It isn't about sucking, but about basic philosophic differences.
The giveaway licenses like BSD are there for people who actually want to give away their code. They release the code and get nothing in exchange except the warm feeling of being good people.
The GPL is, despite the cries of those who think its somehow Communist or socialist, based on exchange: you release your code, and in exchange you get more code back.
Which is what RMS and the other hacker types want. Money is good, of course, but what really drives a hacker is code. Code to learn from, code to play with, code to try and push in directions its originator didn't think of. MS sells its code for money. People who release under the GPL sell their code for more code. Its a commercial transaction: you can can use my code for anything, and in exchange I get to see and play around with all the derivative code your produce.
I've always thought that "freedom" was the wrong way to describe it. Yes, there's a certain free aspect, but mostly the GPL is a very straightforward commercial transaction. I give you code, I get code back.
To those people who think this is a good idea, click the link and look at their ultra-crappy implementation. It's a series of images, not text, it isn't resizable, and when you attempt to scroll a huge, ugly, and distracting "loading" box popps up.
If anyone can actually read the book with all that crap going on, they'll be delighted to learn that it isn't possible to save your spot, so you either have to read it all in one go, or randomly poke around to attempt to find your place through their insanely crappy interface.
Harper has obviously decided to make online books as terrible as possible, why they decided to do this I don't know. But their "experiment" is self evidently *designed* to fail so don't be surprised when they announce, to their "regret", that apparently the public just isn't interested in reading books online.
What's worse the e-book versions (all DRM crippled for your inconvenience) cost $7. That's about as much as the paperback edition. WTF?
That's always been my reason for blocking. I'm not at all opposed to ads on principle, but I am extremely easily distracted by movement and flashing. A web page with a moving or flashing ad is pretty much unreadable for me, so I block 'em. I've never bothered blocking static ads.
I use the v4 rules and don't have any real complaints re: combat. Its got quite a few dice rolls (especially if you use the full rules rather than combat lite), but its about on par with D20 as far as rolling dice goes.
As for one second combat rounds, what's the problem? Its more realistic. Moreover its not a question of how long each round is, but how many combat rounds are required for the average combat. In my experience GURPS combat rarely lasts more than ten rounds, and usually ends in five or fewer. In my experience with D20 at the higher levels it can take dozens of rounds to resolve melee combat.
As for rifts, I know a lot of people gripe about megadamage, but that was never my main complaint about it, and rifts which may be the game I dislike the most. It took the sins of character classes and magnified them while preserving nothing good about them. You chose the Glitter Boy template? Cool, you get a badass powered suit, a gun that can level whole city blocks, and you're billy badass incarnate. You chose a rogue scientist template? Sucks to be you, you'll be a smear of paste on the wall during the first combat. Add to that the fact that they made a few other classes, which appear to have munchkin potential, useless (ie: mind melter, none of their nifty powers work on people in megadamage armor, should have chosen the Glitter Boy template sucker). Then there's the fact that leveling up, which in most class based systems means something, doesn't really make that much difference in RIFTS. A level 10 Glitter Boy has somewhat better rolls than a level 1 Glitter Boy, but not that much better, and a level 10 rogue scientist is still a smear on the wall if he ever gets into combat...
Then there's all the stuff that just got left out of the rules entirely. Is it possible to repair megadamage armor? If so how much does and cost and what kind of facilities would it take? No one knows, its never discussed at all. Does a juicer ever need to refil his rig? What happens if it gets damaged? How much would a replacement cost? And, until the latest edition anyway, how the hell do you cast spells? Then there's the problem with the index, namely that there isn't one. I lothe rifts, and lothe it all the more because if it weren't tied to such an awe inspiringly bad system and such wrechedly laid out books, the setting seems pretty nifty.
I played several of WW's X the Y games, and I've got no major complaints. They're fun, the rules don't suck, etc. I disagree that the specialties for attributes in WW are better than advantages/disadvantages in GURPS, but that's obviously a matter of taste.
As for munchkining, I still think that Hackmaster does a damn good job for fantasy munchkin (I mean, its basically 1st edition AD&D). And, to be honest, v3.5 D20 is a nice system for pure powergaming.
Each to their own of course. For me class based systems turn me off to a game unless its extremely compelling for other reasons, obvously that isn't a universally shared attitude.
Either mine's not working, or he's found a way around the user agent switcher. I'm running the latest version, I set it to IE, and jacklewis.net still kicks me to the "Why you are an evil commiefaggot for using Firefox" page.
Actually its not "their" claims, but "his" claims, the whole thing is just one crazy person. Bear in mind that the, um, individual, behind this is a complete loony toon of the extreme right wing religious nut variety. Seriously, check out his other stuff at jacklewis.net, unfortunately you can't read his insane ratings with Firefox, which is a shame because they're quite amusing.
Given his nuthood I'd assume that he *thinks* that Firefox users are less likely to buy things online, and that somehow in the broken fragments of his mind that becomes transmuted into "demographs show that...." Pleanty of other nutbags do the same thing, why shouldn't he?
Based, I think, on the Twilight 2000 rules, my friends and I gave up when we discovered that firing a fully automatic weapon required a separate to-hit roll for each bullet (modified by the first to-hit roll), a location roll for each bullet that hit, etc, at least I think that was how it worked, we got the game back in 199X so its been a while.
I liked the setting, and the suggestion in the rule book that the GM read tabloids for adventure ideas was fantastic, but in the end we concluded that it'd require a supercomputer to deal with combat so we played Call of Cthulu instead.
This isn't to say that gurps is perfect - it could be more detailed than some groups would want -
I'm certainly not going to argue that GURPS is perfect, but the argument that its too detailed seems a bit odd given that GURPS (especially in 4th ed) works by giving a very basic ruleset with all the complexity being entirely optional.
Despite my aversion to class based systems, I bought quite a bit of ED stuff, got a group together and we found it to be a very nice game. Mostly I liked the setting, but the rules worked well enough.
I'll agree that if you ignore the fact that D20 is a class based system, add many house rules, and have a good group and DM you can actually do something other than munchkin the game. But why not just use a different system if you want to really roleplay instead of rollplay?
Each gaming system has certain strengths and weaknesses, and D20's strength lies in its appeal to munchkins, rules lawyers, etc. Now, I'll also admit that there are some systems which manage to out munchking D20, Rifts comes to mind.
But I think the original poster's point stands: If you want to play something more than a hack and slash type game, you are vastly better off with a different system. For pure kick in the door type monster slaughters D20 isn't bad at all, you want a more nuanced gaming experience and you'll find that the rules begin to hold you back. I'll take GURPS, thanks. Now if only SJ games would do something like the OGL I'd be truly happy, and I think GURPS would benefit.
There is an absolutely foolproof method of discovering if you will like Harry Potter:
Go to the library (or bookstore), find a copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" [1], open it to page one and read a couple of pages. If you like the first few pages, you will in all likelyhood like the Harry Potter series, if you don't, you likely won't.
[1] Note: if you're in the US the title will be "Sorcerer's Stone"
I'm in favor of lunar development, but this seems kind of pointless. Wouldn't it make more sense to put the insturments in a polar orbit so they'd be closer and get more accurate readings? Heck, even a geosynch orbit is vastly closer than on the moon.
How's about we stop the pointless insulting, ne? Instead I'll just complement you for finding a clever address. Its more interesting than mine, though, to be fair to myself I chose mine after I'd been studying Japanese for less than a month.
As far as PBS & the DNC goes, I was merely continuing your example, not claiming that such a thing had actually occured. Take a deep breath, and chill.
Given the, shall we say, less than stirling reputation of Ken Blackwell, and the high level Republicans in Ohio in general (remember the coin scandal?) I don't think its at all paranoid to exhibit concern when government information starts being served by RNC IP addresses. Its almost certain that no real hanky panky went on, but given everything else that's been happening in Ohio I don't blame people for jumping.
Appearance of impropriety. Putting any official government *anything* on servers owned by any political party is just plain wrong. If it had been some other official government site it wouldn't have gotten so much press, but it'd still be wrong. Political parties are not part of the government, they are not government agencies, and they have no business hosting government information.
I'm not confusing a website reporting results with the machines actually tabulating those results, and you're being a jackass for implying that I'm that stupid.
If the PBS website were being hosted by the DNC, that'd be wrong too, though as I mentioned not likely to cause as much outrage because, hmmm, PBS has diddily to do with elections and ever since 2000 a lot of people are nervous about the Republicans and more stolen elections.
The problem isn't that people can't handle atomic power, it is that for profit corporations can't handle atomic power. The US navy, to take a good example, has been dealing with atomic power plants for decades without a single failure. Why? Because they are not cutting safety corners to increase their profit margin.
I'm an advocate of atomic power in general, and I'm simultaniously completely opposed to atomic power under the control of a for profit corporation. Corporations aren't evil, but they are singleminded: they are geared to produce the maximum profit for the minimum investment. When it comes to growing and distributing apples, or manufacturing computers, and so forth they do an exellent job. But when it comes to stuff like atomic power they are absolutely the wrong tool to use.
Either put them under the control of the navy, or some other government agency, or if you are the type who gets all bothered by any suggestion of direct government control of that sort of thing, put them under the control of non-profit corporations. Take the profit motive out, and the safety will stop being a problem.
That's it in a nutshell. I use my linux box for everyday stuff, but if I want to game I need to reboot to Windows. Since this semester I'm not doing much gaming, I haven't been booted into Windows for around a month or so, last semester I had an easier classload and I booted to Windows almost every day.
I shouldn't reply to this, because its a derail and you're a troll. But.
No, race is not a biological concept. Anthropologists have given up the word because it simply doesn't have a workable definition. Check for yourself. What we call "race" usually winds up being a combination of skin color (mostly skin color) and facial features. Both are *highly* sensitive to environmental changes, historical anthropologists have found that those characteristics can change radically in less than a thousand years, often much less than that.
Secondly, as for your "as should be" bit of tripe, that's wrong too. Breeding between long separated groups is biologically quite beneficial as they are vastly less likely to reinforce bad characteristics (ie: hemophilia, etc). Interestingly a recent study found that the longer populatitions had been biologically separated the greater influence their pheromones had one each other. So if you want to talk about "should", you should be reproducing with people of a phenotype different from your own because your pheromone receptors say so, and genetically its quite healthy.
So fold your anti-miscegenation nonesense until its all sharp corners, then stuff it up your racist ass.
Well, I was going to mention that Herbert wasn't involved in the Sci-Fi channel screenplay, but then I remembered that I really didn't like anything Herbert wrote after the original Dune, so maybe it would have actually been worse if he'd been involved...
Though, I'll admit I'm not sure how anything could be worse than a) the stupid "look, the Guild spokesmen make stupid poses when they talk" and b) the whole "look, the Imperial Princess wanders around on her own without a couple thousand sardukar bodyguards" crap.
*** SPOILERS **** If you haven't read Cryptonomicon or The Diamond Age be aware that I discuss the endings here. *** SPOILERS ****
I never understood the people who claimed that Stephenson's novels don't have endings. Sure, he doesn't take you by the hand and guide you ste-by-step through everything that will happen, but that just means he isn't writing endings for children. He takes you to the point where what will happen next becomes both inevitable and likely somewhat boring to read about. I mean, look at the Cryptonomicon, if he'd written a next chapter what would there really have been to say?
"And then they took the gold and used it to back their cryptDollars and made a gazillion bucks and became major economic players who were always watching out for the Dentest's possible revenge. Meanwhile Waterhouse and Amy [broke up / stayed together / something else]."
The Diamond Age has a similar ending. We *know* what will happen next, namely that the Chinese will finish the seed research (after that there's space for at least another novel exploring the consiquences of the seed, but that's a sequel material not ending material), but what would really be the point of a chapter talking about how Dr. X managed it? We know he's going to finish it up, the details really aren't that important or interesting.
I think his novels end at exactly the right place. Actually, if there's anything I'd change about Pratchett's writing style I'd get him to write endings more like Stephenson does, usually the last chapter in a Pratchett book is a bit dull because he feels compelled to spell everything out.
You're missing the point. By defining their "standard" in this manner they can now say "Application X doesn't implement OOXML", naturally by "implement OOXML" they mean "fully implement OOXML" so that if even the most obscure and bizarre tag is not supported that's that. At that point they can either demand that application X not claim on its packaging that it supports their "standard", they might have one of those cute little "OOXML Compatiable" seals and refuse to let anyone who doesn't fully support the "standard" use it, or simply use it as marketing tool.
If you want to think in a more paranoid manner, one could also speculate that MS might cause its future versions of Word to use one or more of the supposedly depreciated tags regularly (or, nastier thought, at random) so that any competing product that attempts to open an OOXML document produced (or even saved) in MS Word will not properly render the document. Joe User will assume that since it renders properly in MS Word, but not in application X, and it is an open standard after all, it just proves that MS Word is better.
MS does what is best for MS, not what is best for its customers and certainly not what is best for documents in general.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, but not accurate.
It isn't about sucking, but about basic philosophic differences.
The giveaway licenses like BSD are there for people who actually want to give away their code. They release the code and get nothing in exchange except the warm feeling of being good people.
The GPL is, despite the cries of those who think its somehow Communist or socialist, based on exchange: you release your code, and in exchange you get more code back.
Which is what RMS and the other hacker types want. Money is good, of course, but what really drives a hacker is code. Code to learn from, code to play with, code to try and push in directions its originator didn't think of. MS sells its code for money. People who release under the GPL sell their code for more code. Its a commercial transaction: you can can use my code for anything, and in exchange I get to see and play around with all the derivative code your produce.
I've always thought that "freedom" was the wrong way to describe it. Yes, there's a certain free aspect, but mostly the GPL is a very straightforward commercial transaction. I give you code, I get code back.
To those people who think this is a good idea, click the link and look at their ultra-crappy implementation. It's a series of images, not text, it isn't resizable, and when you attempt to scroll a huge, ugly, and distracting "loading" box popps up.
If anyone can actually read the book with all that crap going on, they'll be delighted to learn that it isn't possible to save your spot, so you either have to read it all in one go, or randomly poke around to attempt to find your place through their insanely crappy interface.
Harper has obviously decided to make online books as terrible as possible, why they decided to do this I don't know. But their "experiment" is self evidently *designed* to fail so don't be surprised when they announce, to their "regret", that apparently the public just isn't interested in reading books online.
What's worse the e-book versions (all DRM crippled for your inconvenience) cost $7. That's about as much as the paperback edition. WTF?
You, like a regrettably large number of people, are managing to ignore minorities when you discuss the supposed "civility" of bygone eras.
Ask a black man, even in New York or other northern areas, how "civil" the past was.
Further, if you go back to the late 1800's, you enter the Robber Barron era, which was hardly a high water mark for corporate good behavior.
The parent comment is comedy gold! What twit modded it troll?
That's always been my reason for blocking. I'm not at all opposed to ads on principle, but I am extremely easily distracted by movement and flashing. A web page with a moving or flashing ad is pretty much unreadable for me, so I block 'em. I've never bothered blocking static ads.
I use the v4 rules and don't have any real complaints re: combat. Its got quite a few dice rolls (especially if you use the full rules rather than combat lite), but its about on par with D20 as far as rolling dice goes.
As for one second combat rounds, what's the problem? Its more realistic. Moreover its not a question of how long each round is, but how many combat rounds are required for the average combat. In my experience GURPS combat rarely lasts more than ten rounds, and usually ends in five or fewer. In my experience with D20 at the higher levels it can take dozens of rounds to resolve melee combat.
As for rifts, I know a lot of people gripe about megadamage, but that was never my main complaint about it, and rifts which may be the game I dislike the most. It took the sins of character classes and magnified them while preserving nothing good about them. You chose the Glitter Boy template? Cool, you get a badass powered suit, a gun that can level whole city blocks, and you're billy badass incarnate. You chose a rogue scientist template? Sucks to be you, you'll be a smear of paste on the wall during the first combat. Add to that the fact that they made a few other classes, which appear to have munchkin potential, useless (ie: mind melter, none of their nifty powers work on people in megadamage armor, should have chosen the Glitter Boy template sucker). Then there's the fact that leveling up, which in most class based systems means something, doesn't really make that much difference in RIFTS. A level 10 Glitter Boy has somewhat better rolls than a level 1 Glitter Boy, but not that much better, and a level 10 rogue scientist is still a smear on the wall if he ever gets into combat...
Then there's all the stuff that just got left out of the rules entirely. Is it possible to repair megadamage armor? If so how much does and cost and what kind of facilities would it take? No one knows, its never discussed at all. Does a juicer ever need to refil his rig? What happens if it gets damaged? How much would a replacement cost? And, until the latest edition anyway, how the hell do you cast spells? Then there's the problem with the index, namely that there isn't one. I lothe rifts, and lothe it all the more because if it weren't tied to such an awe inspiringly bad system and such wrechedly laid out books, the setting seems pretty nifty.
I played several of WW's X the Y games, and I've got no major complaints. They're fun, the rules don't suck, etc. I disagree that the specialties for attributes in WW are better than advantages/disadvantages in GURPS, but that's obviously a matter of taste.
As for munchkining, I still think that Hackmaster does a damn good job for fantasy munchkin (I mean, its basically 1st edition AD&D). And, to be honest, v3.5 D20 is a nice system for pure powergaming.
Each to their own of course. For me class based systems turn me off to a game unless its extremely compelling for other reasons, obvously that isn't a universally shared attitude.
Either mine's not working, or he's found a way around the user agent switcher. I'm running the latest version, I set it to IE, and jacklewis.net still kicks me to the "Why you are an evil commiefaggot for using Firefox" page.
Actually its not "their" claims, but "his" claims, the whole thing is just one crazy person. Bear in mind that the, um, individual, behind this is a complete loony toon of the extreme right wing religious nut variety. Seriously, check out his other stuff at jacklewis.net, unfortunately you can't read his insane ratings with Firefox, which is a shame because they're quite amusing.
Given his nuthood I'd assume that he *thinks* that Firefox users are less likely to buy things online, and that somehow in the broken fragments of his mind that becomes transmuted into "demographs show that...." Pleanty of other nutbags do the same thing, why shouldn't he?
Based, I think, on the Twilight 2000 rules, my friends and I gave up when we discovered that firing a fully automatic weapon required a separate to-hit roll for each bullet (modified by the first to-hit roll), a location roll for each bullet that hit, etc, at least I think that was how it worked, we got the game back in 199X so its been a while.
I liked the setting, and the suggestion in the rule book that the GM read tabloids for adventure ideas was fantastic, but in the end we concluded that it'd require a supercomputer to deal with combat so we played Call of Cthulu instead.
I'm certainly not going to argue that GURPS is perfect, but the argument that its too detailed seems a bit odd given that GURPS (especially in 4th ed) works by giving a very basic ruleset with all the complexity being entirely optional.
Despite my aversion to class based systems, I bought quite a bit of ED stuff, got a group together and we found it to be a very nice game. Mostly I liked the setting, but the rules worked well enough.
My "game I bought but never could play" was TORG.
I'll agree that if you ignore the fact that D20 is a class based system, add many house rules, and have a good group and DM you can actually do something other than munchkin the game. But why not just use a different system if you want to really roleplay instead of rollplay?
Each gaming system has certain strengths and weaknesses, and D20's strength lies in its appeal to munchkins, rules lawyers, etc. Now, I'll also admit that there are some systems which manage to out munchking D20, Rifts comes to mind.
But I think the original poster's point stands: If you want to play something more than a hack and slash type game, you are vastly better off with a different system. For pure kick in the door type monster slaughters D20 isn't bad at all, you want a more nuanced gaming experience and you'll find that the rules begin to hold you back. I'll take GURPS, thanks. Now if only SJ games would do something like the OGL I'd be truly happy, and I think GURPS would benefit.
There is an absolutely foolproof method of discovering if you will like Harry Potter:
Go to the library (or bookstore), find a copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" [1], open it to page one and read a couple of pages. If you like the first few pages, you will in all likelyhood like the Harry Potter series, if you don't, you likely won't.
[1] Note: if you're in the US the title will be "Sorcerer's Stone"
I'm in favor of lunar development, but this seems kind of pointless. Wouldn't it make more sense to put the insturments in a polar orbit so they'd be closer and get more accurate readings? Heck, even a geosynch orbit is vastly closer than on the moon.
How's about we stop the pointless insulting, ne? Instead I'll just complement you for finding a clever address. Its more interesting than mine, though, to be fair to myself I chose mine after I'd been studying Japanese for less than a month.
As far as PBS & the DNC goes, I was merely continuing your example, not claiming that such a thing had actually occured. Take a deep breath, and chill.
Given the, shall we say, less than stirling reputation of Ken Blackwell, and the high level Republicans in Ohio in general (remember the coin scandal?) I don't think its at all paranoid to exhibit concern when government information starts being served by RNC IP addresses. Its almost certain that no real hanky panky went on, but given everything else that's been happening in Ohio I don't blame people for jumping.
Appearance of impropriety. Putting any official government *anything* on servers owned by any political party is just plain wrong. If it had been some other official government site it wouldn't have gotten so much press, but it'd still be wrong. Political parties are not part of the government, they are not government agencies, and they have no business hosting government information.
I'm not confusing a website reporting results with the machines actually tabulating those results, and you're being a jackass for implying that I'm that stupid.
If the PBS website were being hosted by the DNC, that'd be wrong too, though as I mentioned not likely to cause as much outrage because, hmmm, PBS has diddily to do with elections and ever since 2000 a lot of people are nervous about the Republicans and more stolen elections.
Even if your suggestion is true the fact that any political party is so well integrated with the *vote*counting* agency is not a good thing.
The problem isn't that people can't handle atomic power, it is that for profit corporations can't handle atomic power. The US navy, to take a good example, has been dealing with atomic power plants for decades without a single failure. Why? Because they are not cutting safety corners to increase their profit margin.
I'm an advocate of atomic power in general, and I'm simultaniously completely opposed to atomic power under the control of a for profit corporation. Corporations aren't evil, but they are singleminded: they are geared to produce the maximum profit for the minimum investment. When it comes to growing and distributing apples, or manufacturing computers, and so forth they do an exellent job. But when it comes to stuff like atomic power they are absolutely the wrong tool to use.
Either put them under the control of the navy, or some other government agency, or if you are the type who gets all bothered by any suggestion of direct government control of that sort of thing, put them under the control of non-profit corporations. Take the profit motive out, and the safety will stop being a problem.
That's it in a nutshell. I use my linux box for everyday stuff, but if I want to game I need to reboot to Windows. Since this semester I'm not doing much gaming, I haven't been booted into Windows for around a month or so, last semester I had an easier classload and I booted to Windows almost every day.
Yup. I was right. Hoped I wasn't, but nope, you are just another KKK troll. Don't bother replying, I'm ignoring you from now on.
I shouldn't reply to this, because its a derail and you're a troll. But.
No, race is not a biological concept. Anthropologists have given up the word because it simply doesn't have a workable definition. Check for yourself. What we call "race" usually winds up being a combination of skin color (mostly skin color) and facial features. Both are *highly* sensitive to environmental changes, historical anthropologists have found that those characteristics can change radically in less than a thousand years, often much less than that.
Secondly, as for your "as should be" bit of tripe, that's wrong too. Breeding between long separated groups is biologically quite beneficial as they are vastly less likely to reinforce bad characteristics (ie: hemophilia, etc). Interestingly a recent study found that the longer populatitions had been biologically separated the greater influence their pheromones had one each other. So if you want to talk about "should", you should be reproducing with people of a phenotype different from your own because your pheromone receptors say so, and genetically its quite healthy.
So fold your anti-miscegenation nonesense until its all sharp corners, then stuff it up your racist ass.
I thought it was just a natural escalation of timing. Slow beginning leading to fast paced finish. Different tastes I suppose.
Well, I was going to mention that Herbert wasn't involved in the Sci-Fi channel screenplay, but then I remembered that I really didn't like anything Herbert wrote after the original Dune, so maybe it would have actually been worse if he'd been involved...
Though, I'll admit I'm not sure how anything could be worse than a) the stupid "look, the Guild spokesmen make stupid poses when they talk" and b) the whole "look, the Imperial Princess wanders around on her own without a couple thousand sardukar bodyguards" crap.
*** SPOILERS ****
If you haven't read Cryptonomicon or The Diamond Age be aware that I discuss the endings here.
*** SPOILERS ****
I never understood the people who claimed that Stephenson's novels don't have endings. Sure, he doesn't take you by the hand and guide you ste-by-step through everything that will happen, but that just means he isn't writing endings for children. He takes you to the point where what will happen next becomes both inevitable and likely somewhat boring to read about. I mean, look at the Cryptonomicon, if he'd written a next chapter what would there really have been to say?
"And then they took the gold and used it to back their cryptDollars and made a gazillion bucks and became major economic players who were always watching out for the Dentest's possible revenge. Meanwhile Waterhouse and Amy [broke up / stayed together / something else]."
The Diamond Age has a similar ending. We *know* what will happen next, namely that the Chinese will finish the seed research (after that there's space for at least another novel exploring the consiquences of the seed, but that's a sequel material not ending material), but what would really be the point of a chapter talking about how Dr. X managed it? We know he's going to finish it up, the details really aren't that important or interesting.
I think his novels end at exactly the right place. Actually, if there's anything I'd change about Pratchett's writing style I'd get him to write endings more like Stephenson does, usually the last chapter in a Pratchett book is a bit dull because he feels compelled to spell everything out.
You're missing the point. By defining their "standard" in this manner they can now say "Application X doesn't implement OOXML", naturally by "implement OOXML" they mean "fully implement OOXML" so that if even the most obscure and bizarre tag is not supported that's that. At that point they can either demand that application X not claim on its packaging that it supports their "standard", they might have one of those cute little "OOXML Compatiable" seals and refuse to let anyone who doesn't fully support the "standard" use it, or simply use it as marketing tool.
If you want to think in a more paranoid manner, one could also speculate that MS might cause its future versions of Word to use one or more of the supposedly depreciated tags regularly (or, nastier thought, at random) so that any competing product that attempts to open an OOXML document produced (or even saved) in MS Word will not properly render the document. Joe User will assume that since it renders properly in MS Word, but not in application X, and it is an open standard after all, it just proves that MS Word is better.
MS does what is best for MS, not what is best for its customers and certainly not what is best for documents in general.