Apple's Plan to Provide the Best Darned Windows Experience Anywhere Even Better Than Microsoft 3755
The project is basically a redesign of existing systems, using new technology. The diagrams are part of understanding the system that is being replaced. When the new system is deployed and accepted, the old system will no longer exist, and so all anyone could need at that point is read-only versions of the diagrams, which PDF will cover.
And they cost less, so most of us in fact do use tools other than Visio at work. However, for some things Visio is definitely better, and so the people that need to do those things, we get them a Visio copy and license.
See separate thread, "Why Windows is Less Secure than Linux," and Here I cite from Thomas Friedman's recent book...
The point is that in real life engineering situations, things have lifetimes, which makes in many (most?) cases the notion of "vendor lock-in" irrelevant.
I recently had a thought that if Linux had one version that is backed by a lot of people (kind of like...
Let's try a non-software comparison. Suppose you are building a building. You are going to drive a lot of nails. Company A has a new nail driving gizmo. It will be more efficient than using a hammer, but company A is the only company selling this gizmo. Would you avoid this handy gizmo, because of vendor lock-in? Or would you realize that even if company A goes away, so that you have to go back to hammers someday, you will come out ahead if you use the new gizmo now?
-- --Tim Smith