Re: Crossover / Wine cannot install Office

From: Bob Hauck (postmaster_at_localhost.localdomain)
Date: 05/16/04 

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 00:20:20 -0400

On Sun, 16 May 2004 00:34:36 +0100, Joe <joe@jretrading.com> wrote:
> In message <HxLuJD.82r@ozemail.com.au>, Jack Strangio
><jvstrangio@ozemail.com.au> writes

>> Probably not quite the answer you were seeking, but what particular
>> feature is in MSOffice that Star Office or Open Office would not also
>> cater for?
>>
> Access. There will never be a Linux equivalent of Access, and Crossover
> Office doesn't run it (Access 2000 specifically) very well.

Ok, that's fine. If you've got Access databases you rely on that's a
problem. In more ways than one, but I digress. So why are you using
Linux then? You've purposely tied yourself to the monopoly, so go with
that.

> Indeed, but the issue is always compatibility with other businesses
> which use MS Office.

But nobody exchanges Access databases. I thought that was the issue.

> It will never be certain that an arbitrary document created by
> Open/Star Office will open correctly in the MS equivalent. We are not
> just talking about data here, the formatting is just as important.

Ok, I see where this is going. You're a typical Windows victim whining
about how he can't escape. I have some news for you. The documents you
send out to people *do not* look exactly the same to them as they do to
you. You just think they do because you assume that having the same
software makes it all work.

The fact is that you usually don't have exactly the same software.
Brand names don't equal code. Even if you have the same versions of the
same software, you don't have the same environment.

It will never be certain that an arbitrary document created by version X
of Office will open correctly in version Y of Office on another machine.
The formatting might not be exactly right, or the fonts might be off.
Hell, you even get problems when the two people invovled have different
printers.

For example, those niftly little Word Draw diagrams turn all to ***
when you go from one computer to the next. Pagination changes between
printers, font differences cauase all kinds of formatting problems. You
know this because every day you receive Word documents that look odd but
you just dismiss it as a "quirk".

Yet you want us to take seriously the argument that since OpenOffice.org
might not correctly format every random Word document you throw at it
this is a terrible problem that must be solved? That might work on your
fellow brainwash victims but it doesn't play here.

Or, you could quit the deluding yourself and realize that Office is
about as compatible with itself as it is with OO.org and that it is a
major virus vector to boot. You could think for two seconds and realize
that if the formatting is really important then you need to send a PDF.
Between those two things you pretty much ought to always send text or a
PDF.

> I am aware of PDF and make use of it, but it is often necessary to
> exchange working documents, not just visual images.

Well, then I guess you're stuck. You're going to have to buy exactly
whatever it is that your collaborators are using, including the printer
and probably the display and font-packs. Otherwise your formatting will
not ever be exactly the same and you will all die.

Of course, you could just give OpenOffice.org to everybody. It is,
after all, *free* as in beer. Or you could work out some system to
coordinate changes through a central person. Or exchange the documents
in a mutually compatible format.

There are a million ways to do this without everyone having to have the
same software, but that would take *thinking*. Thinking is frowned upon
in Corporate America these days, so I can see how you're stuck. There
is just no choice but to shell out hundreds of dollars to Microsoft so
you can collaborate.

> I would also be dubious about arbitrary PDF documents created under
> Linux opening correctly in the current Acrobat Reader.

That's just your own paranoia. It has never happened, but someone told
you that he heard about someone who read an article that was not written
by an MS-MVP (honest injun) about how it might have happened once to a
guy in Outer Mongolia back in '93. That's risk and you don't want risk,
never mind how remote it might be or how trivial the consequences or how
much greater other risks are.

I know having to pay extra to create PDF's is comforting, but it _is_ a
published standard. Adobe actually does not lie about how PDF works, as
hard as that might be to believe accustomed to as you are to corporate
lying.

> I begrudge the Evil Empire every penny that I give them

Now that is a blatant lie. This is demonstrated by the way you keep
thinking up excuses to keep doing it. No matter what happens, no matter
how compatible Linux apps might be, you will find that one thing that
isn't compatible and make it into the most important thing in the world.

I've heard all of these arguments before. You whine that Bill Gates is
evil and hate him but just can't do anything about it. You whine about
how your hands are tied by "compatibilty" with "others". It's mostly
bull***, FUD, or self-inflicted, but you still feel entitled to whine
about it and come here to express your fervent hope that someday Linux
will be *just like Windows* so you can escape the clutches of Bill
Gates. Linux is not just like Windows and that is exactly why it does
not suffer from the same maladies.

I know your kind. Go the hell away until you grow a backbone, and in
the meantime quit asking me to fix your screwed-up Windows computers. 

-- 
 -| Bob Hauck
 -| To Whom You Are Speaking
 -| http://www.haucks.org/