RMS: Putting an End to Word Attachments

sombragris writes "I've spotted in NewsForge a very interesting editorial by none other than RMS himself on the subject of getting rid of those annoying MS Word attachment that people send. The essay is worth thinking and doubtless worth implementing." I've found that KWord and Abiword both did a fine job of reading Word files - it's the being able to Save As Word where things get messy.

Comments

Re:Same with my car

[DebtAngel]

1. Yes they do. That's why Word has patches and service packs applied to it. Word processors shouldn't have a programming language attached to them either, but Word has VBA.

2. Then explain to me why SQL Server, which can cost $5000 per processor, is closed. Stick that on a four processor machine, and you could have bought a nice car instead.

3. Not important to the argument.

I expect that for CAN$100 to $200, I am able to open up a piece of hardware and do whatever I like to it. I can take, say, the aforementioned coffee maker, and replace the power cord if the cat chews on it.

I can do the equivalent with OpenOffice or KWord, if I was sufficiently skilled. I cannot do so with Word, or any proprietary software. If there is a simple problem with the software, which I think I could fix given the source code and half an hour, I can't. I have to wait for Microsoft to do it, which they may never ever do.

That, my friend, is the point.