This no longer hold water.  Star Office 5.1 is free, and it opens office 97
documents.  I even used it to open a powerpoint 97 presentation and save it
down to office 95 so windows could use it.

Joe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Austin
> Godber
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 10:21 PM
> To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: Re: What shell we do with the Microsoft.....
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 30, 2000 at 09:02:05PM -0700, Mark R. Myers wrote:
> > My vote is to do nothing and leave Microsoft alone.
> > No one put a gun to anyone's head and said that they had to purchase a
> > Microsoft product.
>
> When you use a Microsoft product why do you do so?  My answer is: Because
> someone else used some specific MS product which I can't get for my OS
> and I need to share information with that person.  For example (Word/Excel
> documents) other Office suite manufacturers try their best to keep up with
> MS "improvements" in their document format and provide filters so you can
> read MS documents.  But they are always a step or two behind so I am
> forced to use an MS product to share.  The gun HAS been placed to my head.
> I did not choose to buy a MS product I simply chose to work with someone
> else who chose to buy an MS product.
> 	As for microsoft's business practices ... they are intended to
> ensure that this gun is placed on as many temples as possible.  MS is much
> like a one way hash function.  If someone uses an MS product anyone who
> wants to share with them must also use an MS product ... examples:
> 	document formats (word, excel)
> 	Windows media files (ever find a way to convert back to an MPEG?)
> 	kerberos (we'll see about that one)
> MS is in a particularly good position to apply "leverage."  With their
> desktop OS and Office suite market share no one has a chance of competing
> since there is little ability for sharing.  "Nobody gets fired for buying
> IBM^H^H^H Microsoft)."  I know some people have been sucessful switching
> to StarOffice or maybe someday back to WordPerfect Office ... but try
> going to your Boss and saying: "We're shifting over to StarOffice but
> we'll be unable to open those powerpoint presentations from XXX Marketing
> and unfortunatly we will have to use ASCII text for all of our contracts
> with our customers."
> 	Maybe I am exaggerating a bit here, but there IS a gun to my head.
> And this is one area which could use some working on.  It would be nice if
> every time MS (or anyone else for that matter) came out with some new
> screwy "standard" format we (the non MS world, free software whatever)
> could quickly reverse engineer that so that the free software world could
> have access to all content which has gone through the MS hash function.
> They screwed up kerberos so that you need an MS client and MS server?
> Well figure out how and work around it ... uhhh ambitious I know ... not
> to mention NEVER make undisclosed changes to proven cryptographic
> protocols ... actually don't make any changes, unless you don't care if
> they work or not.
>
> KERBEROS REF: http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0003.html
>
> > No tobacco company got someone addicted to nicotine against their will.
>
> Including addatives which make them more addictive was admitted to by
> tobacco companies they settled out of court for BILLIONS.  Oh, you who
> smoke ... Did you start smoking with the intention of getting addicted to
> nicotine?  (This
>
> > With the AOL/Time Warner merger, it will make them a much larger company
> > than Microsoft and should provide some formidable competition.
>
>
>
> > I like free software, but more importantly, I love free enterprise.
> > I say, let the buying public decide, not a judge.
>
> I simply dont think that the public is in a position to decide.
>
> > There were no lawsuits by Sony when the VHS format (invented by
> JVC) beat
> > out Betamax, even though Betamax was a better product.
>
> But did VHS win because JVC owned 90% of the TV market and distributed a
> free VHS VCR with every TV purchase thus winning the battle?
>
> I don't think splitting MS up will solve any problems though.  I think
> we'd end up with 1-4 new .5 Trillion Dollar companies that Bill Gates has
> intimate relationships with.  The only good thing I have heard of is to
> "encourage" MS to publish the standards for some subset of their document
> formats thus allowing others to make compatible software.  Perhaps the
> gov't could require that all gov't offices/activities use programs whose
> files have a published defined standard.  Maybe it's a large enough entity
> to impact the situation.  But, what do I know.
>
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