On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 10:13, Juhana Sadeharju wrote: > [ someone ] > >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 $300 and have > >guaranteed compatibility? That's a tough sell... > > Hello. We should have a law which says the file formats should be > open formats. People who write and make documents should have a vendor > independent access to the documents. > > At meanwhile, why one should be able to read Word and Excel documents > in Linux? One can always ask clients to print to the good old paper > or to an image file. > > Regards, > Juhana Juhana, We should have a law? That's a big step. It's more likely to end up looking like DRM than something that opens word processing formats to the world... But, really, why should we have a law at all? It's my business to buy, use and get stuck inside a proprietary format that I cannot get out of, isn't it? Beyond that, if my vendors and customers have chosen to be stuck in this proprietary format, and if I want to do business with them, then I have to use this proprietary format. Isn't that our business and not yours or our respective governments? (Where do you live BTW?) I don't think we need a law. Far from it. A lot of good it would do to have the U.S., France and Germany arguing about what format to choose! ;-) Better to let the market decide. I see the cost of M$ 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
