Re: [tlug] Re: Why Vista Sucks

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

CL writes:

 > Word is an abomination of common sense that makes use of absolutely 
 > senseless commands and processes.  It still cannot do simple things that 
 > WP has done since v.4.0 for DOS.  If you ever want to see a programming 
 > nightmare, pull a Word file into WP and hit the Reveal Codes
 > command.  The means it uses to adjust type spacing, line leading, 
 > kerning, and other simple typesetting functions defy description.

They probably look like what happens when you import an Ichitaro file
to Word (this being the format in which I fill out most of my work
forms).  These templates are incredibly fragile, much more so than
anything originally written in Word.  Thus I have to suspect that WP's
internal structures and Word's are sufficiently incompatible that the
former actually can't represent the latter's formatting commands
directly, and so they resort to computing primitive values.

 > No.  Not at all.  Several Federal, Federal District and the US Supreme 
 > Court all disagree with the statement, finding instead that it was 
 > connected to nothing other than unfair business practices. 

I think it is very unlikely that any court ever made a statement to
the effect that the *only* reason anybody ever used Word was unfair
business practices.  That's not the way the courts view these issues.

The fact of the matter is that Microsoft products do have superior
integration to anything except maybe Apple's products.  Part of that,
but only part, is an attempt to exploit control of the ABI to sabotage
3rd party products, which the courts have correctly condemned.

This is something that open source is going to have a very hard time
competing with.  Claiming that it's all abusive monopolization is not
going to make things better.