Standards: Open or Proprietary?

[dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw]

  Chuck Swiger (cswiger@widomaker.com) wrote --
  
  > If people stick w/ Netscape like I do, and independant sites
  > like pathfinder.com or quote.com try out CDF only to find
  > out their hits are way down, you can bet they'll drop it like
  > a hot potatoe (did I spell that right, Dan?)!
   
  Er, uh, I hope there hasn't been a misunderstanding here.... I chided
  someone for, um, unfelicitous use of the word "inscrutable," and I quoted
  someone who noted a misspelling on an MS Web page, but I'm pretty sure I
  haven't called anyone out on spelling.... I wonder if you mean the Dan M.
  on your Web page, or a certain Dan Q. who is famous for "potatoe".... Yup,
  since you asked, it should be "potato," but considering what I wrote --
  
  > Note that all of the em dashes and all but one of the apostrophes in the
  > text of [that MS page] were represented by raw byte values that every
  > relevant standard says should never be transmitted over the Internet.
  
  ...I won't be picky, since I should have said that those byte values are
  verboten in *text* (including HTML text on Web pages) transmitted over the
  Internet. Everyone makes mistakes.
  
  Actually, I am *overjoyed* to see so many misspellings on the Internet.
  Don't most of the people connected to the Internet have Microsoft Word?
  And doesn't Word have automatic as-you-type spelling correction? Why,
  then, aren't all these people using Word for e-mail and sending out fully
  corrected text? Could it be because Word, as anyone who knows word
  processing can see, is designed to screw up plain text of the kind we use
  on the Internet? Because it can't work seamlessly with browsers and e-mail
  programs the way Joe, Pico, Vi, etc., work seamlessly with Lynx, Elm,
  Pine, etc.? You say you started integrating Internet-related technology
  into your "operating system" WHEN, Mr. Neukom?
  
  Dan Strychalski
  dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw