🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:35:39 +0100
Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
> ARM processors?

	There are more Linux kernels running on ARM than there are Windows
installations running on x86. Morten would be giving numbers now were he
still with us.

> Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
> bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?

	More like the smartphone and the tablet for the mass market, but
yes for those that actually want a computer the RPi3, Odroid, Rock64 et al.
are very viable alternatives to the PC. My next workstation will almost
certainly be ARM based - but this one ain't broke so ...

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>ARM processors?

Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
operating systems.

>Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
>bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?

A PC needs a case, a power supply perhaps including a battery, a
keyboard-like thing, a pointing device, a network connection, a
screen, interfaces for all of those, and in most cases sound and video
input and output.  Once you've got all that, then perhaps you can
think about what CPU chip to use.  It's pretty common these days for
the CPU and a lot of the interfaces to be on the same chip, so you
can't jus swap out one CPU for another.

Also, if you haven't been paying attention, Microsoft has a lot of
different lines of business, like Office 365 and XBox.  Their cloud
services bring in $19 billion/year.  They're not going away any time
soon.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 16:43:48 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<jo...@taugh.com> wrote:

>In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>>that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>>ARM processors?
>
>Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>operating systems.
>
>>Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
>>bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?
>
>A PC needs a case, a power supply perhaps including a battery, a
>keyboard-like thing, a pointing device, a network connection, a
>screen, interfaces for all of those, and in most cases sound and video
>input and output.  Once you've got all that, then perhaps you can
>think about what CPU chip to use.  It's pretty common these days for
>the CPU and a lot of the interfaces to be on the same chip, so you
>can't jus swap out one CPU for another.
>
>Also, if you haven't been paying attention, Microsoft has a lot of
>different lines of business, like Office 365 and XBox.  Their cloud
>services bring in $19 billion/year.  They're not going away any time
>soon.

There's a version of Windows for the Raspberry pi.  However I do not
see them flying off the shelves at Best Buy--what they have and are
selling are HPs and Lenovos and Samsungs and Microsofts.

I have a pi, it's a nice little thing to mess with, but its I/O is
rather limited and while the performance is adequate for word
processing and the like it's not up to the kind of number-crunching I
do to make a living.

If all one wants to do is web surfing one doesn't need a purpose-made
computer, one just needs to plug keyboard and mouse into the USB ports
on the TV and use its built-in browser.

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:35:39 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>
> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
> ARM processors?
>
> Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
> bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?

AFAIK there are Windows versions running on ARM.

Then MS doesn't has to care a long as laptops and desktops come with x64
or AMD, which are x86 compatible themselves anyway.
-- 
Andreas

My random toughts and comments
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>> ARM processors?
> 
> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
> operating systems.

Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:44:22 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

>On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>>> ARM processors?
>> 
>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>> operating systems.
>
>Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?

Depends on how you define "Linux".  There is an Android version and an
OS/X version.  Most people who use Linux as Linux would reject
anything from Microsoft on general principle so they probably quite
rightly see no market there.

OS/X is derived from BSD, not Linux. And Microsoft Office for the 
Macintosh is dependent on proprietary Apple software to run.

Trying to get Android software to run under Linux: I'm surprised no one has 
hacked Android so that you can touch "Start" and switch to Linux, sort of 
like Windows 8 and above. So that Android would become the Linux 
equivalent of what was formerly known as Metro.

On 4/21/2018 9:11 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:44:22 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>>>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>>>> ARM processors?
>>>
>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>>> operating systems.
>>
>> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
> 
> Depends on how you define "Linux".  There is an Android version and an
> OS/X version.  Most people who use Linux as Linux would reject
> anything from Microsoft on general principle so they probably quite
> rightly see no market there.
> 
> 

Mac OS X is bsed on BSD...

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 20:17:13 -0700 (PDT)
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> OS/X is derived from BSD, not Linux. And Microsoft Office for the 
> Macintosh is dependent on proprietary Apple software to run.
> 
> Trying to get Android software to run under Linux: I'm surprised no one
> has hacked Android so that you can touch "Start" and switch to Linux,

	I don't know about hacked but there are installers for linux in the
app store, you do generally need root access though so I suppose that could
be considered hacked.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:00:40 -0500
Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

> Mac OS X is bsed on BSD...

	... userland with a kernel based on Mach and a completely
homegrown GUI layer.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:00:40 -0500, Charles Richmond wrote:

> On 4/21/2018 9:11 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:44:22 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
>> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>>>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer 
>>>> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now that the World
>>>>> and its family are moving en masse to the ARM processors?
>>>>
>>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are
>>>> versions of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all
>>>> sorts of operating systems.
>>>
>>> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
>> 
>> Depends on how you define "Linux".  There is an Android version and an
>> OS/X version.  Most people who use Linux as Linux would reject anything
>> from Microsoft on general principle so they probably quite rightly see
>> no market there.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> Mac OS X is bsed on BSD...

Pedantically, BSD has little to do with Linux. I mention this ebcause a 
number of people seem to think that BSD is a 'Linux distro'!



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 4/22/2018 4:24 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:00:40 -0500, Charles Richmond wrote:
> 
>> On 4/21/2018 9:11 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
>>> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:44:22 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
>>> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>>>>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>>> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now that the World
>>>>>> and its family are moving en masse to the ARM processors?
>>>>>
>>>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are
>>>>> versions of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all
>>>>> sorts of operating systems.
>>>>
>>>> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
>>>
>>> Depends on how you define "Linux".  There is an Android version and an
>>> OS/X version.  Most people who use Linux as Linux would reject anything
>>> from Microsoft on general principle so they probably quite rightly see
>>> no market there.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Mac OS X is bsed on BSD...
> 
> Pedantically, BSD has little to do with Linux. I mention this ebcause a
> number of people seem to think that BSD is a 'Linux distro'!
> 

Perhaps those who think BSD is a Linux distro... never heard of Bill 
Joy.  :-)


-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On 2018-04-22 04:11, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:44:22 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>>>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>>>> ARM processors?
>>>
>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>>> operating systems.
>>
>> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
> 
> Depends on how you define "Linux".  There is an Android version and an
> OS/X version.  Most people who use Linux as Linux would reject
> anything from Microsoft on general principle so they probably quite
> rightly see no market there.

So, there is no Office for all operating systems as claimed.


And no, there are places that would acclaim it. For instance those
cities that are switching to Linux and employees claim that they can not
do the same thing with LO as with O. Ok, there you have: O. Shut up and
work.

No chance MS is going to allow that to happen.


-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 13:51:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

>On 2018-04-22 04:11, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 02:44:22 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
>> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>>>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>>>>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>>>>> ARM processors?
>>>>
>>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>>>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>>>> operating systems.
>>>
>>> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
>> 
>> Depends on how you define "Linux".  There is an Android version and an
>> OS/X version.  Most people who use Linux as Linux would reject
>> anything from Microsoft on general principle so they probably quite
>> rightly see no market there.
>
>So, there is no Office for all operating systems as claimed.

There was no claim that ther was "Office for all operating systems".

The claim was "all sorts of operating systems".  If you are not a
native speaker of English you might believe that the "sorts of" is
redundant but in fact this is a well known expression that simplifies
to "many", not "all".

>And no, there are places that would acclaim it. For instance those
>cities that are switching to Linux and employees claim that they can not
>do the same thing with LO as with O. Ok, there you have: O. Shut up and
>work.

You can't do the same things with LO as you can with O.  Try to make
APL create, populate and format a spreadsheet with coloring depending
on content.  And before you say "shell script", actually _do_ it with
a shell script and get back to us on how well it worked.

>No chance MS is going to allow that to happen.

I think at this point Microsoft would be delighted to be out from
under maintaining the operating system.

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 09:12:23 -0400
J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

> There was no claim that ther was "Office for all operating systems".
> 
> The claim was "all sorts of operating systems".  If you are not a

	Even that's a bit thin - Windows, MacOS-X and Android. There are
quite a few other sorts of operating systems - the mainstream unixish
families (Linux/BSD/Solaris) for starters also Z-OS, RISCOS, Plan-9, AROS
and many more.

> native speaker of English you might believe that the "sorts of" is
> redundant but in fact this is a well known expression that simplifies
> to "many", not "all".

	However in this case "a few" would be more correct.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

In article <6g2tqe-i3i.ln1@Telcontar.valinor> you write:
>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>> operating systems.
>
>Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?

Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
Office on linux they would port it to linux.

None of the versions are free so although you can download and run the
Windows and Mac versions, you can only save your changes if you've
paid for a license key.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

In article <fk45t5...@mid.individual.net>,
Huge  <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>
>No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.

You were lucky.  I have done a lot of work that involves sending Word
docs back and forth and Libreoffice is hopeless if the docs use anything
beyond the simplest formatting features.

I wish Libre worked better, but it doesn't.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 21:27:30 +0000, Huge wrote:

> On 2018-04-22, John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:
>> In article <fk45t5...@mid.individual.net>, Huge 
>> <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>>>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>>>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>>>
>>>No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>>>using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.
>>
>> You were lucky.  I have done a lot of work that involves sending Word
>> docs back and forth and Libreoffice is hopeless if the docs use anything
>> beyond the simplest formatting features.
> 
> I fear this isn't true. 

It isn't true. 

> I deliberately sought out complicated documents
> and had no problems with them whatsosever. Indeed, I had fewer problems
> with LO than interoperating between different versions of Office. And
> writing technical standards was a big part of my job.

I've changed my accountant's company over to LO, & they said it works just
fine. No problems at all. They ditched MSO.

Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:

> On 2018-04-22, John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:
>> In article <6g2tqe-i3i.ln1@Telcontar.valinor> you write:
>>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>>>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>>>> operating systems.
>>>
>>>Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
>>
>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>
> No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
> using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.

Same here.

If I ever absolutely needed Office, I suppose I would have tried this:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/12/crossover-17-linux

-- 
Dan Espen

Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> On 2018-04-21 18:43, John Levine wrote:
>> In article <pbfi85$ek7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer  <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>>> ARM processors?
>> 
>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>> operating systems.
> 
> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
> 

Cloud. OTOH, unless you have some specialized needs OpenOffice is at least
as good. Wife uses Word from some version of Office and I prefer OO to it.

-- 
Pete

John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:
> In article <fk45t5...@mid.individual.net>,
> Huge  <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>> 
>> No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>> using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.
> 
> You were lucky.  I have done a lot of work that involves sending Word
> docs back and forth and Libreoffice is hopeless if the docs use anything
> beyond the simplest formatting features.
> 
> I wish Libre worked better, but it doesn't.
> 

I must stick to simple, because I've never noticed any inconsistencies, and
I've moved various documents back and forth a few times. Some companies got
themselves into trouble because they tried to use a word processor or a
spreadsheet as a general-purpose programming language, but that doing that
kind of thing is like going around wearing a big "kick me" sign.

-- 
Pete

Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:
> 
>> On 2018-04-22, John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:
>>> In article <6g2tqe-i3i.ln1@Telcontar.valinor> you write:
>>>>> Microsoft doesn't care what processors people use.  There are versions
>>>>> of Windows for all sorts of chips and of Office for all sorts of
>>>>> operating systems.
>>>> 
>>>> Ah, yes? Care to say where can we download Office for Linux?
>>> 
>>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>> 
>> No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>> using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.
> 
> Same here.
> 
> If I ever absolutely needed Office, I suppose I would have tried this:
> 
> https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/12/crossover-17-linux
> 

So someone has finally solved the installer problem. I tried to install one
or two windoze apps (not Office) and got bit by this. Lets see, £32 is
about $75?

-- 
Pete

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 17:17:33 -0700, Peter Flass
<peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:
>> In article <fk45t5...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Huge  <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>>>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>>>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>>> 
>>> No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>>> using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.
>> 
>> You were lucky.  I have done a lot of work that involves sending Word
>> docs back and forth and Libreoffice is hopeless if the docs use anything
>> beyond the simplest formatting features.
>> 
>> I wish Libre worked better, but it doesn't.
>> 
>
>I must stick to simple, because I've never noticed any inconsistencies, and
>I've moved various documents back and forth a few times. Some companies got
>themselves into trouble because they tried to use a word processor or a
>spreadsheet as a general-purpose programming language, but that doing that
>kind of thing is like going around wearing a big "kick me" sign.

The word processor is not used as a "general purpose programming
language".  The embedded scripting language that is common to Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook is used as a scripting language, as was
intended.

John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> writes:

> In article <fk45t5...@mid.individual.net>,
> Huge  <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>>
>>No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>>using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.
>
> You were lucky.  I have done a lot of work that involves sending Word
> docs back and forth and Libreoffice is hopeless if the docs use anything
> beyond the simplest formatting features.
>
> I wish Libre worked better, but it doesn't.

I used Word when working in environments in which interoperability was
important until the day I was in a meeting, everyone had their laptops
open to the same Word document, and no two were rendered the same.  Time
to go ahead and use Libre Office.

Besides 99% of the documents I see could only be said to have used the
simplest formatting features if one were impossibly generous.  I once
created a memo and used a table for the To, From, Subject fields -- when
I got it back, the table had been taken out and those fields had been
"formatted" using tabs.

On 22 Apr 2018 19:25:25 GMT
Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:

> No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
> using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.

	Way back when it was Star Office by a German software house called
StarDivision I was involved in setting up a system to accept Word documents
(among other formats) and generate PDFs. We evaluated a commercial solution
that basically wrapped Word and Star Office - even back then it did a
better job than Word on anything that wasn't from the exact version of Word
we had.

	However the Word solution came with a bit of paper that said it
would work and the Star Office one didn't and the bit of paper was deemed
more important than evidence.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:00:04 AM UTC-6, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

> 	However the Word solution came with a bit of paper that said it
> would work and the Star Office one didn't and the bit of paper was deemed
> more important than evidence.

Yes, because the evidence only shows you about the documents that already exist, 
while the bit of paper shows you about documents that will be generated in the 
future.

Microsoft does come out with new versions of Word from time to time, other 
companies will use them, and they will likely make changes that it will take 
time for the open-source community to keep up with.

John Savard

On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 23:04:16 -0700 (PDT)
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:00:04 AM UTC-6, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> 
> > 	However the Word solution came with a bit of paper that said it
> > would work and the Star Office one didn't and the bit of paper was
> > deemed more important than evidence.
> 
> Yes, because the evidence only shows you about the documents that already
> exist, while the bit of paper shows you about documents that will be
> generated in the future.

	That would be reasonable if the evidence didn't contradict the
paper. Star Office did a far better job of opening and rendering documents
from older, and Mac versions of Word than Word did (we had a very large
and varied sample set) but the bit of paper said Word would open it all
correctly (neither Word nor Star Office opened everything - so the paper
lied) and that was all that mattered. 

	Bottom line Microsoft were willing to lie on paper, Star Division
weren't so Microsoft got the sale.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Sun, 2018-04-22, J  Clarke wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 13:51:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
...
>>And no, there are places that would acclaim it. For instance those
>>cities that are switching to Linux and employees claim that they can not
>>do the same thing with LO as with O. Ok, there you have: O. Shut up and
>>work.
>
> You can't do the same things with LO as you can with O.  Try to make
> APL create, populate and format a spreadsheet with coloring depending
> on content.  And before you say "shell script", actually _do_ it with
> a shell script and get back to us on how well it worked.
>
>>No chance MS is going to allow that to happen.
>
> I think at this point Microsoft would be delighted to be out from
> under maintaining the operating system.

And the organizations would be no better off running Outlook,
Office and Office 365 on top of Linux than on Windows.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On Mon, 2018-04-23, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
> John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> writes:
>
>> In article <fk45t5...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Huge  <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>>>> Microsoft are not idiots.  If they thought there was a market for
>>>> Office on linux they would port it to linux.
>>>
>>>No need. I interoperated with an office full of MS weenies for years
>>>using LibreOffice and no-one ever noticed.
>>
>> You were lucky.  I have done a lot of work that involves sending Word
>> docs back and forth and Libreoffice is hopeless if the docs use anything
>> beyond the simplest formatting features.
>>
>> I wish Libre worked better, but it doesn't.
>
> I used Word when working in environments in which interoperability was
> important until the day I was in a meeting, everyone had their laptops
> open to the same Word document, and no two were rendered the same.  Time
> to go ahead and use Libre Office.
>
> Besides 99% of the documents I see could only be said to have used the
> simplest formatting features if one were impossibly generous.  I once
> created a memo and used a table for the To, From, Subject fields -- when
> I got it back, the table had been taken out and those fields had been
> "formatted" using tabs.

It seems to me it's impossible to keep a Word document clean as soon
as there are multiple authors.  I might use the company "styles", add
a few of my own (for e.g. code samples) but after a while there's
manual formatting like you describe, and every other paragraph is
spell-checked as portuguese, or something.  Oh, and the intra-document
references are broken.

I see this as an argument against WYSIWYG in general, not Word in
particular.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On 4/23/2018 1:04 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:00:04 AM UTC-6, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> 
>> 	However the Word solution came with a bit of paper that said it
>> would work and the Star Office one didn't and the bit of paper was deemed
>> more important than evidence.
> 
> Yes, because the evidence only shows you about the documents that already exist,
> while the bit of paper shows you about documents that will be generated in the
> future.
> 
> Microsoft does come out with new versions of Word from time to time, other
> companies will use them, and they will likely make changes that it will take
> time for the open-source community to keep up with.
> 
Not just LO, but the changes will threaten everyone with older 
versions of Word, too. And in 3 decades of supporting individuals and 
small businesses, I can count on one hand (maybe one finger) the 
number of times that any of those new features were ever used. I can't 
remember a single client who used macros (most would have stared 
blankly and said "what's that?"). I interoperated with them for a 
decade or more using a copy of Word 97 and never experienced an 
incompatibility greater than not having the same fonts installed.

Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
them documents they couldn't open any more.

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:12:50 -0500, Dave Garland
<dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:

>On 4/23/2018 1:04 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:00:04 AM UTC-6, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> 
>>> 	However the Word solution came with a bit of paper that said it
>>> would work and the Star Office one didn't and the bit of paper was deemed
>>> more important than evidence.
>> 
>> Yes, because the evidence only shows you about the documents that already exist,
>> while the bit of paper shows you about documents that will be generated in the
>> future.
>> 
>> Microsoft does come out with new versions of Word from time to time, other
>> companies will use them, and they will likely make changes that it will take
>> time for the open-source community to keep up with.
>> 
>Not just LO, but the changes will threaten everyone with older 
>versions of Word, too. And in 3 decades of supporting individuals and 
>small businesses, I can count on one hand (maybe one finger) the 
>number of times that any of those new features were ever used. I can't 
>remember a single client who used macros (most would have stared 
>blankly and said "what's that?"). I interoperated with them for a 
>decade or more using a copy of Word 97 and never experienced an 
>incompatibility greater than not having the same fonts installed.
>
>Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
>people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
>people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
>popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
>probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
>them documents they couldn't open any more.

After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
different year version of Word to be used.

I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
they wanted.

JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
> of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
> different year version of Word to be used.
> 
> I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
> they wanted.
> 

Wow, that's interesting. What I can't understand, unless it's just poor
design and coding, is why they can't make the versions more compatible. If
you get a document in a new format and our version doesn't understand, why
the heck can't it just do something with it before it gives you the
message. In the simplest case, just render it as unformatted text.
Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.

-- 
Pete

Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:

> JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
>> of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
>> different year version of Word to be used.
>> 
>> I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
>> they wanted.
>> 
>
> Wow, that's interesting. What I can't understand, unless it's just poor
> design and coding, is why they can't make the versions more compatible. If
> you get a document in a new format and our version doesn't understand, why
> the heck can't it just do something with it before it gives you the
> message. In the simplest case, just render it as unformatted text.
> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.

A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.

-- 
Dan Espen

On 23/04/2018 22:36, Huge wrote:
> On 2018-04-23, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
>>> of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
>>> different year version of Word to be used.
>>>
>>> I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
>>> they wanted.
>>>
>>
>> Wow, that's interesting. What I can't understand, unless it's just poor
>> design and coding, is why they can't make the versions more compatible. If
>> you get a document in a new format and our version doesn't understand, why
>> the heck can't it just do something with it before it gives you the
>> message. In the simplest case, just render it as unformatted text.
>> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
> 
> Because MS want you to buy a new version.
> 
> 

Which is no doubt why Office 365 which needs an annual subscription
has appeared?

On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:

> Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
> people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
> people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
> popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
> probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
> them documents they couldn't open any more.

Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.

Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  

As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
anything.

On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 3:31:34 PM UTC-4, Dan Espen wrote:

> > Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
 
> A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
> incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.

+1

On 23 Apr 2018 07:54:45 GMT, Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se>
wrote:

>On Sun, 2018-04-22, J  Clarke wrote:
>> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 13:51:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
>> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>...
>>>And no, there are places that would acclaim it. For instance those
>>>cities that are switching to Linux and employees claim that they can not
>>>do the same thing with LO as with O. Ok, there you have: O. Shut up and
>>>work.
>>
>> You can't do the same things with LO as you can with O.  Try to make
>> APL create, populate and format a spreadsheet with coloring depending
>> on content.  And before you say "shell script", actually _do_ it with
>> a shell script and get back to us on how well it worked.
>>
>>>No chance MS is going to allow that to happen.
>>
>> I think at this point Microsoft would be delighted to be out from
>> under maintaining the operating system.
>
>And the organizations would be no better off running Outlook,
>Office and Office 365 on top of Linux than on Windows.

Actually it would be worse off unless COM was somehow added to Linux.
>
>/Jorgen

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:31:32 -0400, Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
>>> of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
>>> different year version of Word to be used.
>>> 
>>> I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
>>> they wanted.
>>> 
>>
>> Wow, that's interesting. What I can't understand, unless it's just poor
>> design and coding, is why they can't make the versions more compatible. If
>> you get a document in a new format and our version doesn't understand, why
>> the heck can't it just do something with it before it gives you the
>> message. In the simplest case, just render it as unformatted text.
>> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
>
>A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
>incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.

One of my devout MS Office users complained about the menus being
rearranged everytime there was an upgrade to it.

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:12:52 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
>
>> Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
>> people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
>> people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
>> popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
>> probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
>> them documents they couldn't open any more.
>
>Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
>model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
>reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
>to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
>
>Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
>
>As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
>anything.

Several computer experts, that know of the inder workings of Windows
than I do, told me the various upgrades of Windows are just patches
that MS is selling as new versions'.

I don't agree that all of Windows is like that, but it seems to me
much of it is.

JimP <solo...@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:31:32 -0400, Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
>>
>>> JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
>>>> of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
>>>> different year version of Word to be used.
>>>> 
>>>> I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
>>>> they wanted.
>>>> 
>>>
>>> Wow, that's interesting. What I can't understand, unless it's just poor
>>> design and coding, is why they can't make the versions more compatible. If
>>> you get a document in a new format and our version doesn't understand, why
>>> the heck can't it just do something with it before it gives you the
>>> message. In the simplest case, just render it as unformatted text.
>>> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
>>
>>A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
>>incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.
>
> One of my devout MS Office users complained about the menus being
> rearranged everytime there was an upgrade to it.

Again a cynic might think they needed to make visible changes because
there was nothing noteworthy in the new release.

-- 
Dan Espen

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 3:31:34 PM UTC-4, Dan Espen wrote:
> 
>>> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
>  
>> A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
>> incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.
> 
> +1
> 

Sorry, I have the old mentality of trying to make the software as easy to
use and as compatible as possible. The M$ model seems to be to as
incompatible as possible. Doing what's best for the customer seems to have
gone bye-bye. 

Of course that isn't an entirely new thing. In the old days IBM would not
introduce something that would have been simple because they were thinking
of themselves and not the customer - think of the few minor changes MVS
would have needed to make it play nicer under VM, similar to what VS1 got,
or provide FBA support.

-- 
Pete

JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:31:32 -0400, Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> 
>>> JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> After my employer left the caost after Katrina, I apllied for a number
>>>> of jobs. Those that wanted a Word document of my resume, all wanted a
>>>> different year version of Word to be used.
>>>> 
>>>> I used Open Office and submitted to each of them in the Word format
>>>> they wanted.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Wow, that's interesting. What I can't understand, unless it's just poor
>>> design and coding, is why they can't make the versions more compatible. If
>>> you get a document in a new format and our version doesn't understand, why
>>> the heck can't it just do something with it before it gives you the
>>> message. In the simplest case, just render it as unformatted text.
>>> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
>> 
>> A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
>> incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.
> 
> One of my devout MS Office users complained about the menus being
> rearranged everytime there was an upgrade to it.
> 

This is what I don't get, with a lot of software, not just M$. Someone
thinks they have a "better" idea, so they arbitrarily move things around.
It seems that they don't realize that heavy users of a piece of software do
things by reflex rather than looking at each menu item every time, so
moving stuff around really messes things up for your most loyal customers.

-- 
Pete

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 20:56:21 -0500, JimP wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:12:52 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> 
>>On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
>>
>>> Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad
>>> people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some
>>> people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the
>>> popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're
>>> probably going to break things". And some because people were sending
>>> them documents they couldn't open any more.
>>
>>Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry model of
>>planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works reasonably well, but
>>the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since it is
>>no longer compatible.
>>
>>Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>>Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?
>>
>>As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve anything.
> 
> Several computer experts, that know of the inder workings of Windows than
> I do, told me the various upgrades of Windows are just patches that MS is
> selling as new versions'.
> 
> I don't agree that all of Windows is like that, but it seems to me much of
> it is.

The Register - "74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware
backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+"
13 May 2017

I refer you to Page 7 of a discussion regarding the above.

"Why isn't the true culprit being blamed?" which appears to have been
posted by an ex-MS employee. And also what appears to be his follow up,
a little lower down as "jmcc"...or maybe it's another ex-MS employee.

In either case, they back up what you've been told.

https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/7/2017/05/13/wannacrypt_ransomware_worm/

On Tue, 2018-04-24, J  Clarke wrote:
> On 23 Apr 2018 07:54:45 GMT, Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se>
> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 2018-04-22, J  Clarke wrote:
>>> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 13:51:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
>>> <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>...
>>>>And no, there are places that would acclaim it. For instance those
>>>>cities that are switching to Linux and employees claim that they can not
>>>>do the same thing with LO as with O. Ok, there you have: O. Shut up and
>>>>work.
>>>
>>> You can't do the same things with LO as you can with O.  Try to make
>>> APL create, populate and format a spreadsheet with coloring depending
>>> on content.  And before you say "shell script", actually _do_ it with
>>> a shell script and get back to us on how well it worked.
>>>
>>>>No chance MS is going to allow that to happen.
>>>
>>> I think at this point Microsoft would be delighted to be out from
>>> under maintaining the operating system.
>>
>>And the organizations would be no better off running Outlook,
>>Office and Office 365 on top of Linux than on Windows.
>
> Actually it would be worse off unless COM was somehow added to Linux.

Maybe so; I never quite understood what COM, OLE, ActiveX and all that
stuff was about.

There's something called DBUS in Linux though, which might be similar.
I try to disable it as much as I can.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

In article <kj3tdd1kpvtqje471...@4ax.com>,
JimP  <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Several computer experts, that know of the inder workings of Windows
>than I do, told me the various upgrades of Windows are just patches
>that MS is selling as new versions'.

I certainly hope so.  Would you want them to rewrite and debug the
whole system from scratch?

The last time the guts of Windows was rewritten was Windows XT which
replaced the ad-hoc code in 95/98/Me with the NT kernel.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

On 2018-04-24, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
>> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 3:31:34 PM UTC-4, Dan Espen wrote:
>> 
>>>> Upward-compatibility of a kind is not all that difficult to achieve.
>>  
>>> A cynical person might think they make the versions slightly
>>> incompatible to force their clients to upgrade to the latest version.
>> 
>> +1
>
> Sorry, I have the old mentality of trying to make the software as easy
> to use and as compatible as possible. The M$ model seems to be to as
> incompatible as possible. Doing what's best for the customer seems to
> have gone bye-bye. 

I think it's not so much gone bye-bye as having never been there to begin with.
Remember too that "ease of use" is highly subjective, and is often confused
with "ease of learning".  They're two entirely different things; things that
make a piece of software easy to learn often just get in the way of experienced
users.

> Of course that isn't an entirely new thing. In the old days IBM would not
> introduce something that would have been simple because they were thinking
> of themselves and not the customer - think of the few minor changes MVS
> would have needed to make it play nicer under VM, similar to what VS1 got,
> or provide FBA support.

Yup.  And when they do bring out a change that actually makes things easier
(yes, it occasionally happens), they make a lot of noise about what heroes
they are for fixing a problem that they themselves created in the first place.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 9:36:00 AM UTC-4, Dan Espen wrote:

> Again a cynic might think they needed to make visible changes because
> there was nothing noteworthy in the new release.

+1

On Tue, 2018-04-24, Peter Flass wrote:
...
> This is what I don't get, with a lot of software, not just M$. Someone
> thinks they have a "better" idea, so they arbitrarily move things around.
> It seems that they don't realize that heavy users of a piece of software do
> things by reflex rather than looking at each menu item every time, so
> moving stuff around really messes things up for your most loyal customers.

I personally think it's a matter of people being employed/
organizations existing to do X, which means X will be done.
An organization generates its own work if you don't stop them
quickly and forcefully.

And maybe with software we've been conditioned to accept it as a fact
of life.  That things are always new, temporary and slightly unfamiliar.

Recently I revealed to some coworkers that I've used the same Linux
desktop[0] since 1991 or so, with the same keybindings.  They were
shocked; they were used to having to relearn every once in a while,
when Microsoft, or the Gnome project, or whoever, decided to revamp
things.

/Jorgen

[0] Well, I use Linux instead of Solaris, ctwm instead of twm, and my
    screen is no longer monochrome.  And I have Firefox running so I
    need gigabytes of RAM like everyone else.

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:28:01 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<jo...@taugh.com> wrote:

>In article <kj3tdd1kpvtqje471...@4ax.com>,
>JimP  <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Several computer experts, that know of the inder workings of Windows
>>than I do, told me the various upgrades of Windows are just patches
>>that MS is selling as new versions'.
>
>I certainly hope so.  Would you want them to rewrite and debug the
>whole system from scratch?
>
>The last time the guts of Windows was rewritten was Windows XT which
>replaced the ad-hoc code in 95/98/Me with the NT kernel.

Why yes, we were taught at university to debug our software, unless we
wanted to get fired. Someone in the back of the class, not me, said
then MS needs to do that. All of us, including the professor, thought
that was funny.

Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> writes:
>On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:35:39 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>> ... by its monopolistic attitude towards the PC now
>> that the World and its family are moving en masse to the
>> ARM processors?
>>
>> Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
>> bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?
>
>AFAIK there are Windows versions running on ARM.

There are, indeed.  For server-scale ARMv8 processors
from Qualcomm, Cavium et. alia.