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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!brighton.openmarket.com!decwrl!tribune.usask.ca!neil From: neil@beast.usask.ca (Neil Schemenauer) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: 19 Apr 1996 03:07:22 GMT Organization: University of Saskatchewan Lines: 34 Message-ID: <slrn4ne0uc.1fh.neil@beast.usask.ca> References: <tporczykDpqKHL.7vG@netcom.com> <DpsKyx.1Jo@catzen.gun.de> <tporczykDptpAL.8uG@netcom.com> <4ksupc$a1j@cnn.nas.nasa.gov> <4l4pq5$h3s@sidhe.memra.com> Reply-To: nas170@mail.usask.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: janus1-1.usask.ca X-Newsreader: slrn (0.8.6) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21490 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:617 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3233 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3053 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17450 comp.os.linux.advocacy:45755 On 18 Apr 1996 00:08:53 -0700, Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> wrote: >In article <4ksupc$a1j@cnn.nas.nasa.gov>, >Paul M. Newhouse <newhouse@win126.nas.nasa.gov> wrote: >>>As I said originally, the only thing that can sell UNIX to desktops >>>(besides specialized uses) is applications - common productivity >>>applications, priced *reasonably*. >> >>I agree. We need to see a good spreedsheet and a good WYSIWIG document >>processor at resonable prices in order to really expand the Free/Net BSD, >>Linux demand in the desktop arena. > >Personally, I think we've got to have a good spreadsheet and word processor >PORTABLE FILE FORMAT that several people can write spreadsheet and WP >programs for. In the beginning there was UNIX and plain ASCII stream >files. This was good. Then there was nroff/troff and it was still pretty >good. But then all hell broke loose and every app comes with mutually >incomprehensible file formats that are all so utterly mediocre that they >change from one release to the next. We need a little bit of up-front >design to come up with something that will work for a long time but is >more rigorously designed than HTML and is not so close to the metal as >Postscript. > > >-- >Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022 >Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049 >http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com -- nas170@mail.usask.ca ___ __ __ ___ ____ ___ __ ___ __ Saskatoon, SK /\ / /__ / / /__ / /__//_ / / //_ /\ //__| / //_ /__) Canada / \/ /__ / /__ __//__ / //__ / / //__ / \// |/__//__ / \