Mark Knecht wrote: > 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 $300 and have >>>guaranteed compatibility? That's a tough sell... >> >>Hello. We should have a law which says the file formats should be >>open formats. People who write and make documents should have a vendor >>independent access to the documents. >> >>At meanwhile, why one should be able to read Word and Excel documents >>in Linux? One can always ask clients to print to the good old paper >>or to an image file. >> >>Regards, >>Juhana > > > Juhana, > We should have a law? That's a big step. It's more likely to end up > looking like DRM than something that opens word processing formats to > the world... > > But, really, why should we have a law at all? It's my business to > buy, use and get stuck inside a proprietary format that I cannot get out > of, isn't it? > > Beyond that, if my vendors and customers have chosen to be stuck in > this proprietary format, and if I want to do business with them, then I > have to use this proprietary format. Isn't that our business and not > yours or our respective governments? (Where do you live BTW?) > While in general I agree with you, the situation changes when an entity or file format reaches a 95% market saturation rate. At this point it should become a utility and should therefore be transparent to all users. Capitalism succeeds in bringing products to light but it fails once they own the market. And no I'm not a socialist, I'm a realist. > I don't think we need a law. Far from it. A lot of good it would do > to have the U.S., France and Germany arguing about what format to > choose! ;-) > > Better to let the market decide. I see the cost of M$ 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@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
