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On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:02:30 +0000 Tom Potts <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Why? > Because subconsciously we have all been pushing the M$ agenda all the time. > We have not been saying, as I believe we should have been: > 'Well Word really is history. In a day of the internet and reasonable > monitors it really is antediluvian to think of documents in terms of A4 > paper. > As a computer user you should really be thinking in terms of how to manage > your data and not climbing on every bandwagon of style and colour schemes > that some maniac in the design department comes up with.' Almost true but the wonders of Web 2.0 really haven't fired the imagination of the bulk of computer users, especially Office users. For many diverse reasons, companies want to keep their Office documents local. > And then we should be putting putting forward a case for a really useful > alternative to the M$ 'Its the same rubbish but in green this time' that > patently doesn't work but bleeds individuals and companies dry and has left > computing in the 1980's. > I think we all agree that M$ is probably the most un-innovative company ever. > So why do we waste our lives trying to promote a replacement for what, by our > own definition, must be a heap of guano? Because however bad Windows is, there is a need for a system to replace it as-is. I see Web 2.0 and these fancy ideas of doing everything inside a browser as very far fetched. Most people want data to be local. What's more, most people want to be able to move that data around between local devices - like their Palm, iPAQ or iPod. I never did like the idea of entrusting my data to a remote server - and I have very little data in this kind of program! 99% of my 'data' is C/Perl/shell code and is therefore hosted on a range of CVS/SVN servers and mirrored and cached by a dozen search engines. I don't need backups of that data. I should be used to the convenience of remote storage, used to the habit of distributing data - but I'm not. It's acceptable and necessary for the data that is currently stored that way but the authentication and data entry methods - in particular the data removal methods - are simply not acceptable for other kinds of data. I would never use GnuCash across a local network connection, let alone the internet. I wouldn't even use webmail in preference to a local email client - no matter how flaky the client. On the odd occasions that I may use a spreadsheet or word processor, I fail to understand why it is preferable to have that data elsewhere when my printer is right next to me. Documents are still paper based - the paperless office is a pipe dream. We can't even decide on A4 vs Letter so how on earth are web based documents going to work? -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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