landon dyer <landon@best.com> writes:
At 03:47 AM 12/29/97 -0800, you wrote:
[lots of linux-vs-microsoft stuff deleted, then:]
- The third party market for Linux software would grow rapidly and enormously. - The government's software budget would be reduced dramatically.
I consider both of these to be Good Things (tm). The government wouldn't be forcing anything at the point of a gun, they'd simply be making a financially responsible vendor selection (hey, there's a first time for everything). Our tax dollars shouldn't be wasted on substandard software when superior, cheaper alternatives exist.
i haven't touched unix or linux in a long time, but i submit that your ordinary GS-4 secretary can deal with microsoft word a lot more efficiently than s/he can deal with vi/emacs/latex. i assume there are better tools available on *ix platforms these days, which actually destroys my argument:
do you really want the government to be more efficient? :-)
This has no bloody crypto relevance, but the Applix word processor is just as easy to use as Microsoft Word. (And somebody should write a better free clone of MS Word as a student project.) Moreover I've some extremely stupid people successfully trained to use (character-mode) Wordperfect. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps