TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Bruce...I did a complete lap around the outside before I went into the
middle. Not great pickins. And as far as openoffice.org...cool...the
success of Linux is based on how there is an application that already
looks like an existing application.
Whoopee.
RE this "why sell when things are free" stuff...Oracle was there. I
didn't go into the booth, a rather large booth...I don't need Oracle
right now, but I'd assume they don't give their database away for free.
>Second, and most importantly, almost all Linux
>desktop apps (OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, The GIMP,
>scribus) are free software. You can't expect
>companies to compete with these tools, many of
>which are first-rate by any standard.
Stop thinking small-time. I couldn't care about a web browser clone, or
a Word-replacement clone...I already have them. I mean
APPLICATIONS...off the top of my head...big-time development tools,
content management tools (Documentum?), enterprise authoring tools
(i.e., Arbortext), Rational Rose-UML-type tools, business process
modeling (i.e., CA AllFusion ERwin).
Something stuck me...right now, MS is doing a big cost-of-ownership
advert campaign on how a Windows server environment is cheaper than
Linux. Yet, MS had a rather large booth...and it was PACKED..more than
any other. It was like...I dunno...that Linux is still fighting a
Windows inferiority complex..."we're better than them, but we cannot do
anything unless it's to compete with them (Hey! We have a word processor
that looks like Word!), but don't ask us to do stuff on our own.
I stopped at the Andros booth...Andros is a GUI Linux. I went up to the
guy and said "Talk to me." The first thing he does is launch a program
that resembled MS Paint...not Illustrator...but Paint...with the comment
"We run any application that runs on Windows. I asked him what about
Adobe products. The only one was Illustrator...no, not FM, no, not ID,
no, not PM, no, not anything that's used in big efforts.
"But we run Word!".
Guys...when was the last time any of us used MSPaint to get anything
worthwhile done?
Anyway...it was just an observation and I have work to do
