I do think
people care a lot about it! As a student I am
required to submit my papers as a microsoft document. Mr
Jones, who works in an office is required to turn in a excel
sheet of business transaction, he needs MS compatibility.
his wife Sue Jones, writes down her cooking recipes to email
to her sister-in-law, she needs MS Compatibility. Bobby
Jones, their loving son, has to submit power point projects
and essays to his high school. He needs MS Compatibility.
Okay so the Jones family is a hurtin' bunch. :D
Point taken. Let's agree we need reasonable compatibility but let's focus on
personal usage rather than enterprise usage.
Enterprise or not, you need MS Compat any time
that you
step out of the linux world, so unless the entire network of
people around you are using ODT, then you'll need to use
DOC.
Well, as I said, I am required to maintain full compatibility. I don't fight
windmills. I use the required apps natively in a virtual machine. I have no illusions
about using non Windows apps to put my beans on the table. :) I think anybody who needs
100% compatibility needs to be realistic.
With that said, often I open MS docs in LO, but only to browse. I don't trust any
alleged compatibility claims to acutally change such documents. If I am asked to modify an
MS doc then I start my virtual machine.
Humans being realistic? That made me laugh! :-)
I don't mean that as an insult. Most people aren't realistic, and they ever will
be. I agree with you fully that they need to be realistic, but I know that'll never
happen.
I don't think anyone here expects full compatibility, but I think most of us agree
that it is important.
Of course, if all their apps work in WINE (and they can afford (and are willing) to renew
licenses when needed), or if they were willing to dual boot or use VMs (and they can
afford (and are willing) to renew licenses when needed), then KOffice wouldn't need to
have compatibility, but that won't be true of everyone.
--
Kristopher Gamrat
Ark Linux webmaster