LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <Alan.Kennington@dsto.defence.gov.au>
  To  : linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 18:45:47 +1030

more derived articles about halloween article

Someone mentioned that the halloween I article has been
covered in the general press.
When I checked the French linux page

	http://www.linux-center.org/news/index.html

I found a list of derived articles that seems to be larger than has been
posted here. The list is:

C|NET	http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28215,00.html?owv

TechWeb	http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19981102S0005

ZDNN	http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2158704,00.html

vnu|net	http://webserv.vnu.co.uk/www_user/plsql/pkg_vnu_msn.homepage?p_story=67583

The Register:
	http://www.theregister.co.uk/981103-000001.html

SJ Mercury News:
	http://www.mercurycenter.com/columnists/gillmor/docs/dg110398.htm

Linuxworld:
	http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1998-10/lw-10-halloween.html

They all seem to give credibility to the notion that 
MS are leaking this stuff on purpose to make it look like they
haven't got a monopoly.
It's also interesting that MS are releasing stuff in France against
linux, apparently trying out their attakcs on linux there first.
The French linux people have been responding to the attacks.
And presumably MS will use the responses to get the message
right when they release their attacks on linux in the US.

By the way, my own expereicne of PCs with MS software is that
I had to obtain and use them because of only one thing -- the
fact that people keep sending me MS office format files
(*.doc, *.ppt, *.xls), and I have to be able to read/edit/create them.

The fact that MS keep adding absurd amount of extra functionality to
the MS office software is in keeping with the idea of making their
stuff too complex to duplicate.
But taking over the PC world requires linux to provide initially
the ability to _exchange_ at least all of the formats in MS office.
I realise that there is some such software out there.
But if this area can be licked, I think that linux is really going
to beat MS in 5 years.

I don't think that the US govt is going to beat MS anyway.
(They've failed on other anti-trust things, like against IBM, I think.)
But in the meantime, MS has given great credibility to linux,
and free advertising. In the longer term, this will matter more,
because the US court case is bound to founder  -- in my (usually wrong)
opinion.

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

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