2020: Will BSD and Linux be relevant anymore?

[Chad Perrin]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 09:52:10AM +0100, Jamie Paul Griffin wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 02:06:04PM -0400, Daniel Staal wrote:
> >
> > One of the people I know uses this as his work laptop, running Excel,
> > Powerpoint, Outlook, Word, etc.  (Of course, he's not running Android
> > at that point...)  The 'laptop' is a tablet in a case with a
> > bluetooth keyboard.  He uses this _at his desk in the office, next to
> > a desktop computer._  (Because he can then take the work home with
> > him, or bring it to a meeting.)
> 
> With the exception of the spreadsheet and the MUA - and I use that
> description lightly - most of that functionality can be achieved with
> TeX and with a more professional appearance. Granted this approach
> requires a higher skill level but on balance it's worth it because the
> results are better. People in corporate environments seem to use this
> "toy" software a lot which I can only imaginge is for ease and because
> almost anyone can use it. It can't for cost benefit as the most popular
> version is so expensive. I would never pay that much for something put
> together so badly. I do appreciate, though, the conveniece bluetooth
> and the-like provide. At the moment it's just not something I care too
> much about.

re: TeX and MS Word or OO.o Write

TeX is a print formatting system.  MS Word and OO.o Write are very poor
text editors with some very poor facsimiles of print formatting systems
built into them.  They also have some very poor facsimiles of Web
formatting systems built into them.  There are other very poor facsimiles
of various other things built into them, as well.

I think there were originally halfway decent reasons to use word
processor applications like MS Word, mostly because *good* print
formatting systems, Web formatting systems, and so on, were not readily
available in forms that could be reasonably acquired and used by mere
mortals.  This state of affairs has generally been rectified, but has not
made a dent in the growing market for such poorly conceived applications.

At this point, I think the market for such applications is essentially a
mass case of Stockholm Syndrome.  In the rare occasions where people
actually choose such tools for a "good" reason, that reason is that other
people keep sending them documents that can only properly be read with
reasonable ease by those applications -- other people who suffer from
this mass case of Stockholm Syndrome.

When someone fires up MS Office or OpenOffice.org just to write the
equivalent of a post-it note, there is something horribly, desperately
wrong with the way people use software.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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