[humorix] Take Your Proprietary File Format And Shove It!

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

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Warning:  humorous content ahead.
To prevent overdosage for the sensitive readers, please
take your discussions to humorix-l@nl.linux.org...
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Take Your Proprietary File Format And Shove It!
August 26, 2001

TRENTON, NEW JERSEY -- Last year, the Pointy Haired Bosses
at Real-Time Tangents, Inc. decreed that all job
applications and resumes must be submitted electronically
in Microsoft Word 2000 format.

Bad move.  Ethan Fornwalt, a Linux zealot, has filed a
lawsuit alleging that the company engages in discrimination
by requiring prospective employees to own Microsoft Office.

"This is an outrage," Fornwalt said in an interview.  "I'm
not going to buy some crappy software for several hundred
dollars just to submit a resume.  Besides, to run Office I
have to either get a Mac (ugh) or get a PC running Windows
(double ugh).  This is definitely a form of discrimination
against my choice of computing orientation. It's a
violation of Federal law... at least, I hope it is."

Ethan Fornwalt was originally unaware of the anti-Linux
policy. "The RealTimeTangentsInc.com website contains so
many Flash applets, proprietary plug-ins, and non-standard
JavaScript and VBScipt kludges that it only works with IE
5.5 on Windows," he explained.  "So I wasn't able to access
the 'Job Openings' page which contains the instructions for
sending a resume as a Word attachment."

The President of Vice for Real-Time Tangents defends his
company's Microsoft-only policy. "We simply don't have the
resources to train our staff to open documents in other
formats," he argued.  

When we asked why the company couldn't just accept plain
ASCII text files and open them in Notepad, the veep looked
at us blankly and asked, "What's that?"

Even if Fornwalt wins his lawsuit, it wouldn't necessarily
be a victory for the Linux community.  One Linux company
requires that all job applicants send their resumes as a
webpage in XHTML 1.0 format -- and it must pass through a
validator without any errors or warnings.

Said one legal observer, "Some clueless luser who only uses
Microsoft Frontpage might consider that a form of
discrimination. Of course, why would a Windows weenie want
a job with a Linux company?  But on the other hand, why
would a Linux zealot really want a job with a company that
requires Word documents? Shouldn't that send up a red
flag?"

Mr. Fornwalt told us, strictly off the record, "Oh, I don't
want to work for Real-Time Tangents, Inc.  I just want to
make an example of them.  And if I pick up some cash in a
large settlement, well... why not?"
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