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I cant help getting the feeling that M$ may have won here.
Theres massive amounts of FUD and general confusion over what or what not the
M$/Novell issue really means.
It would appear that by giving $400 Million to Novell M$ has effectively
written them off as part of the FLOSS movement.
We are barking on about how to achieve control of our word documents and
bemoaning the fact that the ECMA has agreed to M$ XML standard - though on
reality the 12000 pages of 'explanation' that go with it means that hardly
anyone (even Novell?) will ever use it.
Why?
Because subconsciously we have all been pushing the M$ agenda all the time.
We have not been saying, as I believe we should have been:
'Well Word really is history. In a day of the internet and reasonable
monitors it really is antediluvian to think of documents in terms of A4
paper.
As a computer user you should really be thinking in terms of how to manage
your data and not climbing on every bandwagon of style and colour schemes
that some maniac in the design department comes up with.'
And then we should be putting putting forward a case for a really useful
alternative to the M$ 'Its the same rubbish but in green this time' that
patently doesn't work but bleeds individuals and companies dry and has left
computing in the 1980's.
I think we all agree that M$ is probably the most un-innovative company ever.
So why do we waste our lives trying to promote a replacement for what, by our
own definition, must be a heap of guano?
Tom te tom te tom
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