!@!Re: [Upd-discuss] Offtopic: Adverse effects of using computers

[Michael Hart]

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, Richard Stallman wrote:

>    Some evidence I have is the following:
>    http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/destech/compute/staff/read/Publish/ChiCi/chi
>    ldrentech.doc
>
> That file name seems to indicate it is a file in Microsoft Word format.
>
> Distributing documents in Word format is bad for everyone.  You can't
> be sure what they will look like if someone views them with a
> different version of Word; they may not work at all.
>
> Receiving Word documents is bad for you because they can carry
> viruses (see http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/acro.html).
> Sending Word documents is bad for you, because a Word document
> normally includes hidden information about the author, enabling those
> in the know to pry into the author's activities (maybe yours).  Text
> that you think you deleted may still be embarrassingly present.  See
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3154479.stm for more info.
>
> But above all, sending people Word documents puts pressure on them to
> use Microsoft software and helps to deny them any other choice.  In
> effect, you become a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly.  This
> pressure is a major obstacle to the broader adoption of free software.
>
> Can you tell me how to write to the authors of that file, so I can ask
> them to release it in a free format?
>
> See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html for more
> about this issue.


A Serious Question:

Do my comments resemble those of Mr. Stallman to any real degree?

I sometimes worry that I might use phrases, sentences, even whole
paragraphs that sound "boilerplate" or "canned" in the sense that
I might have just written them at some time and then rehashed the
previous edition and reused my own words, not quite plagiarism.

If you ever see me doing this, please, please, let me know!

I try to answer each message from scratch, but I do realize those
concepts I use do get used over and over, though I hope that each
time I write about them I might polish them up a bit more and put
in specific points responding to the case at hand to make a real,
individual responsive and conversational message.

In this case, while I agree that plain text, or "free format" may
be the best to use for broad communications, and while I may step
out and say that Microsoft, Adobe, etc., do some pretty strange--
if not totally weird things, I do stop short of saying that these
organizations, or their products, should be wiped from the Earth.

Certain people LOVE to receive files in these formats, and I will
continue to provide them in such cases, whether it is my very own
favorite, or least favorite format.  It's not my choice.

If Mr. Stallman is correct, this situation will cure itself in an
obvious manner, as the errors that are still included should come
back to haunt the author, not that most of us can write a largish
commentary without such errors, or even justify our marginations.
I never did understand that fictional perfectionistics philosophy
that says you have to do it right the first time, or at least put
forward the PRETENSE that you did it right the first time.

All you have to do is go back to find the earliest editions of an
assortment of Project Gutenberg files I personally created to see
just how poorly I did when I first started eLibraries.

However, life is an open book test, it is not a one hour exam and
not even a one day exam, and there is plenty of time to make some
serious corrections.

If I had waited until I could provide eBooks that were perfect to
the even the average reader, much less the ivory tower scholarly,
well. . .let's just say you would probably never have heard of me
or of my work to any significant degree.

I am relatively sure that Mr. Stallman's works also did not start
out at the level of perfection it later gained.

After all, it is common practice to include updates, commentaries
and other items in later versions of software, sometimes to large
degrees that most consumers would/could/should never see at all.

Therefore, I don't quite understand why Mr. Stallman cannot, will
not, or should not, extend the same to authors of Word files.

This process is only of value if you want to HIDE the evolutions,
HIDE the originals, HIDE the writing process.

This is contrary to the philosophy Mr. Stallman has promoted over
and over and over again for some 36 years now.

At least as far as I can see, but perhaps I have perceptions that
are more limited than some here can provide for me.

Mr. Stallman and I are often given credit for starting the worlds
of "Open Source". . .he with programs, me with eLibraries, but it
sometimes befuddles me how we can be grouped so closely together,
yet still be so very different.

I just can't come out and make my personal preferences into these
kinds of statements that say everyone should follow them.

Should I?

My own worry is that my personal preferences already have greater
weight than they should, that too many people already think I say
that "plain text" is the ONLY format that eBooks should be in.

Personally, I feel that the more formats the better, that a great
number of formats creates a great number of future possibilities.

As usual, I am glad to argue both sides of the case, and will say
that Mr. Stallman should have included "bloatware" as one of such
nasty qualities of which he doesn't approve.  A plain text file I
would type in from reading a Word document would be much smaller,
even if I included some markup for ~italics~, /bold/, or even for
_underscoring_, etc., etc., etc.

Well. . .let's see what kind of response I get to my questions as
originally stated up front.


Thanks!!!


Give the world eBooks in 2007!!!

Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg

Blog at http://hart.pglaf.org