On 10/18/07, centos at 911networks.com <centos at 911networks.com> wrote: > On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:45:56 -0600 > Frank Cox <theatre at sasktel.net> wrote: > > ... > > Perhaps it would help if you pointed out to them that the Open > > Document Format is an ISO standard for document storage and > > exchange, and suggest that they use that instead. > ... > > Here is the basic problem with Linux! Over 1 million office 2007 > users and they have to change their software because it does not > conform to the "standard". > > Since Windows is about 90% of all the computers we have to adapt > to them. > > From my headers you can see that I am an everyday user of Linux, I > also have a couple of CentOS boxes. I smell smoke. Couldn't agree more! The point of computer systems are to get work done, not to uphold some idealistic point of view. Obviously, this being the CentOS list, we all enjoy the benefits of open source, and also support it. However, one of the main tenants of open source is freedom. I always find it interesting that many in the community take "freedom" to mean "do whatever you want as long as it's the same way I do it". The market chooses what the standards are, even in OSS. The market has spoken on MS Word and that is reality. It would be nice if you could alter reality the same way you can alter your comfy little universe inside the computer, but you can't. Thinking otherwise lowers you to the same level as MS, that is, "if you don't want to use our format and our software, then go home."