Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: M$ Word -- Bad

[ian]

On Sat, 2003-06-07 at 01:08, Ramanan Selvaratnam wrote:
> Chris Croughton wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 07:21:54PM +0100, Ramanan Selvaratnam wrote:
> >
> >  
> >
> >>If people cannot understand why they should use RTF instead of word we 
> >>should really tell them that they  need some basic education without 
> >>being shy about it.
> >>I did not know of RTF for a very long time until a free software 
> >>advocate told me about it.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >I thought RTF was a proprietary format.  
> >
> Thanks for the info ...a quick google search brings about a lot of 
> negative things about RTF too.
> But I guess it is still a 'shared non-proprietary format' ....with plus 
> points of being comparatively small filesize  and universally supported.


It is limited though so something like OO.org would be a better bet. XML
with compression. Only real snag is that to read such a file you need to
install OO.org which is a non-trivial download! There is at least one
project which works something like this (I think). You send an OO.org
attachment to someone without OO.org. The E-mail provides a link to a
site with OO.org so the file can be up loaded, read and displayed back
in the users web browser. Similar principle then to Acrobat reader but
the "reader" stays on a server somewhere not on your hard drive. Once a
lot of people send attachments as OO.org people will start installing
it. Well that's the theory anyway. 

> Maybe someone else who knows more on this issue should comment
> 
> I will update the list if there is anything worthwhile comes my way on 
> this matter.
> 
> >Admittedly it's one which MS
> >make available, but it's also under their control to change the spec.
> >any time they want (and they do, there are some constructs they have
> >used which weren't in the spec. available at the time).
> >  
> >
> Hmm, the same should be said of widely used fonts and other specs. that 
> come out of M$'s vast IT resources.
> You are correct though,  in pointing out thier untrustworthiness as a 
> major factor to consider.

Thing is that there are better alternatives,just difficult to get them
widely adopted. One thing on our side is that as bandwidth goes up and
hardware increases in power, its only a matter of time before things
like XML with readers writers and file transfer establish themselves
because you will have thin client access to tools like OO.org instantly
over the net. Not really a matter of if but when.

-- 
ian <address@hidden>