having lived in Turkey does not really give your authority on Europe to any considerable degree.
Turkey is geographically close to Europe (part of it is in Europe even) that we are exposed to European culture to a considerable degree. I myself went to a British school in Tarsus and have more European friends than Turkish ones.
Considering this, and putting aside various red herrings (Kurds) you threw in there to purposefully convolute the argument, which is more acceptable: European guy speaking with some authority on the USA, or Turkish guy who lives in the USA speaking with some authority over both Europe and USA?
People in the USA are far more concerned with their justice than Europeans. The country (USA) was founded upon principles of justice and freedom. Europe? Heh. Half of Europe was obsessed with colonialism until World War 2 so it's apparent that "justice" has been an elusive concept for them until recently. The other half is either not developed enough, or has been torn by civil wars and ethnic cleansing to care much about such high-level ideals.
This is why it is odd to me that the EU is suing Microsoft. This, and the issue of "olol Microsoft monopoly" is about a decade old. Why bring it up again?
This is why it is odd to me that the EU is suing Microsoft. This, and the issue of "olol Microsoft monopoly" is about a decade old. Why bring it up again?
Check out Kile if you're interested in an editor designed for LaTeX.
Well you can set it to colour etc for LaTeX code.
People in the USA are far more concerned with their justice than Europeans. The country (USA) was founded upon principles of justice and freedom. Europe? Heh. Half of Europe was obsessed with colonialism until World War 2 so it's apparent that "justice" has been an elusive concept for them until recently.
Oh god that is such a load of shit. I could start pulling out examples of American injustices, like Vietnam and the ilk, but that wouldn't really make a convincing argument. Do you think just because "It was founded on principles of freedom *chestslap*" that has any bearing on how free it is today, more than a hundred years later?
Now if you assume colonialism means Europe has no concept of justice until approximately 1945 then it goes without saying America had no sense of justice untill after Vietnam, or the shitty stuff it did in South America, which was effectively colonialism. Of course that isn't true, but then neither is your argument.
Turkey is geographically close to Europe (part of it is in Europe even) that we are exposed to European culture to a considerable degree. I myself went to a British school in Tarsus and have more European friends than Turkish ones.
Which still does not account for the fact that Europe is
A Different from Turkey
B Different within itself.
Now you seem to have forgotten; I am not arguing "America is less fair than Europe", I am saying you don't know enough to say that Europe is less fair than America.
fjafjan on
Yepp, THE Fjafjan (who's THE fjafjan?)
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Which still does not account for the fact that Europe is
A Different from Turkey
B Different within itself.
Now you seem to have forgotten; I am not arguing "America is less fair than Europe", I am saying you don't know enough to say that Europe is less fair than America.
Right, but I'm responding to the argument that "Europeans are more concerned about justice than Americans are".
If Europe is different within itself -- and it is -- then that argument is BS anyway.
I am, of course, speaking in generalisations. I mean, Jesus fuck how can you miss that?
The power in the EU is with Germany, France and England. To a lesser degree with The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Finland, Denmark and Austria. The ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe has little to no influence over the EU (for those who are unclear on their definitions: the "European Government"). Neelie Kroes does what the governments of the influential countries want her to. No one listens to Eastern Europe.
Having visited or lived in these countries and having talked to people from these countries I can say that, in general, the inhabitants of these countries are more strongly opposed to this form of rampant capitalism than the Americans, in general. Compared to, for example, the Netherlands, the US is about the epitome of laissez-faire, really.
thanks for missing the geographically fourth largest country :P (not counting Russia and Turkey)(okey maybe you should count russia since the part of russia that is in europe is still bigger)
And yes, as a citizen of this country (Sweden) I would agree, but then also concede I know too little about the mindset of Americans.
fjafjan on
Yepp, THE Fjafjan (who's THE fjafjan?)
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
thanks for missing the geographically fourth largest country :P (not counting Russia and Turkey)(okey maybe you should count russia since the part of russia that is in europe is still bigger)
And yes, as a citizen of this country (Sweden) I would agree, but then also concede I know too little about the mindset of Americans.
Russia is not part of the EU. Poland, Romania, Czech republic have little influence over what is decided in Brussels. I forgot Sweden, whoops.
thanks for missing the geographically fourth largest country :P (not counting Russia and Turkey)(okey maybe you should count russia since the part of russia that is in europe is still bigger)
And yes, as a citizen of this country (Sweden) I would agree, but then also concede I know too little about the mindset of Americans.
Russia is not part of the EU. Poland, Romania, Czech republic have little influence over what is decided in Brussels. I forgot Sweden, whoops.
And I know Russia is not a part of EU, but it is the largest country in Europe.
And yes eastern Europe has had fairly little influence, but also some pretty large benefits, which is probably pretty closely connected.
fjafjan on
Yepp, THE Fjafjan (who's THE fjafjan?)
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
If this hasn't been addressed in response to the OP, OpenOffice does allow you to save things in Word-compatible (or Excel-compatible, or Powerpoint-compatible) formats. And it's capable of opening and editing and saving any document created with an MS program. There are some formatting issues but they're minor, and very rare, and mostly limited to things your average consumer doesn't use anyway.
If MS was hard-coding Office to prevent files created by it from being read by other suites of software I could see there being a problem. Right now I'm not sure what the fuss is. Office didn't come with my Windows XP purchase, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money getting it, so I got OpenOffice. If Office had been bundled with XP at no extra cost I'd have been perfectly happy to use it.
As it stands everything I use except for Windows itself was free and legally so: anti-virus, anti-spyware, OpenOffice, Firefox, VLC, Winamp, etc. I haven't had to use a piece of Microsoft software since I built my first PC 4 years ago, and I haven't had to purchase a piece of software that wasn't a PC game. If MS bundled more stuff with Windows it might've made me do a little less downloading and installing freeware programs, but if WMP is any indication I'd rather not have their intrusive approach to software design in everything I use. I like how they design UIs, but man they could do with a lot less "this program will attempt to do a thousand things you don't want it to every time you use it" stuff.
So I don't see what the fuss is about. OpenOffice isn't being squeezed out of the market because MS is bundling Office with its OSes, it's squeezed out of the market because (a) people have been using Office since the 90s when it was the only game in town and (b) OpenOffice is free and has no advertising budget and no shelf space in stores. People will use what they've become accustomed to using (and OpenOffice's UI, which is virtually a copy/paste of Office's UI, shows that they recognize this) and they'll buy what's in the store and marketed to them.
At present OpenOffice won't open docx files, which is what MS Office 2007 saves in.
As titmouse points out, older versions of Word won't handle it either.
Does Vista come prepackaged with Office 2007?
We've had 6 years to try and figure out word 2003's format, and it's still hit-and-miss. docx is considerably more complex. How long will it take to catch up this time?
If this hasn't been addressed in response to the OP, OpenOffice does allow you to save things in Word-compatible (or Excel-compatible, or Powerpoint-compatible) formats. And it's capable of opening and editing and saving any document created with an MS program. There are some formatting issues but they're minor, and very rare, and mostly limited to things your average consumer doesn't use anyway.
And here I disagree. The moment you have any sort of formatting that goes beyond indented paragraphs and font sizes both the import and export become a complete crapshoot as to how it'll carry across. My project manager ended up buying CrossOver so he could run MS Office under Linux because OO just fucked up the documentation too much to be usable in a business environment.
And let's not even go into my temporary experience of being a sys admin for a bunch of library systems running OO to save on licencing fees. I had to help people on an hourly basis because OO fucked up their Word files in one way or another.
And here I disagree. The moment you have any sort of formatting that goes beyond indented paragraphs and font sizes both the import and export become a complete crapshoot as to how it'll carry across. My project manager ended up buying CrossOver so he could run MS Office under Linux because OO just fucked up the documentation too much to be usable in a business environment.
And let's not even go into my temporary experience of being a sys admin for a bunch of library systems running OO to save on licencing fees. I had to help people on an hourly basis because OO fucked up their Word files in one way or another.
This is why I save the things I make in OO to pdf format.
A friend of mine had his CV in PDF format (as one'd expect) and applied for a job that required he send it in .doc. He's a Linux user, so he exported the original to .doc instead and sent me the result to compare it with the PDF (he had no way of checking what it will look like on their side).
Id like to see microsoft respond by no longer offering its products to the EU. Ok, you dont like how we do business. /shrug well then we are withdrawing our software licenses in your territory. Please remove windows from your PCs as well as Office and any other microsoft programs.
Id like to see microsoft respond by no longer offering its products to the EU. Ok, you dont like how we do business. /shrug well then we are withdrawing our software licenses in your territory. Please remove windows from your PCs as well as Office and any other microsoft programs.
That would be an awesome way to give Linux and OO.o a free ride in to the homes of over a billion people.
Id like to see microsoft respond by no longer offering its products to the EU. Ok, you dont like how we do business. /shrug well then we are withdrawing our software licenses in your territory. Please remove windows from your PCs as well as Office and any other microsoft programs.
That would be an awesome way to give Linux and OO.o a free ride in to the homes of over a billion people.
^ This. MS has a very tenuous position when the alternative is free. However arcane it's UI - free.
Id like to see microsoft respond by no longer offering its products to the EU. Ok, you dont like how we do business. /shrug well then we are withdrawing our software licenses in your territory. Please remove windows from your PCs as well as Office and any other microsoft programs.
That would be an awesome way to give Linux and OO.o a free ride in to the homes of over a billion people.
Well actually it's only about half a billion.
But yeah there's no way Microsoft would ever cease business in the EU.
Plutocracy on
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Id like to see microsoft respond by no longer offering its products to the EU. Ok, you dont like how we do business. /shrug well then we are withdrawing our software licenses in your territory. Please remove windows from your PCs as well as Office and any other microsoft programs.
You should apply to be an advisor for Sony. Do it, man! :^:
If this hasn't been addressed in response to the OP, OpenOffice does allow you to save things in Word-compatible (or Excel-compatible, or Powerpoint-compatible) formats. And it's capable of opening and editing and saving any document created with an MS program. There are some formatting issues but they're minor, and very rare, and mostly limited to things your average consumer doesn't use anyway.
My experience with .docs in OO has been rather poor overall. Worst experience - I actually interviewed for a position with Microsoft earlier this year, and before the interview they asked me to fill out a form about myself and the positions I'd be interested in at the company. It was in .doc form, of course, and when I went to open it in OO it was nearly unreadable. Words were scattered about randomly on most pages, and at one point the document became one word per page for about 100 pages. I couldn't fill that in and send it back in. I had to track down a computer at school with Word on it. When I did, it was a neatly organized two-page form, and everything worked.
When people in business tell me they have to have Office because nothing else works correctly with .docs and other Office files their clients send them, I believe them.
There is an option to let you save in .doc instead of .docx in Office 2007 for compatibility purposes.
I've noticed that saving to an older .doc format still sometimes fucks up the formatting done in Office 2007. If I save the document in .docx, and then .doc 2003 compatible, the end result isn't exactly the same. It's nothing dramatic, but it's annoying having to correct the files simply because they can't be converted properly. I've started saving to PDF, and it's been semi-useful. I'd still prefer that I could edit the same file without needing the same program(I cycle between Vista at home, and UNIX-based systems at the university) or system.
There is an option to let you save in .doc instead of .docx in Office 2007 for compatibility purposes.
I've noticed that saving to an older .doc format still sometimes fucks up the formatting done in Office 2007. If I save the document in .docx, and then .doc 2003 compatible, the end result isn't exactly the same. It's nothing dramatic, but it's annoying having to correct the files simply because they can't be converted properly. I've started saving to PDF, and it's been semi-useful. I'd still prefer that I could edit the same file without needing the same program(I cycle between Vista at home, and UNIX-based systems at the university) or system.
As with all things Microsoft, it would be odd if it worked as well as it should.
You should apply to be an advisor for Sony. Do it, man! :^:
Sure linux is free. Sure 3rd party viable alternatives exist. But imagine the anarchy. It would be glorious as the EU was forced to stop, remove windows, watch as all the only works in windows applications they have cease functioning, and have to retrain all their existing employees on new software before they could resume business.
Trillions of dollars would be lost. It would be glorious.
Sure linux is free. Sure 3rd party viable alternatives exist. But imagine the anarchy. It would be glorious as the EU was forced to stop, remove windows, watch as all the only works in windows applications they have cease functioning, and have to retrain all their existing employees on new software before they could resume business.
Trillions of dollars would be lost. It would be glorious.
Why would they be "forced to remove windows" if MS stopped selling it?
Anyway, feel free to keep this pipe dream. The EU market is huge for MS.
The EU's arguement is that if you are going to do business in europe you need to release code microsoft considers to be their intellectual property. I think it would be amusing for microsoft to just decided "ok we wont do business with the EU." Pull some bullshit clause out of the EULA and generally watch the chaos laughing like a madman. Im not saying it will happen, im saying it would be gloriously amusing if it did.
If this highly hypothetical scenario happens I can totally see Brussels going "we've been vendor-locked by MS and now they refuse to sell to us. We have no choice but to declare MS products public domain to protect the EU."
Yes im fully aware of the obstacles preventing operation screw you Europe from occuring. Ohh better yet, new to europe MS releases a new operating system in compliance with all of the EUs complaints
MS's actual EU threats have been threatening to remove development shops and fire all the developers from EU countries when they make noises about going open source. Basically, hit the country in the economy.
But they DO offer six billion different versions of windows in the EU due to prior lawsuits. It makes the US Vista "what has what" chart look readable.
Yes im fully aware of the obstacles preventing operation screw you Europe from occuring. Ohh better yet, new to europe MS releases a new operating system in compliance with all of the EUs complaints
The Microsoft Windows/Office/Browsers/file standards etc issue is a pretty key test of the effectiveness/point of competition law, given that those technology systems in particular (as opposed to marginal players like say Apple + OSX/Safari) touch nearly every part of a modern country or economy. Even if MS has changed its behaviour from the 1990s (where it has been proven to have been a bastard) even mildly anti competitive behaviour (as opposed to aggressively anti competitive) should be monitored and controlled, as the economic/technology development implications could be huge. It is simple, the more important a product or system is to the public/economy then the more scrutiny / corrective action it should be subjected to, even if its products are high quality and cost effective.
I can't think of a company that has such an entrenched position of global market domination and importance as Microsoft, so it is hard to argue by analogy here.
Am I the only one here who thinks that MS Word is actually a pretty good product? At least up till 2003, 2007 is some bullshit.
Nope, you aren't. Seriously speaking, most of time Office is slagged because people don't want to spend any time to learn it. It is pretty painful to listen when nerds hype OpenOffice and tell me how it has this cool feature that Office doesn't, when, in reality, Office had same feature since '95. This has happened to me more than once.
Posts
Turkey is geographically close to Europe (part of it is in Europe even) that we are exposed to European culture to a considerable degree. I myself went to a British school in Tarsus and have more European friends than Turkish ones.
Considering this, and putting aside various red herrings (Kurds) you threw in there to purposefully convolute the argument, which is more acceptable: European guy speaking with some authority on the USA, or Turkish guy who lives in the USA speaking with some authority over both Europe and USA?
People in the USA are far more concerned with their justice than Europeans. The country (USA) was founded upon principles of justice and freedom. Europe? Heh. Half of Europe was obsessed with colonialism until World War 2 so it's apparent that "justice" has been an elusive concept for them until recently. The other half is either not developed enough, or has been torn by civil wars and ethnic cleansing to care much about such high-level ideals.
This is why it is odd to me that the EU is suing Microsoft. This, and the issue of "olol Microsoft monopoly" is about a decade old. Why bring it up again?
Oh Christ...
Well you can set it to colour etc for LaTeX code.
Oh god that is such a load of shit. I could start pulling out examples of American injustices, like Vietnam and the ilk, but that wouldn't really make a convincing argument. Do you think just because "It was founded on principles of freedom *chestslap*" that has any bearing on how free it is today, more than a hundred years later?
Now if you assume colonialism means Europe has no concept of justice until approximately 1945 then it goes without saying America had no sense of justice untill after Vietnam, or the shitty stuff it did in South America, which was effectively colonialism. Of course that isn't true, but then neither is your argument.
Which still does not account for the fact that Europe is
A Different from Turkey
B Different within itself.
Now you seem to have forgotten; I am not arguing "America is less fair than Europe", I am saying you don't know enough to say that Europe is less fair than America.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Right, but I'm responding to the argument that "Europeans are more concerned about justice than Americans are".
If Europe is different within itself -- and it is -- then that argument is BS anyway.
The power in the EU is with Germany, France and England. To a lesser degree with The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Finland, Denmark and Austria. The ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe has little to no influence over the EU (for those who are unclear on their definitions: the "European Government"). Neelie Kroes does what the governments of the influential countries want her to. No one listens to Eastern Europe.
Having visited or lived in these countries and having talked to people from these countries I can say that, in general, the inhabitants of these countries are more strongly opposed to this form of rampant capitalism than the Americans, in general. Compared to, for example, the Netherlands, the US is about the epitome of laissez-faire, really.
And yes, as a citizen of this country (Sweden) I would agree, but then also concede I know too little about the mindset of Americans.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
And I know Russia is not a part of EU, but it is the largest country in Europe.
And yes eastern Europe has had fairly little influence, but also some pretty large benefits, which is probably pretty closely connected.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
If MS was hard-coding Office to prevent files created by it from being read by other suites of software I could see there being a problem. Right now I'm not sure what the fuss is. Office didn't come with my Windows XP purchase, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money getting it, so I got OpenOffice. If Office had been bundled with XP at no extra cost I'd have been perfectly happy to use it.
As it stands everything I use except for Windows itself was free and legally so: anti-virus, anti-spyware, OpenOffice, Firefox, VLC, Winamp, etc. I haven't had to use a piece of Microsoft software since I built my first PC 4 years ago, and I haven't had to purchase a piece of software that wasn't a PC game. If MS bundled more stuff with Windows it might've made me do a little less downloading and installing freeware programs, but if WMP is any indication I'd rather not have their intrusive approach to software design in everything I use. I like how they design UIs, but man they could do with a lot less "this program will attempt to do a thousand things you don't want it to every time you use it" stuff.
So I don't see what the fuss is about. OpenOffice isn't being squeezed out of the market because MS is bundling Office with its OSes, it's squeezed out of the market because (a) people have been using Office since the 90s when it was the only game in town and (b) OpenOffice is free and has no advertising budget and no shelf space in stores. People will use what they've become accustomed to using (and OpenOffice's UI, which is virtually a copy/paste of Office's UI, shows that they recognize this) and they'll buy what's in the store and marketed to them.
As titmouse points out, older versions of Word won't handle it either.
Does Vista come prepackaged with Office 2007?
We've had 6 years to try and figure out word 2003's format, and it's still hit-and-miss. docx is considerably more complex. How long will it take to catch up this time?
Edit: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=47387
And let's not even go into my temporary experience of being a sys admin for a bunch of library systems running OO to save on licencing fees. I had to help people on an hourly basis because OO fucked up their Word files in one way or another.
Let's just say it didn't.
That would be an awesome way to give Linux and OO.o a free ride in to the homes of over a billion people.
^ This. MS has a very tenuous position when the alternative is free. However arcane it's UI - free.
Well actually it's only about half a billion.
But yeah there's no way Microsoft would ever cease business in the EU.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=47387
My experience with .docs in OO has been rather poor overall. Worst experience - I actually interviewed for a position with Microsoft earlier this year, and before the interview they asked me to fill out a form about myself and the positions I'd be interested in at the company. It was in .doc form, of course, and when I went to open it in OO it was nearly unreadable. Words were scattered about randomly on most pages, and at one point the document became one word per page for about 100 pages. I couldn't fill that in and send it back in. I had to track down a computer at school with Word on it. When I did, it was a neatly organized two-page form, and everything worked.
When people in business tell me they have to have Office because nothing else works correctly with .docs and other Office files their clients send them, I believe them.
I've noticed that saving to an older .doc format still sometimes fucks up the formatting done in Office 2007. If I save the document in .docx, and then .doc 2003 compatible, the end result isn't exactly the same. It's nothing dramatic, but it's annoying having to correct the files simply because they can't be converted properly. I've started saving to PDF, and it's been semi-useful. I'd still prefer that I could edit the same file without needing the same program(I cycle between Vista at home, and UNIX-based systems at the university) or system.
As with all things Microsoft, it would be odd if it worked as well as it should.
Sure linux is free. Sure 3rd party viable alternatives exist. But imagine the anarchy. It would be glorious as the EU was forced to stop, remove windows, watch as all the only works in windows applications they have cease functioning, and have to retrain all their existing employees on new software before they could resume business.
Trillions of dollars would be lost. It would be glorious.
Why would they be "forced to remove windows" if MS stopped selling it?
Anyway, feel free to keep this pipe dream. The EU market is huge for MS.
Probably best im not in charge.
edit: ooh ooh, then we can see how an EULA holds up in court! Man, companies would love that!
See now your getting into the spirit of things
Again: fun scenario, won't happen.
MS-DoS 6.23!
But they DO offer six billion different versions of windows in the EU due to prior lawsuits. It makes the US Vista "what has what" chart look readable.
I can't think of a company that has such an entrenched position of global market domination and importance as Microsoft, so it is hard to argue by analogy here.
Nope, you aren't. Seriously speaking, most of time Office is slagged because people don't want to spend any time to learn it. It is pretty painful to listen when nerds hype OpenOffice and tell me how it has this cool feature that Office doesn't, when, in reality, Office had same feature since '95. This has happened to me more than once.