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On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 12:03:11 +0000 Tom Potts <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Because however bad Windows is, there is a need for a system to replace > > it as-is. I see Web 2.0 and these fancy ideas of doing everything > > inside a browser as very far fetched. Most people want data to be > > local. > It can be local - but as every COMPANY I have worked for has been trying to > use methods to prevent this and regain control of their data. > But for a single user remember that the client and server can be on the same > machine. That creates a completely unnecessary extra layer! Bloatware! When I create a file, I want direct I/O via the kernel to the harddrive, not some mysterious network layer. > See above - you should have the power over YOUR data - your employer should > have the power over THEIR data. I am my own employer. ;-) Employers can do this anyway using VMWare. Turns out that companies don't just want access to company data, they need access to the software running at the branch level so that when things go wrong they can fix things locally. There simply isn't time to send company data to and from a central server with a national company when each of 800 branches is making 3,000 transactions a day. Broadband simply cannot cope. > > > > Documents are still paper based - the paperless office is a pipe dream. > > We can't even decide on A4 vs Letter so how on earth are web based > > documents going to work? > This e-mail works - ok the formatting aint brilliant but it works - you can > read it on the computer. I can format something in word that you cant read on > the computer. FLOSS is all about letting people do what they want - why > should you say to me that I have to use letter when I've got a browser that I > can shrink to three or four words wide and still read a non-over-the top > formatted HTML document. You don't HAVE to decide between A4 and Letter - > neither are relevant. Because documents (rather than email) end up getting printed and complex documents cannot be reformatted from A4 to Letter and back without breaking. A form may appear simple but once in digital format, it cannot be easily adjusted to a different size. Everything about documents is based on printing technology which in turn is based on finite physical measurements that differ across the world. How easy do you think it is to format a bank statement in A4 and then reformat to Letter? Some documents *have* to be printed for tax and audit reasons, important documents that must also retain their formatting so that they can be accepted as originals. When your business relies on being able to prove the flow of money to the taxman, there is simply no alternative to receiving the documents on paper. > Like I said its a M$ mindset that needs to be dumped. Not true. The paperless office is a mindset that has already been dumped in all practical terms. Don't flog a dead horse. > Like I said - we have to start considering moving out of the 80's mindset. It's older than that - paper based systems are still used because digital systems simply have not proved to be reliable long term. What's the point of storing data in Word97 when it's needed in 2006? Now things are improving on that score but there are still the problems of data persistence. We might think that data is safe on a hard drive but experience says it is not, so we use backups. Then you need some form of certification that the backups are accurate and unchanged. Then you need some form of access that can render the document precisely as it was originally created - remembering that the software that created the data may be decades old by this time. Then that access method needs also to be certified as accurate and precise so that words and particularly numbers are not displayed incorrectly. > My last job was making sure a local council web site was making sure the web > site was accessible. That means the site should be usable by the blind or > deaf. When you do that you realise that since you have to ditch the concept > of paper you concentrate on getting the ideas that the paper would contain > across. The three week meetings deciding on corporate style stand out for > their futility. Websites are transient and were never intended to transfer to paper. I'm talking of official audit trail documents like bank statements, company accounts, ... > A 'document' is there to (one would hope) disseminate some information. Its > the information that is important. And thats before you get round to > consider management and ownership of data. The document is often there to record not disseminate. In such uses, the document format itself becomes part of the data because the representation of the document MUST demonstrate that the document is original. > Consider XML - computer to computer communication that should be human > readable? Thats oxyMoronic! Nothing wrong with XML. It's more readable than RTF or CSV. > My main worry is the massive repetition of effort. > If you have central company DB which stores all you document data then you > can search it easily. If you have the traditional MS approach then you have > to ask every PC to search their word documents for the data. Oh and the sales > people never log in in case their porn is found so you never know whose done > what. But that DB cannot be accepted by external auditors so the data within it has to be reformatted into an officially acceptable format and it is THIS format that forms the basis of the data persistence requirements of the company, NOT the database. Databases, by definition, are continually changing. Audit requires that snapshots are preserved for indefinite periods in a recognisably original form. > The M$ approach is basically - never organise and we'll keep selling you more > and more powerfull versions of software to not organise on. True. > 25 years ago I could write programs with hundreds of thousands of variables > and see when each one was used or modified. The average office cant even tell > who has seen one of a couple of hundred documents and done anything about it. > Thats M$ for you - I have a computer on my desk thats 3000 times more powerful > than one from 25 years ago and I cant use it to do anything I couldn't do 25 > years ago when it comes to documents - apart from make them 'prettier'. > And FLOSS is blindly following. Not true. Just because the Office software is similar, does not mean there aren't tools that can convert that data into other forms. The problem is that these are other transient forms, it doesn't solve the problem of long term persistence - for that we still need officially recognisable printed documents, human readable. > A lot of time and effort has been spent on that and its time we remembered > that computing is data and semantics! Formatting for humans should be the > last stage in processing not the first. > Tom te tom te tom. Whatever is last will be first! If Company A format their audited data in an official form, Company B still have to read that form and enter the data manually. What is last to you is the first format received by me. I receive payments from my clients automatically but the officially recognised audit trail involves a paper-based confirmation that matches the entry on the bank statement. That confirmation now comes as a PDF but I still have to read that PDF and enter the data by hand. My client formats for humans as their last stage but their human readable format is my INCOMING data so the first stage of MY processing is to convert the human readable form to a digital form (GnuCash). For audit reasons, the confirmation MUST come in a printable form that can be authenticated by being of a recognised presentation. If I convert that PDF to HTML, it will not display precisely as the PDF and will not be accepted - the conversion could have altered the data. At every stage, the critical documents must be printable in a form that is recognisable as "official" for that data. Until there is a replacement audit system, we are stuck with paper. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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