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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: file formats [Re: Question about your KPresenter's review]
From:       Catherine Olanich Raymond <cathy () thyrsus ! com>
Date:       2002-03-19 2:38:56
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On Friday 15 March 2002 04:39 am, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Friday 15 March 2002 02:01 am, Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote:

>
> As cathy pointed out, the american hardware market is now reaching
> saturation levels.  If we want to catch people while they're switching
> hardware, we have to focus on laptops.


Or while they're adding hardware.  People have different demands/uses for a 
second TV set than they do for the wall-sized one they buy for the 
entertainment center in the den.  As I said before, people who are 
experimenting with something new usually prefer to do it cheaply and on a 
small scale.  

People *replacing* a main appliance (and for some a desktop machine might 
qualify as a "main appliance") may feel differently, but even they are not 
going to want an inexpensive solution they are not comfortable with and not 
sure they can use/depend on.

[text cut here]

>
> That said, the desktop to laptop hardware push won't replace the data
> communications formats here.  The original PC expansion was into territory
> where people didn't HAVE computers.  

Exactly my main argument.

> Now people are buying a SECOND machine
> for their house, and they'll want it to interoperate with the desktop
> machine they already have (for the year or so the two will co-exist,
> anyway, before they throw out the desktop and plug the laptop in to its
> keyboard, mouse, and monitor when they want better ergonomics...)  

This is an excellent point and one I had not raised in my original post or 
above.  People (especially the suburban American types who have a lot of the 
existing desktops over here) are going to want to hand down their old 
desktops to a child, sibling, or relative.  Some will want to build home 
networks (my sister-in-law's ex-husband did this--at one time he had 5 or 6 
Win boxes in his basement, some just for games, others for various other 
purposes).


> Plus
> there's the huge base of other machines out there (on the internet, and all
> your co-workers) that are running windows.  And unfortunately, since we
> still can't read and write word files, most of the laptops will be running
> windows.  

This is my particular problem, as I've said.


> You CAN replace the existing network, but you've got to leverage it to do
> so. CB radio was just like cell phones a decade earlier.  It was a fad,
> replaced by something that could interoperate with the mainstream.  It's
> retreated to a niche market with truckers, but then again Cobol's still
> around too...

Well, it was a fad for suburbanites and folk other than the truckers and cops 
who used the technology originally and, for all I know, may use it still. :-) 
 But the point is valid.



> >  The problem is not trying out KWord, it's that you
> > really *can't* try out KWord unless you install Linux, at least on a
> > partition or something.  That may be more than most people are willing to
> > deal with without a big incentive.  My boss, who is intelligent but no
> > computer expert, has told me that he has considered installing Red Hat
> > 7.1 on his home machine, but was intimidated by the text on the box it
> > comes in....
>
> Yeah, OS/2 had the same problem.  Installing your own OS is basically for
> the people who feel comfortable assembling a computer out of parts,
> changing their car's oil themselves, doing their own sheetrock, fixing
> their own plumbing...
>
> It's not hard, but not everybody's up for it.  This is why they invented
> preinstalled systems and installfests.  What your boss probably needs is
> jiffy-lube for computers.  ("Repartion the thing and install linux on it,
> and while you're at it, defragment the windows filesystem, check for
> viruses, and upgrade to the latest security patch.  I'll be in the waiting
> room...")

That would be one way to handle the problem.  It may be the easiest way, too, 
given that there seems to be a shortage of people to do what, say, the KDE 
team thinks needs doing --aside from any user-friendliness issues.



> > I don't disagree with that.  But as I have said, *free* is no bargain if
> > it doesn't do what you want.  What the Linux community needs to consider
> > is whether it is asking too much and offering not enough (though in a
> > different way than the e-book publishers did).
>
> I'd also like to point out that there's tons of books available in HTML
> format online.
>
> Hasn't exactly knocked off the conventional publishing industry.  (Linux
> Journal's website doesn't seem to stop people from subscribing to the dead
> tree version, either.)

True.  Though I don't know that you can download HTML format e-books into a 
PDA or e-book reader.  You can read them on a laptop, sure, but many laptops 
are still heavier than most books, which takes a lot of the fun out of 
reading except at a desk or something.



> > > If Linus doesn't care about advocating something - why we should care?
> >
> > Well, maybe because you'd like to see people who are not Linux hackers
> > use KOffice?
>
> 1) Linus doesn't advocate anything.  Linus doesn't even advocate Linux.
>
> 2) The BSD guys don't advocate Linux either.  But some of them use KDE.  So
> why care about Linux support, why not just support BSD?
>
> 3) Alan Cox doesn't advocate KDE, he's a Gnome user.  (And his wife's on
> the Gnome board of directors.)  He's written more actual Linux code than
> Linus has, so why advocate something other than he does?
>
> What does this argument have to do with ANYTHING?

I got the impression Vadim's point is "maybe we aren't interested in spending 
time to persuade non-technical users to adopt KDE"....



> Anything that CAN be procrastinated about will be,
> until it can't be anymore.  (This is a population whose members can resolve
> to lose 10 pounds for thirty consecutive years without doing so.  When the
> easy way conflicts with the healthy way, which one are 90% of us going to
> choose? Every time...)

I think, in fact, that we are arguing about a phenomenon that is one of the 
fruits of this truth about human nature...


> Freedom is a good supplemental argument, but as a main thrust it has always
> fallen flat, and will continue to do so until the predicted evils have
> actually happened, and need to be dealt with in the short term.  (At which
> point it's basically too late...)

Or on the verge of happening, at least.  Consider the push to defeat the 
CDA....

-- 
Cathy Raymond <cathy@thyrsus.com>

"The meeting of personalities is like the contact of chemical substances; 
if there is any reaction, both are transformed."  Carl Jung
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