all-or-nothing policy about deleting mail from the POP server). It's a bit of a RAM-eater, but quite nice apart from that, and much better than that horrible buggy 6.0. Robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Well, 6 is pretty much the same as Mozilla, with fewer bugs in Mozilla and no pop-up ads or links to sell your secrets by AOL, plus it takes up a huge amount of space and we are already 3cds full, and Java is separable, not supplied as part of the package, and finally we have no agreement to distribute it. It isn't even on the Commercial CDs last I looked. Netscape is there because we need a java-enabled browser compatible with most sites. No one is really building sites to be Netscape 6 compatible (5% market share) though they still try to be compatible most times with netscape 4. The future belongs to Konqueror and/or Mozilla or the various gecko engine browsers like Galeon, insofar as free software goes. Opera and Netscape 6 are not free and will probably find a place on the commercial CDs if there is adequate demand. We do occasional browser polls on Mandrakeforum to gauge such demand, so it might be a good idea if you go there occasionally. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT
On Tuesday 25 December 2001 19:17, you wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! Nothing wrong with it until it becomes the only game in town, or you have to update at an exorbitant fee every other year. With the open source programs you can see what's going on under the hood, tinker with it , fix it, or if your like me, break it. And you don't have to pay to reinstall it. The argument has always been that you can't make money with free software. What is software? It is a string of letters and symbols that in effect write a formula for a machine to operate from. I submit that folks have been making a comfortable living by selling their services using the formulas necessary to make air conditioning work, heating systems, internal combustion engines and on and on. All these things are based on public domain mathematics and formulas, but they are packaged and sold to people who want the benefits but don't have the time, knowledge or skills, or all three to make use of the formulas in a useful or productive manner. Intellectual content is ludicrous because, what the mind of one man can concieve of another can too. Case in point Edison and Tesla. Money and deciet won out. The more intelegent person was Tesla IMHO, but the formulas for the electron flows that were developed are used world wide and are free, and a lot of people make a living using them. Closed source is fine because it gives an edge to someone as a starter, but patent laws and copyright laws need to change, because the closed source community is willing to sue at the drop of a hat when someone comes out with a program or process that looks even remotely like what they do even though the thoughts behind the new process may be totally original to the individual presenting them. So you get a multimillion dollar company suing Joe Schmo and guess who will win, the money every time. You've stolen my property! Bah Humbug, ideas are no man's property. MandrakeSoft and some of the others are making a pretty fair run at making money on freesoftware because they are packaging it and presenting it in a manner that someone like me can relate to and finds useful, and they are not charging make me and my company officers filthy rich prices. $100 for an upgrade! Fixing something that should never have been broken in the first place! Thievery I call it. This is my own opinion and totally unsolicited by anyone, : ) -- Dennis M. registered linux user # 180842 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
This is an interesting discussion. I agree with some of your points, but am not convinced by others. For example, if a company hires a dozen programmers and they spend a year creating and tweaking and debugging code, even if you think the company has no right to the *idea* (I am not convinced of that though), surely they have the right to the code itself, if they so choose? Otherwise somebody could just repackage it with much less effort and no development costs and make profit on the other company's investments. As far as $100 for an upgrade being expensive or not - I guess it depends on what the upgrade is... doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): On Tuesday 25 December 2001 19:17, you wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! Nothing wrong with it until it becomes the only game in town, or you have to update at an exorbitant fee every other year. With the open source programs you can see what's going on under the hood, tinker with it , fix it, or if your like me, break it. And you don't have to pay to reinstall it. The argument has always been that you can't make money with free software. What is software? It is a string of letters and symbols that in effect write a formula for a machine to operate from. I submit that folks have been making a comfortable living by selling their services using the formulas necessary to make air conditioning work, heating systems, internal combustion engines and on and on. All these things are based on public domain mathematics and formulas, but they are packaged and sold to people who want the benefits but don't have the time, knowledge or skills, or all three to make use of the formulas in a useful or productive manner. Intellectual content is ludicrous because, what the mind of one man can concieve of another can too. Case in point Edison and Tesla. Money and deciet won out. The more intelegent person was Tesla IMHO, but the formulas for the electron flows that were developed are used world wide and are free, and a lot of people make a living using them. Closed source is fine because it gives an edge to someone as a starter, but patent laws and copyright laws need to change, because the closed source community is willing to sue at the drop of a hat when someone comes out with a program or process that looks even remotely like what they do even though the thoughts behind the new process may be totally original to the individual presenting them. So you get a multimillion dollar company suing Joe Schmo and guess who will win, the money every time. You've stolen my property! Bah Humbug, ideas are no man's property. MandrakeSoft and some of the others are making a pretty fair run at making money on freesoftware because they are packaging it and presenting it in a manner that someone like me can relate to and finds useful, and they are not charging make me and my company officers filthy rich prices. $100 for an upgrade! Fixing something that should never have been broken in the first place! Thievery I call it. This is my own opinion and totally unsolicited by anyone, : ) -- Dennis M. registered linux user # 180842 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Tuesday 25 December 2001 20:08, you wrote: This is an interesting discussion. I agree with some of your points, but am not convinced by others. For example, if a company hires a dozen programmers and they spend a year creating and tweaking and debugging code, even if you think the company has no right to the *idea* (I am not convinced of that though), surely they have the right to the code itself, if they so choose? Otherwise somebody could just repackage it with much less effort and no development costs and make profit on the other company's investments. As far as $100 for an upgrade being expensive or not - I guess it depends on what the upgrade is... doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): On Tuesday 25 December 2001 19:17, you wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! Nothing wrong with it until it becomes the only game in town, or you have to update at an exorbitant fee every other year. With the open source programs you can see what's going on under the hood, tinker with it , fix it, or if your like me, break it. And you don't have to pay to reinstall it. The argument has always been that you can't make money with free software. What is software? It is a string of letters and symbols that in effect write a formula for a machine to operate from. I submit that folks have been making a comfortable living by selling their services using the formulas necessary to make air conditioning work, heating systems, internal combustion engines and on and on. All these things are based on public domain mathematics and formulas, but they are packaged and sold to people who want the benefits but don't have the time, knowledge or skills, or all three to make use of the formulas in a useful or productive manner. Intellectual content is ludicrous because, what the mind of one man can concieve of another can too. Case in point Edison and Tesla. Money and deciet won out. The more intelegent person was Tesla IMHO, but the formulas for the electron flows that were developed are used world wide and are free, and a lot of people make a living using them. Closed source is fine because it gives an edge to someone as a starter, but patent laws and copyright laws need to change, because the closed source community is willing to sue at the drop of a hat when someone comes out with a program or process that looks even remotely like what they do even though the thoughts behind the new process may be totally original to the individual presenting them. So you get a multimillion dollar company suing Joe Schmo and guess who will win, the money every time. You've stolen my property! Bah Humbug, ideas are no man's property. MandrakeSoft and some of the others are making a pretty fair run at making money on freesoftware because they are packaging it and presenting it in a manner that someone like me can relate to and finds useful, and they are not charging make me and my company officers filthy rich prices. $100 for an upgrade! Fixing something that should never have been broken in the first place! Thievery I call it. This is my own opinion and totally unsolicited by anyone, : ) -- Dennis M. registered linux user # 180842 Just to add my $1000 worth . . . In my stupider days, I needed an OCR package to convert faxes and submitted articles for my international publication. I was using win 3.1. Well, I bought my first OCR Professional package for a cool grand a) because I needed it and b) because all the reviews raved about it. I installed the package, and it didn't work as advertised. There was no recourse: buyer beware! Within a month, an upgrade became available for only $199! Well, I snapped that one up fast! It didn't work much better. So, I learned how to type -- it was faster and much more accurate than these professional packages. So it went for most of the software I bought for Win, including a very famous relational database package. The support, if you could afford it, basically told me It's your problem: you bought it. I solved my own problems with workarounds, including encrypting passwords as fake dll's . . . sigh! Thievery? Too polite a word! Extortion -- a little too harsh. (Btw: If you're interested in how copyright came about, check back into the book industry's history. It's no wonder why England's Penguin Books would not allow their books to
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Doug Lerner wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Well, commercial software for a specific purpose is OK. We are attempting to prove that alternative business models that do not restrict technical information _are_ viable. The linux distros that follow heavily commercial models are SuSE with a proprietary installer, Caldera with per-seat licensing, and to a much smaller extent, RedHat. Debian is pretty much GPL, as is Connectiva, and I have no idea about Slackware, As for my own feeling. I could be working for more money somewhere else as a developer or system administrator. I am with Mandrakesoft instead because I think technical information belongs to the human race as a whole. There is too much potential for a corporation to keep something secret, or to buy out developments and restrict them because current technology hasn't been milked dry yet. I personally know of an engine with two moving parts, no pollution, constant torque from 0 to 1rpm, and 40 km/l kerosene and virtually no pollution. It was bought by a major manufactutrer and promptly disappeared. There are disease cures that are unprofitable to produce and so are squelched, as well. Somewhere, technically savvy people needed to take a stand and show that profit motive is not necessarily related to progress... That people also work for love of the art and an inner sense of accomplishment. As to the actions of Microsoft and its predatory practices, I find them the worst example of what is motivated by profit, something obscene and reprehensible. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 23:52:03 +1100 Sridhar Dhanapalan [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: MandrakeSoft has a policy of not supplying closed-source software. In the download edition, the only exception to this rule (out of necessity) is Netscape 4. i thought netscape was open source software? -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 11:05pm up 9 days, 14:54, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.09, 0.08 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tue, 25 Dec 2001 23:27:47 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: Maybe if they make an exception for Netscape, another good exception would be Java... how's that? -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 11:05pm up 9 days, 14:54, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.09, 0.08 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
A very interesting take on it, Civil-san. I myself hope for a good mix. The company I work for is quite decent, provides EXCELLENT support for the specialized software we sell and our customers love us and become friends. But it is expensive because it just takes a lot of time to upkeep and develop new features for, and it is not a mass-market item. So it remains proprietary. Actually, it is sort of a proprietary/open mix because the add-on scripts we provide are all open source. doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): Doug Lerner wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Well, commercial software for a specific purpose is OK. We are attempting to prove that alternative business models that do not restrict technical information _are_ viable. The linux distros that follow heavily commercial models are SuSE with a proprietary installer, Caldera with per-seat licensing, and to a much smaller extent, RedHat. Debian is pretty much GPL, as is Connectiva, and I have no idea about Slackware, As for my own feeling. I could be working for more money somewhere else as a developer or system administrator. I am with Mandrakesoft instead because I think technical information belongs to the human race as a whole. There is too much potential for a corporation to keep something secret, or to buy out developments and restrict them because current technology hasn't been milked dry yet. I personally know of an engine with two moving parts, no pollution, constant torque from 0 to 1rpm, and 40 km/l kerosene and virtually no pollution. It was bought by a major manufactutrer and promptly disappeared. There are disease cures that are unprofitable to produce and so are squelched, as well. Somewhere, technically savvy people needed to take a stand and show that profit motive is not necessarily related to progress... That people also work for love of the art and an inner sense of accomplishment. As to the actions of Microsoft and its predatory practices, I find them the worst example of what is motivated by profit, something obscene and reprehensible. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tuesday 25 December 2001 23:27, you wrote: Doug Lerner wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Well, commercial software for a specific purpose is OK. We are attempting to prove that alternative business models that do not restrict technical information _are_ viable. The linux distros that follow heavily commercial models are SuSE with a proprietary installer, Caldera with per-seat licensing, and to a much smaller extent, RedHat. Debian is pretty much GPL, as is Connectiva, and I have no idea about Slackware, As for my own feeling. I could be working for more money somewhere else as a developer or system administrator. I am with Mandrakesoft instead because I think technical information belongs to the human race as a whole. There is too much potential for a corporation to keep something secret, or to buy out developments and restrict them because current technology hasn't been milked dry yet. I personally know of an engine with two moving parts, no pollution, constant torque from 0 to 1rpm, and 40 km/l kerosene and virtually no pollution. It was bought by a major manufactutrer and promptly disappeared. There are disease cures that are unprofitable to produce and so are squelched, as well. Somewhere, technically savvy people needed to take a stand and show that profit motive is not necessarily related to progress... That people also work for love of the art and an inner sense of accomplishment. As to the actions of Microsoft and its predatory practices, I find them the worst example of what is motivated by profit, something obscene and reprehensible. Civileme Exactly! -- Dennis M. registered linux user # 180842 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Open Source (was Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites? Now OT)
On Wed, 26 Dec 2001 11:30:18 +0900 Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] studiouisly spake these words to ponder: A little common sense can apply here. Certainly there are some examples that are obvious. For example, the letter a is obviously public domain. But C code that actually does something useful and was created with the effort of a developer - that is obviously different, isn't it? Dirt anybody can find in the ground. It doesn't mean that a beautiful clay pot that somebody creates then belongs to everybody, does it? doug Ed! I think he just called your code dirt!! -- daRcmaTTeR - If at first you don't succeed do what your wife told you to do the first time! Registered Linux User 182496 Mandrake 8.1 - 11:05pm up 9 days, 14:54, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.09, 0.08 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
The whole point of the existance of multiple GNU/Linux distros is to offer the user choice over what they want. Each distro has its own philosophy, and is made to suit the needs of a particular audience. There _are_ distros that bundle a lot of closed source tools alongside open source ones -- Mandrake Linux just isn't one of them. I personally prefer Mandrake this way, because I have great respect for the free software community. If I wasn't using Mandrake, I would probably be using Debian. On Wed, 26 Dec 2001 09:17:26 +0900, Doug Lerner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What do people think about free vs commercial software in general? I myself don't object to commercial software. In fact, I work for a company that makes very high-quality commercial software with a great, loyal customer base. Surely there is nothing wrong with paying to have software supported and updated? doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Wednesday, December 26, 2001): MAndrakesoft is committed to free software. All the Mandrake Tools are licensed under the GNU GEneral Public License and source is available. Find another major distro that does that! -- Sridhar Dhanapalan Hey, that is an implementation issue, not a design issue, so that's the point where I don't care all that much any more. I'd not be all that likely to use this feature (I still do zcat file.tar.gz | tar xvf - instead of using tar zxvf file.tar.gz, because I'm an old-fashioned old fogey. I don't need my tar-files auto-mounted for me). -- Linus Torvalds Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Go to www.sun.com/staroffice I use Star Office and have no complaints, it is M$ Office compatible. Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Doug ; Try Star Office 6.0 Beta (it's a Beta but very stable!) at www.sun.com or better yet, try Openoffice at www.openoffice.org get the 641b version for Linux and/or Windows. Includes full compatibility for MS Office XP ! and it's totally FREE ! In Either case, make sure that you get a Java Runtime Environment package running before you install the office suite. You'll want j2re - 1.3.1 for either Windows or Linux. Get that at www.java.sun.com We've been using it at the office for months without a problem on 37 PC's. Lanman P.S. Merry Christmas ! On Monday 24 December 2001 12:22 pm, you wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
On Tue, Dec 25, 2001 at 02:22:58AM +0900, Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? Doug, congrats on the successful install. I've used MacOS for years and also use MacOS X. However I've been drifting away from Apple the last few years as I don't particularly like their way of doing things. As far as I'm concerned they're not much different than M$ and would love to be in M$ position marketwise. Properietary OS'es suck wind! Anyway, in terms of office suites for Linux there are several. Abisuite, KOffice, OpenOffice and StarOffice. The latter two are from Sun and IMHO both put M$ Office in it's place and...the price is damn good - free. I installed the latest OpenOffice binary this past weekend. I'm impressed - I've been using StarOffice v 5.x previously. In case you haven't heard of it, let me introduce you to www.freshmeat.net Linux's version of VersionTracker. To find the apps I mentioned, go there and use the search facility. Merry Christmas! -- Cheers, Stephen Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
At 02:22 AM 12/25/2001 +0900, Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations Star Office 5.2 seems OK so far. So far, it reads Word documents and Excel spreadsheets OK. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
and, i know this is a long shot (please feel free to laugh at me for even asking) but do any linux spreadsheets support VBA? i have an INCREDIBLE collection of scripts I've written over the years, and i hate to give that up when i go to linux? what are my options? thanks in advance, and merry christmas to everyone ! kennM At 02:22 AM 12/25/2001 +0900, Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations Star Office 5.2 seems OK so far. So far, it reads Word documents and Excel spreadsheets OK. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations Star Office, no doubt! What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! I've tried Hancom some time ago but, the word processor runs under wine. It's lightning fast! But I could not try the 'compatibility' when you have to exchange files with the *.doc extension! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? I don't like them! But if you still need some japanese... Hamcon comes with it! Plus 2 levels of korean and 2 of chinese!! Ricardo Castanho - -- delivery NOT reliable = [EMAIL PROTECTED] == Linux user # 102240 = Machine # 96125 = Seti@home user == -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Para mais informações veja http://www.gnupg.org iEYEARECAAYFAjwnwrEACgkQqJymTCNNyXFdzACgvz+9khwSXYXuaJNoT8A1Adlg nF8AnRN6GPNd4PakstYuwnlaRm5nNSZy =mDZd -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Thanks, Lanman. I will try that out. And thanks for the hint about the Java Runtime Environment. I tried to access a web page in Konqueror that had an applet on it and was surprised to see that Java was not part of the standard install. It would be nice if it was! (One less stumbling block for people.) doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tuesday, December 25, 2001): Doug ; Try Star Office 6.0 Beta (it's a Beta but very stable!) at www.sun.com or better yet, try Openoffice at www.openoffice.org get the 641b version for Linux and/or Windows. Includes full compatibility for MS Office XP ! and it's totally FREE ! In Either case, make sure that you get a Java Runtime Environment package running before you install the office suite. You'll want j2re - 1.3.1 for either Windows or Linux. Get that at www.java.sun.com We've been using it at the office for months without a problem on 37 PC's. Lanman P.S. Merry Christmas ! On Monday 24 December 2001 12:22 pm, you wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? doug Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Thanks, Steven. Well, everybody seems quite psyched abotu OpenOffice and StarOffice. I will give those a try. Nobody seems to mention Hancom Office. Has anybody tried them? Of course free is nice, but I am not a fanatic about not purchasing software - particularly if it is nice. I think the success of Linux will depend on people being able to support themselves by developing it, and developing applications for it. Of course I am speaking as somebody who works for a company that makes software that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. :-) doug [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tuesday, December 25, 2001): On Tue, Dec 25, 2001 at 02:22:58AM +0900, Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? Doug, congrats on the successful install. I've used MacOS for years and also use MacOS X. However I've been drifting away from Apple the last few years as I don't particularly like their way of doing things. As far as I'm concerned they're not much different than M$ and would love to be in M$ position marketwise. Properietary OS'es suck wind! Anyway, in terms of office suites for Linux there are several. Abisuite, KOffice, OpenOffice and StarOffice. The latter two are from Sun and IMHO both put M$ Office in it's place and...the price is damn good - free. I installed the latest OpenOffice binary this past weekend. I'm impressed - I've been using StarOffice v 5.x previously. In case you haven't heard of it, let me introduce you to www.freshmeat.net Linux's version of VersionTracker. To find the apps I mentioned, go there and use the search facility. Merry Christmas! -- Cheers, Stephen Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Recommended office suites?
Doug, The new Star Office 6.0 beta is worth looking at. It's a full office suite, MS Office compatible and not as overstuffed at Star Office 5.2 (which is probably on your distribtion). You can grab it from the Sun site. Terry Smith Hatchville, MA On Mon, 2001-12-24 at 12:22, Doug Lerner wrote: What office suites do people recommend? I need to be compatible with Microsoft Office to at least *some* extent for: Spreadsheets Word Processing PowerPoint Presentations What do people think of Hancom Office at http://www.hancom.com. That package looks unbelievable for $49! How about the office stuff that is included with KDE? Kpresenter does not seem to be PowerPoint compatible, right? doug =_1009214578-11608-1432 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
