Is Linux a desktop operating system?

Tom Adelstein adelste at yahoo.com
Thu May 26 04:23:01 UTC 2005


On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 12:23 +1200, Christoph Georgi wrote:

> The biggest barriers these days for Linux to become a more widely 
> deployed desktop OS in enterprises seems to evolve around compatibility 
> issues with the productivity suites as OpenOffice is not fully 
> compatible with MS Office. (please correct me if I'm mistaken)
> 
> 
> christoph


Christoph, I do not encounter that objection with enterprises or
government. I'm not correcting you, I'm simply saying that has been a
non-issue in my experience. In fact, in some heterogeneous environments,
I have used openoffice to solve incompatibility problems amongst
versions of Microsoft Office. OOo can reach compatibility of
approximately 90% of Word versions and MS Office in many environments
does not reach 60% compatibility among its own file formats.

My publishers also allow me to submit chapters in Openoffice formats. 

In academia, I have seen curriculum certification requirements where
only Openoffice file formats were allowed. I'm thinking of a particular
situation at a major university in Mississippi - a place some people
consider a third world county in the US. <partly winking>

I would add inertia as to your list of reasons.

Defined: 
The tendency of an object to continue in motion at the same speed and in
the same direction, unless acted upon by a force. e.g., Bureaucracies
inherently exhibit inertia unless a government radically changes the
make-up of its division of labor.








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