Duck, Microsoft: Firefox Is Coming To Retail Stores (Linux offering OpenOffice & Firefox together)

Linux operating-system producer Linspire Inc. has found another way to challenge Microsoft: it's offering its OpenOffice.org product suite and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser in a single package in retail channels.

Linspire, formerly called Lindows, positions its OOoFf package to directly compete with Microsoft Office. The OpenOffice.org product enables users to create spreadsheets, presentations, and documents using files in popular formats, including .doc, .xls and .ppt. The Linspire product also enables users to utilize the PDF format.

"Our goal with OOoFf is to help get OpenOffice.org and Firefox into every possible distribution channel," said Linspire CEO Michael Robertson in a statement Monday. "As users grow comfortable with these high-quality open-source products, it makes the migration to desktop Linux a much more practical transition."

The combo OOoFf consists of an installation CD-ROM, documentation materials, and Flash tutorials. The software is compatible with Windows 98 and higher and Mac OS X 10.2 and higher.

Firefox has been downloaded by more than 10 million users, and the browser has taken some market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The Linspire Linux-based operating system has been designed for desktop and laptop computers, and the firm said the new Firefox- OOoFf package should help spur the growth of its Linux operating system.

That's hardly a drawback (well, at least not to everyone).

It's a drawback that hinders adoption. Whether that drawback applies to you, personally, is what's irrelevant.

I'm not sure what you mean by "round trip," but the language is not "useless." That's absurd.

In other words, VBA included in documents does not execute, which makes VBA collaboration scenarios broken. Whether OO supplies its own language doesn't fix this problem. It's just sleight-of-hand on your part.

Huh? Sounds like a user problem rather than a software problem. I did tables and sections in a newsletter recently in the Writer and had no problems. I've tried as much in Word and it has been more difficult.

Again, whether you [personally] haven't had any problem with your little tables doesn't mean Writer works with complex tables containing lots of nested content. It doesn't.

This is conclusory BS. Be specific: what exactly will Word Excel and Powerpoint do that this product won't?

The thesaurus (which was the issue) provides a far more limited set of synonyms for any given word.

I didn't squeal.

Yes, you did. And you're continuing to do so.

I pointed out, correctly, that this feature is not important.
You're one user. You don't speak for all users of these products.

Give me an example of when you've used Words grammer checker and would have made a mistake without its use.

Plenty of times, as have most people that use a word processor. It's very common for people to introduce fragments, run-on sentences, poor word choice, improper verb usage, etc while writing. The grammar checker identifies those problems very clearly, and it's quite useful.

I use Excel 2003; I have used Office XP (mostly Word, Excel, Outlook, and Access, with a little PP).

You're not using Word 2003, which contains the Reading Layout feature. ClearType. Otherwise, you'd understand.

You haven't provided anything other than a macro issue...

Typical lawyering -- ignore the evidence that you don't like and choose that which you think you can attack.

That's mostly Microsoft's fault for not releasing the entire Office format for compatibility.

Rrrright, blame MS. Typical anti-commercial bigotry.

This is actually a reason to migrate to OOo, because with OOo you know that in the future you won't be locked into anything -- its open XML document format can be converted perfectly to anything else.

Software doesn't rot. You can use your copy of MS Office until your machine falls apart. And since you guys argue that you can do excellent binary conversion, you have nothing to complain about.

Besides, if you want advanced formatting you probably shouldn't be using a word processor, because I'll guarantee you that you're spending too much time getting the advanced formatting to come out right.

No need. Word handles it just fine.

[Thesaurus] Very true, and that might actually be something that would keep a small percentage of people from moving.

You and 1L should sync up. He seems to be under the impression that the OO thesaurus is state-of-the-art.

Because OOo doesn't cover that.

Duh.

If you want that, download Thunderbird (a better email/news/contact app than Outlook).

Uh, no thanks. Thunderbird is a limited subset of Outlook. It's actually been compared favorably to Outlook Express -- but it doesn't talk to MS Exchange Server and, therefore, it will have no corporate adoption.

Outlook 2003 - Thunderbird Smack Down

There are OSS PIM projects out there for Windows now, but I don't think any of them are good enough to compete with Outlook.

Right. They're too busy floundering around, copying features from Outlook that have been around for years.

Word was the rubber-dog-crap version of WordPerfect

Dude, your knowledge of software history is pretty limited. Word was a graphically based word processor years before WordPerfect ever made the move. WordPerfect wasn't even close to being a model for Word.

>>It's a drawback that hinders adoption. Whether that drawback applies to you, personally, is what's irrelevant.<<

Name the specific individuals or instances in which this applies.

>>VBA included in documents does not execute<<

What functionality is lost for most users?

>>Whether OO supplies its own language doesn't fix this problem. It's just sleight-of-hand on your part.<<

Name the percentage of Office users who use VBA. When I was consulting prior to attending law school, I wrote most Excel apps for my clients without VBA, and developed Access apps for them in most cases instead. This spanned a huge sector of businesses from consulting companies to hi-tech manufacturers.

Those with Access apps will continue to use them. This isn't as big a problem as you seem to think it is, which appears to be only for argumentation purposes, unless you are Bill Gates.

>>Again, whether you [personally] haven't had any problem with your little tables doesn't mean Writer works with complex tables containing lots of nested content. It doesn't.<<

GIVE ME A FREAKIN' EXAMPLE! Sheesh. How many times do I have to ask. What specifically are you unable to do in Writer with these tables? Tell me how to set up a document where this will be a problem, or email me a file.

I fail to understand why you think that the issues I don't face in OO are irrelevent but the issues you THINK you face, or could THEORECTICALLY face aren't. In other words, why is it only YOUR experience (or, perhaps, just rhetoric) that matters?

>>The thesaurus (which was the issue) provides a far more limited set of synonyms for any given word.<<

And how many actually use this, and how can you substantiate that claim? I've used Word since 1985 and have used the Thesaurus maybe a dozen times. I can find a lot more Word users that don't use this feature than you can that do.

>>I didn't squeal.

Yes, you did. And you're continuing to do so.<<

Don't be absurd. This adds nothing to the discussion. Just a back handed half-ass ad hominum attempt.

>>Plenty of times, as have most people that use a word processor. It's very common for people to introduce fragments, run-on sentences, poor word choice, improper verb usage, etc while writing. The grammar checker identifies those problems very clearly, and it's quite useful.<<

You didn't answer my question. You gave me a theorectical. When have YOU used it and it caused a problem YOU wouldn't have found otherwise, and what would the impact of that problem have been? People that need this feature the most are the least likely to use it since they would proof things themselves. As I said earlier, its limited in its scope anyway.

>>You're not using Word 2003, which contains the Reading Layout feature. ClearType. Otherwise, you'd understand.<<

Oh, please. That's hardly a productivity feature.

>>ignore the evidence that you don't like<<

What EVIDENCE have I ignored? You haven't stated any. Just conclusory allegations of your own. You seem to think that my experience is different than everyone else's, but for some reason, your's isn't.

Rrrright, blame MS. Typical anti-commercial bigotry.

No, blame anyone who uses anti-competitive tactics such as this. WordPerfect did the same thing against MS in Word for DOS.

You can use your copy of MS Office until your machine falls apart.

In an isolated instance, yes. In a world where everybody else is upgrading and you need to be able to read their documents, no.

And since you guys argue that you can do excellent binary conversion

Excellent, but not foolproof. Only Microsoft knows how to perfectly translate an Office document.

No need. Word handles it just fine.

Let's both start complicated color documents, you in Word and me in InDesign. See whose comes out better and faster -- bets are on InDesign because it was built as a design application, not a text processor with some design abilities tacked on. InDesign is an extra cost, but contrasted with the slower work and lower quality of Word, it pays for itself pretty quickly.

And if you're doing long documents, nothing compares to FrameMaker. I could have saved my company several times the cost of FrameMaker when doing a very long, complicated document (headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, references, diagrams, screenshots, etc.) last year if they'd let me use it.

When given Word as a hammer, everybody thinks every publishing job is a nail.

You and 1L should sync up. He seems to be under the impression that the OO thesaurus is state-of-the-art.

We're allowed differing opinions. I like the Word thesaurus I use at work better. But that's not enough to get me using Word at home, because I rarely use it. I stayed awake in English class.

but it doesn't talk to MS Exchange Server and, therefore, it will have no corporate adoption.

Again, you use Microsoft-specific abilities to claim Microsoft is superior. "It's not Outlook so it can't be as good as Outlook." Also, your "smackdown" is old, pre-Thunderbird 1.0, meaning it's missing a lot of things favorable to Thunderbird, which in version 1.0 is already the equivalent or better when compared to a seven year old application.

And you can configure Exchange to do POP or IMAP4.

They're too busy floundering around, copying features from Outlook that have been around for years.

They're doing PIM and calendaring features you'd expect, plus more that they believe will eclipse those in Outlook. You know, there were calendaring applications around before Outlook.

Dude, your knowledge of software history is pretty limited. Word was a graphically based word processor years before WordPerfect ever made the move. WordPerfect wasn't even close to being a model for Word.

It's pretty damn good. Word was written for DOS in '83, with a GUI-based version coming out for the Mac a couple of years later, and a GUI-based version for the PC when a usable Windows finally came. The DOS-based Word was by far the inferior in both quality and marketshare to WordPerfect.

The Windows-based Word won because Microsoft knew all of the APIs for Windows that they hadn't released to third-party developers like WordPerfect, which was why the first WordPerfect for Windows was quite unstable (I remember, I used it). By virtue of being the Windows creators, Microsoft also gave itself a head start. Word already had marketshare by the time WordPerfect was able to reverse-engineer the APIs and put out a decent version of WordPerfect for Windows.

There was another problem though: Microsoft used many of WordPerfect's reserved keys (which people had memorized to the point of motor memory) as reserved keys for Windows. Not good.

No, blame anyone who uses anti-competitive tactics such as this.

There's nothing anti-competitive about having your own damned file format. Sheezus. The only ones who think that way are narrow-minded bigots who want to steal other people's work.

In an isolated instance, yes. In a world where everybody else is upgrading and you need to be able to read their documents, no.

Since you argue that OO file conversion is "excellent", there's no need. Because you can always use RTF format for interop.

Excellent, but not foolproof. Only Microsoft knows how to perfectly translate an Office document.

Nobody's conversions are foolproof -- even MS.

When given Word as a hammer, everybody thinks every publishing job is a nail.

And yet, each day, millions of people could really care less.

Again, you use Microsoft-specific abilities to claim Microsoft is superior.

Look, you're not going to find anyone but a handful of bigots on Slashdot who are going to argue that there is a better PIM combination than Outlook and Exchange.

And you can configure Exchange to do POP or IMAP4.

In which case, you lose the PIM capabilities which make Exchange so powerful. No thanks. That's not a solution.

The Windows-based Word won because Microsoft knew all of the APIs for Windows that they hadn't released to third-party developers like WordPerfect, which was why the first WordPerfect for Windows was quite unstable (I remember, I used it).

Here's a challenge: Name a single API that Microsoft was able to leverage that wasn't available to competitors. And then explain how MS was able to kick Apple's ass on the Mac platform without access to the same information that Apple developers had.

By virtue of being the Windows creators, Microsoft also gave itself a head start. Word already had marketshare by the time WordPerfect was able to reverse-engineer the APIs and put out a decent version of WordPerfect for Windows.

Reverse-engineer which APIs? Be specific. There was another problem though: Microsoft used many of WordPerfect's reserved keys (which people had memorized to the point of motor memory) as reserved keys for Windows. Not good.

Imagine my surprise to learn that WordPerfect owns keys on the keyboard. Whodathunk it? /SARCASM

There's nothing anti-competitive about having your own damned file format. Sheezus.

No there isn't. But there is when you use a cryptic, closed format to lock others out of the market.

Because you can always use RTF format for interop.

Ah yes, that format mentioned in the Novell suit as always changing to fit what Microsoft needs (of course, it's their format). Anyone else has to play catch-up. BTW, RTF sucks.

Nobody's conversions are foolproof -- even MS.

Let me put it this way: If MS were to tell people their "XML" file format, then conversions would be a lot better.

And yet, each day, millions of people could really care less.

It's not my problem if they want to lose time and money. Although I'm often the person who has to look at the Word-produced crap.

Look, you're not going to find anyone but a handful of bigots on Slashdot who are going to argue that there is a better PIM combination than Outlook and Exchange.

Novell Evolution (a.k.a. Ximian), an excellent Email/PIM has a connector for Exchange. They had to reverse-engineer the closed RPC format, but they did it.

Name a single API that Microsoft was able to leverage that wasn't available to competitors.

There are hidden APIs Microsoft was forced to publish by the anti-trust settlement. There are still 113 protocols you have to pay Microsoft to use if you want your software be be able to communicate with MS's server products as efficiently as MS's client products do. The latter is a main subject of the EU antitrust suit, with MS leveraging its desktop monopoly to dominate the server market.

And then explain how MS was able to kick Apple's ass on the Mac platform without access to the same information that Apple developers had.

Word was the first really good word processor for the Mac, and Apple's APIs were well-published.

Reverse-engineer which APIs? Be specific.

Read the Novell suit for one. There are lots of examples in there (quotes):

Microsoft refused to publish the APIs that were used to place items on the Windows Clipboard, although its own developers had the documentation.
Further, Microsoft misrepresented that Windows 95 would operate as an exclusively "32-bit" ... Novell relied upon Microsoft's representations and developed its applications to run on an entirely 32-bit system. ... Microsoft's own applications developers knew that Windows 95 would not be an entirely 32-bit operating system and, as a consequence, Microsoft was able to release its office productivity applications almost immediately upon the release of Windows 95.
Microsoft refused to disclose technical specifications that were required toovercome an operating system flaw known as the "64k [limitation] ... Microsoft's API documentation did not disclose sufficient information to cure this limitation. ... delaying the shipment of WordPerfect for Windows ... By contrast, because Microsoft's own applications developers had access to complete specifications for the operating system, comparable features of Microsoft Word consumed only a small percentage of the limited memory, and Microsoft experienced no delay in reaching the market. [I used that Word Perfect, and this perfectly explains what I experienced]

Read the government (US and EU) anti-trust judgements for more information.

Imagine my surprise to learn that WordPerfect owns keys on the keyboard. Whodathunk it? /SARCASM

I didn't mean "not good" as MS did something bad, but "not good" as in it was simply unfortunate for WordPerfect.

No there isn't. But there is when you use a cryptic, closed format to lock others out of the market.

Yet more lies from the Hate-MS-First crowd. Word's DocFile format was invented at a time in which it was lagging behind WordPerfect. It couldn't possibly "lock others out of market" share which it didn't possess.

Ah yes, that format mentioned in the Novell suit as always changing to fit what Microsoft needs (of course, it's their format). Anyone else has to play catch-up. BTW, RTF sucks.

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time that MS changed the RTF spec? I happen to know -- and I'm curious to see whether you do -- because the point you're arguing won't help your case.

Let me put it this way: If MS were to tell people their "XML" file format, then conversions would be a lot better.

Rrrright -- and if Apple documented its iTunes interop, conversations would be a lot better, too. But I don't blame them for that -- because they developed their platform.

It's not my problem if they want to lose time and money. Although I'm often the person who has to look at the Word-produced crap

LMFAO! Even your own company doesn't agree with you.

Novell Evolution (a.k.a. Ximian), an excellent Email/PIM has a connector for Exchange. They had to reverse-engineer the closed RPC format, but they did it.

Like I said, only a few bigots are going to make such assertions. The rest of the world will simply laugh and get on with business with Outlook and Exchange.

There are hidden APIs Microsoft was forced to publish by the anti-trust settlement. There are still 113 protocols you have to pay Microsoft to use if you want your software be be able to communicate with MS's server products as efficiently as MS's client products do. The latter is a main subject of the EU antitrust suit, with MS leveraging its desktop monopoly to dominate the server market.

Nice try, charlatan. Here are the apps from your own reference that use so-called "undocumented APIs":

Internet Explorer
Microsoft Messenger
Outlook Express
Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine
Windows Media Player

MS Office isn't on that list. Which proves you are full of crap.

Read the Novell suit for one. There are lots of examples in there (quotes):

None of these issues were (or are) required in order to get a competitive word processor up and running.

Besides the basic Clipboard items (text, image), the only other interesting format is OLE object (ie. Excel chart) -- and only MS Office uses that clipboard format. Quite obviously, you only care about that issue if you're interop'ing directly with MS Office -- in which case Novell's complaint is moot. WordPerfect wasn't seeking to do that.
As for whether Win95 was purely 32-bit, from an app's standpoint, it is. How this could possibly hindered Novell is ridiculous.
Regarding the 64K limitation, this, too, is absurd. MS Office doesn't use built-in resources (menus, dialogs, etc) because it encountered the same problem with early versions of Windows. The "workaround" consists of drawing its own menus and dialogs -- something that is very clearly disclosed in Windows API docs (lookup owner-draw windows).

Word's DocFile format was invented at a time in which it was lagging behind WordPerfect. It couldn't possibly "lock others out of market" share which it didn't possess.

Back then, Word was on the receiving end of what it's dishing out now. Then, WordPerfect had the monopoly marketshare, now Word has it.

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time that MS changed the RTF spec?

Recently, IIRC. But the RTF problem I'm referring to happened in the early 90s when MS was trying to make Word dominant by any means necessary.

and if Apple documented its iTunes interop, conversations would be a lot better, too. But I don't blame them for that -- because they developed their platform.

Huh? Anyway, I know one thing Apple's doing that I don't like. Real found a way for people to purchase DRM music from their store and play it on an iPod. Apple then posted new firmware that killed that ability to use other stores besides iTunes. This would be considered anti-competitive if Apple had a monopoly position in the market, and a case could possibly be made for that with the iPod (although probably a weak one given the plethora of options available now).

LMFAO! Even your own company doesn't agree with you.

You're right. I'm pretty good at Word, having used it a lot since the mid 90s, and the document sucked compared to what I could have done in FrameMaker in half the time. And I'm not even that good with FrameMaker (but damn good with InDesign). Often, companies just go with what they know even when it's not cost-effective, Microsoft products often being a prime example. Except for Visio, that rocks, although MS just bought it when it was already a mature product. Visual Studio .NET is pretty good too. It locks up sometimes, but I've never lost data because of that.

The rest of the world will simply laugh and get on with business with Outlook and Exchange.

With all the inherent problems. Crappy clustering in Exchange, bad security in Outlook, etc.

Nice try, charlatan. Here are the apps from your own reference that use so-called "undocumented APIs":

You asked for "a single API that Microsoft was able to leverage that wasn't available to competitors" and I gave you a reference to 272 of them, plus 113 protocols.

Besides the basic Clipboard items (text, image), Which WP couldn't do.

How this could possibly hindered Novell is ridiculous. They programmed based on what MS promised, which was different from what MS delivered (while MS itself programmed to what was delivered).

Regarding the 64K limitation, this, too, is absurd. MS Office doesn't use built-in resources (menus, dialogs, etc) because it encountered the same problem with early versions of Windows. Exactly, MS knew the problem was there and wrote around it before Windows was even released, while they put out the non-working programming guidelines for other developers to use and discover this on their own. They wrote the OS, they had a responsibility to tell others how to program for their OS. They used this secret to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Back then, Word was on the receiving end of what it's dishing out now. Then, WordPerfect had the monopoly marketshare, now Word has it.

Whoa, back up. You were the one who alleged that the Office formats "lock others out of the market". I just pointed out to you that the Office formats were invented when MS Office was running far behind WordPerfect. Your logic is upside down. And clearly, since OO is able to convert the Office formats (in your words, perform "excellent" conversion), it's not locking anybody out of any market. Nice try. Keep spinning.

Recently, IIRC.

Try 8 months ago. The RTF specs have been maintained since the early 1990s. Not exactly keeping things secret.

With all the inherent problems. Crappy clustering in Exchange, bad security in Outlook, etc.

And yet, despite all your alleged "inherent problems", Exchange out-sells and out-deploys all other email productivity server products.

You asked for "a single API that Microsoft was able to leverage that wasn't available to competitors" and I gave you a reference to 272 of them, plus 113 protocols.

Nice try. The context of the discussion was *Microsoft Office*. You were trying to paint the false picture that MS Office has benefited from undocumented APIs. None of the examples you cite illustrate that.

They programmed based on what MS promised, which was different from what MS delivered (while MS itself programmed to what was delivered).

Explain how Win95 isn't 32-bit. [And don't give me any crap about DOS apps or 16-bit apps being supported, either. That has nothing to do with the question of whether Win95 runs 32-bit applications].

Exactly, MS knew the problem was there and wrote around it before Windows was even released, while they put out the non-working programming guidelines for other developers to use and discover this on their own. They wrote the OS, they had a responsibility to tell others how to program for their OS. They used this secret to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Nonsense. Discovering that you're out of memory isn't a secret. Nor are owner-draw windows. The WordPerfect devs simply sat on their hands waiting for MS to rescue them from issues that they could easily have worked around. I mean, for chrissakes, it's not very difficult to implement a cascading menu. Even the prodigious Windows-menu cloners writing KDE and Gnome figured that out without MS holding their hands.

I just pointed out to you that the Office formats were invented when MS Office was running far behind WordPerfect.

How different is the current format from 1992 Word?

Try 8 months ago.

Recently, but the suit was over early versions. Anyway, since RTF has some flaws (can't always represent an entire Word document), it's not an option as an interchange format.

RTF changed 8 months ago? Yep, recently as I said.

The context of the discussion was *Microsoft Office*. You were trying to paint the false picture that MS Office has benefited from undocumented APIs. None of the examples you cite illustrate that.

Read the suit.

The WordPerfect devs simply sat on their hands waiting for MS to rescue them from issues that they could easily have worked around.

Microsoft knew the limitation before release of Windows and told no one else of the limitation. They worked around the limitation before the release, and released a working Word around the time of Windows' release. They also refused to support developers asking about the problems even though they already had a solution to the problems with their operating system. These combined to get Word out before any other word processor.

And how is this relevant to MS Office? [Hint: It's not. Nice try]

After p.70 shows how MS played games with its APIs so that Office (with Word) could be first to market with any new version of Windows. Microsoft knew the proper APIs in advance and programmed to them, while everyone else had to guess. Microsoft would later release the APIs to everyone else if they felt magnanimous, but obviously they didn't always given the 272 APIs they were ordered to release.

Microsoft, the monopoly operating system developer, kept 272 APIs to itself so that its other software would work better with Windows than the competition could. You don't see anything wrong with that?

You don't seem to think that Microsoft ever does anything wrong, while Microsoft has a history of using its OS monopoly to crush the competition. Remember DR. DOS? Remember how Bill Gates personally told his staff to find a way to make DR. DOS break when used as the underlying OS for Windows? That's what Microsoft execs think about when there's competition, like Allchin saying "We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger."

Even one of Microsoft's own employees wrote "I hate this whole thing, I think it's totally rude, reinforces the image that users have of us as the evil ones, etc."

BTW, Microsoft tried to keep all of that information sealed in the lawsuit it lost over its DR. DOS tactics.

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