Re: Boycott Microsoft

[ejohnson@netcom.com (Eric Johnson)]

wsmith@NOSPAM.ctron.com (Will Smith) writes:

>On Thu, 21 May 1998 15:11:53 GMT, ejohnson@netcom.com (Eric Johnson)
>wrote:

>|>Sigh.  Lotus made me sign an NDA for the file format to Lotus 1-2-3
>|>v4.0 for Windows. 

>and why is THAT?  if they were as serious about "competition" as they
>CLAIM to be, then i would think that the NDA for something like a FILE
>FORMAT would be un-necessary.

My guess is that they didn't want the outside world to discover how
poorly the format is thought out.  The Excel 5 layout was far better.

>|>For Excel 5.x, went down to the bookstore,
>|>bought the book with some sample programs.  Went down the aisle,
>|>picked up some books on the OLE API.  I was good to go.

>yeah, but what -I- wanna know is why the OLE API hasn't been showing
>up on other platforms?  (at least -I- haven't seen anything about it.
>if you know, PLEASE fill me in.)

For the most part, MS hasn't really tried to license it.  Bristol
Technologies based in CT has licensed much of MS's code and has
something running under Unix and OpenVMS for their Wind/U product.  So
MS will do it, but I suspect you have to pony up.

I think their reluctance to push the OLE API is a bad tactical
strategy.  But given Apple's lousy handling of OpenDoc, I guess it
wasn't a real issue for them.

-Eric