[Leaplist] OOo question with large numbers

[Bryan J. Smith]

I don't call it "lucky."
I call it "risk mitigation."

I don't avoid Microsoft because it's "proprietary."
Heck, if it was "proprietary," then I wouldn't mind it.
Microsoft is a large, sustainable organization for "proprietary."
That means they would be around a long time to support it.

The problem is, MS Office does _not_ qualify as "proprietary."
It's purposeful hostageware/abandonware.
I've had this debate over and over with customers, clients, etc...
How can you keep putting data in formats that are discarded?

I've been at Boeing.  I've been at many companies.
They pull their hair out with document loss.
For doctors, lawyers and engineers, that's not an option.
Document longevity is absolute.

And people wonder how Corel continues?  It's the customers.
Microsoft only had to bail them out because Microsoft cut them
off from all Windows APIs in the first place.  Had that not happened
shortly after Corel bought WordPerfect, Corel would have never
needed to be bailed out (and would have never had to go to
another platform like Linux).

MS Office has caused the greatest amount of IP loss ... _ever_.




----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin Korb <kmk at sanitarium.net>

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There is a big difference in software selection between people who choose
their own and people who have someone choose for them.  If you are the
latter consider yourself lucky you aren't forced to use Windows or
some other closed source crap and move on.

BTW, I prefer gnumeric and lyx over oocalc and oowriter too.

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