XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

As should be no surprise to anyone, Micro$lop is making
its files formats unnecessarily complex to thwart LibreOffice
and other competitors:

<https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-calls-out-microsoft-for-using-complex-file-formats-to-lock-in-office-users/>

However, LibreOffice should not be considered blameless for
they, too, are limiting their development toward supporting
only the mainstream DEs, i.e. GNOME and KDE. If fact, if one
has a problem with LO that manifests in some other window
manager or environment the LO dev's will literally tell you
that the problem will not be addressed due to its "fringe"
nature.

We all have told Micro$lop to kiss off but we may soon be doing
the same to LibreOffice.


--
Systemd: solving all the problems that you never knew you had.

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Lester Thorpe wrote:

As should be no surprise to anyone, Micro$lop is making
its files formats unnecessarily complex to thwart LibreOffice
and other competitors:

<https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-calls-out-microsoft-for-using-complex-file-formats-to-lock-in-office-users/>

However, LibreOffice should not be considered blameless for
they, too, are limiting their development toward supporting
only the mainstream DEs, i.e. GNOME and KDE. If fact, if one
has a problem with LO that manifests in some other window
manager or environment the LO dev's will literally tell you
that the problem will not be addressed due to its "fringe"
nature.

We all have told Micro$lop to kiss off but we may soon be doing
the same to LibreOffice.

Hmmmm... LO seems to work on icewm for me.
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XPost: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy

; Scratch buffer -- list evaluation

On Sat, 19 Jul 2025 09:43:36 -0700, Ian wrote:

<https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-calls-out-microsoft-for-using-complex-file-formats-to-lock-in-office-users/>

But ... but ... OOXML was supposed to be an “official standard”,
codified in the form of ISO 29500.

Except that standard is so convoluted and so full of omissions and contradictions that it is impossible to ensure that any implementation
follows it properly <https://www.consortiuminfo.org/opendocument-and-ooxml/the-contradictory-nature-of-ooxml/>.

This includes Microsoft Office itself. Which, as long-time Office
users are aware, is why it is so notoriously tricky to get Office
documents to format consistently.

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On 7/19/25 6:23 AM, Lester Thorpe wrote:

As should be no surprise to anyone, Micro$lop is making
its files formats unnecessarily complex to thwart LibreOffice
and other competitors:

<https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-calls-out-microsoft-for-using-complex-file-formats-to-lock-in-office-users/>

However, LibreOffice should not be considered blameless for
they, too, are limiting their development toward supporting
only the mainstream DEs, i.e. GNOME and KDE. If fact, if one
has a problem with LO that manifests in some other window
manager or environment the LO dev's will literally tell you
that the problem will not be addressed due to its "fringe"
nature.

We all have told Micro$lop to kiss off but we may soon be doing
the same to LibreOffice.

Depends On : curl>=7.20.0 hunspell>=1.2.8 python libwpd>=0.9.2
libwps neon>=0.28.6 pango nspr libjpeg-turbo libxrandr libgl redland
hyphen lpsolve gcc-libs sh graphite icu libxslt
lcms2 poppler libvisio libetonyek libodfgen libcdr libmspub
harfbuzz-icu nss clucene hicolor-icon-theme desktop-file-utils shared-mime-info libpagemaker libxinerama libabw
libmwaw
libe-book libcups liblangtag libexttextcat
liborcus libwebp libcmis libtommath libzmf libatomic_ops xmlsec libnumbertext
gpgmepp libfreehand libstaroffice libepubgen
libqxp libepoxy zxing-cpp xdg-utils libldap fontconfig zlib
libpng freetype2
raptor libxml2 cairo libx11 expat glib2
boost-libs libtiff dbus glibc librevenge libxext openjpeg2 argon2 Optional Deps : java-runtime: adds java support
java-environment>=17: required by
extension-wiki-publisher and extension-nlpsolver
pstoedit: translates PostScript and PDF graphics into
other vector formats
libmythes: for use in thesaurus
beanshell: interactive java -- good for prototyping/macros
libwpg: library for importing and converting
WordPerfect Graphics format
sane: for scanner access
unixodbc: adds ODBC database support
gst-plugins-base-libs: for multimedia content, e.g. in Impress
libpaper: takes care of papersize
postgresql-libs: for postgresql-connector
mariadb-libs: for mysql-connector
coin-or-mp: required by the Calc solver
gtk3: for GTK3 integration
gtk4: for GTK4 integration (experimental)
qt5-x11extras: for Qt5 desktop integration
kio: for KF6 KDE desktop integration
qt6-multimedia: for Qt6 desktop integration
rhino: for JavaScript support

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On 7/19/25 6:23 AM, Lester Thorpe wrote:

We all have told Micro$lop to kiss off but we may soon be doing
the same to LibreOffice.

well - you will and that is not really sooo bad,

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On 7/19/25 6:23 AM, Lester Thorpe wrote:

If fact, if one
has a problem with LO that manifests in some other window
manager or environment the LO dev's will literally tell you
that the problem will not be addressed due to its "fringe"
nature.

I don't know what LO is... but Libreoffice works fine on Windowmaker.

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

Lester Thorpe <lt@gnu.rocks> wrote at 10:23 this Saturday (GMT):

As should be no surprise to anyone, Micro$lop is making
its files formats unnecessarily complex to thwart LibreOffice
and other competitors:

<https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-calls-out-microsoft-for-using-complex-file-formats-to-lock-in-office-users/>

However, LibreOffice should not be considered blameless for
they, too, are limiting their development toward supporting
only the mainstream DEs, i.e. GNOME and KDE. If fact, if one
has a problem with LO that manifests in some other window
manager or environment the LO dev's will literally tell you
that the problem will not be addressed due to its "fringe"
nature.

We all have told Micro$lop to kiss off but we may soon be doing
the same to LibreOffice.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish... All of the .docX files are annoying to
deal with without using LO or similar, and its infuriating they won't
just add to the formats everyone else uses, or at LEAST make them
backwards compatible (ie UTF-8).
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:10:05 +0000, candycanearter07 wrote:

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish... All of the .docX files are annoying to
deal with without using LO or similar, and its infuriating they won't
just add to the formats everyone else uses, or at LEAST make them
backwards compatible (ie UTF-8).

Look at how Micro$slop operates.

They tried to replace the Java language with their own knock off junk
called .NET C# and they were somewhat successful.

They tried to replace PostScript/PDF with their own knock off junk
called XPS but they failed.

They tried to replace MP3 audio with their own knock off junk called
WMA but they failed.

They tried to replace JPEG image format with their own knock off junk
called JPEG XR.

The whole history of that corrupt company is a series of attempts
to use their near monopolistic position to usurp standard formats
with their junk proprietary imitations.




--
Hail Linux! Hail FOSS! Hail Stallman!

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:44:45 +0000, Farley Flud wrote:

They tried to replace the Java language with their own knock off junk
called .NET C# and they were somewhat successful.

That was the second attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++

I think I still have the DVD around someplace. It showed promise compared
to Visual C++ and, on the Windows platform, to Sun Java. I had hopes for
Java but when it switched from AWT to Swing it became bloated. 'Java app running too slow? Buy a faster machine with more memory and quit your bitching.'

C# learned from both Java and C++/MFC and is an improvement on both.
Microsoft also learned that hating on Linux isn't productive.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

On 2025-07-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:44:45 +0000, Farley Flud wrote:

They tried to replace the Java language with their own knock off junk
called .NET C# and they were somewhat successful.

That was the second attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++

This was after Sun caught Microsoft adding proprietary extensions
to their implementation of Java, in violation of the agreement
with Sun (embrace, extend, extinguish). Sun took Microsoft to
court and won, and the judge gave Microsoft 90 days to either
make Windows 98 conform to the agreement or pull it off the market.
Microsoft had no option but to comply - but they lost all interest
in Java after that.

This was around the time when Bill Gates was constantly whining
about how the U.S. Department of Justice was interfering with
Microsoft's "right to innovate" - when all the DOJ was doing
was stopping them from destroying the true innovators.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:10:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:

All of the .docX files are annoying to deal with without using LO or
similar ...

I think they cause problems to Microsoft Office users as well.

Consider that the spec, ISO 29500, contains both “transitional” and “strict” options. Here we are, about 20 years later, and hardly anyone
uses the “strict” version, for fear of breaking compatibility with Microsoft Office.

<https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000400.shtml>

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 21:14:19 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

Microsoft had no option but to comply - but they lost all interest
in Java after that.

They did get their revenge, though: they went off and created Dotnet, as a competitor to Java. Though I’ve never seen it become the basis for
anything you might consider a “major, mainstream” app. E.g. Microsoft have never used it in their own Office suite.

This was around the time when Bill Gates was constantly whining
about how the U.S. Department of Justice was interfering with
Microsoft's "right to innovate" - when all the DOJ was doing
was stopping them from destroying the true innovators.

I would have more sympathy for that viewpoint if Java had been more of an
open standard, managed by an industry group rather than tightly controlled
by Sun.

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 21:14:19 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

On 2025-07-21, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:44:45 +0000, Farley Flud wrote:

They tried to replace the Java language with their own knock off junk
called .NET C# and they were somewhat successful.

That was the second attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J++

This was after Sun caught Microsoft adding proprietary extensions to
their implementation of Java, in violation of the agreement with Sun (embrace, extend, extinguish). Sun took Microsoft to court and won, and
the judge gave Microsoft 90 days to either make Windows 98 conform to
the agreement or pull it off the market.
Microsoft had no option but to comply - but they lost all interest in
Java after that.

In Microsoft's defense I believe they were attempting to create a Java
based alternative for Visual C++/MFC. The love child of C++ and a wrapper
on the Win32 API wasn't exactly straight C++. CString and string aren't
the same thing. C++ didn't help in its early days with the STL and C++
Standard Library under development. MS rolled their own classes to fit the
API. The big difference is C++ is not a proprietary language. It's still a
work in progress but MSC++ has never fully conformed to ISO C++ but
neither Bell Labs or anyone else was in a position to sue.

Charles Petzold more or less wrote THE BOOK on 'Programming Windows' and loathed C++. The first 5 editions used C. The 6th, around Windows 8 time
used C#. In the forward he says C# was how it should have been done in the first place.

This was around the time when Bill Gates was constantly whining about
how the U.S. Department of Justice was interfering with Microsoft's
"right to innovate" - when all the DOJ was doing was stopping them from destroying the true innovators.

It would help if it didn't involve two breeds of junkyard dogs. The
junkyard DNA is very strong in Java.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oracle-alphabet-trial-idUSKCN0Y726D/

Oracle has been taking heat recently for bumping the cost of its licensed
Java and MySQL. There is a reason the original MySQL people cut and ran
when Oracle bought Sun and forked MariaDB.

There is evil and then there is evil. MS is almost becoming reasonable
after they kicked Ballmer to the curb.

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XPost: comp.os.linux.misc

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 23:03 this Monday (GMT):

On Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:10:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:

All of the .docX files are annoying to deal with without using LO or
similar ...

I think they cause problems to Microsoft Office users as well.

Consider that the spec, ISO 29500, contains both “transitional” and “strict” options. Here we are, about 20 years later, and hardly anyone uses the “strict” version, for fear of breaking compatibility with Microsoft Office.

<https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000400.shtml>

There's also like 4 different MS Office file formats too, and I have no
idea whats actually different between them.
--
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