On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 02:19:00PM +0200, Peter Bex wrote:
> My question is this: What do you guys use to communicate in the harsh
> reality where Windows & MS Office are the common thing?

OpenOffice.

In the business world, .doc files are a fact of life.  Get used to it.
We are simply too small a market for anyone else to give a damn.

> Do I really have to give in and install KDE/K Office and all bloat that comes
> with it and confirm the prevailing idea that MS Office is the only thing and
> the best thing around?

Any office suite is bloated.  :-)

But I use OpenOffice quite successfully to interoperate with the rest
of my office, prepare sales presentations and quotes, and write policy
documents.

Of course, iirc, it only runs on i386, so that might be a problem on
this list...

In an advocacy sense: 

Insisting that the world should conform to the way you are is
ineffective, no matter how morally correct you might be.  People who
refuse to be a team player are marked as outcasts and freaks.  The
contacts you make in university will last your entire life, and trust
me; you do not want to be remembered as a "stubborn freak who is
impossible to work with" when you're 40 years old and asking some
classmate for a job.  (Believe it or not, it will happen.)

The best way to advocate is show how your solution can make the world
better or solve problems.  Demonstrating that your solution creates
problems is not a way to win converts.

==ml

-- 
Michael Lucas		mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org
   "I'm sorry, but 'Social Darwinism' is no excuse for killing all of 
	           your co-workers."  -- Ivan Brunetti
		http://www.BlackHelicopters.org/~mwlucas/