<quote who="Jiri Baum"> > When engaging an opponent who is cunning
8< snip 8< > it behooves one to proceed with caution. OK: Let's wear floaties! Seriously, it's a few Microsoft people at a LUG. It is not national television. About the worst that could happen is that some press dude comes along and says "Wow, those freetards sure treated Microsoft badly". I don't think most LUG leaders would let that happen anyway. > Which begets the question, is this session is likely to achieve anything > useful? I cannot see it. Practically? No. But there are plenty of impractical and possibly pointless things you can (and should) do in order to build a bridge. The culture and politics of disengagement is ugly and foolish. > If so, perhaps professionals should be asking the questions and follow-up > questions, not random geeks. Oh. Real nice. To both the professionals *and* geeks who go to LUG events. > Otherwise, we're likely to get the kind of answers that say nothing, at > best, and re-frame the debate in Microsoft's terms or otherwise mislead, > at worst. ... and yet they're still at a LUG meeting. So, fat load of good it will do for them anyway. Seriously... Microsoft is going to successfully re-frame the debate in their terms at a *LUG* meeting? Maybe your LUG is less unruly and more polite than mine. > BTW, since you mention OOXML in particular and standards in general, last > I heard OOXML is still being merrily railroaded through the ISO and > Microsoft is explicitly refusing to commit to following it, even if it > does pass. I don't think any question we ask would change any aspect of > that situation. So why have that expectation or benchmark at all? - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia http://lca2008.linux.org.au/ What do you give a bird when it has a headache? Parakeetamol. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au