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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.
Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it
Most Word users, I expect, want to write letters to their mothers, not recompile the application.
Hogsback
Whatever you think of microsoft, .doc has become a de facto document standard, like .pdf. Pitting open source software against .doc risks marginalization. Maybe the effort should go into producing a good, free implementation of a document editor to produce .doc documents, thereby using .doc against microsoft?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
What does RMS have against MS Word? (sarcasm, people)
Honestly, the people that attach word docs are usually the people that give you a blank stare when you say words like 'linux' and 'unix'. They're the people that work in accounting and marketing that only know how to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Exchange.
If you write a polite reply, asking them (usually putting in instructions) to cut-and-paste the word doc into exchange, and send it in normal text, and an explanation why, they usually comply.
Honestly, what does RMS expect to accomplish with this editorial?
The people that read it don't send word attachments anyway.
Going in and telling people to "Stop sending documents in Word!" Is not giving people the 'choice' on what wordprocessor to use. Isn't he supposed to support the 'choice', or just his idea??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Isn't PDF a secret format too, eventhough there are readers for linux?
You don't need email with Word attachments. The problem is having such a format be so widespead that it interferes with normal communication, like email. I am a UNIX network engineer that has been bitten *many* times by the 'please send a resume as a Word doc'. That is difficult if you don't run Windows at all.
Though I generally feel RMS isn't an effective speaker, he definitely has a point here. Honestly, do people really need Word for the majority of text documents? Is everyone sending emails with tabular, image-embedded documents? I think not.
I don't think that calling Word "a secret proprietary format" (true as it may be) will make much sense to the average Windows user.
A more general issue is that all of the examples provided are political in nature.
Could one accomplish something similar with a message like "I'm sorry but I'm unable to read documents in Microsoft Word format because I use Linux. Please send your document in a format that I can read, such as ASCII Text or PDF."
Educating people about the political issues surrounding proprietary document formats isn't always appropriate in a business situation. If I need to ask a customer to use a format other than Word, I also need to be able to do it in a non-alienating way. I think that Stallman offers some good suggestions, but the specific examples he provides wouldn't work well in some social contexts.
Instead of getting on your soapbox about Word files, a much more productive approach would be to support the development and extensive testing of import filters for Word files. I have a lot of experience in this area, and I can tell you without hesitation that correctly importing Word files of arbitrary complexity is a far more difficult task than even most programmers know. The Word format has got to be one of the most Byzantine file formats ever created, especially when you start adding embedded or linked graphics.
That is, it should be possible to read and edit the same document with different open-source tools [since there is no chance that we all use the same] without loosing neither text, nor formatting or meta information (like indexes, cross-references, review marks etc...).
Ciao
----
FB
This is a meaningless point. The fact that a specific subset of users, however large, cannot get at the source has no bearing on its importance. Even though I personally can look at and understand [some] source, I would never be able to look at it all. The value is that I know that there are multiple people looking at and improving the source that I'm not looking at, and doing it from an end-user perspective, not a software-producer perspective. I may not be a kernel hacker, but someone else with my hardware is, and I benefit from the improvements he or she makes to the kernel. "I don't recompile applications" is not a reason to not use open source software.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Its really two situations. Both parties can read text while both parties may not be able to read
That said, Stallman is proposing a particularly counterproductive way to go about it. When I receive a file I can't open, I send a polite message to the effect of, "I can't read that file format. Please save the file in RTF format (Select "Save As.." from the File menu, and then choose Rich Text) and resend it. In the future, please send me files that way, so I'll be able to open them right away."
That has the advantages of a) not confusing the secretary or supplier who doesn't even know that there are different file formats with some political rant about Kenya, the Microsoft monopoly, bytes and freedom, b) doesn't convince a more knowledgeable recipient that Linux users are rabid, socially dysfunctional loons and c) is the way a decent human being behaves.
Richard Stallman probably doesn't realize that when the rest of us receive a Word attachment, it's not from a reporter seeking our views on Free Software and appreciating his tantrums as a little added color for his article, it's from a coworker just doing what any normal computer user does.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You know, I understand that RMS is trying to get at the root cause of the problem, but if he spent just a little more time promoting open source applications that can handle the Word docs instead of trashing the Word docs themselves, he'd be doing a lot more good than he'd realize. Face it: Word's "Save" icon saves documents as Word documents. Going from "Save" to "Save As..." and chosing a file type ("what's a file type?!") is a pain in the ass for many people. We should be trying to make life easier for others, not complicating their lives in order to make ours easier, particularly when it's a question of one extra step that needs to be applied on either end. Abiword, KWord, and a bunch of other applications are out there busting their ass trying to handle things like doc importing. Maybe RMS should spend a little more time applauding these groups instead of constantly being a naysayer. Or, he can keep doing as he likes, and realize that he's only serving to marginalize himself more and more...
Why study software engineering? Because 90+% of software work is done in custom applications anyways. There are far more jobs available writing order tracking systems and machine control systems than there are writing commercial software, especially now that there are only four or five companies actually doing that.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Another good idea ruined by Stallman's egocentric GNU rantings. Should .doc's be the de facto standard they seemed to be today? Absolutely not, and everyone who uses them should realize the inherent bias .doc's create.
.docs ignorant and to use scare tactics about how these files are in some witchy "secret" file format that can contain hidden personal information isn't educating people either. It's playing on the same naivety that made them succumb to using .docs at the outset! Furthermore, Stallman refuses to even use open source software (like the excellent aforementioned AbiWord) to read the file's content, which is hardly the way to begin a dialog.
.doc attachments), he's worried about closed standards. This is a good point. But instead of preaching that pdf is the answer (a paradigm shift for Word users), offer good alternatives.
.docs into .rtf when .docs are opened and creates new .rtf files, not .docs, when a user creates a new file.
.docs and save to formats Word users still understand.
But to "politely" call those who use
Stallman's not worried about secret file formats (which he should drop from those silly email replies about
* Write a vba script for Word that turns
* Suggest that they use AbiWord, something that can read
Stallman is, imo, no better than Microsoft in that he has great ideas wrung through a strange, self-serving translator that mangles the original, useful message. In MS's case, it's a profit maximization machine. In Stallman's, it's GNU. Both biases serve to dilute what could have been a well-received and useful technology or lesson, and this Word scare is another one.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I love Stallman's " polite reply" suggestions. #1 was blunt; #2 was preachy, and #3 was downright sarcastic/annoying.
:-)
Oh, wait, all three(four?) describe RMS
Seriously, half the problem is that we've got this guy, who has NO tact or social skills, as one of the most visible "lobbyists"...when asking people to do something aside from their set routine, you MUST be VERY tactful and polite...
Why do you listen to this Communist?
Some people use word because it supports documents
that are not typed in US-ASCII. Chinese, Japanese
you get the point? 300 million Americans do not
represent the whole of humanity.
At least Microsoft has made their latest OS's
totally UNICODE. I would like you to show me
a UNIX derivative OS that can say the same.
Yeah, keep looking for things to complain about.
- Penguin Kicka
How hard can it be to find a computer with Word installed? Is buying the de facto standard word processor that much to be asked?
In a word, yes.
The only reason you would NOT use MS Office is ideology.
Oh, and ideology is such a horrible thing. Ideology is what prompted colonists to buck taxation without representation too. I guess you think that's horrible as well.
Pragmatism is not such a wonderful thing. You can thank pragmatism for corporations who would rather pay MS license fees than save jobs.
Then I got a job and learnt that tolerance instead of shitty elitism is the way to go. Too bad RMS never learnt that.
Asking people to send plain-text or HTML is not "shitty elitism" -- it's asking people to recognize that they are non-proprietary formats that anyone can view on any platform. How is that bad? Maybe you don't like RMS' phrasing, which is understandable because he tends to devolve into hippy-ish terminology, but the ideas are valid.
Asking people not to send MS attachments, politely, is not fanaticism. It's an attempt to change people's minds. You don't like it? Fine, but don't call it fanaticism, because it's not. It's simply a viewpoint that's different than yours. He has a right to express it. If you think differently, (that he shouldn't express it, not that you don't agree) perhaps RMS isn't the fanatic here.
You didn't learn tolerance, you conformed. There's a difference. Tolerance would be understanding that the world is not fully comprised of Microsoft Word users, and that there are people who do not want to be forced to use Word to correspond with the people who choose to -- or who simply don't think about it at all.
When you send them polite reply that they should send normal email in text format, attach only pre-written documents if there's no way to convert into another format that engineers can read. The next thing you know, you get a review of having a bad attitude and you don't want to cooperate. And you know where that comments come from, right?
It's a royal pain in the butt when you have one Windows machine shared between 20 engineers all working on Unix.
A couple months ago someone gave a presentation at the local LUG (www.aclug.org) on staroffice.. The guy who gave the presentation claimed that He has been using Staroffice for many months in a large M$ Office oriented employer.. After months of composing and sharing documents made in staroffice with microsoft office and vice versa he never encountered a compability problem. In fact, no one has noticed that he has NOT been using Microsoft Office. After the meeting I installed staroffice on my teen sisters debian box I made for her.. She has been tickled pink over the fact that she can now work on power-point presentations and word documents at both home and school.. As for my self I do have staroffice 6 installed but I rarely use it for my line of work, but it seems to have way better compability (did i mention Office XP compatible?) than any other office software I have used for linux..
Nice argument, but it doesn't work here, because:
1) Cars require regular maintenance. Word processors don't (or shouldn't).
2) Cars cost hundred times more than word processors.
3) Amortization and used car sale.
More appropriate comparison would be with something like your coffee maker. Many of us use things every day, but we don't care what's inside.
Before you flame me for that subject line let me explain.
.DOCs not as just a unreasoned preference but as an intelligent decision.
Browse Slashdot at -1. How many of those trolls would you not need to beat with a clue-by-four within an inch of their lives to get them to post on-topic? (I don't mean just once or sometimes, I mean forever and always.)
My sister is like this. Every six months I get another chain letter from her ("Re: New Virus Warning" or maybe "Re:Great Internet Snowball Fight 2005"). I do not like chain letters. They are spam; I filter them as such. Each time she sends me a chain letter, I send a very polite "don't do this again; chain letters go to my trashcan"-style response.
Maybe I ought to take a clue from RMS; tell her that I believe chain letters consumes network resources, that massive numbers can become counter productive-- in short all the standard anti-spam arguments. If I present myself calmly and rationally I expect (from experience) that she will stop. If I do a really good job, maybe she'll change her opinion. Take this example from letter 2: "Receiving Word attachments is bad for you because they can carry viruses" is calm, well spoken, and provides a reason that the sender may never want to see another Word file themselves. Spoken in this manner they might see your "opinion" against Word
Something tells me that's the reason my sister keeps sending me spam: I've never really told her why I want her to stop (just been a prick and threatened to trash her emails to me, if in a polite manner).
Do you like Japanese imports?
RMS sometimes lives in a fantasy world, as evidenced by this quote from the article:
I hate to break it to you, Robert, but the vast majority of computer users couldn't program their way out of an "if" statement. And they don't want to program. You and I may have a grand time exploring code and writing software; most people just want to sit down, write a note to Aunt Emma, read the joke their kid sent them from college, or check the latest football score. They want to play Quake, not write it.
The freedom to examine a program's source code is meaningless to 99% of computer users. They'd rather spend a hundred (or two) bucks on an upgrade than learn C...
Now, as for getting rid of Word attachments, I totally agree. I also despise HTML e-mail. I'd love for them to go away -- but even some programmers I know can't send an e-mail unless it contains a dozen fonts and background images. And don't forget its easy to be on a religious crusade when you don't live in the real world. You may be able to tell people to stop sending Word attachments; I say such a thing to a potential client, and I guarantee they'll hire someone else.
I note that O'Reilly, supposed scion of Open Source, uses Word for all of its book publishing. I spent more time fiddling with their damned Word templates than I did writing a book (not yet printed)... but was I going to refuse a book contract because they kept mailing Word docs around? I think not...
All about me
RMS is a Free Software advocate. Free Software is political because it's about rights and freedom.
And the whole thrust of this article was not "Let's convince people to send us documents we can read" it was "Let's use the issue of not being able to read these documents to promote the wider issue of Free Software".
I happen to disagree with RMS but what he's saying is totally consistent with his beliefs. I would no more expect him to use 'non-political' examples than I would for him to call GNU software Open Source.
Once again, RMS has turned something mundaine, such as reading your email, into a political statement. For 99.9999% of all people who use the computer the whole point of using the computer is so that they can do their job better. They don't make the decision about which software packages to buy. They don't make the decision about what format to use to save file. They don't know the difference between RTF and DOC formats. They couldn't read HTML if it reached out and bit them in the butt.
.DOC documents and, believe it or not, I'm not concerned about my older documents becoming unreadable. What Stallman forgets is that the format is as much a straight jacket for Microsoft as for anybody else. Sure you may or may not be able to read a ten year old document but I would bet that twenty years from now I will still be able to read documents I write this year. It's entirely possible that this will be true a hundred or even a thousand years from now.
.NET adds a whole bunch of new key words to C++. You could also refuse to use a compiler built and sold by Microsoft. Write code that only works on Linux. Work on things that make computing better, not just more difficult.
All they want to do is read their email and use their documents. If they have to forward it on to someone else then they just want to take the document and drop it in a letter and send it on. They don't want to have to deal with the complete and total hassle of opening the document and saving it off as some sort of Stallman approved attachment and then dropping that into an email attachment.
The whole point behind the computer age is that these machines are supposed to make our lives easier. I for one could care less who owns the format for Microsoft
The other possibility is that Microsoft obsoletes documents written more than seven or some years ago. This is, of course, nutty because Microsoft's customers would sue them into the poor house, or worse, just stop buying upgrades.
Think I'm wrong, take a look at how long it took for them to get ride of the 8086 stuff, and that was an idea everybody agreed on.
I understand Stallman's political point but what he is doing is guaranteeing that he never sees another email from someone who uses Word. His proposed solution is little more than taking a tiny sharp stick and digging it around in an open wound. Or worse, its just another rock in the shoe of life.
Want to make a political statement? Then ask why
Beware the wood elf!!!
Get real.
If you email someone saying not to send Word documents (and I know this from experience), they are baffled. They don't know what file formats are. They don't know what ascii text is. They don't even know how to copy-n-paste for Pete's sake!!!
Asking actual end-users to use a different format, or copy-n-paste text, is like asking a monkey to set the table.
Plus, you come across as an elitist geek snob. Joe Jackass end-user couldn't care less about proprietary formats, open source, operating systems, etc. Until this elementary fact is well understood, open-source will continue to get the cold shoulder from the 90% of people out there who qualify as "end-users".
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Look, I'm a consultant. Staying employed requires that I make my clients happy, and part of doing that is making them feel that doing business with me is an effortless task.
Clients, unconsciously, have a scale in their head that weighs how much they've put into me versus how much they've received back from me. Every little thing I ask them to give me or do for me reduces their perception of the benefit/cost ratio, and reduces the likelyhood they'll use my services again. Really, clients generally want me to come in and pull a completed job out of thin air with no assets from them, and much as they technically understand that they have to give me stuff to work with they don't actually like it.
So, I make a point to bend over backward for the client on the little stuff so that when I do have to ask the client for something, it's always something that's really important to the project. Convincing them to support free software does not constitute "important to the project".
I can just imagine telling a client I can't read their Word file. They'll think I'm incompetent for being improperly equipped and replace me.
Like it or not I'm stuck with Word unless a court breaks up the Microsoft monopolies and businesses start using more of a variety of software. I can give my clients PDFs, but that isn't going to change their file habits anytime soon.
Stallman: Someone I know was unable to apply for a job because resumes had to be Word files. Even governments sometimes impose Word format on the public, which is truly outrageous.
It's a stupid requirement, sure, but would you hire someone who can't (or won't) problem-solve? Apart from the obvious technical solutions, you could go to Kinko's, or ask a friend, or whatever. If this is a showstopper for a job applicant, they're either an idiot or a prima donna.Neither one makes a very good employee.
"Oh, and ideology is such a horrible thing. Ideology is what prompted colonists to buck taxation without representation too. I guess you think that's horrible as well. "
It's always so funny to see people with such simple problems trying to compare them to matters of great import.
That is the very definition of a fanatic.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This question ranks up there with, "Well, if the problem is that it takes a long time to download stuff over the Internet, why doesn't everybody just get DS-3 lines to their house? Duh."
The reason we're often dependent on the name to determine the type of a file is that so far, it seems to be the only thing that really makes sense. Requiring that an OS read the beginning of a file to determine its type isn't practical: consider the case when you open up a directory full of files, and every one has to be read in order to determine its type. Plus, any files you have that don't conform to your header standard - basically, anything that adheres to any other standard - won't show up correctly. And what do you do when the "file" is actually a block device on a *NIX system?
Using file extensions to determine the type of a file is a good idea in general, that was made into a requirement on the Windows platform. Maybe MS could have gone about it better, but I'm not going to fault them for the decision.
Oh, by the way: if you're really intent on escaping that "legacy" of DOS/Windows, just use Linux (or whatever). You can name executable files whatever you want. (although you may fuck up your terminal when you try to read it using "more". Been there, done that.)
So, my father, who's computer did not come with Office but came with MS Works, should go out and spend another $400 on Office so he can open one email attachment (yes, he can use a viewer, but in this case he was asked to make corrections to the attachment and send it back).
Or, he should steal it?
Isn't politely asking the user to send it in another format, one that they have in common, a better answer?
I use Word attachments every day. I couldn't do my job without them.
Is Word the best thing since sliced bread? No.
Is Word worth using? Yes.
The main thing I use Word for, besides all the fancy formatting stuff which is not even strictly necessary, is collaboration/reviewing. I write professionally, and I need to be able to track changes through several review cycles (editors, client, legal, publication). To my knowledge, no other widely-available word processing solution supports these features, at least not the extent the .doc format does.
But it's still not enough to make me use MSWord for all my editing (although I keep a copy in my VMware Win98 just in case). I use StarOffice 6 and love it. I really only have two qualms about it:
When I first switched to using Linux full-time for work, nobody at the office noticed. (I telecommute, so no one could actually see my desktop.) At the time, I was using Mandrake + KMail + StarOffice 5.2 -- the only one who knew about it was the editor directly above me, and he's cool with Linux. (Even he wouldn't have known if I hadn't told him.)
What I mean to say is: the Word .doc format has a number of very useful features I couldn't live without. But that doesn't mean I have to use Word. In Evolution, I can open Word attachments in StarOffice seamlessly -- and since StarOffice doesn't quite support VB, I've yet to find a document which could cause damage to my system.
I do agree, however, that you shouldn't use .doc files when something simpler or lighter (like plain text) would do the job as well. I'm involved with PR, and I've seen embarrassing things happen to clients when someone stupid converts a Word doc to HTML and posts it on their site. One page had internal tracking info in the title which actually referred to a different project which had been used as source material. On the website, this information was paraded across the title bar.
Tangent: why does Word include a "title" field in the document properties which it never displays to the user? Word's titlebar just shows the filename without path -- for me, a completely useless piece of informaiton, since I often have identically-named but very different files in separate sections of my file tree. StarOffice's title bar (which displays the contents of the "title" field) is much, much better... yet another reason to use .doc, and just not use M$Word.
Hey, sorry to ramble on like this.... just my two and a half cents.
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
I run linux because I believe it's a better system. My computer doesn't crash, I don't have to upgrade my system every time a new version is released, and I have massive amounts of free (as in beer) software to play with. The fact that I agree with much of the ideology is a bonus, but wasn't enough to get me over to linux until I found that it suited my needs much better than Windows did.
I think that's why most linux-users use linux. I recall that the reason I first used it was because Windows 95 sucked really badly(crash, crash, crash. Even when I wasn't moving the mouse, even with a fresh, clean install. Call it hardware problems, but every other OS ran without any problems.)
Later I found out it was free and the code was available, and I thought "Cool! I legally own this software!", and it was a bonus.
The person above has apparantly never needed to pay for his software, nor does he have a problem with people being forced to buy redundant copies of software(I use lotus wordpro or Cetus WordPad -- why the hell should I be forced to pay for software I consider inferior, especially when it's so damn expensive?)
It's been a long time.
The problem here is that an average person does not care about making the future better for everybody. They just care about saving time and money. Now, an average linux user does care about making the future better for everyone, but linux users are few and far between. Instead of trying to guilt-trip the user into submission, it might be better to say,
>|<*:=
Actually, the word you're looking for is "concise" not simplistic.
No, the word I was looking for to convey the meaning of 'simplistic' was 'simplistic.'
*sigh*
Elitism is not the same thing as disliking or even hating proprietary software. Please, for the love of whatever God you worship and the good of humanity, buy a fscking dictionary and look words up before you use them. It degrades the language when you don't use it properly.
(And that is probably a good example of me being an elitist language snob, which doesn't bother me in the least. I have a funny idea that people should be able to master their native language...)
RMS isn't asking that people use *Free* Software to send email, merely that they don't use proprietary formats. That's not unreasonable. Granted, RMS would probably prefer it if you did, but that's not the discussion here. Discussion works much better if you limit yourself to the actual discussion rather than trying to re-frame the discussion.
Yes, let's not be software Nazis. Let's all use software that can communicate in open formats so that everyone can use what they want. I agree with that. That doesn't discount Word, either -- it just means that they have to hit "save as" and choose text or HTML. Unfortunately, when someone chooses to send Word docs, they're forcing me to:
A. Give up my preferred program for reading email and open the attachment in another program. (I also despise HTML and PDF for this, but that's just a general hatred of attachments...)
B. Adopt a program I don't like and do not wish to pay for.
C. Not read the attachment.
Asking people to send a non-proprietary format is not unreasonable.
Asking that no one dare bring the topic up because it disagrees with your world-view and because you happen to think that everyone should just conform and use YOUR choice is unreasonable.
So it does kindof compel users to upgrade, wouldn't you say?
a.
R T F
ScienceSeeker.org
Dear Mr. Stallman,
Your overly "closed-minded" and selfish approach to a simple obstacle has confirmed our suspicion that you are an idiot.
When you come to work on Monday, you will find that your security card has been disabled. Please contact the security team for an escort into the building, they will be expecting you. You will have 30 minutes to clear your personal belongings from the building and un-ass the premises.
For future reference, the world owes you nothing. If you choose to use a non-industry standard word processor, please expect to put up with, and overcome, such trivial inconveniences.
>You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format so it is hard for me to read.
>If you send me plain text, HTML,
>or PDF, then I will read it.
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
Hey moderator (the one who marked the above as flamebait): Fuck off!
Now that was flamebait (or maybe a troll). My original statement, as much as you may disagree with it, was dead on. Just ask anyone who deals with customers.
Dinivin
Liberty in your lifetime
Sure you can. You just have to use VBA rather than hacking the source of the program itself. People have made all kinds of modifications to Word via a robust and well-documented API. I'd argue that's more useful for most people than monkeying around with the source code (which makes the software unsupportable, from a Microsoft point of view -- "Yeah, I've been getting fonky crashes since I tweaked the spell-check algorithm....").
Use LaTeX!