71–80 of 217 posts
Sadly, it seems like a business opportunity: "we'll convert formats for you when your vendor drops the ball."
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I mean this in the nicest way, but you've rather missed the point. While your response might be technically accurate and true, the author speaks to a greater issue than a one-off hack will support.
No, I haven't and I do mean this in the most condescending way possible; he's complaining about the proprietary format not working and laments losing his stuff. He could easily solve his problems. It's not a "hack" to open a folder or do you reward yourself with a cookie every time you open a folder on your desktop? FFS, this is "HackerNews"... write a bash script to do it for you. Better yet, use some "super 1337 h4…
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PDF is an open spec since a few years. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html
Officially, OOXML (aka .docx and friends) is an open spec, too.
Sadly, it seems like a business opportunity: "we'll convert formats for you when your vendor drops the ball."
Unfortunately, it could be a very expensive business to get into if there are patent-encumbered formats involved. In the cases where it's most likely to be useful, it also seems least likely to happen.
This is NOT true of all proprietary software. It's just that with apple either you keep upgrading to the latest and greatest all the time or you will have problems. Apple has its pros and cons, and one of those is that you have to keep upgrading regularly. Most proprietary software will offer upgrade paths from older versions.
Additionally, there's nothing inherent about open source that avoids this sort of problem. An open source project could decide on exactly the same sort of upgrade path, where they support current-minus-one versions and that's it. In theory, open source is better because the old code is still out there and you can get it up and running to upgrade your data. In practice, it can be pretty tough to get open source code t…
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'even MS' MS is one of the best in supporting old formats. That's part of how and why the managed to keep their monopoly on the desktop. There's not many OSs out there where you can start a 20 year old software and it runs almost always perfectly. (Try that on Linux or OSX.)
At Microsoft, if there is a design choice between "abandon the old user" or "let's forget them to make the current product better," they nearly always choose #1. Apple nearly always chooses #2. (I still remember DOS 3.2 to DOS 3.3.)
A lot of people have absolutely no problem with proprietary software until it breaks. The problem is you never know when it will break, and what it'll take down with it. I'm not saying 'go full Stallman'. I'm just saying think that when ever you hand over your data to a private company if they consider it as important as you consider it.
s/proprietary// While I like non-proprietary software, there is nothing inherit that makes much of a difference for the lay person. As the complexity of the software goes up, so does the level of what is considered a 'lay person'. For any sufficiently complex software and non-pervasive problem - you're SOL in both cases. Standards help more than proprietary/non-proprietary. Lower complexity also helps more.
(Standards wouldn't have helped either.)
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No, I haven't and I do mean this in the most condescending way possible; he's complaining about the proprietary format not working and laments losing his stuff. He could easily solve his problems. It's not a "hack" to open a folder or do you reward yourself with a cookie every time you open a folder on your desktop? FFS, this is "HackerNews"... write a bash script to do it for you. Better yet, use some "super 1337 h4…
FFS, this is "HackerNews"... write a bash script to do it for you. I have written quite a few bash scripts, python scripts and long ago ruby and smalltalk scripts to do things for me, that bothered me. My point is, this is a software I am paying for (and I've already mentioned that 2008 should not be considered as old) and I would rather spend my time writing the "super 1337 h4x0r" bash and python scripts for somethi…
The author might consider using Microsoft products because they are obsessive about providing backwards compatibility. That's one of the positive things about Microsoft products. The downside is that they have to deal with a lot of old baggage as a result. Apple, on the other hand is almost the opposite. They're obsessive about upgrading everyone and leaving the past behind. That's great because they're free to make…
Files are data. Data should be eternal. You should be able to convert a presentation you make today 30 years from now to a newer format. Making software not-backwards compatible is fine and normal but if files expire in a few years Apple is saying that the things you do on their computers are disposable.
Software is hard. I think it's pragmatic for software vendors to have a strong, transparent philosophy about the trade-offs so that consumers can make the right choice. As the grandparent points out, Microsoft values backwards compatibility. If you value that too, buy Microsoft.