(Obscure) proprietary data formats--yuck (was: MS Works 4.5)
Sunday, July 8, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(3936 messages posted)
|And I thought I was the only one who still uses W4.5! :)
| bob wells
I have riffed before on how OpenOffice.org (gratis and libre[1]) is legendary
for being able to open "broken" M$Office documents.[2]
Now I want to rail against proprietary data formats
and how vendors leverage them for USER LOCK-IN.
Imagine that there was a document format that ANYONE could open
regardless of what software s/he likes to use.
Well, you don't have to imagine it. It exists.
All that is left is for your vendor[3] to support it.
http://www.google.com/search?q=OpenDocument.Format+proprietary.software+(...)
(As stated, OOo is FREE--and it supports
ODF.)
[1] cache
of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
[2] It's not *quite* as
easy for M$Works documents. 8-(
cache
of http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/misc/Troubleshooting_guide.html
++workaround++to-get.*.wps-files-into-OpenOffice.org
[3] Rather than waiting for M$ to try to leverage
cache
of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
yet ANOTHER lock-in format,
http://www.google.com/search?q=slashdot.org+OOXML.is.not.open+OR+OOXML-is-closed
OpenOffice.org has provided an OpenDocument Format plug-in for M$Office.
Here is an explanation of why this is so cool:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/07/1236254#19779739
- Written in response to:
- re: MS Works 4.5 (bob wells: Sunday, July 8, 2007 at 10:38 am)
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 | |  | (Obscure) proprietary data formats--yuck (was: MS Works 4.5) (gewg_: Sun, Jul 8, 2007, 1:10 pm) |
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