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Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners Out
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Microsoft Office 2003 bug is locking people out of their own files, specifically those protected with Microsoft's Rights Management Service. Microsoft has a TechNet bulletin on the issue with a fix. It looks like they screwed up and let a certificate expire. There's no information on when the replacement certificate will expire, though, or what will happen when it does."
Because idiots like you would complain if they didn't.
Luckily open office writes to an open, patent unencumbered format. So if you dislike the UI- find a fork with a better one. Or a completely different program.
What did I do today? Well, I didn't like the ribbon bar in the new OpenOffice, so I forked the project. I spend a few grand on new servers and I'll probably spend the better part of next week setting up mailing lists, web servers, build and test machines, etc...wait...what do you mean I'm fired?!?
No vendor lock in.
It's still vendor lock in if there's no competing product that reads their open formats. I'm also too busy/retarded/cheap to create my own.
There's no place like
DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know it's unlikely, but this is a what-if.
Would you trust it to OpenOffice? Why? Couldn't it hold your files for ransom too? It couldn't? Because the source is open you say? Having the source out there before the fact didn't help in that case, so why would it help in this case?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Have you tried Abiword?
Seriously? I haven't tried it for a few years, and I would be interested to see if it was any more capable of handling writing a letter to my Grandma than it was in the late '90s. At the time, I was looking hard to find something other than the superannuated WordPerfect to handle writing scientific reports on Linux, and AbiWord wasn't up to the job. (Note to trolls: please don't bother with shill posts for TeX/LaTex. I'm sure it's very good, but I've got work to do.)
For some years I ended up stuck on StarOffice until OpenOffice became mature enough to replace it, and Abi never got a look-in since. It's sort of a shame that the Gnome Office suite fizzled the way it did. Although Abi sucked, Gnumeric was (and presumably still is) a truly awesome spreadsheet program.
My reaction to someone sending me a MS Office document:
I’m sorry, but we do not accept files in proprietary formats. Additionally, we decided not to work with software from criminal companies.
We accept files in all open standard formats, including, but not limited to: PDF, all Open Document formats, RTF, all XML formats, PS, TXT, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, WAV, OGG, FLAC, MKV, OGM, etc.
I”m no needy loser, who caves to every shit. I have limits of the behavior that I will or will not accept. And because I’m clear about that, I don’t have to.
Same thing with women. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.