10 Dec
2003
10 Dec
'03
2:45 p.m.
Mark Knecht wrote:
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 10:13, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
While in general I agree with you, the situation changes when an entity
or file format reaches a 95% market saturation rate. At this point it
should become a utility and should therefore be transparent to all users.
Capitalism succeeds in bringing products to light but it fails once they
own the market. And no I'm not a socialist, I'm a realist.
[ 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?)
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 $300 and have
guaranteed compatibility? That's a tough sell...
Hello. We should have a law which says the file formats should be
open formats. People who write and make documents should have a vendor
independent access to the documents.
At meanwhile, why one should be able to read Word and Excel documents
in Linux? One can always ask clients to print to the good old paper
or to an image file.
Regards,
Juhana I don't think we need a law. Far from it. A lot
of good it would do
to have the U.S., France and Germany arguing about what format to
choose! ;-)
Better to let the market decide. I see the cost of M$ 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 ;-)
Market forces are irrelevant when a monopolist owns 95% of the market.
Agreed about the length of time it would take to litigate/legislate such
a matter.
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.
There are no choices to make, even now. That's why capitalism fails
where a monpoly is concerned. The toothless agreement MS made with the
US last year should have been thrown in the trash, and their (MS's) file
formats opened and frozen in time *or* held open (by mandate) for e.g.
10 years.
Microsoft has given up their right to rely and depend upon market forces
and to run unfettered. Their office suite is now a utility and should be
treated as such. Of course, the Bush Administration is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of corporate America, and is *not* interested in messing with
the status quo, so nothing will change in the forseeable future.
Adam Smith never meant for 1 corporation to to own 95% of a planetary
market, surely.
Off-topic, but interesting :)
Cheers,
Mark
JB
// John Bleichert
// syborg(a)earthlink.net