algeriatul team mailing list archive

[Pedro Galvan <pedro@xxxxxxxxx>]

Just this week, a corporate customer with whom I am starting a business relationship sent me a ms word document with a form that I needed to fill in order for them to register me as a supplier. 

Needless to say, I had to use ms word to open it. I tried to do it in
libreoffice but all the layout was messed up, and I didn't want to
return my customer a messed up document. Also, the document had a field
that was a digital signature, and libreoffice didn't recognize it
properly.

As many people do, I used to have a windows partition just for cases
like this. However, a few months ago my HDD failed and I decided to
replace it with a SSD. With space being much more limited on SSD, I
decided there was no use in having Windows around anymore.

So ... I had to send the documents to my wife and ask her to open them
up in windows+office and fill them up. Fortunately, she is also an
executive in the company and was legally allowed to digitally sign those
papers. Otherwise, I would have had to install a digital signature
certificate of myself, in somebody else's computer, and I wouldn't have
liked that.

I know that some will say that they would have told the customer to send
the document in a non-proprietary format. Yeah, right. I would like to
see you tell that to a new customer with an important deal.

Probably others will also tell me that there were ways to cimcurvent
this and still do it from Linux by using certain
programs/commands/hacks. That doesn't matter, because even if I were
able to do it, your average user wouldn't.

So, if you only care about the consumer+mobile world, then probably we
could say this bug is fixed. But if you care about professionals, who
mainly use personal computers for work, this bug is far from being
fixed.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that there has been an advance in some areas
and I cheer for that. But that is no reason to give a blind eye to the
areas where we haven't advanced.

-- 
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dz, which is subscribed to the bug report.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1

Title:
  Microsoft has a majority market share

Status in Club Distro:
  Confirmed
Status in Computer Science Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in LibreOffice Productivity Suite:
  New
Status in dylan.NET.Reflection:
  Invalid
Status in dylan.NET:
  Invalid
Status in EasyPeasy Overview:
  Invalid
Status in Ichthux - Linux for Christians:
  Invalid
Status in JAK LINUX:
  Invalid
Status in LibreOffice:
  In Progress
Status in The Linux Kernel:
  New
Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
  In Progress
Status in The Linux OS Project:
  In Progress
Status in Neobot:
  New
Status in Novabot:
  New
Status in The OpenOffice.org Suite:
  In Progress
Status in Tabuntu:
  Invalid
Status in A simple player to online TV streaming:
  Invalid
Status in Tv-Player:
  Invalid
Status in Ubuntu Malaysia LoCo Team Meta Project:
  In Progress
Status in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in Arch Linux:
  Confirmed
Status in Baltix GNU/Linux:
  Invalid
Status in “linux” package in Debian:
  In Progress
Status in Fluxbuntu: The Lightweight, Productive, Agile OS:
  Confirmed
Status in openSUSE:
  In Progress
Status in Tilix Linux:
  New

Bug description:
  See Mark's closure comment here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834
  ------

  Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC
  marketplace. This is a bug which Ubuntu and other projects are meant
  to fix. As the philosophy of the Ubuntu Project states, "Our work is
  driven by a belief that software should be free and accessible to
  all."

  "Ubuntu software is free. Always was, always will be. Free software gives everyone the freedom to use it however they want and share with whoever they like. This freedom has huge benefits. At one end of the spectrum it enables the Ubuntu community to grow and share its collective experience and expertise to continually improve all things Ubuntu. At the other, we are able to give access to essential software for those who couldn’t otherwise afford it – an advantage that’s keenly felt by individuals and organisations all over the world."
       * http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/our-philosophy

  Non-free software leaves users at the mercy of the software owner and
  concentrates control over the technology which powers our society into
  the hands of a few. Additionally, proprietary software stifles
  innovation, maintains artificial scarcities, and enables malicious
  anti-features such as DRM, surveillance, and other monopolistic
  practices.

  This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.

  Steps to repeat:

      1. Visit a local PC store.
      2. Attempt to buy a machine without any proprietary software.

  What happens:

  Almost always, a majority of PCs for sale have Microsoft Windows pre-
  installed. In the rare cases that they come with a GNU/Linux operating
  system or no operating system at all, the drivers and BIOS may be
  proprietary.

  What should happen:

  A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software.

       * http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
       * http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
       * http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

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