Post 4625778 - (Is there still room for another OS to hit it big?)

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Is there still room for another OS to hit it big?

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MyFutureSelfnMe
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 3:55 pm Post subject:

You're absolutely correct that Microsoft has failed to disclose important parts of their format, and may or may not even be obfuscating it. It's still OpenOffice's problem to reverse engineer it to ensure their software opens those documents flawlessly. The alternative is that their software is less useful, and they fail to gain market share. That makes it their problem.

MyFutureSelfnMe
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 4:11 pm Post subject:

This conversation also reminds me of the reason open source often doesn't resolve issues like these. You get a bunch of aspie programmers, and there is some problem like this that certainly originated with Microsoft, and the problem really needs to get worked around or else people are going to have bad experiences using your sh**, but the programmers won't do it because they feel they have the moral high ground and are "under no obligation" to deal with it. This is all fine and good for you programmers, but if I were managing you as a team and paying you, I would ORDER your ass to resolve it because I guarantee Microsoft isn't going to do the job for you, in lieu of an apology. Failing resolution, your program loses market share. This may not matter to you if you're a programmer who really only cares about having the moral high ground, but then don't tell me how great your end product is.

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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 5:34 pm Post subject:

MyFutureSelfnMe wrote:

You're absolutely correct that Microsoft has failed to disclose important parts of their format, and may or may not even be obfuscating it.

It's still OpenOffice's problem to reverse engineer it to ensure their software opens those documents flawlessly. The alternative is that their software is less useful, and they fail to gain market share. That makes it their problem.

Oh - you appear to have changed tack... Wink

It's an open document format specification: the problem lies entirely with Microsoft, but everyone else gets to deal with the wreckage and pick up the pieces.

It's tempting to think - and not entirely without justification, given the mess surrounding Microsoft's introduction of another "open" format directly in competition to the pre-existing ISO-standard OpenOffice format - that the whole point of it is to introduce FUD into any decision-making involving OpenOffice.
That's what Microsoft does, and that's a big problem for everyone.
What it could have done is adopted an existing ISO standard and worked with others to improve it.

It's self-evident that undocumented, proprietary formats need to be reverse engineered and that the success of a product using those formats depends to a large extent on how well that was done - but this is not an undocumented format. Why are you so willing to grant Microsoft a free ride on this one?

Also, I think you'll find that MS Office has its own problems with compatibility but why would Microsoft care about that? Sooner or later the users will be forced to upgrade and buy it all over again.
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Evinceo
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 5:47 pm Post subject:

All that said, background research for this has actually turned up an interesting fact: There is room for another OS to hit it big-Windows CE (currently sold as "Windows Phone" in the same way Windows NT is sold as "Windows 7") is emerging from obscurity to challenge iOS and Android in the phone market. Though called Windows, it's been it's own OS since the 90s, and it's about to get it's big chance.

MyFutureSelfnMe
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 5:50 pm Post subject:

Again, it's not about granting Microsoft a free ride or not granting them one, because the developers of OpenOffice are not in a position to dictate whether or not Microsoft gets a free ride. You are correct that MS has made a bit of a mess and the OO developers need to pick up the pieces. That's just the way it is. The way we want it to be is something else, and if that's what we're talking about, we're no longer talking about OO in terms of being a usable product, we're talking about it in terms of a product that has the "moral high ground". You see what I mean?

MyFutureSelfnMe
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 5:51 pm Post subject:

Evinceo wrote:

All that said, background research for this has actually turned up an interesting fact: There *is* room for another OS to hit it big-Windows CE (currently sold as "Windows Phone" in the same way Windows NT is sold as "Windows 7") is emerging from obscurity to challenge iOS and Android in the phone market. Though called Windows, it's been it's own OS since the 90s, and it's about to get it's big chance.

Microsoft is moving in the direction of sharing a platform between phones, tablets and desktop PCs, so it won't just be "called" Windows.

We'll see how it does.

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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 6:06 pm Post subject:

MyFutureSelfnMe wrote:

Again, it's not about granting Microsoft a free ride or not granting them one, because the developers of OpenOffice are not in a position to dictate whether or not Microsoft gets a free ride. You are correct that MS has made a bit of a mess and the OO developers need to pick up the pieces. That's just the way it is. The way we want it to be is something else, and if that's what we're talking about, we're no longer talking about OO in terms of being a usable product, we're talking about it in terms of a product that has the "moral high ground". You see what I mean?

"a bit of a mess"?
Oh yes indeed I do see what you mean.
You're basically saying that Microsoft can make whatever mess it feels like making (and for a company that size, there is no way their document mess was accidental) and everyone else just has to suck it up or die.
I happen to think that approach is deliberately anti-competitive and destructive. It could - and should - have been merely "competitive".
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MyFutureSelfnMe
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 6:23 pm Post subject:

It's certainly anticompetitive, although I know quite a bit of the format myself (both the documented and undocumented features) and suspect a lot of it is simply that Microsoft didn't care enough to get changes they made during development ratified to the standard, rather than trying to kill off OO. It's anticompetitive, and it's wrong, but it IS. And personally I think the OO developers could have done better, in their own self interest.

Evinceo
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 6:49 pm Post subject:

MyFutureSelfnMe wrote:

Microsoft is moving in the direction of sharing a platform between phones, tablets and desktop PCs, so it won't just be "called" Windows.

We'll see how it does.

I don't think there's enough public info out there to decide if NT and CE are actually different, but based on the fact that it co-existed with an embedded version of XP suggests that it's different. It'd be cool if they just merged NT and CE, or just dropped NT in favor of CE (which I'd wager is much more efficient, considering it's history in embedded systems).

Also, if we want to talk about moral high ground, using document formats at all is sort of rude considering plain text formats are way better. Oh wait those are also incompatible across platforms. Confused

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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 8:16 pm Post subject:

MyFutureSelfnMe wrote:

It's certainly anticompetitive, although I know quite a bit of the format myself (both the documented and undocumented features) and suspect a lot of it is simply that Microsoft didn't care enough to get changes they made during development ratified to the standard, rather than trying to kill off OO.

It's anticompetitive, and it's wrong, but it IS. And personally I think the OO developers could have done better, in their own self interest.

you do realize that the current OO development team werent the people that started it?

the ones that started OO are now making LO because of many of the issues with formatting and direction.
that product is used by several governments and with great sucess among many companies as well, so in a way they really did act in their own self interest, by creating a better alternative that was still fully compatible with OO and to a better extent than its predecessor, MS.

in reality we are talking about a battle of standards and not singular programs, i see little reason why we wouldnt want an open standard with no central decider compared to the proprietary hell that is MS, even non geeks hate it, excactly why more and more institutions, companies and governments decide to use LO or similar software and for everyone that does the standard stands stronger.

in a way i think microsoft would be better served if they adopted the open format and simply sold their office product for what it is instead of how many others use it, it will backfire in the end, already has some places.
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MyFutureSelfnMe
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 10:44 pm Post subject:

Evinceo wrote:

MyFutureSelfnMe wrote:

Microsoft is moving in the direction of sharing a platform between phones, tablets and desktop PCs, so it won't just be "called" Windows.

We'll see how it does.

MS has announced as much as their direction. I'm sure it will be NT based (is NT still an acronym? or does MS have another label for it these days?)