They can't fix it.
MS Word formats are closed. Even their "open" ooxml format has closed extensions on it in Word to make it incompatible with any other software.
LibreOffice has improved the MS format in the last couple of revisions quite a bit, but its a never ending battle and an unfortunate waste of resources.
I always submitted things in PDF
No
Red hat and suse exist because they built their companies ontop of free softtware. According to the GPL (or what I understand of it), you can't take free software and then turn around and make it proprietary.
So the software was never truly theirs to begin with and therefore never had the ability to make it non free.
Plus red hat and suse make their money by offering services to large companies. Their cash flow does not really rely on the sales of the software itself.
Here is the thing with dwg.
DWG was created so that there could be interoperability between different autodesk programs. The only reason the file format seems controlling is because large scale production machines use that file format.
If 3rd party manufacturers used open formats more often, then no one would give 2 shits.
Adobe really doesn't use proprietary formats. PDF is the only one that comes to mind, and considering how many free programs there are that can freely edit PDF, I can safely say that I don't think anyone gives a shit.
Photoshop doesn't use anything adobe specific, nor does premier, nor does illustrator.
I guess you could make the argument that flash and shock wave were really annoying, but I think those are basically dead and adobe isn't really leading any crusade to keep them around.
Well parabola is kinda.... Well its really fucking stupid to put it bluntly. Personally I just use linux as my OS system... If I had to use windows the only one I know how to use is XP......
Now its not like I don't have windows installed, don't get me wrong there. I have 7 so I can use slam when I want to pub around in csgo...... But literally thats the only thing binding me to windows. I don't have anything there that is (((so amazing I can't let it go OH NO AAA))). Everything I use has linux versions, but its not even based on "well windows has it but its in linux".
I like the linux apps more. I really do. I like the centralized packages, building from source, Geany, Nano, Kdenlive lightworks openshot, all my pentest tools are where I can just grab them, gstreamer is great, windows is garbage in regard to qt and gtk... Theres no argument as to "but why windows" or "why linux" because.... Theres no reason. Windows is like a solved rubix cube. You just have it, and maybe its ancient and doesn't move.... Linux.... Linux is a 27X45 cube that doesnmt ever line up right and takes forever to solve, but when you do? Ohhhh my god is it satisfying. Just to even say that you solved a 27X45 and then show that you did sounds great right?
Well its cool sounding to me.....
I, for kne, see windows as a gimmick at this point. Unless you wanna itch about AD, which we have in many different toolkits, or directX, which vulkan will replace and openGL is still better than (opinions #triggered).... I don't need windows. I don't want it. Its and dependabt little whiney bitch that constantly fucks with you and at the moment is downing pills, writing the letter, and cocking the gun. Its dead, and people need to get over it.
Now with the LiBREONLYOMGURMEEN people.... No. I want stallman dead he pisses me off so much. He's fuckin full of himself. The people that gollow him around are either trying to get at his brain for info or are coffee shop twats that saw his name in the OSX credits. Theres no reason to do libre only. None. Its annoying and stressful unless you write your own apps. But then its your job so whats the point? Don't bother with libre only. Maybe stay away fron gpl3..... But nah don't worry about it.
Exactly, Red Hat and SUSE made their money on support, not the systems, hence why there is Fedora and OpenSUSE, bases on open source which they can contract out to customers who want an insurance policy basically, imagine RH and SUSE (Maybe even linking back to Micro Focus) are insurance companies of the linux world, they both started out on free systems, they still are they just saw an opening in the market and jumped at it.
Additionally Red Hat is one of the largest contributors to Linux.
As for DWG, by design yes its for multiple products to link well, but we can then look at VMWare, they offer the VMDK, open products like QEMU/KVM can read these files, I doubt what ever open source CAD system will be able to read DWG, it is simply designed to stop others using different products in a cycle switch.
Adobe uses current standards, JPEG and what ever (I havent touched graphic design topics since college) also PDF is rather open, people seem generally happy that they can switch from GIMP to Adobe, thats a feature thing I expect GIMP will catch up to eventually.
Flash and Shockwave are dead, although I expect wave 2 of crap standards with W3C new choices.
Parabola to me at least seems like an easy mode FSF Arch linux, some people want to move to a full FOSS system but maybe unsure about what they are installing, And parabola gives them that safe guard that they wont install software that is not libre.
CSGO is on Linux, why do you still need Windows?
I believe you specific point regarding a rubix cube could be aimed at Windows, it constantly breaks, I see less breakage on Arch than I do Windows 7, which I might add is older than an out of date Debian.
The thing is also in enterprise, mostly UK it dominates, its far from dead.
I work in manufacturing and it runs 95% of everything, machine controllers, PCs that control the controllers, the network stack, the office stack everything, the problem is once you become that level of intergrated, it becomes almost impossible to migrate out without millions of pounds and a lot of skilled engineers to rewrite software, redeploy clients, servers and everything else, then you have to retrain the users.
Towards Libre, imagine a situation where you need the trust of your machine, you need to know at least the software layer is not spying on you, again another good case is Edward Snowden, who used Debian during the leaks because he needed something he could trust, sure our hardware stack maybe compromised with closed source software, but at least we can rely on our Linux system been open.
Another thing is security, full Libre offers a completely different aspect of security, one where anyone can audit the code, you maybe an expert security programmer, but there is always someone better, different who can fix something you cannot see, Microsoft and Apple cannot do that, and to a point some closed source linux stuff, drivers for example could have exploits in we don't know anything about.
Stallmans point is one of why should we give our privacy up, I agree his methods of explaining it are a bit blunt, and to a point medieval in his words, but the man means well and you don't need to follow 100%, if you watch Bryan Lundukes interview with him, he wants to live that way, but suggest others may not and can make compromises where they see fit, he is one of them at the extreme end, but remember if it wasn't for him you wouldn't have half of what you do today as he helped massively with Unix.
SLAM: Source live audio mixer. The only thing for that in linux is in PyJam and its garbage. It doesn't work worth a crap.
TwT I'm remembering that one. Even Mint is more up to date (and thats saying something). Probably even slackware 14.0 @.@
As a basic desktop is what I meant (but I was on the pooper on a phone). If your office workers are going to bitch and moan about bullshit they don't even understand.... then yeah sure I get it. Keep business flow going. But office has nothing to do with home use, but every minecraft channel et al and other people alway, ALWAYS, go to enterprise EVEN THOUGH THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS IN IT. Its like people buying windows pro but not ever using those features. I have like twice in playing with AD.
In my mind, if I can build it myself and see the code, I don't care about the license. It updates on my time, not on its own.
You make good points. My point is as a desktop OS, its where we want it. Its where we need it to be, really. If john Bo Diddly from Arkansas who works on a farm is worried about office workers and linux, he doesn't really need a computer then 
but to be honest.... Yeah ok, I can accept that its impossible to flush it out. But eventually stuff will be replaced, probably with a nix of some sort, and all will go on like it didn't matter.
We're just at the point where theres no point in arguing anymore and people are yelling because..... why not?
You argument is what then? Because you seems to be making it up as you go.
Yes you can*(see bottom of my post), but whats your point here? Why would they make it proprietary? Whats that got to do with anything?
Your initial point is that the GPL isnt strong enough for multi million dollar companies to rely on it. But multi million dollar companies do rely on it. So what exactly is your counter argument? Because your not really saying anything so far.
Are you saying to qualify, a company must sell "software"? Because I can riddle off half a dozen companies who wouldn't exist the way they do without libre software and they dont "sell" it.
fyi. Red Hat, make, maintain, and support large portions of free software and provide various professional services around them. There cashflow explicitly relies on free software.
Don't ignore everything else i said about dwg... I suggest you go read about its history.
... really. Again I recommend you do your research first before talking about things your not familiar with, or at least be careful about the extent at which you talk about them.
PDF is a standard (an actual standard), one of the few good things arguably from Adobe. That's why you see it everywhere, and is a classic example of how standards work well for open document sharing and competition. You don't have to use Adobe reader because the standard is open and clear and there are a number of programs that implement it.
That differs in contrast from MS word for example, who don't implement a standard file format by default, so what you end up with is documents that can be read correctly by other people not using that version of word. This extends not just to programs like libre office but old versions of word as well in which MS change the document format partly to implement new features and partly to force upgrades. They rely on the control they have over the market and use file formats as one way to keep that control intact.
Adobe is definitely better than Autodesk for example when it comes to "openness" of their file formats, there not as aggressive in trying to stop the competition through formats etc. Photoshops psd for example, though isn't a standard, the format is documented for people to read, which allows people to make programs that can work with it (unlike dwg), like GIMP that you mentioned. Go find a fully comparable dwg program that isn't autocad or someone who spent a fortune on licensing to try and stay in the industry? You'll have a hard time finding something that does the job well enough at all, and there's a very good reason for that that ive already mentioned.
Don't know what this means? You can go get the source code for any free software red hat or suse makes..
That's such a shame your think that of anyone, or why you let people make you like that?
@XDroidie626 makes an excellent point, stallman has never forced anyone to do anything. Hes steadfast about the points he makes but as hes said on Lundukes show and others, hes not willing to give up his privacy and such for non free software, but you make your own choices and those choices are up to you.
The first would be if you a. own the copyright to all the code, or b. have permissions from all the contributors. you can change the license at any time. the change isnt retroactive but affects anything going forward.
the second would be if you never release it. You can if you wanted, take GPL software and use it in house and modify it without releasing changes, so long as its not being used by any 3rd party.
My point basically is you can view the code from red hat and side ht their business is primarily around support, you pay for experts, similar to how you may pay Microsoft for support.
Hence calling it insurance
Insurance probably isn't the right word for it. Say it is. That's still a valid business that relys on free software?
The fact that you can take the code yourself is a core part of free software, so the traditional control everything and sell leases for software model isn't valid for free software (if you can even argue its valid at all). So i don't think there's any argument to be had whether RH count or not just because they sell their services differently from a company that makes proprietary software?
To me the ability to purchase support from Red Hat is a bonus for the community as a whole, businesses adopt the software, we get more contributors from other businesses who may need a custom solution.
If that was microsoft it would be likely in the form of another application that is closed source and costly with no support model surrounding it.
I think you should just which version of link if you can't use firefox in yours, I am running Linux Mint 18.0 which is baseed on Ubuntu 16.4 I beleave and I am useing Firefox right now to write this post. . As to Libre Office I assume that is what you are really concerned about I have never used it, so I can't comment on that.
The main reason for moving to open source and libre software specifically, is something that is really impactful, but hardly ever gets mentioned, and that's data life.
The first ever movie of which the audio was digitally recorded was the Alan Parker movie "Fame", released in 1980 but recorded in 1979. Luckily, not the whole recording process was digital, because in that case, we would not be able to enjoy the movie any more, because the digital formats are proprietary and not supported any more. There are actually many sound tracks and music tracks recorded since then, that have been forgotten because the digital formats just don't exist any more.
This the inevitable faith of ANY proprietary digital format. A modern Office 365 cannot interpret really old document files created with WP5.1, but a typewriter written sheet of paper that's 50 or even 100 years older than that, is still perfectly legible. However, LibreOffice can still open a WP5.1 document just fine.
Fact is that commercial enterprises do not want to provide support for things that are older than maximum two years. In open source however, as long as something is used, it is supported.
I support free software as much as reasonably possible. For example, I have a job where VPN requires Java. I used openjdk, but it still has property code. What am I going to do?
On the other hand do I try to keep it kosher; as much as possible.
A lot of the free software is nicely polished (see Fedora). Some has memory leaks (see Firefox) others aren't very pretty but do a hell of a job. Nagios is an example of this or Emacs <- neither pretty or sexy, but really functional.
A lot isn't chrome plated and polished, but really functional. A lot of people give up freedom for pretty looks.
There is a level of acceptance that comes with using libre software, but its reasonable and worth it in my opinion.
Just a quick quip - I think PERL is GPL software. Now I may get ragged for using perl, but I've written a lot of useful software which saves my organization significant money and even assisting our organization in making money.
Totally free - like the real free - and totallllly practical. Again, not sexy, i.e. Not Python or JS but really it's a super useful language.
What is really toxic is posts like these, comparing people who don't use your kind of software with Nazi practices only points out how simpleminded you really are.
People with jobs not related to IT - like lawyers, doctors, accountants, politicians etc - want to use something that just works and they can find assistance for when they need it. On top of that they often are required by law to use software packages that are compliant with certain standards ( HIPAA ) which may or may not work with open source software.
These people have very little knowledge about potential malicious software. They don't have the time, the technical knowledge and passion to look into and understand these issues, they just pay other people to take care of all those things.
I was gonna get back to this, but XDroid pretty much told you what I was gonna say.
No red hat and suse have drastically different business models than everyone else. They are just completely different companies than adobe or anyone else.
Yeah they have a very similar product to everyone else, and we could sit here and argue this until we are blue in the face.
But at the end of the day red hat is selling a service. Red hat is not going to be financially hurt if the common man pirates or redistributes their software. Hell red hat already hands out their software on a silver platter via fedora.
Adobe is selling software outright. Yes they also provide support, but unlike red hat, the main source of income is software sales. They will be financially hurt if people pirate their software.
Its two totally different situations with two totally different outcomes, and thats why I excluded them.
What I was originally looking for was a company that sells a piece of open source software that is unique to them. Codeweavers, for instance, would be a good example.
These situations were not created as a natural phenomenon. Abobe chose to use this business model and so did red hat and suse. They were not forced into them by some external force. The choices came from a different set of values of how to do business. And they both do business and both have profits. There is every reason to include both red hat and suse in the discussion and compare as examples of how to be profitable without having to use close source software.
That however does not negate the consequences of their actions. Through ignorance of their choices they propagate the stranglehold of proprietary software. It is withing the responsibility of your job to find the tools that best suit your needs. If you go with the easy option of "it just works" (which is not even true as FOSS also just works) then your job will be affected in a negative way as the consequences of proprietary will affect both the user as the client. The biggest problem to overcome this situation is finding a way to inform the people of the available alternatives. There is no reason an accountant needs t use windows, accounting software is very common for all operating systems and are plenty available in FOSS. Doctors need windows because the government mandated software they use was commissioned for windows. This needs to change! And as for politicians, who just use emails and not much more, they should be forced to use free software! Why must we pay for windows licenses when they can do he same with free software?
Give me an example of 1 single job that's not IT related or even IT governed... doesn't exist! People need to know the tools of their trade. Would you hire a plumber that doesn't know how to use a spanner, or only knows how to use a certain spanner that can only be used with an IP camera linked to Microsoft HQ on top?
I wouldn't hire a plumber like that, and wouldn't hire a lawyer like that, nor a doctor. Would you hire a doctor you know knows about medicine, but at the same time serves a corporate or ideological program that you really can't justify? Like when he's enlarging his knowledge through brutal experiments on political prisoners? Or like when he's using software that is proven to exploit stolen data and is made by a company that is proven to hire private militia to kidnap people in other countries where they don't own the legislature? Or like when he's using software made by a company that makes software for one of the largest drugs scams on this planet?
The problem in many Western Post-Industrial countries is that people compartimentalise with vigor and aggression: "Don't you dare tell me to do something I wasn't specifically trained for, or I will break your face and tell the union to make your life into hell."... yeah, that's why the Chinese are winning... call me toxic as much as you want, you only prove my point in doing so.
Autodesk accepts software piracy of AutoCAD. Majority of CAD designers pirate AutoCAD when they start out, because they don't yet have the high paid job to buy it legally. Hiring firms expect people are capable of using the software and turn a blind eye to how they obtained it.
I would expect Adobe and others will be similar. Every pirate copy is a potential new customer choosing to be locked-in to their ecosystem
Trying to compare RedHat and SUSE to non Linux corporates isn't appropriate. Microsoft used to be closest comparator, but their OS business model has changed from selling software to data-mining their customers
MS Word can work to standard and produce Open Document format files, but MS choose to hide it and use a proprietary format as default. I don't care whether Libre Office can handle the conversion. If someone sends me a docx file I send it back and say I cannot read that sub-standard file format
Richard Stallman getting hate is inevitable, Most people know (even if only sub-consciously) he is right, but admitting that means you cannot justify your life choice compromises to keep doing stuff he won't touch.
Autodesk is VERY aggressive towards illegal copies of AutoDesk. Many architects and small businesses have been hit with extreme prejudice because of the practices of Autodesk. There are law firms that live of Autodesk enforcement.
Autodesk has also migrated to the subscription model, because they don't even want to pay those law firms any more haha... I love it when traitors get stabbed in the back and find they only have enemies left...