Re: [Bug-gnupedia]Submissions in Word Format

[Christopher Mahan]

Again, I repost, due to the amount of confusion.

Also, if it is an issue of Microsoft is a 
for-profit-company-and-patents-its-software-to-make-money versus 
everything-should-be-free-and-flowers-for-everyone and WE WON'T under any 
circumstance use MS products, then this is short-sighted and narrow-minded 
stance.

I'm a developer. My clients want solutions. I use the best tool, the most 
effective tool. If it is java, so be it. if is is MySQL, or PostgreSQL, so 
be it, if it is MS2000 and Exchange, so be it. They're just tools, like the 
mechanic who works on your car. You would't think much of him if he didn't 
use a better type of brake pads because they're "Made in China" even though 
they were better and SAFER for your car, just because he's anti-communist... 
(this is just an example).

So, the university professor who thinks the premise of GNE is grand won't 
think too highly of the project if GNE refuses to take a certain type of 
files on ideological grounds, even though, technically, the process of 
conversion is achieveable, although admittedly not trivial.

The majority of authors out there could not care less about computers. They 
are not EVER going to care about the "format" of a file. All they care about 
is that it's easy to type, easy to edit, and easy to print. They are going 
to leave the "conversion process" to the IT types, and they are not going to 
worry about it.

Unless we make a really good and really smart programs that will be easier 
to use than MSWord for the purpose of posting to the web, then we will have 
to contend with .doc files.



> Microsoft cannot claim ownership of the textual content of a .doc file.
>
> The only thing they would complain about would be the use of knowledge of
> their proprietory binary format, which the converter would certainly need 
> if
> it was running on Linux, let's say.
>
> But, if the converter was using a win 98 or win NT machine with MSWord on
> it, and decompose the document using the Word Document Object Model,
> programmatically, from VB, VBA, or VBScript, then the converter would in
> fact not know the details of the binary .doc file, but rather use MSWord's
> to do that with. And it's never been a problem to convert files from MSWord
> to something else (like ascii) using MSWord.
>
> Now, depending on the type of files, this may be easy or hard, and possibly
> some formatting might go awry (MSWord formatting I think will never truly
> translate well to the web), but it could be used, either as-is if the 
> author
> doesn't care, or it could be then edited online, from the xml (using TEI).

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