The uni in question is just being cheap about their bandwidth bill.
No admin in his right mind institutes blocking of particular Web sites to reduce bandwidth. Protocols blocking, sure. Traffic throttling and shaping, almost certainly. But blocking particular Web sites, like ones about anatomy or CA news sites? I don't see it. Maybe the sys admin is just really, really incompetent and believes what he is saying or maybe he's a lying scum bag. In either case, something should be done to address this.
How are virtual machines going to help here? What protection do virtual machines grant that the operating itself doesn't grant?
Most operating systems, including most Linux systems do not have strict access controls on an application level. Using a VM is one way to use existing tools to add much of that functionality to an OS not designed for it. I actually think VMs are going to be used more for this purpose in the future, since it also mitigates some of the cross-platform issues.
The problem can also be tackled more elegantly using ACLs or MAC within the OS, such as FreeBSD jails, Solaris containers and the like and given the limited resources on these machines, this is almost certainly the way to go. The real problem is making this user friendly enough and providing the correct default settings to make this type of a system usable to the novice computer user. It is doable, but not something for a HCI novice to tackle. I've actually been hoping Apple would tackle this one in OS X and provide something reasonable for other OS's to copy, but I don't think it is likely anytime soon. The usability and HCI aspect of this feature is critical to its security, but I fear it will be ignored due to the biases of a large portion of the Linux development community.
Run each application in it's own virtual machine. Xen has a low enough overhead and is clean code.
I think the CPU and RAM requirements for running more than one or two programs at once would really add up on such a meager system. A jail that basically uses an ACL to separate the program, ala FreeBSD or SE Linux would have a similar amount of benefit, using fewer resources.
One feature I love in MS Word is the integrated spelling and grammar. For a non-native English speaker it does catch a lot of errors.
One of the most overlooked features of Mac OS X is system services. They allow you to use functionality offered by a plug-in or application, in other applications, with no work on the part of the author of that second application. This includes spell checking and grammar checking (third party right now, but to be standard in 10.5). It also includes dictionary lookups, online resource lookups, thesaurus, language translations, scripts, statistics, etc. Using OS X, you can use these services in your LaTeX editor, or text editor in a terminal window.
I mention this, not as a advertisement for OS X, but because I feel that spelling and grammar checking should be implemented at the OS level and not the application level. Why should each program implement these functions separately? No application developer will ever be able to guess all my use cases, so it makes sense to let me install the services I want and use and have access to them everywhere. It also makes sense to have one shared dictionary for spell checking so that you don't have to add the same term for every application. MPLS is not misspelled, and I should only have to tell my computer that once, not once for my layout app, once for my e-mail, once for my chat client, once for my Web browser, etc.
The KDE environment on Linux has a feature called KParts, that seems to partially replicate this kind of functionality, but it does not seem to be in practical use and seems to be more of a shared library so each application developed has to know about all the services (kparts) and provide an interface for them. This makes it unworkable for general use in my experience thus far.
So yeah, it is unfortunate if you're running LaTeX on the wrong environment that you don't have spelling and grammar checking, but I don't see that as a failing of LaTeX itself, but of the OS that fails to provide a way for programs to all access common functionality.
That's probably true. Now if only someone other than you were having that discusion you'd be all set.
Here's an idea. Instead of jumping in at my +5 modded comment and trying to debunk arguments that were never made, you could read the quotes in the comment to which I was replying or even, gasp, read the post to which I was replying so you know what the hell this thread is discussing.
I'm fixated on MS Word because that is the layout tool/word processor/text editor for the vast majority of the computing world. I'm glad you use other tools. I'm not denying that other tools exist or may be better for certain tasks. But when we're discussing generic office document creation -- like in this thread entitled "Google 'Office' Release" -- MS Word is the standard of comparision.
Maybe you need to read the whole thread to which you are responding. The assertion was made that LaTeX is superior to "WYSIWYG tools" because of its nature as a markup tool. Further is was asserted that placing graphics in WYSIWYG tools is hard by comparison. That is what this thread is responding to.
And as far as diffing MS Word files goes -- the change tracking in Word is hardly comparable to a standard diff mechanism. It is rudamentally the same, but it can only show you changes in place, it has extremely limited time-based tracking (i.e. you can't say "show me all changes between 2 weeks ago and 1 week ago") compared to CVS/SVN, and it has the potentially embarassing/damaging behavior of leaving your change history in the file unless you take extra care to delete that history.
On the other hand it is more user friendly and does not rely upon a centralized server. Presumably everything going out is going to be made into a PDF from either LaTeX or Word, so the inclusion of all the changes is immaterial. Again, you're missing the point of this discussion. It is not about what is better, LaTeX or Word. It is about whether WYSIWYG is inherently inferior and since version control can be applied easily to either type of tool and since binary or text can be used with either type of tool, it is immaterial.
But if you think the average user -- you know, the guy the Google Office is targeted at -- is willing to......I think you're mistaken.
And if you think the average user, you know the ones Google Office is targeted at, is willing to download and install LaTeX, learn the markup language, and compile output files before seeing what the end result will look like, you're even more mistaken.
How does enforcement of the law (banning Microsoft from adding features) benefit those who want a computer with everything installed?
Sigh, the law does not ban them from adding features, it bans them from bundling features that would kill an existing market. For users that want a computer with everything installed, if the law is not enforced they can choose a Dell or Gateway or Lenovo machine, but they will all come with MS's solution, regardless of whether or not it is a pile of dog crap. If the law is enforced, they can buy a Dell or Gateway or Lenovo machine and each will come with the solution that OEM thinks is best, and the market can decide which is right and reward them with more sales. It benefits users because they get choice and because due to the competition all tool makers will make better products.
That's why I disagree that Microsoft has a monopoly. There is competition. People have realistic options besides Microsoft's products.
You're fundamentally misunderstanding what a monopoly is. A monopoly is simply having enough influence in a market. The market is desktop operating systems. Who else sells into that market? When Dell decides what OS to include what realistic options do they have? Apple won't sell them OS X, so that is not an option. They can buy a Linux distro, but customers want something that will run their existing software and the Linux offerings have simply not caught on. Dell can buy Windows from MS or go out of business. That is what a monopoly is.
The fact that you can buy a Mac has nothing to do with it because MS does not sell computers, they sell one component of computers, the OS. That is the market you have to consider their influence in.
That just means that people think they are getting a better deal by staying with Windows. I still don't see why this justifies prohibiting Microsoft from adding features.
Okay, let me try to explain the basic concept of antitrust law. When consumers look at the available options and buy the inferior one, without making a mistake as far as their own personal interest is concerned capitalism fails. If two companies both put out competing products, but the one that worked smarter and harder and made the better product for less money goes out of business while the inferior one succeeds, capitalism has failed. Using a monopoly, you can create artificial "features" through bundling or tying that allow you to consistently make this happen. If you look at an economic model of unregulated monopolies, they constantly expand taking over more and more markets until you're left with only a few huge companies and almost all products are overpriced and substandard. You basically have extreme socialism at that point, but socialism without the stated goal of benefitting society. It does not work. That is why it is illegal almost everywhere.
If you still don't understand why MS is a monopoly either do a little reading on monopolies in an economics text or note that every court that has considered it has declared MS a monopoly.
Will having the OEMs choose actually have different results? Or will they still choose to create the same bundles, because of contractual obligations with MS, financial incentives from MS, customer demand, or whatever other reasons?
Such contractual obligations are likewise illegal under antitrust law as they are making purchase of Windows by OEMs contingent upon bundling another product. That does not mean the courts will be able to convict, but it does mean any of them has some leverage in negotiating with MS, when MS tries to coerce them. OEMs having a choice, means they have incentive to give customers what they want at the lowest price, so the market can act.
You mean, adding a PDF/XPD authoring tool does? I agree, but I still don't think it should be forbidden for Microsoft to add features to their products. Perhaps we should rather take other measures. If, for example, we mandate the publication of file formats and protocols,
Slower than using MS Word or InDesign, both of which allow only 1 person at a time to work on a document?
Using a CMS you can have multiple editors for Word docs, or you can merge changes from multiple editors without a CMS. With InDesign you can just use XML for your source with SVN or CVS the same as you would with LaTeX, but you don't need to write a build script to keep things up to date as it is a built in function. Why would you even bring this up if you're not even familiar enough with either to know what you're talking about?
If you'd ever had to compile chapters from 30 people for a 500-page report you'd know that copy-and-pasting a Word document together is not the ideal scenario.
Yeah, Word has really crappy long document support and can corrupt files that get too large. It really sucks in a lot of ways, which is why no professional would ever use it for a long document (if they'd use it at all). It also has lots of bugs, can't handle a lot of imports, and the typography sucks ass. What is your point?
Latex lets me include 30 chapter files into 1 book file and compile.
Yes, I'm familiar with LaTeX. Framemaker, Quark, and InDesign let you include 30 chapter files or 1000 section files, and they will keep it up to date for you and manage the text contextually with tagging and variables for different versions, automatically, without any compiling and you can constantly see what the output will look like without waiting and switching to a view of the output file. It will also manage global changes, searches, style modifications, fonts/font collections, outputs, graphics input and output, etc.
There is not lot of point discussing this with you since you obviously have never bothered to try using the professional tools on the market. Listen I've used a lot of different tools both markup, WYSIWYG, and hybrid, including LaTeX. It simply is not the best tool for most tasks. If you disagree, at least do so from an educated point of view. Go try the demo versions of the programs I listed.
I'd give good money to see you make a useful diff from a binary (i.e. MS Word) "text" file using CVS/SVN.
First, MS Word supports a function very similar to Diff for its binary files. Second, MS Word can use the RTF format or export to a number of other formats using plugins that work just fine for diffs. Third, why are you fixated on MS Word? I basically never use MSWord. It is a piece of crap. But just because MSWord is a crappy WYSIWYG editor for many uses does not mean I want to use some out of date markup language where I have to use hacks just to insert and view the placement of graphics or change the color of some text because the original specification did not support them and it has never been updated properly. I'd rather choose neither MSWord or LaTeX ad instead use one of the many better options. I do a huge amount of my editing in XML, usually within a WYSIWYG editor with real support for graphics. You know, where I can drag something where I want it, set the transparency, set the scaling, apply a filter if I so desire, and make the position either absolute or relative to a vector path or location within the text. I'm sorry, but while LaTeX is very nice for certain, automated workflows, it blows chunks for a lot of other applications and the only reason to use it for them is if you can't afford the initial cost of better tools.
Isn't this data from the same "Net Applications" company that never publishes their source data or even methodologies and was demonstrated to have factual errors and contradictions in the summaries of their reports? I mean I'm happy with a trend towards less IE use, but I'm not about to just take these people's word for it, especially from a marketing firm. Give us real data or shut the hell up guys.
First of all, people _do_ prefer to get everything and the kitchen sink bundled with Windows, rather than buying it separately.
I see, so you speak for all people now? Most people either prefer to get just the OS at the minimum price, or a complete computer system with the OS pre-installed. Enforcement of the law benefits both of those market segments, and might disappoint a small number of people who like to build their own systems, but also want to buy all their software as one package because they like everything MS makes over anything other people make and trust MS not to overcharge them.
Secondly, Microsoft cannot indefinitely drive up the price of Windows to pay for useless gimmicks they include in it, because people will switch to different operating systems eventually.
No they won't, or at least not until they are really, really bent over and taking it hard. That's the whole point of a monopoly. It allows you to introduce artificial barriers to entry. It costs a significant amount of money and effort to switch, including repurchasing all your software. MS can inflate the price of Windows and the other bundled software quit a bit before it that motivation overcomes all these barriers.
As a third remark: the box of chocolates isn't more valuable if it's included with the electricity service, but an XPS/PDF tool is more valuable when it's included in Windows, because of network effects (the more people have it, the higher the value).
What benefit is there from MS choosing what to bundle instead of the OEMs that justifies giving up innovation and competition in the market? Also, It creates one more proprietary lock-in to keep people from moving away from Windows when they illegally take over the next market by creating a new tool to bundle.
Monopolies should not be allowed to bundle because the results are disastrous for consumers and the industry. Look at the state of the art for the Web browser if you have any doubts. In five years 90% of the world will be using bug ridden, slow, poorly implemented XPS readers akin to IE if the laws are not enforced. That is why this action is illegal in almost every country around the world. Sorry, but if HP or Dell thinks their customers would like the Adobe tools bundled with their PC instead, MS should have absolutely no ability to force them to bundle their own product.
No, you're really reaching - my legitimate copy of XP that came with my laptop did NOT include office; moreover, most desktops I see being sold DO NOT include office. Office may be very popular, but it is not illegally bundled to windows.
I said it was illegally tied, not bundled. Bundling is only one form of tying. Another is using proprietary or secret protocols or formats to make user of one monopolized product gain benefits if using a second product. One example of this which MS has been convicted of are the AD, and exchange protocols that tie their desktop and server products. The tie I was referring to was the built in.doc reader that ships with Windows. Since.doc is an undocumented, proprietary format, only MS can implement it perfectly in theory. Using it as the default format for word and including a reader in Windows constitutes an illegal tie.
And if they extended it, I'd agree with you 100%.
They don't need to extend, in this case, merely cripple or replace with XPS once they get enough of a userbase.
Once again, I cannot say it more clearly: there's nothing wrong with MS creating a competing "portable" format, and since Office is NOT bundled with Windows...
No, there is nothing wrong with creating XPS tools as a competitor to Adobe Acrobat Pro and PDF, but it is illegal for them to bundle those XPS tools with their Windows OS, which they have announced is exactly what they are doing with Vista and which is why Adobe will be making sure they end up before the courts. This particular anticompetitive behavior has nothing to do with Office so whether or not you think it is a monopoly is irrelevant.
...users have as much choice as they want.
So users can choose not to pay for whatever portion of their cost to buy Windows Vista pays the salaries of the XPS developers? Glad to hear it.
...only ONE of them has office on it, and it didn't come that way.
Irrelevant to this issue as it is bundling XPS tools with Windows, not with Office.
First of all, you keep using "Windows" as if it's interchangeable with "Office", it's NOT.
No, but it does not matter if MS is bundling with Office or Windows, since Office is illegally tied to Windows, and there is good case for Office constituting a monopoly influence by itself.
Second, how does this make sense: we're going to take over the portable document tool market by offering interoperability with the existing format.
It is called, "Embrace."
So if you're going to argue that MS has a desktop document creation monopoly, wouldn't you rather have users be able to write PDFs so that those of us NOT sucked in the MS void can share documents with those that are?
I never argued that they have a "desktop document creation monopoly." I stated that they have a desktop OS monopoly that they are abusing. I implied they might have monopoly influence in the word-processor market, and MS's lawyers certainly seem to think they do from their behaviors.
I'd rather someone besides MS was given the decision as to which document creation tools to include with computers.
So you're happy about this outcome?
Hell no, MS is breaking the law and the courts have not yet acted to stop them.
90% of the market now will not have PDF creation functionality.
Why not? Will Dell and Gateway and Lenovo and HP not bundle a PDF creation tool with the computers they sell?
Now websites will start to fill up with XPS documents instead of PDF. Does that really make you happy?
No, since it is the most blatantly illegal thing MS is doing (bundling Windows+XPS tools). Adobe will be making sure the courts act on this and I'll be happy when/if the courts issue an injunction to stop Vista from shipping until they unbundle it or otherwise provide for the same level of integration and functionality to any and all competitors.
It would be different if the defendant went out and said she doesn't trust the person or like the person, that doesn't necessary deflamate the character.
I find your use of "deflamate" as an alternative to "defame" most entertaining. Please submit it to Webster's immediately.:)
Freedom of speech is freedom from repercussion -- or at least, repercussion from the government.
Agreed.
The problem here is whether this qualifies as merely "speech".
Incorrect. This is speech. The problem is that most people think freedom of speech is unlimited. This is not true. Freedom of speech is limited when it infringes upon the rights of others. In this case, freedom of speech is legally limited by Libel laws that say your freedom to speak freely ends when you start telling lies about other people that defame their character and ruin their business. Most reasonable laws are simply formal ways of reconciling conflicting rights of different citizens.
But they weren't getting free PDF creation tools with Windows, they would get them as a separate download, a plugin basically, for Office.
Initially MS said they were bundling the PDF creation tools with office, but then backed down from that, since it was so obviously illegal. Now they are distributing them as a plug-in. They are, however, still distributing XPS creation tools built into Vista. XPS creation tools are in the same market, competing with PDF creation tools. That is what Adobe is almost certain to address before the courts.
oreover, Adobe wasn't asking for any money, they were merely asking that MS charge EXTRA for PDF functionality.
So here's the thing. PDF and XPS creation tools cost money to develop and maintain. That money comes from somewhere. Either it is included in the cost of Windows (which means even those who want to run Windows + Adobe Acrobat Pro have to pay MS for their tools anyway) or the money comes from directly selling those tools. In the former case, customers are screwed in that they have to pay for MS's solution regardless of which one they want. That means if they go with Adobe's solution they pay twice. This is arguably illegal under current antitrust laws.
Now, I can see both sides of this story, but everyone is making MS out to be the bad guys for wanting to include PDF functionality for free...
TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You're going to pat one way or another, it is just whether you are forced to pay for PDF and XPS creation tools when you buy Windows, or if they are separate products that you can buy separately.
Adobe just had sour grapes - their gripe was not that MS would take over PDF content creation, it was with MS's own competing format.
Here's what you're missing. Unless the courts intervene, MS will take over the portable document tool market with their tools and the XPS format, whether or not their product is as good as Adobe's. Capitalism works because everyone acts in their own best interests and chooses the best product. Monopolies combined with bundling break capitalism because they allow the market to be manipulated such that people can act in their own best interests and the less innovative, less functional, more expensive product takes over the market. That hurts the industry and consumers, which is why it is illegal.
The choice is not between you getting "free" PDF creation tools or not. That is just marketing. The choice is between you paying for the best portable document creation tools, or you paying more for MS's tools, regardless of the cost and quality.
Think about that for a moment... in years past, we complained that Word didn't write to non-proprietary formats, and because MS had a monopoly, it was impossible to compete. But now that Word includes open and competing formats, we going to complain that MS might take over the market for that format?
Word saves to closed proprietary formats. They propose tools that export, but do not import PDF and which you have to pay for whether you want them or not.
It's just sour grapes.
Okay if the courts don't step in, will XPS dominate the market in 5 years, just because it is bundled with Windows? Yes, it almost certainly will. Does it matter if it is not as good as PDF? Nope, it will win anyway, because it is bundled. That is illegal.
Technically, as far as we know they were threatened with legal action not sued. You are correct. Of course since anticompetitive actions are a criminal offense, the justice department and EU commission should be acting without any lawsuit anyway.
You missed my point. I'm not saying Microsoft's PDF authoring tool is a better product than Adobe's, I'm saying Windows-with-PDF is better than Windows-without-PDF.
At what cost? Is electrical service to your house better if it comes with a box of chocolates every month? Yes, sure it is. Does that mean any of us want to be forced to pay for a bundled electrical service plus chocolate utility, rather than having the option of buying both separately? No.
Also, don't forget, this law binds MS, not Dell or HP or Gateway. The vast majority of users buy their computer with the OS pre-installed. Leave it to Dell and HP and Gateway to bundle a PDF or XPS generation tool without coercion and then users can pick the best computer based partly on what portable document creation tools it has.
Yes. And then, to address this problem, we forbid them from making a better product (progress in technology), so that consumers are forced to buy a product from a competitor (costs the consumers a lot of money). Doesn't sound like a solution to me.
MS is not forbidden from making a better product that compete with Adobe's. They're forbidden from making the purchase of Windows contingent on the purchase of their new competitor to Adobe, thus providing users with an incentive to use it whether or not it is better than Adobe's product.
In a free market users can buy either Adobe's product or MS's and on the strengths and prices of those products decide which they want. In a monopolized market, users need Windows and even if they also have to pay developers to create a portable document generation tool as well, they still have to pay for it. Thus, XPS wins in the market whether it is better or worse than PDF. What is MS's incentive then, to make XPS better than PDF through innovation?
Oh really? Are you an attorney who practices in the USA? Or just another Slashdotter who thinks that common sense is how the law works?
IANAL... but I can read.
Other countries certainly think they can do this very thing. France thinks so. Maybe you don't remember the controversy over Ebay and Nazi items, but a French court ruled that Ebay, a US based business, had to block the ability of anyone with a French IP address to see any Nazi related items.
That is not the same thing. They were offering a service in France, to French citizens, thus they are bound by French law, however dumb it is. This (assuming the situation was as I described) would be as if German courts ruled that Ebay had to stop offering Nazi related items from American servers, to French citizens.
Just because you with no listed qualifications about the law say that it can't be done doesn't convince me that a US court won't indeed try to do that very thing.
You seem to have missed the point. The qualification was, if the service is offered from Canada to the UK, the fact that they also do business in the US is immaterial.
Admitted, your friends can't simply install stuff on your PC. But then, if they really need to *work* at it for some period (and not just check e-mail), why not just give them an account, which takes maybe two minutes?
The library is unlikely to let you install software at all. Ditto for the school. What about cross-platform issues? How many accounts do you really want on your machine? One guest account is a lot easier to maintain and takes less space than one for each student you ever do a class project with.
About maintenance and updates: applications should update themselves, so Joe User shouldn't notice at all if there's a new version available.
It is often nice to be able to hold off on installing new versions until you can test them, especially in large organizations. So the school might roll out one version of a word processor, the library another, and home machines each have the most up-to-date. Different platforms might have different versions available, if Linux lags Windows, for example. Also, if you're talking commercial products, not everyone can afford to always have the most up to date.
Web applications do make sense if you want particular functionality and they make collaboration a lot easier than most regular applications. It just depends upon the tasks and environments in which you will be working.
I will say, if I was on a budget administering a school somewhere, I'd be looking really hard at this.
LaTeX with an appropriate front-end is no less a word processor than the tools that are marketted as "word processors".
I'd actually argue that setup is generally more of a layout program with some word processing features. MS Word is not intended for exacting layout, LaTeX is. If you want exacting layout, you should compare LaTeX to tools designed to do that.
True, though MS Word is the WYSIWYG program most commonly used, you can compare it MS Word and conclude you've done a comparison to the most important WYSIWYG program that people use.
Ahh, but LaTeX is not the most common markup tool used. You can compare MS Word and OpenOffice Writer because they are designed for the same thing. LaTeX was designed to layout books. MSWord was not. Comparing it to Framemaker or Quark or InDesign is a lot more appropriate. And if you're trying to compare the advantages of WYSIWYG versus markup, then you have to take into account more than the most common and instead look at the best implementations of each.
That may be certainly the case, OTOH, the price tag of InDesign means that in most environments, "most users" aren't going to have InDesign available.
Most users are incapable of finding and installing a LaTeX environment.
Of course, a hybrid product, well-designed, can naturally, have the strengths of both WYSIWYG and markup-based systems, and so its superiority doesn't really say anything about the relative utility of the two models.
I thought it was obvious that both are better for different tasks, which is why such a discussion is useless unless you have specific tasks in mind. I just get annoyed when someone goes off about their favorite and how much better it is than everything else, despite obviously having not tried a lot of the options in the field. LaTeX is quite simply painful for certain tasks, especially for graphics because graphics do not fit well into the markup model. So when someone says something about how you can't position graphics well using a WYSIWYG, I get a little irate.
Slashdot Mirror
The uni in question is just being cheap about their bandwidth bill.
No admin in his right mind institutes blocking of particular Web sites to reduce bandwidth. Protocols blocking, sure. Traffic throttling and shaping, almost certainly. But blocking particular Web sites, like ones about anatomy or CA news sites? I don't see it. Maybe the sys admin is just really, really incompetent and believes what he is saying or maybe he's a lying scum bag. In either case, something should be done to address this.
How are virtual machines going to help here? What protection do virtual machines grant that the operating itself doesn't grant?
Most operating systems, including most Linux systems do not have strict access controls on an application level. Using a VM is one way to use existing tools to add much of that functionality to an OS not designed for it. I actually think VMs are going to be used more for this purpose in the future, since it also mitigates some of the cross-platform issues.
The problem can also be tackled more elegantly using ACLs or MAC within the OS, such as FreeBSD jails, Solaris containers and the like and given the limited resources on these machines, this is almost certainly the way to go. The real problem is making this user friendly enough and providing the correct default settings to make this type of a system usable to the novice computer user. It is doable, but not something for a HCI novice to tackle. I've actually been hoping Apple would tackle this one in OS X and provide something reasonable for other OS's to copy, but I don't think it is likely anytime soon. The usability and HCI aspect of this feature is critical to its security, but I fear it will be ignored due to the biases of a large portion of the Linux development community.
Run each application in it's own virtual machine. Xen has a low enough overhead and is clean code.
I think the CPU and RAM requirements for running more than one or two programs at once would really add up on such a meager system. A jail that basically uses an ACL to separate the program, ala FreeBSD or SE Linux would have a similar amount of benefit, using fewer resources.
Why not just do what corporate America does and lock the machines down administratively and then make all of the applications web based?
Because a lot of them won't have Web access a significant portion of the time.
One feature I love in MS Word is the integrated spelling and grammar. For a non-native English speaker it does catch a lot of errors.
One of the most overlooked features of Mac OS X is system services. They allow you to use functionality offered by a plug-in or application, in other applications, with no work on the part of the author of that second application. This includes spell checking and grammar checking (third party right now, but to be standard in 10.5). It also includes dictionary lookups, online resource lookups, thesaurus, language translations, scripts, statistics, etc. Using OS X, you can use these services in your LaTeX editor, or text editor in a terminal window.
I mention this, not as a advertisement for OS X, but because I feel that spelling and grammar checking should be implemented at the OS level and not the application level. Why should each program implement these functions separately? No application developer will ever be able to guess all my use cases, so it makes sense to let me install the services I want and use and have access to them everywhere. It also makes sense to have one shared dictionary for spell checking so that you don't have to add the same term for every application. MPLS is not misspelled, and I should only have to tell my computer that once, not once for my layout app, once for my e-mail, once for my chat client, once for my Web browser, etc.
The KDE environment on Linux has a feature called KParts, that seems to partially replicate this kind of functionality, but it does not seem to be in practical use and seems to be more of a shared library so each application developed has to know about all the services (kparts) and provide an interface for them. This makes it unworkable for general use in my experience thus far.
So yeah, it is unfortunate if you're running LaTeX on the wrong environment that you don't have spelling and grammar checking, but I don't see that as a failing of LaTeX itself, but of the OS that fails to provide a way for programs to all access common functionality.
That's probably true. Now if only someone other than you were having that discusion you'd be all set.
Here's an idea. Instead of jumping in at my +5 modded comment and trying to debunk arguments that were never made, you could read the quotes in the comment to which I was replying or even, gasp, read the post to which I was replying so you know what the hell this thread is discussing.
I'm fixated on MS Word because that is the layout tool/word processor/text editor for the vast majority of the computing world. I'm glad you use other tools. I'm not denying that other tools exist or may be better for certain tasks. But when we're discussing generic office document creation -- like in this thread entitled "Google 'Office' Release" -- MS Word is the standard of comparision.
Maybe you need to read the whole thread to which you are responding. The assertion was made that LaTeX is superior to "WYSIWYG tools" because of its nature as a markup tool. Further is was asserted that placing graphics in WYSIWYG tools is hard by comparison. That is what this thread is responding to.
And as far as diffing MS Word files goes -- the change tracking in Word is hardly comparable to a standard diff mechanism. It is rudamentally the same, but it can only show you changes in place, it has extremely limited time-based tracking (i.e. you can't say "show me all changes between 2 weeks ago and 1 week ago") compared to CVS/SVN, and it has the potentially embarassing/damaging behavior of leaving your change history in the file unless you take extra care to delete that history.
On the other hand it is more user friendly and does not rely upon a centralized server. Presumably everything going out is going to be made into a PDF from either LaTeX or Word, so the inclusion of all the changes is immaterial. Again, you're missing the point of this discussion. It is not about what is better, LaTeX or Word. It is about whether WYSIWYG is inherently inferior and since version control can be applied easily to either type of tool and since binary or text can be used with either type of tool, it is immaterial.
But if you think the average user -- you know, the guy the Google Office is targeted at -- is willing to... ...I think you're mistaken.
And if you think the average user, you know the ones Google Office is targeted at, is willing to download and install LaTeX, learn the markup language, and compile output files before seeing what the end result will look like, you're even more mistaken.
How does enforcement of the law (banning Microsoft from adding features) benefit those who want a computer with everything installed?
Sigh, the law does not ban them from adding features, it bans them from bundling features that would kill an existing market. For users that want a computer with everything installed, if the law is not enforced they can choose a Dell or Gateway or Lenovo machine, but they will all come with MS's solution, regardless of whether or not it is a pile of dog crap. If the law is enforced, they can buy a Dell or Gateway or Lenovo machine and each will come with the solution that OEM thinks is best, and the market can decide which is right and reward them with more sales. It benefits users because they get choice and because due to the competition all tool makers will make better products.
That's why I disagree that Microsoft has a monopoly. There is competition. People have realistic options besides Microsoft's products.
You're fundamentally misunderstanding what a monopoly is. A monopoly is simply having enough influence in a market. The market is desktop operating systems. Who else sells into that market? When Dell decides what OS to include what realistic options do they have? Apple won't sell them OS X, so that is not an option. They can buy a Linux distro, but customers want something that will run their existing software and the Linux offerings have simply not caught on. Dell can buy Windows from MS or go out of business. That is what a monopoly is.
The fact that you can buy a Mac has nothing to do with it because MS does not sell computers, they sell one component of computers, the OS. That is the market you have to consider their influence in.
That just means that people think they are getting a better deal by staying with Windows. I still don't see why this justifies prohibiting Microsoft from adding features.
Okay, let me try to explain the basic concept of antitrust law. When consumers look at the available options and buy the inferior one, without making a mistake as far as their own personal interest is concerned capitalism fails. If two companies both put out competing products, but the one that worked smarter and harder and made the better product for less money goes out of business while the inferior one succeeds, capitalism has failed. Using a monopoly, you can create artificial "features" through bundling or tying that allow you to consistently make this happen. If you look at an economic model of unregulated monopolies, they constantly expand taking over more and more markets until you're left with only a few huge companies and almost all products are overpriced and substandard. You basically have extreme socialism at that point, but socialism without the stated goal of benefitting society. It does not work. That is why it is illegal almost everywhere.
If you still don't understand why MS is a monopoly either do a little reading on monopolies in an economics text or note that every court that has considered it has declared MS a monopoly.
Will having the OEMs choose actually have different results? Or will they still choose to create the same bundles, because of contractual obligations with MS, financial incentives from MS, customer demand, or whatever other reasons?
Such contractual obligations are likewise illegal under antitrust law as they are making purchase of Windows by OEMs contingent upon bundling another product. That does not mean the courts will be able to convict, but it does mean any of them has some leverage in negotiating with MS, when MS tries to coerce them. OEMs having a choice, means they have incentive to give customers what they want at the lowest price, so the market can act.
You mean, adding a PDF/XPD authoring tool does? I agree, but I still don't think it should be forbidden for Microsoft to add features to their products. Perhaps we should rather take other measures. If, for example, we mandate the publication of file formats and protocols,
Slower than using MS Word or InDesign, both of which allow only 1 person at a time to work on a document?
Using a CMS you can have multiple editors for Word docs, or you can merge changes from multiple editors without a CMS. With InDesign you can just use XML for your source with SVN or CVS the same as you would with LaTeX, but you don't need to write a build script to keep things up to date as it is a built in function. Why would you even bring this up if you're not even familiar enough with either to know what you're talking about?
If you'd ever had to compile chapters from 30 people for a 500-page report you'd know that copy-and-pasting a Word document together is not the ideal scenario.
Yeah, Word has really crappy long document support and can corrupt files that get too large. It really sucks in a lot of ways, which is why no professional would ever use it for a long document (if they'd use it at all). It also has lots of bugs, can't handle a lot of imports, and the typography sucks ass. What is your point?
Latex lets me include 30 chapter files into 1 book file and compile.
Yes, I'm familiar with LaTeX. Framemaker, Quark, and InDesign let you include 30 chapter files or 1000 section files, and they will keep it up to date for you and manage the text contextually with tagging and variables for different versions, automatically, without any compiling and you can constantly see what the output will look like without waiting and switching to a view of the output file. It will also manage global changes, searches, style modifications, fonts/font collections, outputs, graphics input and output, etc.
There is not lot of point discussing this with you since you obviously have never bothered to try using the professional tools on the market. Listen I've used a lot of different tools both markup, WYSIWYG, and hybrid, including LaTeX. It simply is not the best tool for most tasks. If you disagree, at least do so from an educated point of view. Go try the demo versions of the programs I listed.
I'd give good money to see you make a useful diff from a binary (i.e. MS Word) "text" file using CVS/SVN.
First, MS Word supports a function very similar to Diff for its binary files. Second, MS Word can use the RTF format or export to a number of other formats using plugins that work just fine for diffs. Third, why are you fixated on MS Word? I basically never use MSWord. It is a piece of crap. But just because MSWord is a crappy WYSIWYG editor for many uses does not mean I want to use some out of date markup language where I have to use hacks just to insert and view the placement of graphics or change the color of some text because the original specification did not support them and it has never been updated properly. I'd rather choose neither MSWord or LaTeX ad instead use one of the many better options. I do a huge amount of my editing in XML, usually within a WYSIWYG editor with real support for graphics. You know, where I can drag something where I want it, set the transparency, set the scaling, apply a filter if I so desire, and make the position either absolute or relative to a vector path or location within the text. I'm sorry, but while LaTeX is very nice for certain, automated workflows, it blows chunks for a lot of other applications and the only reason to use it for them is if you can't afford the initial cost of better tools.
All of these arguments are against MS Word. They have little bearing on a discussion of LaTeX and markup versus WYSIWYG.
Isn't this data from the same "Net Applications" company that never publishes their source data or even methodologies and was demonstrated to have factual errors and contradictions in the summaries of their reports? I mean I'm happy with a trend towards less IE use, but I'm not about to just take these people's word for it, especially from a marketing firm. Give us real data or shut the hell up guys.
That analogy doesn't work.
Yes it does :)
First of all, people _do_ prefer to get everything and the kitchen sink bundled with Windows, rather than buying it separately.
I see, so you speak for all people now? Most people either prefer to get just the OS at the minimum price, or a complete computer system with the OS pre-installed. Enforcement of the law benefits both of those market segments, and might disappoint a small number of people who like to build their own systems, but also want to buy all their software as one package because they like everything MS makes over anything other people make and trust MS not to overcharge them.
Secondly, Microsoft cannot indefinitely drive up the price of Windows to pay for useless gimmicks they include in it, because people will switch to different operating systems eventually.
No they won't, or at least not until they are really, really bent over and taking it hard. That's the whole point of a monopoly. It allows you to introduce artificial barriers to entry. It costs a significant amount of money and effort to switch, including repurchasing all your software. MS can inflate the price of Windows and the other bundled software quit a bit before it that motivation overcomes all these barriers.
As a third remark: the box of chocolates isn't more valuable if it's included with the electricity service, but an XPS/PDF tool is more valuable when it's included in Windows, because of network effects (the more people have it, the higher the value).
What benefit is there from MS choosing what to bundle instead of the OEMs that justifies giving up innovation and competition in the market? Also, It creates one more proprietary lock-in to keep people from moving away from Windows when they illegally take over the next market by creating a new tool to bundle.
Monopolies should not be allowed to bundle because the results are disastrous for consumers and the industry. Look at the state of the art for the Web browser if you have any doubts. In five years 90% of the world will be using bug ridden, slow, poorly implemented XPS readers akin to IE if the laws are not enforced. That is why this action is illegal in almost every country around the world. Sorry, but if HP or Dell thinks their customers would like the Adobe tools bundled with their PC instead, MS should have absolutely no ability to force them to bundle their own product.
No, you're really reaching - my legitimate copy of XP that came with my laptop did NOT include office; moreover, most desktops I see being sold DO NOT include office. Office may be very popular, but it is not illegally bundled to windows.
I said it was illegally tied, not bundled. Bundling is only one form of tying. Another is using proprietary or secret protocols or formats to make user of one monopolized product gain benefits if using a second product. One example of this which MS has been convicted of are the AD, and exchange protocols that tie their desktop and server products. The tie I was referring to was the built in .doc reader that ships with Windows. Since .doc is an undocumented, proprietary format, only MS can implement it perfectly in theory. Using it as the default format for word and including a reader in Windows constitutes an illegal tie.
And if they extended it, I'd agree with you 100%.
They don't need to extend, in this case, merely cripple or replace with XPS once they get enough of a userbase.
Once again, I cannot say it more clearly: there's nothing wrong with MS creating a competing "portable" format, and since Office is NOT bundled with Windows...
No, there is nothing wrong with creating XPS tools as a competitor to Adobe Acrobat Pro and PDF, but it is illegal for them to bundle those XPS tools with their Windows OS, which they have announced is exactly what they are doing with Vista and which is why Adobe will be making sure they end up before the courts. This particular anticompetitive behavior has nothing to do with Office so whether or not you think it is a monopoly is irrelevant.
So users can choose not to pay for whatever portion of their cost to buy Windows Vista pays the salaries of the XPS developers? Glad to hear it.
Irrelevant to this issue as it is bundling XPS tools with Windows, not with Office.
First of all, you keep using "Windows" as if it's interchangeable with "Office", it's NOT.
No, but it does not matter if MS is bundling with Office or Windows, since Office is illegally tied to Windows, and there is good case for Office constituting a monopoly influence by itself.
Second, how does this make sense: we're going to take over the portable document tool market by offering interoperability with the existing format.
It is called, "Embrace."
So if you're going to argue that MS has a desktop document creation monopoly, wouldn't you rather have users be able to write PDFs so that those of us NOT sucked in the MS void can share documents with those that are?
I never argued that they have a "desktop document creation monopoly." I stated that they have a desktop OS monopoly that they are abusing. I implied they might have monopoly influence in the word-processor market, and MS's lawyers certainly seem to think they do from their behaviors.
I'd rather someone besides MS was given the decision as to which document creation tools to include with computers.
So you're happy about this outcome?
Hell no, MS is breaking the law and the courts have not yet acted to stop them.
90% of the market now will not have PDF creation functionality.
Why not? Will Dell and Gateway and Lenovo and HP not bundle a PDF creation tool with the computers they sell?
Now websites will start to fill up with XPS documents instead of PDF. Does that really make you happy?
No, since it is the most blatantly illegal thing MS is doing (bundling Windows+XPS tools). Adobe will be making sure the courts act on this and I'll be happy when/if the courts issue an injunction to stop Vista from shipping until they unbundle it or otherwise provide for the same level of integration and functionality to any and all competitors.
My favourite analogy...
That's a parable.
It would be different if the defendant went out and said she doesn't trust the person or like the person, that doesn't necessary deflamate the character.
I find your use of "deflamate" as an alternative to "defame" most entertaining. Please submit it to Webster's immediately. :)
Freedom of speech is freedom from repercussion -- or at least, repercussion from the government.
Agreed.
The problem here is whether this qualifies as merely "speech".
Incorrect. This is speech. The problem is that most people think freedom of speech is unlimited. This is not true. Freedom of speech is limited when it infringes upon the rights of others. In this case, freedom of speech is legally limited by Libel laws that say your freedom to speak freely ends when you start telling lies about other people that defame their character and ruin their business. Most reasonable laws are simply formal ways of reconciling conflicting rights of different citizens.
But they weren't getting free PDF creation tools with Windows, they would get them as a separate download, a plugin basically, for Office.
Initially MS said they were bundling the PDF creation tools with office, but then backed down from that, since it was so obviously illegal. Now they are distributing them as a plug-in. They are, however, still distributing XPS creation tools built into Vista. XPS creation tools are in the same market, competing with PDF creation tools. That is what Adobe is almost certain to address before the courts.
oreover, Adobe wasn't asking for any money, they were merely asking that MS charge EXTRA for PDF functionality.
So here's the thing. PDF and XPS creation tools cost money to develop and maintain. That money comes from somewhere. Either it is included in the cost of Windows (which means even those who want to run Windows + Adobe Acrobat Pro have to pay MS for their tools anyway) or the money comes from directly selling those tools. In the former case, customers are screwed in that they have to pay for MS's solution regardless of which one they want. That means if they go with Adobe's solution they pay twice. This is arguably illegal under current antitrust laws.
Now, I can see both sides of this story, but everyone is making MS out to be the bad guys for wanting to include PDF functionality for free ...
TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. You're going to pat one way or another, it is just whether you are forced to pay for PDF and XPS creation tools when you buy Windows, or if they are separate products that you can buy separately.
Adobe just had sour grapes - their gripe was not that MS would take over PDF content creation, it was with MS's own competing format.
Here's what you're missing. Unless the courts intervene, MS will take over the portable document tool market with their tools and the XPS format, whether or not their product is as good as Adobe's. Capitalism works because everyone acts in their own best interests and chooses the best product. Monopolies combined with bundling break capitalism because they allow the market to be manipulated such that people can act in their own best interests and the less innovative, less functional, more expensive product takes over the market. That hurts the industry and consumers, which is why it is illegal.
The choice is not between you getting "free" PDF creation tools or not. That is just marketing. The choice is between you paying for the best portable document creation tools, or you paying more for MS's tools, regardless of the cost and quality.
Think about that for a moment... in years past, we complained that Word didn't write to non-proprietary formats, and because MS had a monopoly, it was impossible to compete. But now that Word includes open and competing formats, we going to complain that MS might take over the market for that format?
Word saves to closed proprietary formats. They propose tools that export, but do not import PDF and which you have to pay for whether you want them or not.
It's just sour grapes.
Okay if the courts don't step in, will XPS dominate the market in 5 years, just because it is bundled with Windows? Yes, it almost certainly will. Does it matter if it is not as good as PDF? Nope, it will win anyway, because it is bundled. That is illegal.
Were they ever actually sued?
Technically, as far as we know they were threatened with legal action not sued. You are correct. Of course since anticompetitive actions are a criminal offense, the justice department and EU commission should be acting without any lawsuit anyway.
You missed my point. I'm not saying Microsoft's PDF authoring tool is a better product than Adobe's, I'm saying Windows-with-PDF is better than Windows-without-PDF.
At what cost? Is electrical service to your house better if it comes with a box of chocolates every month? Yes, sure it is. Does that mean any of us want to be forced to pay for a bundled electrical service plus chocolate utility, rather than having the option of buying both separately? No.
Also, don't forget, this law binds MS, not Dell or HP or Gateway. The vast majority of users buy their computer with the OS pre-installed. Leave it to Dell and HP and Gateway to bundle a PDF or XPS generation tool without coercion and then users can pick the best computer based partly on what portable document creation tools it has.
Yes. And then, to address this problem, we forbid them from making a better product (progress in technology), so that consumers are forced to buy a product from a competitor (costs the consumers a lot of money). Doesn't sound like a solution to me.
MS is not forbidden from making a better product that compete with Adobe's. They're forbidden from making the purchase of Windows contingent on the purchase of their new competitor to Adobe, thus providing users with an incentive to use it whether or not it is better than Adobe's product.
In a free market users can buy either Adobe's product or MS's and on the strengths and prices of those products decide which they want. In a monopolized market, users need Windows and even if they also have to pay developers to create a portable document generation tool as well, they still have to pay for it. Thus, XPS wins in the market whether it is better or worse than PDF. What is MS's incentive then, to make XPS better than PDF through innovation?
Oh really? Are you an attorney who practices in the USA? Or just another Slashdotter who thinks that common sense is how the law works?
IANAL... but I can read.
Other countries certainly think they can do this very thing. France thinks so. Maybe you don't remember the controversy over Ebay and Nazi items, but a French court ruled that Ebay, a US based business, had to block the ability of anyone with a French IP address to see any Nazi related items.
That is not the same thing. They were offering a service in France, to French citizens, thus they are bound by French law, however dumb it is. This (assuming the situation was as I described) would be as if German courts ruled that Ebay had to stop offering Nazi related items from American servers, to French citizens.
Just because you with no listed qualifications about the law say that it can't be done doesn't convince me that a US court won't indeed try to do that very thing.
You seem to have missed the point. The qualification was, if the service is offered from Canada to the UK, the fact that they also do business in the US is immaterial.
Admitted, your friends can't simply install stuff on your PC. But then, if they really need to *work* at it for some period (and not just check e-mail), why not just give them an account, which takes maybe two minutes?
The library is unlikely to let you install software at all. Ditto for the school. What about cross-platform issues? How many accounts do you really want on your machine? One guest account is a lot easier to maintain and takes less space than one for each student you ever do a class project with.
About maintenance and updates: applications should update themselves, so Joe User shouldn't notice at all if there's a new version available.
It is often nice to be able to hold off on installing new versions until you can test them, especially in large organizations. So the school might roll out one version of a word processor, the library another, and home machines each have the most up-to-date. Different platforms might have different versions available, if Linux lags Windows, for example. Also, if you're talking commercial products, not everyone can afford to always have the most up to date.
Web applications do make sense if you want particular functionality and they make collaboration a lot easier than most regular applications. It just depends upon the tasks and environments in which you will be working.
I will say, if I was on a budget administering a school somewhere, I'd be looking really hard at this.
LaTeX with an appropriate front-end is no less a word processor than the tools that are marketted as "word processors".
I'd actually argue that setup is generally more of a layout program with some word processing features. MS Word is not intended for exacting layout, LaTeX is. If you want exacting layout, you should compare LaTeX to tools designed to do that.
True, though MS Word is the WYSIWYG program most commonly used, you can compare it MS Word and conclude you've done a comparison to the most important WYSIWYG program that people use.
Ahh, but LaTeX is not the most common markup tool used. You can compare MS Word and OpenOffice Writer because they are designed for the same thing. LaTeX was designed to layout books. MSWord was not. Comparing it to Framemaker or Quark or InDesign is a lot more appropriate. And if you're trying to compare the advantages of WYSIWYG versus markup, then you have to take into account more than the most common and instead look at the best implementations of each.
That may be certainly the case, OTOH, the price tag of InDesign means that in most environments, "most users" aren't going to have InDesign available.
Most users are incapable of finding and installing a LaTeX environment.
Of course, a hybrid product, well-designed, can naturally, have the strengths of both WYSIWYG and markup-based systems, and so its superiority doesn't really say anything about the relative utility of the two models.
I thought it was obvious that both are better for different tasks, which is why such a discussion is useless unless you have specific tasks in mind. I just get annoyed when someone goes off about their favorite and how much better it is than everything else, despite obviously having not tried a lot of the options in the field. LaTeX is quite simply painful for certain tasks, especially for graphics because graphics do not fit well into the markup model. So when someone says something about how you can't position graphics well using a WYSIWYG, I get a little irate.