10 Dec
2003
10 Dec
'03
2:31 p.m.
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 10:13, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
[ someone ]
Juhana,
We should have a law? That's a big step. It's more likely to end up
looking like DRM than something that opens word processing formats to
the world...
But, really, why should we have a law at all? It's my business to
buy, use and get stuck inside a proprietary format that I cannot get out
of, isn't it?
Beyond that, if my vendors and customers have chosen to be stuck in
this proprietary format, and if I want to do business with them, then I
have to use this proprietary format. Isn't that our business and not
yours or our respective governments? (Where do you live BTW?)
I don't think we need a law. Far from it. A lot of good it would do
to have the U.S., France and Germany arguing about what format to
choose! ;-)
Better to let the market decide. I see the cost of M$ Office and
Crossover Office as a small price to pay, or M$ Office and Windows XP
even, vs. getting a bunch of legislators involved and getting a decision
on this in 2010. By the time there is a law the world will have moved on
making the lay ;-)
I doubt this argument means a hill of beans to someone sitting at
home, but this is the way business works. You make your choices and you
get the rewards or pay the consequences.
Cheers,
Mark
As someone who runs a business, why would I want
to pay someone $600 to
fix 10 documents when I can buy Microsoft's tools for $300 and have
guaranteed compatibility? That's a tough sell...
Hello. We should have a law which says the file formats should be
open formats. People who write and make documents should have a vendor
independent access to the documents.
At meanwhile, why one should be able to read Word and Excel documents
in Linux? One can always ask clients to print to the good old paper
or to an image file.
Regards,
Juhana