It seems pretty clear what the author's views are.
I hope you're not trying to tell us that Joel Spolsky is a Windows zealot. You can say about Joel whatever you like, but I think this guy isn't a zealot at all. He is just very pragmatic, which means that he picks the best of both worlds.
And more than that, he can explain it in a very readable way. You should read his articles. Each and every one of them is clearly written and offers lots of info and background for developers. There's lots of jokes and pictures in his articles, which makes them even more easy to read.
It's a bit besides the point, but I'd like to mention to everyone here that CodeWeavers sells CrossoverOffice, a version of Wine which, unlike Wine itself, runs MS Office flawlessly and stable as a rock. It's about $55, but sometimes they give discounts.
Whoopsie, foreigner is speaking... we couldn't do without IM. Quick messages like 'are they busy with this database table' or 'it doesn't compile, this is the errormsg' is great through IM.
OK, it's not Mozilla, but the company I work for (Fortune 500 company) has Netscape browser/mail client deployed on tens of thousands of seats. First the old 4.77 and now 7.1. And I've never heard of major problems.
It's besides your point but actually we use Yahoo. Anyway, I was more complaining about how the business says we have to cooperate with offshore devteams but then goes deaf when we're asking them to tell IT to facilitate webcams or even a good VPN connection from India to the CVS/database server.
And when you're busy with deadlines, you don't give a rat's ass about any security/networking issues related to webcams. You just want to work smoothly, without worrying about someone else his job.
We're on a project with a combined on-/offshore team. IM is, without a doubt, a tool that we can't work without. It's a shame that the IT/Infrastructure dept. of the multibillion dollar company we're working, doesn't want to enable us to use webcams. Those would be a great addition, too.
Have u got the full synaptics X driver working? I.e. so the right side of the pad scrolls your screen? Because I couldn't, even with the synaptics kernel module loaded.
I'm running this new kernel to get full support on whatever IDE chipset my Dell Latitude D600 laptop uses. Combined with the better performance this kernel really rocks.
Does anyone else here find that this and every other file manager on Linux really, awfully sucks? I am looking for a full-featured filemanager, like Total Commander on Windows, using GTK2 because it must look good too. It has to have a directory pane at the left too, or at least be configurable that way. Have I said it should also be usable with just the keyboard? And use the standard Gnome icons?
I've searched above and beyond but I couldn't find something like this. And don't come talking to me about Nautilus, because that's nothing more than a window with icons in it. Konqueror again is too full featured and I use Gnome anyway.
In the end, nothing beats the commandline for ease-of-use.
I'm a RH user and I filed some bug reports. And maybe I did something wrong, but every bug report I filed got sent "upstream" and then deleted. While sending it upstream (to the originator of the package) is fine if they really take care of it, it wasn't fine because often the guys at RH just copy/pasted it to a developer mailinglist instead of the particular bug reporting tool from that project. It often went to/dev/null.
They often didn't read it too. I filed a bug and a workaround as well. Then the RH guy gave me the same workaround, but in other words!
Then I think: look if you only send a mail and be done with it, discourage bug reporting in the first place.
If you need to run Windows software, use a Windows box..
Excuse me, can I make that decision myself? And no, I don't have time to fiddle around with Wine, so I bought Crossover Office for only $55. I can then still run Linux with all the powerful (commandline) tools available, but nevertheless run all the Office apps, including IE. No fiddling, just rockstable.
Look, the im- and export filters from/to MS Office aren't perfect, but they're slowly improving. Try to download the most recent version.
Instead of pirating the [MS Office] software
There's a chance that your college has paid for a license where you are allowed to run a copy at home. This could be interesting. It was for me -- I'm now running a totally legal copy using CrossOver Office on my Linux laptop.
because in the end it will be preinstalled on all new systems
Well, not on the systems from the place I work. Two years ago, they created an image with Windows 2000 and Office 2000. Before that, it was Windows 98 and Office 95. They completely skipped 97. After two or three years, they'll probably skip Office XP and 2003 and then take companywide licenses for whatever Office version is then relevant.
I said this in another thread, but when I can run this Office version with Wine and/or Crossover Office, it's going to be as easy as just hitting print.:)
I expect the company I work at to buy licenses for Office 2003, in say, 2006. CrossoverOffice/Wine will probably then support it. And I will use it, if the current Office software situation stays the same. And in the current situation, using OpenOffice/AbiWord/xxx will decrease my productivity because it's more difficult to exchange documents.
Most people don't need anything beyond simple text entry, spell checking, bold, italic and underline.
I doubt this very much. I think that most people use only a couple of features, but nevertheless, they all use other features. If what you're saying was really true, then why would big word processors be so popular?
making fun of mr. Stallman... his hammering on the GNU brand
I think here is only one thing that counts and that's money. I don't think anyone outside of the open source community gives a damn about Stallman and his ideas. They're in it for the money and that's actually pretty good, because that is a good motivator for the progress of open source.
Of course, ideals have their place but I have the feeling they only matter inside the community.
are you convinced enough to put your PayPal where your mouth is
Yes I am, but I didn't fund OpenOffice. Instead, I went here and spent $55 on a copy of Crossover Office. Works like a charm now and not in the nearby future.
Of course they're clever bastards (but they're not the first, nor the last company who prices for market penetration). But that alone just does not cut it, I think. Joel Spolsky wrote a bit on how Excel squashed Lotus. And I don't think they had a monopoly back then.
I'm convinced that's how Open Office etc. should work. Flawless im- and export, and I mean real fucking flawless.
And I wish people here would quit putting out/modding up extremities as if Microsoft acted like a monopolist from day one. Because that's just not true, or at the very least not really a balanced view.
...believed to be true by people making the decisions.
...just like we know Windows almost never has a lower TCO than anything.
I'm a linux lovin' slut. That said, your analogy sucks. I believe there's got to be something else than pure marketing/aggresive salesforce that's responsible for the fact that Microsoft grew from a small company to one that dominates a lot of IT submarkets. You can't permanently keep up an image that's just plain false, you have to add value.
Can't Mozilla Composer edit huge tables? And wouldn't huge collections of information in tabular form be more the domain of MS Excel/OOo Calc than a word processor?
You're right, huge tables with cells that span more than one page, having subtables in them, etc. don't belong in Word if you ask me. But that's how the customer's analysts did it. At one time, we had them agree that we put the whole lot in a database with a web frontend, so that you can check things off, hang issues on parts of the design etc. And still they kept trying to crawl back to their beloved MS Word, for which they had review templates, track changes, etc.
And yeah, the Office license will be a company-wide thing for most employees. Even worse (or better, depending on your view), the license we have includes home use! And I suspect that will be the case in a lot of other places.
And how much roundtrip editing do you expect to do where something other than text absolutely has to survive?
You mean markup, etc? Well, it's just that we're currently in a project where we're cooperating quite snugly with the analysts of the client. They create huge word documents with huge tables in them. So those really have to survive. OOo sometimes barfs on them.
And if it bothers you and them that much, why can't you just mail your client a CD-R copy of OOo?
You can't be serious. Do you think when schedules are tight, you can bother clients and colleagues with a commodity thing like a word processor? Of course not. But because I want to run Linux, I bought Crossover Office. And the Office license is already paid for. Quite practical, all in all.
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I hope you're not trying to tell us that Joel Spolsky is a Windows zealot. You can say about Joel whatever you like, but I think this guy isn't a zealot at all. He is just very pragmatic, which means that he picks the best of both worlds.
And more than that, he can explain it in a very readable way. You should read his articles. Each and every one of them is clearly written and offers lots of info and background for developers. There's lots of jokes and pictures in his articles, which makes them even more easy to read.
It's a bit besides the point, but I'd like to mention to everyone here that CodeWeavers sells CrossoverOffice, a version of Wine which, unlike Wine itself, runs MS Office flawlessly and stable as a rock. It's about $55, but sometimes they give discounts.
Whoopsie, foreigner is speaking... we couldn't do without IM. Quick messages like 'are they busy with this database table' or 'it doesn't compile, this is the errormsg' is great through IM.
OK, it's not Mozilla, but the company I work for (Fortune 500 company) has Netscape browser/mail client deployed on tens of thousands of seats. First the old 4.77 and now 7.1. And I've never heard of major problems.
And when you're busy with deadlines, you don't give a rat's ass about any security/networking issues related to webcams. You just want to work smoothly, without worrying about someone else his job.
We're on a project with a combined on-/offshore team. IM is, without a doubt, a tool that we can't work without. It's a shame that the IT/Infrastructure dept. of the multibillion dollar company we're working, doesn't want to enable us to use webcams. Those would be a great addition, too.
Have u got the full synaptics X driver working? I.e. so the right side of the pad scrolls your screen? Because I couldn't, even with the synaptics kernel module loaded.
I'm running this new kernel to get full support on whatever IDE chipset my Dell Latitude D600 laptop uses. Combined with the better performance this kernel really rocks.
I've searched above and beyond but I couldn't find something like this. And don't come talking to me about Nautilus, because that's nothing more than a window with icons in it. Konqueror again is too full featured and I use Gnome anyway.
In the end, nothing beats the commandline for ease-of-use.
They often didn't read it too. I filed a bug and a workaround as well. Then the RH guy gave me the same workaround, but in other words!
Then I think: look if you only send a mail and be done with it, discourage bug reporting in the first place.
Excuse me, can I make that decision myself? And no, I don't have time to fiddle around with Wine, so I bought Crossover Office for only $55. I can then still run Linux with all the powerful (commandline) tools available, but nevertheless run all the Office apps, including IE. No fiddling, just rockstable.
Look, the im- and export filters from/to MS Office aren't perfect, but they're slowly improving. Try to download the most recent version.
Instead of pirating the [MS Office] software
There's a chance that your college has paid for a license where you are allowed to run a copy at home. This could be interesting. It was for me -- I'm now running a totally legal copy using CrossOver Office on my Linux laptop.
Well, not on the systems from the place I work. Two years ago, they created an image with Windows 2000 and Office 2000. Before that, it was Windows 98 and Office 95. They completely skipped 97. After two or three years, they'll probably skip Office XP and 2003 and then take companywide licenses for whatever Office version is then relevant.
Or, I hope, deploy OOo or friends.
I said this in another thread, but when I can run this Office version with Wine and/or Crossover Office, it's going to be as easy as just hitting print. :)
When Crossover Office and/or Wine supports it, I guess they will LOVE to leave this particular "feature" unported. :)
I expect the company I work at to buy licenses for Office 2003, in say, 2006. CrossoverOffice/Wine will probably then support it. And I will use it, if the current Office software situation stays the same. And in the current situation, using OpenOffice/AbiWord/xxx will decrease my productivity because it's more difficult to exchange documents.
Yeah Microsoft really, absolutely misuses CodeWeaver's Crossover Office, the Wine derivative to make a quick and low quality Linux solution. :)
I doubt this very much. I think that most people use only a couple of features, but nevertheless, they all use other features. If what you're saying was really true, then why would big word processors be so popular?
I think here is only one thing that counts and that's money. I don't think anyone outside of the open source community gives a damn about Stallman and his ideas. They're in it for the money and that's actually pretty good, because that is a good motivator for the progress of open source.
Of course, ideals have their place but I have the feeling they only matter inside the community.
Yes I am, but I didn't fund OpenOffice. Instead, I went here and spent $55 on a copy of Crossover Office. Works like a charm now and not in the nearby future.
Of course they're clever bastards (but they're not the first, nor the last company who prices for market penetration). But that alone just does not cut it, I think. Joel Spolsky wrote a bit on how Excel squashed Lotus. And I don't think they had a monopoly back then.
I'm convinced that's how Open Office etc. should work. Flawless im- and export, and I mean real fucking flawless.
And I wish people here would quit putting out/modding up extremities as if Microsoft acted like a monopolist from day one. Because that's just not true, or at the very least not really a balanced view.
I'm a linux lovin' slut. That said, your analogy sucks. I believe there's got to be something else than pure marketing/aggresive salesforce that's responsible for the fact that Microsoft grew from a small company to one that dominates a lot of IT submarkets. You can't permanently keep up an image that's just plain false, you have to add value.
You're right, huge tables with cells that span more than one page, having subtables in them, etc. don't belong in Word if you ask me. But that's how the customer's analysts did it. At one time, we had them agree that we put the whole lot in a database with a web frontend, so that you can check things off, hang issues on parts of the design etc. And still they kept trying to crawl back to their beloved MS Word, for which they had review templates, track changes, etc.
And yeah, the Office license will be a company-wide thing for most employees. Even worse (or better, depending on your view), the license we have includes home use! And I suspect that will be the case in a lot of other places.
You mean markup, etc? Well, it's just that we're currently in a project where we're cooperating quite snugly with the analysts of the client. They create huge word documents with huge tables in them. So those really have to survive. OOo sometimes barfs on them.
And if it bothers you and them that much, why can't you just mail your client a CD-R copy of OOo?
You can't be serious. Do you think when schedules are tight, you can bother clients and colleagues with a commodity thing like a word processor? Of course not. But because I want to run Linux, I bought Crossover Office. And the Office license is already paid for. Quite practical, all in all.