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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!news.cps.udayton.edu!news.engr.udayton.edu!blackbird.afit.af.mil!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!cc.gatech.edu!cc.gatech.edu!byron 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: 3 May 1996 13:34:05 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology - College of Computing Lines: 44 Message-ID: <4md20d$c2@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <318851BF.4E8724A7@gramercy.ios.com> <4mb38b$680@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <4mckp4$34m@rigel.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: gemini.cc.gatech.edu NNTP-Posting-User: byron Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22896 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:910 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3635 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3478 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18615 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47845 In article <4mckp4$34m@rigel.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de>, Anselm Lingnau <lingnau@tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> wrote: >In article <4mb38b$680@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>, >Byron A Jeff <byron@cc.gatech.edu> wrote: > >> Pray tell: How do you do that conversion without booting up Windows? To use >> word 6 to do the conversion is self defeating. I don't have Windows nor >> Word 6 but I get quite a few Word 6 attachments. What do I do then? > >If you have old documents in Word 6 format, chances are you also have >Word 6 to convert them to ASCII or RTF or whatever, as needed. So you're saying I need to keep Windows around just for the purpose of converting my documents. Then why not just use Windows? BTW I have neither Windows nor Word 6 on my machines. Linux only. > >If somebody sends you a Word 6 attachment, bounce it right back where >it came from and ask them to save it as ASCII or RTF for you instead. With the response "Well everyone else I know can read my Word 6 attachments as is? Why can't you? I was thinking about using FreeBSD/Linux, but if it can't even read a simple Word file, why should I?" I'm not discussing practical issues here. I'm talking about vision. To have any hope of competing in the desktop market, there must be a bridge between where they (being the users of Microsoft products) are and where you want them to be. That bridge doesn't exist. And each and every time you tell them to go back to Microsoft to do the most simple task, it slaps them in the face with "Free Unixes can't do the job". Pop Quiz: I get a Word 6 attachment. I don't have Word 6 (or Windows for that matter) on my machine. And the sender has gone out for the weekend. What do I do? WHAT DO I DO??!! ;-) That should be enough of a problem to justify the creation of a Word 6 to anything else converter that runs on a Free Unix platform. 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