*BSD News Article 66977


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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: 27 Apr 1996 08:43:13 -0400
Organization: College of Computing, Georgia Tech
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <4lt4p1$8u3@virgo.cc.gatech.edu>
References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <31769650.284D5C90@lambert.org> <4lg7ev$isk@news.missouri.edu> <4lmu6m$3cp@complete.org>
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In article <4lmu6m$3cp@complete.org>,
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> wrote:
>Justin "Rhys Thuryn" McNutt (rhys@vortex.cc.missouri.edu) wrote:
>: Terry Lambert (terry@lambert.org) wrote:
>: So you just write two modules:  tex2msw6.o and msw62tex.o.  Distribute 
>: them pre-compiled with the source for the rest of the package.  Be 
>: happy.  The Linux word processor just has to be capable of reading and 
>: writing Word docs.  It doesn't have to reveal how it's done.
>
>Why?
>

So that Free Unix folks can view/print/edit Word 6 documents. I don't
necessarily think it needs to be to TeX, but a conversion to something
we can read and manipulate would be good.

>Word isn't a standard under Windows.  Around here, most people I know run
>WordPerfect.

WordPerfect was excluded from this discussion for 2 reasons:

1) It isn't #1. It isn't even close. Word is a de-facto WP standard in the PC
world.

2) WordPerfect is already supported under Linux. The SCO version works fine
and Caldera is currently releasing a native Linux Port.

What this means that Switching to a free Unix is a possibility for your
folks. However they were Word users, it would not be possible.

I wasn't discriminating against WordPerfect, it's just further along
in its free Unix development.

>
>The only true multi-platform, popular, familiar, and publicized standard
>capable of handling all necessary information for multiplatform document
>transfer, conversion, and processing that we have to date is PostScript.

Um. You missed editing. Editing is important.

And even in that case we'd need a converter from Word 6 format to postscript.
Happen to have one laying around that doesn't require Microsoft Windows and
Word 6 to convert?

I have no problem amending 'Word 6' to 'Popular Windows Wordprocessors with
proprietary document formats' but that's quite a mouthful.

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