Re: Why should I be worried about the merger? What if?

[Bill Lawrence <lawrence -at- mayaviz -dot- com>]

Ah, thank you Judd.  The crux of the matter is that a number of us write 
in XML and we really don't care if any proprietary tool goes away.  Now 
admittedly, I don't freelance so I don't deal with customer 
requirements.  The mega-defense contractor that I currently work for 
does have customers with requirements, but they all want XML or SGML anyway.

However, ages ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I worked for a 
commercial software company who had over 10,000 pages of documentation 
in Interleaf.  Now there was a nightmare.  Interleaf's scripting 
language wasn't even Y2K compliant.  After Interleaf went the way of the 
dodo, we made the decision to NEVER be at the mercy of a tool provider 
again.  We moved everything to Docbook XML and that company has been 
happily working away with XML since late '99.  No part of their current 
tool chain is vital to their ability to continue to produce printed 
manuals and online help.

Since then, if I have any say in the matter, I use open-source tools for 
everything.   That includes tools such as OpenOffice Draw instead of 
Illustrator or Freehand.  I save things in standard formats, such as 
.eps or .svg.  I do no work that isn't portable.

Look folks, any commercial, proprietary software can go away at any 
time.  It's just the nature of the software industry.  I've been working 
in this industry for three decades, and if there's one constant it's change.

Bill