*BSD News Article 68404


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From: Wilson MacGyver <macgyver@cylatech.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Office like programs for FreeBSD\Linux, etc... was (Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...)
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 23:33:32 -0400
Organization: CylaTech Inc.
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Message-ID: <3196AD8C.F6A@cylatech.com>
References: <3188C1E2.45AE@onramp.net> <4mnsc5$6qo@sundial.sundial.net> <3191ADA0.41C67EA6@sprynet.com> <4n2rcq$61e@dyson.iquest.net>
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John S. Dyson wrote:
> Your comments about Microsoft are sad but true.  I am in the position
> of having to specify NT in certain apps, unless U**X is much better.
> Luckily, U**X still has a foot-in-the-door in the large scale server
> market and it's new market of embedded controllers.  Microsoft has built so
> much cruft and inefficiency into NT (I have to program the NT beast), it is
> likely we can keep the big-server market until we make inroads into the
> workstation area.  But near term, servers and embedded controllers are
> probably the best market for the likes of FreeBSD.  If I could get
> a real -- document compatible copy of Microsoft Office for FreeBSD, I
> could use it for OA applications.  That isn't in Microsoft's interest
> though :-(.

I couldn't agree more. I too have to use NT for work and various projects.
I've been wanting to write a Word Processor with both character based interface
and X-windows GUI for sometime, but I'm having a really tough time trying to
get a hold of the file formats for Word. Yes, I know it's available from Microsoft
with a signed license, but I don't know what type of restictions they would
place on me. (probably quite a bit given their record. :) )