To: plug@lists.q-linux.com
Subject: Re: [plug] Wine and winword
From: Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 18:34:11 -0700

Quoting Pablo Manalastas (pmana@admu.edu.ph):

> Now all that we need wine for is Photoshop 6, PeachTree Accounting,
> Visual Basic 6, and so on. The trouble is there are just sooo many
> apps that people like to use Windows for ; they like the application,
> and not necessarily Windows.

Beware of being required to jump over an ever-rising bar. I've been
watching that rhetorical trick being used as an objection against Linux
use for over a decade.

That is, there's _always_ something:

1993: "Linux doesn't have a decent Web browser." Along came Netscape
Navigator.
1994: "Linux can't run MS-Word." Along came the iBCS libs, which
allowed you to run the MS-Word SCO Unix port.
1995: "Linux doesn't have good spreadsheets." Along came Xess.
1996: "Linux doesn't have good SQL databases." Along came Empress.
1998: "Linux doesn't have Oracle." Along came Oracle, Informix,
Sybase, DB2, /rdb, SOLID, and Interbase.
1999: "Linux doesn't have MS-Office and Exchange Client." Along came
VMware and Win4Lin.
2000: "Linux doesn't have Macromedia Flash." Along came Flash plugins
(but not Shockwave).
2001: "Linux doesn't have a Web browser better than Communicator."
Along came Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon, and Slipstone.
2002: "Linux doesn't have Quicken." Along came Crossover Office.

There's _always_ something. Photoshop, AutoCAD, Adobe Distiller,
Adobe Pagemill, MS-Front Page, MSIE, Shockwave, low-end USB ADSL modem
support, support for just-released USB-or-Firewire-dependent digital
cameras, whatever.

And, if not that, it's "Well, it's too complex, and it's not just like
MS-Windows." Basically, a lot of people are _actually_ setting their
requirement as "must be 100% the same as MS-Windows", but they're just
breaking the news to you on the installment plan.

--
Cheers, "Orthodoxy is my doxy. Heterodoxy is someone else's doxy."
Rick Moen -- William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester (1698-1779)
rick@linuxmafia.com
_