but they can sell it in shops. They're about to. They had to modify the game, but 0 profit was never a true possibility.
And selling in shops makesm ore sense. I can browse through a store (we have many systems, so I can browse through the whole store), and I'm having fun and looking at the cool boxart, etc. I buy something, and if I forget I had it, I might trip over it five years later. I'm getting a hell of a lot for my money.
I stopped playing Warhawk, but I'm sure in five years I will give it another go. If it were just a download, I'd probably forget all about that thing.
That's a very unique opinion. Even Microsoft abandoned the original XBOX controller.
The Sony (sorta SNES) model of controller is perfect. It's also a great brand image, now that over half a billion of them have been sold. I would love to see that left stick move to the dpad, but it's still a nice comfy controller.
They best thing about it is how symmetrical it is. Unlike the xbox controllers, it's easy to use for anyone, pretty much immediately. Granted, I prefer the 360 controller, but the dualshock is more obvious.
And note that the N64 had very few games compared with either playstation, driving up sales of the ok games. Goldeneye and the Zeldas were fantastic oasises in the desert. No wonder they sold well.
Take any Stephen Spielberg movie - change the credit to Stephen King and the raters will automatically drag the ratings up one level. Compare IT to Poltergeist.
And you can't conflate sex with violence, but that's what these ratings do. Parents are the key. But the problem in our society is that parents are never asked to do anything - because parents vote and you can't insult the voters and win elections. So politicians try to do all the parenting they can.
This isn't a democrat v republican thing, this is a universal problem. My kids don't seem to have any problems, and yet they have access to some material that is rated R because I know how to chose.
That gave my heart a nice warm feeling to imagine, but there really isn't anything illegal about a minor buying an M game. It's just the ESRB's opinion, and they cannot make law. Those ratings were designed to placate moralists.
Jack knows he will lose. He wants to get enough of the Tipper Gores in the world angry about this inability to enforce the ratings. No telling what effect that would have. I think it would actually be fine for gaming. Jack's just an idiot.
the watch's in stock status has nothing to do with patent law. I was making a non sequiter observation.
I should check the cache, but often things are "out of stock" forever, and the page is a placeholder. I was just pointing out that it's hard to find this for sale direct to the states (though of course it's going to exist.
I could easily be wrong, of course, and this watch is available, but the fact is that there are some huge patent issues in this country that present some problems that shouldn't exist. Obvious technologies are patented, and it's a huge risk to bring the best products to market.
Oh, and if this watch were waterproof, I would buy it for $100. Why not? 2 gigs at that resolution is a lot of DVDs. Or it would make a neat TV for my girl's doll house!
The watch is not available at thinkgeek. Try to buy one if you don't believe me.
This article and description are sensationalist, but the fact remains that patent law in the states is broken. It hampers innovation and keeps great products from being made or sold here.
It's an interesting perspective to see black markets driving up the price as evidence that it is more cost effective. You're right... but this still makes like harder for the subject of the prohibition (the drug user or Burma for censor software). Still... my fault for putting it in the perspective of the seller. I think it could be argued that it's not more cost effective for black marketers. Al Capone did not do as well as Anheuser-Busch does. Though Al being a thug benefited from the black market, the sellers at large and in general did not benefit. That's my argument anyway.
re: the general moral issue, I think it's tough to agree on what rights the Burmese have against us. It's nice to talk about justice as fairness or universal principles or rights, but laws are meant to do two things: express outrage and regulate. If society funds X outrageous enough, then it outlaws it. All those constitutional issues are hogwash; we would overcome them if we were outraged enough. the regulation argument is easier (but less helpful). I simply think that selling Burma this technology is something society ought to be pissed off about. And if you want to discuss it about rights, it's easy to claim that there is a universal right to live in a society where fascists do not censor my communication about what they are doing (and thus, there should be a ban on selling the means for that censorship to fascists). Who knows?
I think it's cute that you have thin skin about being called a mere "knucklehead" as my response to an accusation that I am a god damned thief (apparently stealing is the norm in your circle, but it's not the norm). I also like how you're no longer the boss with an attitude. But I won't give you a hard time for improving your tone, and I like that you're self aware enough to adjust.
I don't think it's very relevant that you have a boss (who doesn't). I was just responding to some silly braggadocio on your part about forcing others to use programs they don't want. Instead of telling people about how great open office is (it isn't, if they ready own office, but you're entitled to your opinion) you just send them unusual file formats and point them to a relatively shitty program. Your customers are paying too much, since your partners could be saving money by not having to deal with that behavior (hypothetically... you hopefully didn't really act that way to someone who actually knows you).
Office is such a tiny little expense when compared to time.
Responding to your confusion: When I said you can use.doc as an online format, I meant that you have the ability to use.doc as an online format. I have no idea what your level of english or computer literacy is, but I assure you that this isn't hard to do, though you have to use the correct program. The sentence seems clear to me, but you seem to be insisting on running all files through firefox, which wasn't stipulated. I also noticed that you didn't understand what I meant when I said that Microsoft has a stranglehold on a dinosaur market. Your response was to stick with odf, when obviously open office is in the same dinosaur market. Just an interesting limitation on your perspective I noticed.
There is no need to be zealously in favor of a stupid program. Open Office is remarkable, but it's not something you would want to use in a successful company. If openoffice is really about freeing the consumer from the monopoly, you've got to do better than clone the monopoly. It's a simple and obvious point. Open Office is just slower, less familiar, and therefore more expensive than Office. Other solutions (like actual browser friendly word processors) are a much better place for open source programmers to devote their time.
I can't stand the lack of choice out there either. But you can't beat Microsoft with Lindows and Open Office. That's the cheap approach, and cheap costs too much money in the long run.
yeah yeah yeah, Godwin. Except that I'm exactly right to make the banal observation that selling rat poison to Hitler is a special problem. Some things can uniquely be used to control. We can't forsee the future, but we can use as much sense as we can to limit software that prevents human rights workers from exclaiming their distress.
Morality is the basis of law. What else are we supposed to base our laws on? Efficiency? That's utilitarianism. If we know something is immoral to a level that is outrageous, then we make it a felony. This helps to adjust the market, of course, so that it is not cost effective to sell weapons to bastards.
Adam Smith was describing nature. Marx was inventing the concept of capitalism to describe the problems he saw in our system. What Marx explained was certainly not to be seen in Adam Smith's account. I understand I'm being unclear. Think of it like this: Adam Smith was the scientist describing Ted Bundy's physical body. Marx was the guy pointing out, for the first time, that Ted Bundy was doing specific things that were bad.
I don't understand your comment about selling weapons to the freedom fighters in Burma (if there are any left). What does that have to do with what we're talking about? Specifically as a comparison to censorship software. Are you claiming that somehow this software, in the right hands, can overthrow the Burmese government?
I think you got lost in the analogy and forgot it wasn't real (China gives weapons to the Burmese government for free, etc)
I know there is one such company in my town (though I have never actually seen one of these cars), but I'm talking about a much larger scale that requires tax money. Washington DC spends around 19k per citizen on its subway system. But in many cities, trains won't work well, so spend 10k per citizen on cars.
One hundred thousand community cars in Houston, for example. With some sort of security system in place. I think this would prove cheaper and more effective. And no one would missuse the system because people are morally wonderful.
Of course we shouldn't sell weapons to Burma. You're kidding, right? That's like selling bullets to a semi-Hitler.
It's not your fault if you're not aware of just how oppressive and violent the government is there (how could anyone keep up with all the monsters in the world?), but it's pretty bad there.
And no disrespect intended, but being a capitalist does not mean being a nihilist in business. There is absolutely no sense to that idea. Capitalism was invented by Karl Marx, by the way, as a way of describing the absence of an economic system. In other words, nature.
In favoring free markets, there is no reason not to disincentivize barbaric governments.
But I agree with you insofar as you make no distinction between this type of software and bullets.
This is like selling rat poison to Hitler. Sure, there could be a legit use if we bury our heads in the sand. Sell Burma medicine, food, heating oil, basic things like that. Don't sell them weapons or tools whose main purpose is to impose policy. Generally speaking, there is a broad category of things that are inherently about control. Weapons and this software are included.
You are talking about multi level parking spaces, right? where the car is placed on top of another car in a ground level garage? They've had those in the states for a while too.
I have never seen anything like what the articles describes in Europe or Russia, and I think I would have noticed. This is about bringing a car up thirty stories to your personal apartment.
Plenty of fodder to attack america with is you are really keen on doing so, but we are still the home of many inventions. We ain't Japan, but we produce our share of patents.
More details? Open Office takes much longer to load and uses more Ram and takes longer to do everything.
That's a very common complain, as you admit. Do you have any reason to believe this isn't true?
I didn't steal software, knucklehead. Office is worth its price, since it's an excellent program. 2007 sucks ass, but 97-2003 are awesome.
you can use.doc as an online format. You don't seem to be computer literate.
And nobody is going to thank you for refusing to use the normal document format. You can just tell them to use open office without forcing it (funy that you do this and then complain about closed formats... what a nut).
As for your braggadocio, I'm retired, so I don't have to deal with oversensitive weirdos like you who act tough on the internet and are always claim to be hyper-successful. People who are this loyal to any program are nuts. Office is much cheaper than openoffice for any reasonably sized business for the same reason XP is cheaper than Ubuntu: many employees learned how to use computers in public school at best.
Your business that you are the boss of grossed what this quarter? Successful businesses take a lot of work to run. You implied that you are the owner of your business, but your posting history is always in the 9-5 range, implying you are using a company computer to surf the internet all day instead of work hard at an interesting job. You don't seem to be at work after 5. Who is it who is making you come in each day exactly from 9 to 5? Why aren't they giving you work interesting enough to keep you off slashdot for several hours every day?....could it be.... that you have a boss and a boring job?
Making up office software domination stories is not exactly a high point in your life, I bet. Take some advice from me, I've been around the block and can smell bullshit like your two posts, but I also do care because I've been in your shoes: start that business if you really want it. Whatever it is you are really good at, just do it now. Don't be an asshole about it (for example, by sending obscure file formats to stick it to MS), but have fun and make money the only smart way, by invsting your capital in a business of your own. Your job is obviously not fulfilling, and the security it offers you is worthless. You only live once, my friend.
Saddam did, in fact, try to get PS2s. Mainly because Saddam was an idiot. Sony made hay out of the story because Sony (then) was really smart about publicity.
We let the USSR get computers for missile simulations in the 80s. For some reason, those computers actually sent Russian efforts backwards. Almost as though we were being tricksy. I wonder if the PS2 thing was a similar effort that went afoul.
The parent didn't say anything controversial. The PS3 has a fast processor for limited applications. You check people's post history to see if they like Sony? Are you some kind of OSD loony? If so, I think that's that's cool. Crazies are like society's spices.
pdf is a great example. You don't have to install several hundred megs to read one, so I can expect everyone to be able to read what I send. Unfortunately, a text copyable.pdf encoder can be expensive, so I doubt you can communicate well by.pdf without using a solution like that. I guess the counter to that is that.pdfs always look exactly as you wanted them to, which is good for precision communications.
And don't you guys use GIS (if you're civil) or CAD? What are you communicating by.pdf? General work details, personnel stuff, etc?
It's only not important to you because you don't feed hundreds of families with media sales. That stuff is highly in demand in our culture, takes a lot of money to make in most cases, and is easy to steal.
It's important because we come together and elect people to make laws, and we all benefit from the peace and security we get from a lawful society. Picking the laws we agree with is villainous.
Artists who have zero rights to their work contracted them away. For money. Artists are the very lowest and most common element in most forms of art today. Other people do the real work. You can easily get another artist... look at the American Idol hysterics. Artists have very little to offer, so they don't get a great deal. Those artists who are willing to do all the work on their own don't have to contract their rights away. I don't understand why you are whining about this. It's not a problem; it's a good thing.
pretty sure you're full of it, man. IF you already had office paid for, why would you want openoffice? I think openoffice is excellent, but when I gave up on Office 2007, I installed Office 2003.
If some moron told me to install an entire office program (A sluggish one that cloned the one I already have, at that), I would email his boss and ask for the correct file format. It's common sense. IF you abuse your position to have people install redundant software, you probably won't be in that position for very long. It's like sending your files in Spanish..doc is the format of business.
Microsoft has a stranglehold, but it's on a dinosaur. Software like this should not be locally installed, it should be online so you can easily collaborate. Beating Microsoft by copying them is silly because they will always be a step ahead.
Slashdot Mirror
but they can sell it in shops. They're about to. They had to modify the game, but 0 profit was never a true possibility.
And selling in shops makesm ore sense. I can browse through a store (we have many systems, so I can browse through the whole store), and I'm having fun and looking at the cool boxart, etc. I buy something, and if I forget I had it, I might trip over it five years later. I'm getting a hell of a lot for my money.
I stopped playing Warhawk, but I'm sure in five years I will give it another go. If it were just a download, I'd probably forget all about that thing.
That's a very unique opinion. Even Microsoft abandoned the original XBOX controller.
The Sony (sorta SNES) model of controller is perfect. It's also a great brand image, now that over half a billion of them have been sold. I would love to see that left stick move to the dpad, but it's still a nice comfy controller.
They best thing about it is how symmetrical it is. Unlike the xbox controllers, it's easy to use for anyone, pretty much immediately. Granted, I prefer the 360 controller, but the dualshock is more obvious.
That is a Nintendo 64 game.
And note that the N64 had very few games compared with either playstation, driving up sales of the ok games. Goldeneye and the Zeldas were fantastic oasises in the desert. No wonder they sold well.
Too true.
Take any Stephen Spielberg movie - change the credit to Stephen King and the raters will automatically drag the ratings up one level. Compare IT to Poltergeist.
And you can't conflate sex with violence, but that's what these ratings do. Parents are the key. But the problem in our society is that parents are never asked to do anything - because parents vote and you can't insult the voters and win elections. So politicians try to do all the parenting they can.
This isn't a democrat v republican thing, this is a universal problem. My kids don't seem to have any problems, and yet they have access to some material that is rated R because I know how to chose.
I totally agree with this.
Jack is making the anti-gaming censors look like assholes who want to take fun away from adults and are willing to invent bullshit problems.
All speech will have its enemy. Gaming is lucky that its enemy is this pathetic fool.
That gave my heart a nice warm feeling to imagine, but there really isn't anything illegal about a minor buying an M game. It's just the ESRB's opinion, and they cannot make law. Those ratings were designed to placate moralists.
Jack knows he will lose. He wants to get enough of the Tipper Gores in the world angry about this inability to enforce the ratings. No telling what effect that would have. I think it would actually be fine for gaming. Jack's just an idiot.
the watch's in stock status has nothing to do with patent law. I was making a non sequiter observation.
I should check the cache, but often things are "out of stock" forever, and the page is a placeholder. I was just pointing out that it's hard to find this for sale direct to the states (though of course it's going to exist.
I could easily be wrong, of course, and this watch is available, but the fact is that there are some huge patent issues in this country that present some problems that shouldn't exist. Obvious technologies are patented, and it's a huge risk to bring the best products to market.
Oh, and if this watch were waterproof, I would buy it for $100. Why not? 2 gigs at that resolution is a lot of DVDs. Or it would make a neat TV for my girl's doll house!
The watch is not available at thinkgeek. Try to buy one if you don't believe me.
This article and description are sensationalist, but the fact remains that patent law in the states is broken. It hampers innovation and keeps great products from being made or sold here.
Good points.
I just like to rag on Hitler.
It's an interesting perspective to see black markets driving up the price as evidence that it is more cost effective. You're right... but this still makes like harder for the subject of the prohibition (the drug user or Burma for censor software). Still... my fault for putting it in the perspective of the seller. I think it could be argued that it's not more cost effective for black marketers. Al Capone did not do as well as Anheuser-Busch does. Though Al being a thug benefited from the black market, the sellers at large and in general did not benefit. That's my argument anyway.
re: the general moral issue, I think it's tough to agree on what rights the Burmese have against us. It's nice to talk about justice as fairness or universal principles or rights, but laws are meant to do two things: express outrage and regulate. If society funds X outrageous enough, then it outlaws it. All those constitutional issues are hogwash; we would overcome them if we were outraged enough. the regulation argument is easier (but less helpful). I simply think that selling Burma this technology is something society ought to be pissed off about. And if you want to discuss it about rights, it's easy to claim that there is a universal right to live in a society where fascists do not censor my communication about what they are doing (and thus, there should be a ban on selling the means for that censorship to fascists). Who knows?
I think it's cute that you have thin skin about being called a mere "knucklehead" as my response to an accusation that I am a god damned thief (apparently stealing is the norm in your circle, but it's not the norm). I also like how you're no longer the boss with an attitude. But I won't give you a hard time for improving your tone, and I like that you're self aware enough to adjust.
.doc as an online format, I meant that you have the ability to use .doc as an online format. I have no idea what your level of english or computer literacy is, but I assure you that this isn't hard to do, though you have to use the correct program. The sentence seems clear to me, but you seem to be insisting on running all files through firefox, which wasn't stipulated. I also noticed that you didn't understand what I meant when I said that Microsoft has a stranglehold on a dinosaur market. Your response was to stick with odf, when obviously open office is in the same dinosaur market. Just an interesting limitation on your perspective I noticed.
I don't think it's very relevant that you have a boss (who doesn't). I was just responding to some silly braggadocio on your part about forcing others to use programs they don't want. Instead of telling people about how great open office is (it isn't, if they ready own office, but you're entitled to your opinion) you just send them unusual file formats and point them to a relatively shitty program. Your customers are paying too much, since your partners could be saving money by not having to deal with that behavior (hypothetically... you hopefully didn't really act that way to someone who actually knows you).
Office is such a tiny little expense when compared to time.
Responding to your confusion: When I said you can use
There is no need to be zealously in favor of a stupid program. Open Office is remarkable, but it's not something you would want to use in a successful company. If openoffice is really about freeing the consumer from the monopoly, you've got to do better than clone the monopoly. It's a simple and obvious point. Open Office is just slower, less familiar, and therefore more expensive than Office. Other solutions (like actual browser friendly word processors) are a much better place for open source programmers to devote their time.
I can't stand the lack of choice out there either. But you can't beat Microsoft with Lindows and Open Office. That's the cheap approach, and cheap costs too much money in the long run.
Yeah, if you need a conversion tool to read the file, it's in a closed format.
You opened the closed door with a key, but not everyone has that key.
anecdotes aside, you have to admit that 2007 is unfamiliar. And the lion's share of the cost for these programs is training cost.
2007 is just to much of a departure from what was a very efficient system.
yeah yeah yeah, Godwin. Except that I'm exactly right to make the banal observation that selling rat poison to Hitler is a special problem. Some things can uniquely be used to control. We can't forsee the future, but we can use as much sense as we can to limit software that prevents human rights workers from exclaiming their distress.
Morality is the basis of law. What else are we supposed to base our laws on? Efficiency? That's utilitarianism. If we know something is immoral to a level that is outrageous, then we make it a felony. This helps to adjust the market, of course, so that it is not cost effective to sell weapons to bastards.
Adam Smith was describing nature. Marx was inventing the concept of capitalism to describe the problems he saw in our system. What Marx explained was certainly not to be seen in Adam Smith's account. I understand I'm being unclear. Think of it like this: Adam Smith was the scientist describing Ted Bundy's physical body. Marx was the guy pointing out, for the first time, that Ted Bundy was doing specific things that were bad.
I don't understand your comment about selling weapons to the freedom fighters in Burma (if there are any left). What does that have to do with what we're talking about? Specifically as a comparison to censorship software. Are you claiming that somehow this software, in the right hands, can overthrow the Burmese government?
I think you got lost in the analogy and forgot it wasn't real (China gives weapons to the Burmese government for free, etc)
I know there is one such company in my town (though I have never actually seen one of these cars), but I'm talking about a much larger scale that requires tax money. Washington DC spends around 19k per citizen on its subway system. But in many cities, trains won't work well, so spend 10k per citizen on cars.
One hundred thousand community cars in Houston, for example. With some sort of security system in place. I think this would prove cheaper and more effective. And no one would missuse the system because people are morally wonderful.
Of course we shouldn't sell weapons to Burma. You're kidding, right? That's like selling bullets to a semi-Hitler.
It's not your fault if you're not aware of just how oppressive and violent the government is there (how could anyone keep up with all the monsters in the world?), but it's pretty bad there.
And no disrespect intended, but being a capitalist does not mean being a nihilist in business. There is absolutely no sense to that idea. Capitalism was invented by Karl Marx, by the way, as a way of describing the absence of an economic system. In other words, nature.
In favoring free markets, there is no reason not to disincentivize barbaric governments.
But I agree with you insofar as you make no distinction between this type of software and bullets.
This is like selling rat poison to Hitler. Sure, there could be a legit use if we bury our heads in the sand. Sell Burma medicine, food, heating oil, basic things like that. Don't sell them weapons or tools whose main purpose is to impose policy. Generally speaking, there is a broad category of things that are inherently about control. Weapons and this software are included.
We need blade runner style pyramid buildings, where the elevator brings you up and your drive back down.
(joking)
What would really rock was if we had community cars. Pay as you go, but go where you want.
You are talking about multi level parking spaces, right? where the car is placed on top of another car in a ground level garage? They've had those in the states for a while too.
I have never seen anything like what the articles describes in Europe or Russia, and I think I would have noticed. This is about bringing a car up thirty stories to your personal apartment.
Plenty of fodder to attack america with is you are really keen on doing so, but we are still the home of many inventions. We ain't Japan, but we produce our share of patents.
the real difference is that the shuttle can bring things back to earth.
We don't hear about that ability being used, but it certainly is. It has military significance, too.
It would be a hell of a lot cheaper if the manned vessel and the cargo vessel were different ships, though.
If you're using windows, you can use foxit if adobe is a hassle for you (I'm not a fan of adobe, but it can be made to work fast).
I had never thought about it like that.
.pdfs are such a good solution for engineers. Jeez. I forgot how expensive Autocad is.
I can see why
More details? Open Office takes much longer to load and uses more Ram and takes longer to do everything.
.doc as an online format. You don't seem to be computer literate.
....could it be.... that you have a boss and a boring job?
That's a very common complain, as you admit. Do you have any reason to believe this isn't true?
I didn't steal software, knucklehead. Office is worth its price, since it's an excellent program. 2007 sucks ass, but 97-2003 are awesome.
you can use
And nobody is going to thank you for refusing to use the normal document format. You can just tell them to use open office without forcing it (funy that you do this and then complain about closed formats... what a nut).
As for your braggadocio, I'm retired, so I don't have to deal with oversensitive weirdos like you who act tough on the internet and are always claim to be hyper-successful. People who are this loyal to any program are nuts. Office is much cheaper than openoffice for any reasonably sized business for the same reason XP is cheaper than Ubuntu: many employees learned how to use computers in public school at best.
Your business that you are the boss of grossed what this quarter? Successful businesses take a lot of work to run. You implied that you are the owner of your business, but your posting history is always in the 9-5 range, implying you are using a company computer to surf the internet all day instead of work hard at an interesting job. You don't seem to be at work after 5. Who is it who is making you come in each day exactly from 9 to 5? Why aren't they giving you work interesting enough to keep you off slashdot for several hours every day?
Making up office software domination stories is not exactly a high point in your life, I bet. Take some advice from me, I've been around the block and can smell bullshit like your two posts, but I also do care because I've been in your shoes: start that business if you really want it. Whatever it is you are really good at, just do it now. Don't be an asshole about it (for example, by sending obscure file formats to stick it to MS), but have fun and make money the only smart way, by invsting your capital in a business of your own. Your job is obviously not fulfilling, and the security it offers you is worthless. You only live once, my friend.
Saddam did, in fact, try to get PS2s. Mainly because Saddam was an idiot. Sony made hay out of the story because Sony (then) was really smart about publicity.
We let the USSR get computers for missile simulations in the 80s. For some reason, those computers actually sent Russian efforts backwards. Almost as though we were being tricksy. I wonder if the PS2 thing was a similar effort that went afoul.
The parent didn't say anything controversial. The PS3 has a fast processor for limited applications. You check people's post history to see if they like Sony? Are you some kind of OSD loony? If so, I think that's that's cool. Crazies are like society's spices.
pdf is a great example. You don't have to install several hundred megs to read one, so I can expect everyone to be able to read what I send. Unfortunately, a text copyable .pdf encoder can be expensive, so I doubt you can communicate well by .pdf without using a solution like that. I guess the counter to that is that .pdfs always look exactly as you wanted them to, which is good for precision communications.
.pdf? General work details, personnel stuff, etc?
And don't you guys use GIS (if you're civil) or CAD? What are you communicating by
It's only not important to you because you don't feed hundreds of families with media sales. That stuff is highly in demand in our culture, takes a lot of money to make in most cases, and is easy to steal.
It's important because we come together and elect people to make laws, and we all benefit from the peace and security we get from a lawful society. Picking the laws we agree with is villainous.
Artists who have zero rights to their work contracted them away. For money. Artists are the very lowest and most common element in most forms of art today. Other people do the real work. You can easily get another artist... look at the American Idol hysterics. Artists have very little to offer, so they don't get a great deal. Those artists who are willing to do all the work on their own don't have to contract their rights away. I don't understand why you are whining about this. It's not a problem; it's a good thing.
pretty sure you're full of it, man. IF you already had office paid for, why would you want openoffice? I think openoffice is excellent, but when I gave up on Office 2007, I installed Office 2003.
.doc is the format of business.
If some moron told me to install an entire office program (A sluggish one that cloned the one I already have, at that), I would email his boss and ask for the correct file format. It's common sense. IF you abuse your position to have people install redundant software, you probably won't be in that position for very long. It's like sending your files in Spanish.
Microsoft has a stranglehold, but it's on a dinosaur. Software like this should not be locally installed, it should be online so you can easily collaborate. Beating Microsoft by copying them is silly because they will always be a step ahead.