Desktop Linux (fwd)

[Jeff Kinz]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 12:43:26PM -0800, Michael Costolo wrote:
> I see it this way: you're telling me, in essence, that for all wants and purposes
> OpenOffice Writer and MS Word are the same program because a particular class of
> users can use the two interchangeably.  

Nope.  "Application" != "Program".   

s/program/application/g then your statement is true as long as you
understand that it is being viewed only from the perspective of what a
user has to learn to use the "application".  *(but it will only be true
for vi user's and perl programmers. :-) )

> File->Save?  Almost all of the common operations are identical in any of the popular
> similar software packages. For that matter, even non-similar software packages.  But
> Word isn't PowerPoint even though they're probably more than your 51% the same
> thing, right?    

Nope - No common operations despite having comand structure in common.
> 
> > In order for something be considered a new application it needs to have
> > at least 51% of the common operations invoked and operated in completely
> > new and different ways.  

> Okay, so Word is the same application as PowerPoint then?

Nope - No common operations despite having comand structure in common.

> > > Perhaps we should just agree to disagree on this one.
> > Can we learn how to do that? :-)
> 
> What is it they say, "we'll get along fine once you accept that you're wrong?" :)
Absolutely.

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Open-PC, Emergent Research,  Hudson, MA.  
"jkinz at kinz.org" is copyright 2003.  
Use is restricted. Any use is an acceptance of the offer at
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