*BSD News Article 66445


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From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff)
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: 22 Apr 1996 19:53:48 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology - College of Computing
Lines: 84
Message-ID: <4lgo4c$6fa@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4lfm6m$d2c@rigel.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> <4lftn3$olb@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <317C8F0F.307E@curtin.edu.au>
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In article <317C8F0F.307E@curtin.edu.au>,
Dimitri Maziuk  <emaziuk@curtin.edu.au> wrote:
-Byron A Jeff wrote:
-> 
-> In article <4lfm6m$d2c@rigel.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de>,
-> Anselm Lingnau  <lingnau@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> wrote:... snip ...
-> >Besides, all that work will have been for the birds when
-> >the next version of Word comes out.... snip ... 
-> We can care less about the new version of Word for the simple reason that
-> there are no documents written in the new format. There are billions of
-> documents in the current format.
-
-Wrong.  
-  Everybody upgrades to new version within the next two month,
-  thanks to Microsoft's highly effective advertising campaign, and billions
-  of documents get converted into new format by 25.07.96.  (Will our Word 6
-  converter be out of BETA by then?)  And sure, they've swapped a 
-  couple of bytes in file header just so that other software can't read the file
-  (aforementioned converter included) and you have to go sign an NDA to get
-  new specs and there's a queue of WordPerfect and other people there so by
-  the time everyone has the specs MS'll have a new version of Word.  
-JMP Wrong.
-It's one of the things you do to stay on Top(tm).

I know exactly where you're coming from Dimitri but my basic premise is that
if we don't mount any resistance whatsoever then the free Unix movement will
die.

But you can't compete if you can't integrate the existing tools and file 
formats. 

So the timing is bad, it may not be word 6, or word 7, but what about word 8
or word 9?. We can get folks to switch if we can work with their existing
base. And once we get folks to start switching we can at least be in the
ballpark to compete.

And we now have a powerful advertising tool too: the internet. 50-60 million
folks worldwide most who are on the top end of the technology bell. A lot
of folks I know have converted to Free Unixes just because they've been 
exposed to it. Most folk use Microsoft because 1) that's all they know about
and 2) that's what the folks around them use. With the internet we can
expose folks to alternatives to Microsoft.

But we're losing and losing bad because of lack of interoperability with
existing applications and file formats. And Microsoft will pull further and 
further ahead unless someone mounts even the most meager challenge.

I'm not claiming we can win this war. However I do believe we can convert more
folks if we have the honey of "You can do many of the same things you're
doing with your existing system". Free Unixes cannot say that to a large
majority of the applications popularion because we can't interoperate with
even the simplist of Microsoft tools and formats.

That's why the Word format is binary, proprietary, and under NDA. Because if
anyone could read and write Word format document, they can compete with
Microsoft.

How about this for a bit on encouragement: In 1981 IBM released a Personal
Computer. They dominated the market. But a few other companies entered
the market, doing it faster, better, cheaper. And with complete 
interoperability with the existing equipment (hence the name PC clones)
IBM changed the standard in hopes of recapuring market share (does the name
MicroChannel ring a bell). But now folks had a choice and they choose
which one? IBM is an also ran in a pack of dozens of companies.

But without interoperability, the clone manufactureres would have never
made if off the runway, much less fly off with a significant part of the
market.

Same here. Without Word N (for any value of N >= 6) we can't compete.

I really wish that someone could take the initiative and just figure out
how to convert Word 6 docs. I don't have a copy of Word (or windows for
that matter) so I can't.

One last inspiration for the Linux crowd: Where would we be if Linus
had decided that Minix was good enough? Think about it and don't give
up the desktop without a fight.

BAJ
-- 
Another random extraction from the mental bit stream of...
Byron A. Jeff - PhD student operating in parallel - And Using Linux!
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332   Internet: byron@cc.gatech.edu