Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> Microsoft could do this trivially.
> 
> They butcher rtf from what I've seen.

true enough: ever looked at HTML as excreted by Word? You don't  . 
. . .


>>What are we really after here? If MSFT were broken up into Apps
>>and OSes, two separate entities, and MSApps released Office or the
>>component apps for *nix, would you buy it? Or is this all about 
>>not using any MSFT products no matter how much sense it might 
>>make? And understand, I'm aware of the predatory actions and all 
>>the rest: I think the state of the art has been set back 5-10 
>>years as a result of it all. But if you could just use the apps 
>>and they were reliable and reasonably priced, would you use them?
>>
>                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> Well, now isn't that the problem after all?

well, no, not entirely. You can't get any MSFT office apps for 
*nix at any price, reliable or no. If I were asked by the world's 
richest man -- since he only lives a few miles from me, perhaps 
I'll be in line with him at Starbucks -- what he could do for me, 
I'd want those apps to be available for all desktop OSes, 
regardless of whose OS it is.

> I think I would also add "not bloated" and "not license encumbered"
> to the mix, and probably "not scheduled obsolescence" to boot.

Agreed: so far my old office 98 docs are readable by newer 
versions, but for how long?

> If they would start playing the game fair, would stop trying to lock
> me in, and stop making everything I do obsolete ever two years, I
> might use their stuff.



-- 
Paul Beard
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206 529 8400

Be free and open and breezy!  Enjoy!  Things won't get any better so
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