>>>Looking at this another way, could an "ordinary PC user" install Windows on a PC, having never used Windows before?
It's not at all hard. Put in the CDROM, reboot, answer a few questions. It's pretty much the same as using a machine that has a preload on it, just a bit slower.
Actually, I think the non-technical user would get to the part about creating partitions and get really confused. Linux at least tries to make it a little easier with a a couple of options you can choose (install on whole hd, install in empty space, etc) instead of manual partitioning.
The real difficulty is once it's installed. For Windows, you'll need a whole slew of drivers to make things work, which a new Windows user would not understand at all. Then you need to find programs and configure them all to your needs.
For fresh installations (without OEM CDs or disk images or something), Linux is definately much easier and faster than Windows.
I love WINE (and wine), and I actually like fiddling with WINE (with wine) to run my programs...Expecting this, however, of a non-technical user is like expecting them to perform brainsurgery.
I agree. I consider myself a technical user, I use Linux at home and I work in IT support, yet I cannot figure out how to run something in wine. I've had the occasional friend ask me about Linux and running Windows programs on it and I always tell them don't expect any to work at all. Maybe they could get it to work eventually, but not likely and Linux does not need anyone else running around saying they tried Linux and it sucked.
Actually no I'm not aware. And fact is, you're dead wrong. I don't if it works like this on other OSes but in Linux, if you highlight some text, press middle button, it pastes that into the url bar and goes there. so if you something like wwww.somesite.com -- not made into an actual link -- just double click the text, middle click and you're there.
I just tried that (I'm running Ubuntu 6.06) and it didn't work at all. I've used firefox on other distros too, and I've never had a problem middle clicking on tabs to close them, and I've never heard of middle clicking doing anything like you're describing.
>>> So don't autoload the drivers and the kernel will not load with a tainted status.
That doesn't make any difference. Copyright law prohibits the creation of derived works without permission, and the GPL does not grant that permission unless you distribute source. So the question boils down to "Are the binary-only modules derivative works under the law?".
The GPL only requires you to distribute source to the people you distributed the software to; if the only person with the changed software is you, then you don't need to give the source to anyone else. So yes, not autoloading the drivers does make a difference, because end-users can do whatever they want, but the distributors can't.
Okay, so now they placed the close tab button on the active tab itself. I've heard of that being planned. I, however, really don't like that myself. Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off? Because if not, I'm not switching
There's an extension for the alpha already that turns it off.
I like extensions, but sometimes it seems like you have to have 80 of them just to get options that seem like they should be common sense.
It's not just Joe User who wants his mp3s to play, it's everyone. Seriously, does anyone here ever not add mp3, dvd, etc support and instead go out and find oggs and flacs to listen to and watch exclusively? Anyone who does add dvd and mp3 etc to their home computers has no room to complain when a distro does.
But seriously, the set cannot be empty at the time when Massachusetts adopts ODF, or Massachusetts will be in trouble with the feds.
The set isn't empty now, what makes you think it could be when Massachusetts adopts it?
As I understand it, the company developing an ODF file filter for Microsoft Office Word has no immediate plans to offer it for distribution it to the public.
They're not the onlyones working on one. As I said, only a matter of time, and probably not that long of a time.
But will "over time" occur before this technology adoption goes into effect? If not, then Massachusetts is putting the cart before the horse and John Winske has a legitimate beef.
Massachusetts will probably wait until the plugins are finished and released to the public so ODF is usable in MS Office. Once that happens there's no reason for Massechusetts to not change to ODF.
What about confusing a file format with the entire set of applications that can edit that format?
That's not a static group. It's only a matter of time before MS Office reads/writes ODF, and more and more programs will support it over time. With that in mind, the original comment makes no sense.
The gentleman in the article was critisizing the State of Massachusetts decision to require ODF on the basis that ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled. This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format,
No, it has everything to do with whether or not MS Word can or cannot read the software. Microsoft's accessibility is currently much better than other software (excluding Apple's) so the blind who use MS Word want to continue to use MS Word. If MS Word can read ODF, then Massachusetts' decision to use ODF will have no effect on them.
Sure, OOo and every other software maker should make their products as accessible as possible, but that has nothing to do with Massachusettes, and with a plugin for MS Word already and plugins for the rest of MS Office on the way there isn't actually any basis to complain to Massachusetts about accessibility.
Also, CUPS (Common Unix Printer System) didn't work on Ubuntu, even back when it recognized the printer. My Mandrake computer couldn't detect CUPS on the Ubuntu system. When I tried to browse to localhost:631, the traditional CUPS web-based server, the web page told me, "We at Ubuntu have disabled this interface, because we designed this much better interface under KControl, so you don't need to fall back on this CUPS server. Run along now." Of course, the KControl interface didn't work.
I think that's a Kubuntu specific issue; I just went to localhost:681 on Ubuntu Dapper and I got a rather helpful-looking CUPS site.
Kubuntu, in my experience, has a lot more issues than Ubuntu. Every computer I've installed Ubuntu on has worked fine and recognized all the hardware, but Kubuntu has done stupid shit like refuse to recognize ethernet and once it even had a broken sudo after install (now wtf can you do with a ubuntu variant w/o sudo?). Now, granted, I haven't installed Ubuntu and Kubuntu on a large sample on computers, and not even the same sample of computers, but it's my opinion that Kubuntu sucks massively more than Ubuntu. You might want to try Ubuntu on your computer(s) because that might just work better, or, if you really hate GNOME, you should really try Mepis. It's KDE, it automatically installs all the proprietary stuff, and the new 6.0 Alpha is based off Ubuntu. As I've said before, Mepis is a better Kubuntu than Kubuntu. You should try it, it'll probably work better for you than Kubuntu.
Good point. It's the fact of the matter that sequels are actually harder to make than completely new plotlines, because there's no easy way to deal with all the equipment/experience/magic/statistics/etc. gathered by the end of the first game at the start of the sequel.
I dunno. I was annoyed at first that Yuna in FFX-2 didn't have any of the l33t skills I got for her in FFX, but I quickly forgot about that as I realized it sucked in many other ways.
I want to say The Legend of Zelda series, but even then only a few act like sequels from a previous episode. I'm not sure if someone can put 3 or more of those games in one coherent in-game timeline or not. Link to the past acted as if the NES games didn't exist, story wise, and Ocarina of Time seemed to ignore the NES and SNES games. Majora's Mask seemed a bit like a sequel to Ocarina, but almost more by chance. I haven't played any iterations for handhelds or GameCube, so I can't say there.
Link to the Past was meant to be about the ancestors of the NES games (the original box said so) and Ocarina of Time got its storyline from the Link to the Past prologue. Majora's Mask takes place between the Young Link and Adult Link storylines in Ocarina of Time.
The other games could be put into the timeline, but they're a bit of a stretch.
Mandriva isn't the easiest Linux distro, anymore at least. Other distros like Ubuntu and SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS have surpassed it in that regard. Mepis comes with all the proprietary stuff, and Ubuntu just requires a simple download of EasyUbuntu (no installing, just extracting) to get all the proprietary stuff going.
Using a package manager connected to repositories is certainly different from Windows, but it's not harder. If anything, it's easier, because you don't have to hunt around the internet for something and risk downloading a virus/spyware instead, and once you find it on Linux in your package manager, you don't have to fuck around waiting for it to download and then install it. It automatically installs itself without the inane questions that Windows software asks when it's installing. I've heard a lot of people complain about installing software on Linux, but I really don't understand it because Linux's easy install system is one of the reasons I converted from Windows.
A lot of linux distros do stuff like this though... I use fedora (although if I'd have had perfect knowledge at the start I might have chosen Ubuntu) and in that you can't read/write NTFS, you can't play mp3, you can't play comercial dvds... why don't they just say on the site that they are opperating under Russia (or a country with even less regulations about copywrite) law and then have done with it, making a really good, usable out of the box distro
That would be SimplyMEPIS. Seriously, it's Ubuntu with all the propietary stuff.
I personally don't care, becaue i don't think it's hard at all to enable MP3s, DVDs, etc. Just a couple checks of EasyUbuntu, or some copy&paste from the Ubuntu wiki and you're all set.
Does KOffice have features OOo/StarOffice don't have?
I think the more important question is does MS Office have features that OOo/StarOffice don't have? If so, are they features that would be disabled by using ODF, or are they things like, say, formatting a table is easier in MS Word* but once its formatted it can be saved just fine as ODF?
MS wants to give people the impression that using ODF will cripple MS Office down to the level of OOo**, but that's just not the case. MS Office people will still be able to use MS Office just as easily as they always have, with a slight, unlikely possibility that their documents might look a little different when saved as ODF (though it would probably be MS's fault, much like IE sometimes has problems with proper HTML) but MS Office has had RTF format support for long time and that has a much greater chance of not handling your documents right.
ODF means that people can use whatever office software they prefer and not have to worry about not being able to share it with others or worry about converting all their documents if they decide they like other office software better. Microsoft is scared off this because they know that the easier it is for users to switch office software then fewer of them will stay with Microsoft's. Everything they say about ODF is colored by this and designed to convince their customers that switching would be really really hard and will always remain that way.
*I'm not saying it is, it's just a hypothetical
**I know OOo people think that MS Office is the one that's crippled. My personal opinion is they both suck and you should use KOffice instead
>>>My biggest hesitancy in using javascript is the IE warning bar that makes any page containing script look threatening
>That only happens on XP post SP2 and when the content you are viewing is on a local drive.
The fuck? Shouldn't that be reversed? Or at least the same for both? I'm not sure why on earth you should be more trusting of websites than things on your hard drive.
Gender Non-Specific Dude,
Myspace pages are supposed to be embarrassing. I'm sure they'ld delete any page without a painfully gaudy background with equally painful music/video playing, the goal being obviously to have so much crazy sound and dancing images that people's heads explode when they view your page. Or they become so hynotized that they friend you and get everyone else to friend you so you have 8,000 friends you've never even talked to. One of those two.
Anyways, I didn't design it, my friend, a self-described "myspace whore", did. You know, maybe it would help their reputation better if they didn't describe themselves as whores...
Speaking of her, I should probably stop letting her use my computer, because I think she's trying to turn the whole thing into a myspace page. I've got music randomly playing now that I can't identify, and AIM (which I don't use) is blinking at me to let me know that one of her trendoid friends wants to talk to me, just like myspace does. When the cat on my desktop wallpaper starts dancing and there's litte heart-shaped snowflakes I'll really worry.
Note that being added as somebody's "friend" is not some huge statement that she 100% trusts him or believes he is who he says he is. But the media treats it like MySpaceFriend = RealFriend
Yeah. My cat has over 100 myspace friends. People will friend anyone on that site, and it's not like it means they want to have wild sex with every one.
In MS's defence, the xbox and 360 are somewhat innovative. Albeit, not as innovative as Ninetndo's 'wii', the 360 is one impressive consoles with a lot of firsts. It's integration with Live (Live is quite innovative IMO), is quite impressive; Nintendo and Sony are playing catch-up at the moment.
What exactly is innovative about the xbox? Live is a nice implementation of online gaming, but online gaming has been around forever. What else could be considered innovative... the harddrive? Yeah, the xbox is a cheap computer b/c that's what MS knows, but making a chinzy version of what you know doesn't count as innovation. I can't think of anything else that could reasonably be considered innovative. The 360 is even worse on the innovation front, it's just a pretty xbox.
Compare MS's innovation in the gaming field to just about anything the Nintendo has ever done, and you'll realize that MS really hasn't done much of anything.
Something I don't know about, because I haven't really investigated at this point -- is there some sort of "batch" tool for.Doc ->.odf conversions?
I believe KOffice has a utility for just that. Of course, I imagine people that entrenched in MS Office docs aren't going to randomly decide to switch to Linux (not before they unentrench themselves at least) but at least that tool is out there.
But I think what you're going to end up seeing is Microsoft will simply support ODF in Office.
Good. Then OOo/KOffice/etc can stop fighting to keep up everytime MS releasing a new Office and changes the format slightly. They can then focus on something important.
One thing that worries me about that is that it sends your file off on the internet (or to your server, if you have one you bothered to set up like that). Can't it just convert it right there on your machine?
Perhaps I should have install AbiWord for her at the time? But I think that defaults to.abi, which is yet again a bit of a problem for the non-power users.
Yeah, abiword is a little behind in implementing open document format. I used to use abi and my husband used OO, and it was so frustrating. Now he uses OO and I use KOffice, and we're both happy.
As far as whether they should use.doc or.rtf, I say no fucking way..doc is a proprietary format that they will *never* be able to implement fully, and.rtf is an old format not designed for modern word processors, and it does not have a spreadsheet, presentation, etc variation or equivalant, while.odt does. Open document is *clearly* the superior format for open source programs, and should be the default. Open source is *not* Windows for poor people, and pretending to be will just hold it back.
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>>>Looking at this another way, could an "ordinary PC user" install Windows on a PC, having never used Windows before?
It's not at all hard. Put in the CDROM, reboot, answer a few questions. It's pretty much the same as using a machine that has a preload on it, just a bit slower.
Actually, I think the non-technical user would get to the part about creating partitions and get really confused. Linux at least tries to make it a little easier with a a couple of options you can choose (install on whole hd, install in empty space, etc) instead of manual partitioning.
The real difficulty is once it's installed. For Windows, you'll need a whole slew of drivers to make things work, which a new Windows user would not understand at all. Then you need to find programs and configure them all to your needs.
For fresh installations (without OEM CDs or disk images or something), Linux is definately much easier and faster than Windows.
I love WINE (and wine), and I actually like fiddling with WINE (with wine) to run my programs...Expecting this, however, of a non-technical user is like expecting them to perform brainsurgery.
I agree. I consider myself a technical user, I use Linux at home and I work in IT support, yet I cannot figure out how to run something in wine. I've had the occasional friend ask me about Linux and running Windows programs on it and I always tell them don't expect any to work at all. Maybe they could get it to work eventually, but not likely and Linux does not need anyone else running around saying they tried Linux and it sucked.
Actually no I'm not aware. And fact is, you're dead wrong. I don't if it works like this on other OSes but in Linux, if you highlight some text, press middle button, it pastes that into the url bar and goes there. so if you something like wwww.somesite.com -- not made into an actual link -- just double click the text, middle click and you're there.
I just tried that (I'm running Ubuntu 6.06) and it didn't work at all. I've used firefox on other distros too, and I've never had a problem middle clicking on tabs to close them, and I've never heard of middle clicking doing anything like you're describing.
>>> So don't autoload the drivers and the kernel will not load with a tainted status.
That doesn't make any difference. Copyright law prohibits the creation of derived works without permission, and the GPL does not grant that permission unless you distribute source. So the question boils down to "Are the binary-only modules derivative works under the law?".
The GPL only requires you to distribute source to the people you distributed the software to; if the only person with the changed software is you, then you don't need to give the source to anyone else. So yes, not autoloading the drivers does make a difference, because end-users can do whatever they want, but the distributors can't.
However, there are a significant number of people like me who really just want to be able to apt-get Java and precompiled drivers,
I apt-geted Java and nvidia drivers for my Ubuntu machine.
Okay, so now they placed the close tab button on the active tab itself. I've heard of that being planned. I, however, really don't like that myself. Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off? Because if not, I'm not switching
There's an extension for the alpha already that turns it off.
I like extensions, but sometimes it seems like you have to have 80 of them just to get options that seem like they should be common sense.
Users want their MP3s to play.
It's not just Joe User who wants his mp3s to play, it's everyone. Seriously, does anyone here ever not add mp3, dvd, etc support and instead go out and find oggs and flacs to listen to and watch exclusively? Anyone who does add dvd and mp3 etc to their home computers has no room to complain when a distro does.
It's not a group at all, nor even a monoid ;-)
I'm not a math geek, what are you trying to say?
But seriously, the set cannot be empty at the time when Massachusetts adopts ODF, or Massachusetts will be in trouble with the feds.
The set isn't empty now, what makes you think it could be when Massachusetts adopts it?
As I understand it, the company developing an ODF file filter for Microsoft Office Word has no immediate plans to offer it for distribution it to the public.
They're not the only ones working on one. As I said, only a matter of time, and probably not that long of a time.
But will "over time" occur before this technology adoption goes into effect? If not, then Massachusetts is putting the cart before the horse and John Winske has a legitimate beef.
Massachusetts will probably wait until the plugins are finished and released to the public so ODF is usable in MS Office. Once that happens there's no reason for Massechusetts to not change to ODF.
What about confusing a file format with the entire set of applications that can edit that format?
That's not a static group. It's only a matter of time before MS Office reads/writes ODF, and more and more programs will support it over time. With that in mind, the original comment makes no sense.
The gentleman in the article was critisizing the State of Massachusetts decision to require ODF on the basis that ODF compatible software isn't friendly to the disabled. This has nothing to do with whether or not Word can or cannot read the format,
No, it has everything to do with whether or not MS Word can or cannot read the software. Microsoft's accessibility is currently much better than other software (excluding Apple's) so the blind who use MS Word want to continue to use MS Word. If MS Word can read ODF, then Massachusetts' decision to use ODF will have no effect on them.
Sure, OOo and every other software maker should make their products as accessible as possible, but that has nothing to do with Massachusettes, and with a plugin for MS Word already and plugins for the rest of MS Office on the way there isn't actually any basis to complain to Massachusetts about accessibility.
Also, CUPS (Common Unix Printer System) didn't work on Ubuntu, even back when it recognized the printer. My Mandrake computer couldn't detect CUPS on the Ubuntu system. When I tried to browse to localhost:631, the traditional CUPS web-based server, the web page told me, "We at Ubuntu have disabled this interface, because we designed this much better interface under KControl, so you don't need to fall back on this CUPS server. Run along now." Of course, the KControl interface didn't work.
I think that's a Kubuntu specific issue; I just went to localhost:681 on Ubuntu Dapper and I got a rather helpful-looking CUPS site.
Kubuntu, in my experience, has a lot more issues than Ubuntu. Every computer I've installed Ubuntu on has worked fine and recognized all the hardware, but Kubuntu has done stupid shit like refuse to recognize ethernet and once it even had a broken sudo after install (now wtf can you do with a ubuntu variant w/o sudo?). Now, granted, I haven't installed Ubuntu and Kubuntu on a large sample on computers, and not even the same sample of computers, but it's my opinion that Kubuntu sucks massively more than Ubuntu. You might want to try Ubuntu on your computer(s) because that might just work better, or, if you really hate GNOME, you should really try Mepis. It's KDE, it automatically installs all the proprietary stuff, and the new 6.0 Alpha is based off Ubuntu. As I've said before, Mepis is a better Kubuntu than Kubuntu. You should try it, it'll probably work better for you than Kubuntu.
Good point. It's the fact of the matter that sequels are actually harder to make than completely new plotlines, because there's no easy way to deal with all the equipment/experience/magic/statistics/etc. gathered by the end of the first game at the start of the sequel.
I dunno. I was annoyed at first that Yuna in FFX-2 didn't have any of the l33t skills I got for her in FFX, but I quickly forgot about that as I realized it sucked in many other ways.
I want to say The Legend of Zelda series, but even then only a few act like sequels from a previous episode. I'm not sure if someone can put 3 or more of those games in one coherent in-game timeline or not. Link to the past acted as if the NES games didn't exist, story wise, and Ocarina of Time seemed to ignore the NES and SNES games. Majora's Mask seemed a bit like a sequel to Ocarina, but almost more by chance. I haven't played any iterations for handhelds or GameCube, so I can't say there.
Link to the Past was meant to be about the ancestors of the NES games (the original box said so) and Ocarina of Time got its storyline from the Link to the Past prologue. Majora's Mask takes place between the Young Link and Adult Link storylines in Ocarina of Time.
The other games could be put into the timeline, but they're a bit of a stretch.
Mandriva isn't the easiest Linux distro, anymore at least. Other distros like Ubuntu and SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS have surpassed it in that regard. Mepis comes with all the proprietary stuff, and Ubuntu just requires a simple download of EasyUbuntu (no installing, just extracting) to get all the proprietary stuff going.
Using a package manager connected to repositories is certainly different from Windows, but it's not harder. If anything, it's easier, because you don't have to hunt around the internet for something and risk downloading a virus/spyware instead, and once you find it on Linux in your package manager, you don't have to fuck around waiting for it to download and then install it. It automatically installs itself without the inane questions that Windows software asks when it's installing. I've heard a lot of people complain about installing software on Linux, but I really don't understand it because Linux's easy install system is one of the reasons I converted from Windows.
A lot of linux distros do stuff like this though... I use fedora (although if I'd have had perfect knowledge at the start I might have chosen Ubuntu) and in that you can't read/write NTFS, you can't play mp3, you can't play comercial dvds... why don't they just say on the site that they are opperating under Russia (or a country with even less regulations about copywrite) law and then have done with it, making a really good, usable out of the box distro
That would be SimplyMEPIS. Seriously, it's Ubuntu with all the propietary stuff.
I personally don't care, becaue i don't think it's hard at all to enable MP3s, DVDs, etc. Just a couple checks of EasyUbuntu, or some copy&paste from the Ubuntu wiki and you're all set.
Does KOffice have features OOo/StarOffice don't have?
I think the more important question is does MS Office have features that OOo/StarOffice don't have? If so, are they features that would be disabled by using ODF, or are they things like, say, formatting a table is easier in MS Word* but once its formatted it can be saved just fine as ODF?
MS wants to give people the impression that using ODF will cripple MS Office down to the level of OOo**, but that's just not the case. MS Office people will still be able to use MS Office just as easily as they always have, with a slight, unlikely possibility that their documents might look a little different when saved as ODF (though it would probably be MS's fault, much like IE sometimes has problems with proper HTML) but MS Office has had RTF format support for long time and that has a much greater chance of not handling your documents right.
ODF means that people can use whatever office software they prefer and not have to worry about not being able to share it with others or worry about converting all their documents if they decide they like other office software better. Microsoft is scared off this because they know that the easier it is for users to switch office software then fewer of them will stay with Microsoft's. Everything they say about ODF is colored by this and designed to convince their customers that switching would be really really hard and will always remain that way. *I'm not saying it is, it's just a hypothetical **I know OOo people think that MS Office is the one that's crippled. My personal opinion is they both suck and you should use KOffice instead
>>>My biggest hesitancy in using javascript is the IE warning bar that makes any page containing script look threatening
>That only happens on XP post SP2 and when the content you are viewing is on a local drive.
The fuck? Shouldn't that be reversed? Or at least the same for both? I'm not sure why on earth you should be more trusting of websites than things on your hard drive.
Gender Non-Specific Dude,
Myspace pages are supposed to be embarrassing. I'm sure they'ld delete any page without a painfully gaudy background with equally painful music/video playing, the goal being obviously to have so much crazy sound and dancing images that people's heads explode when they view your page. Or they become so hynotized that they friend you and get everyone else to friend you so you have 8,000 friends you've never even talked to. One of those two.
Anyways, I didn't design it, my friend, a self-described "myspace whore", did. You know, maybe it would help their reputation better if they didn't describe themselves as whores...
Speaking of her, I should probably stop letting her use my computer, because I think she's trying to turn the whole thing into a myspace page. I've got music randomly playing now that I can't identify, and AIM (which I don't use) is blinking at me to let me know that one of her trendoid friends wants to talk to me, just like myspace does. When the cat on my desktop wallpaper starts dancing and there's litte heart-shaped snowflakes I'll really worry.
Note that being added as somebody's "friend" is not some huge statement that she 100% trusts him or believes he is who he says he is. But the media treats it like MySpaceFriend = RealFriend
Yeah. My cat has over 100 myspace friends. People will friend anyone on that site, and it's not like it means they want to have wild sex with every one.
In MS's defence, the xbox and 360 are somewhat innovative. Albeit, not as innovative as Ninetndo's 'wii', the 360 is one impressive consoles with a lot of firsts. It's integration with Live (Live is quite innovative IMO), is quite impressive; Nintendo and Sony are playing catch-up at the moment.
What exactly is innovative about the xbox? Live is a nice implementation of online gaming, but online gaming has been around forever. What else could be considered innovative... the harddrive? Yeah, the xbox is a cheap computer b/c that's what MS knows, but making a chinzy version of what you know doesn't count as innovation. I can't think of anything else that could reasonably be considered innovative. The 360 is even worse on the innovation front, it's just a pretty xbox.
Compare MS's innovation in the gaming field to just about anything the Nintendo has ever done, and you'll realize that MS really hasn't done much of anything.
Something I don't know about, because I haven't really investigated at this point -- is there some sort of "batch" tool for .Doc -> .odf conversions?
I believe KOffice has a utility for just that. Of course, I imagine people that entrenched in MS Office docs aren't going to randomly decide to switch to Linux (not before they unentrench themselves at least) but at least that tool is out there.
You're right, but I didn't find anything else for opening odf files from m$ office.
I'm sure there'll be something eventually.
But I think what you're going to end up seeing is Microsoft will simply support ODF in Office.
Good. Then OOo/KOffice/etc can stop fighting to keep up everytime MS releasing a new Office and changes the format slightly. They can then focus on something important.
Does anybody talk here about OpenOpenOffice ?
One thing that worries me about that is that it sends your file off on the internet (or to your server, if you have one you bothered to set up like that). Can't it just convert it right there on your machine?
Perhaps I should have install AbiWord for her at the time? But I think that defaults to .abi, which is yet again a bit of a problem for the non-power users.
.doc or .rtf, I say no fucking way. .doc is a proprietary format that they will *never* be able to implement fully, and .rtf is an old format not designed for modern word processors, and it does not have a spreadsheet, presentation, etc variation or equivalant, while .odt does. Open document is *clearly* the superior format for open source programs, and should be the default. Open source is *not* Windows for poor people, and pretending to be will just hold it back.
Yeah, abiword is a little behind in implementing open document format. I used to use abi and my husband used OO, and it was so frustrating. Now he uses OO and I use KOffice, and we're both happy.
As far as whether they should use