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Danish Study Recommends Open Standards for EU
PDAJames writes "The Danish government has wrapped up a two-year study of open source's potential for the public sector, and has some pretty interesting things to say. For one, it says that tie-ins to proprietary software effectively eliminate competition for government procurement and are inherently bad. For another, it recommends a public sector-led effort to adopt an XML-based standard document format, either that of OpenOffice or a new one developed by the EU. Will they push ahead with these plans or is it just more talk?"
XML-based standard document format, either that of OpenOffice
There is another vendor providing XML-based document formats currently.
Why don't the KDE developer stop working on KOffice and support OpenOffice instead?
We need more people working on OpenOffice. OpenOffice is the only product that has a chance against MS Office.
Maybe, in the light of the release of Windows RG edition they should rethink their position on proprietry software..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Open standards are the best thing imaginable for the customer. The data that software manages is consistently orders of magnitude more valuable than the hardware/software that does the managing.
This wont open up things entirely, there are still patented feature sets, and purely proprietary technologies. It will at least let the best product win, not the company that got their first.
it says that tie-ins to proprietary software effectively eliminate competition for government procurement and are inherently bad.
Well, I might say that if one were considering government procurement only, they might be inherently bad. But there absolutely *is* good software out there that is proprietary that is good, and better than anything available open source. This is not to say I am not in favor of open source. Quite the contrary, I believe in an open source foundation, but companies should be allowed to bid on contracts for their proprietary products as long as those products are either based on open source, or support open source formats and alternatives.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
It's hard to imagine something smart to come from a country that sent a corvette, snow plows and other winter equipment and a submarine (that broke down before its first mission) to help in the war against Saddam.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Hah! You revealed that you knew that the Danish government is located in "Denmark", a word not provided by the article. So you are probably stupid but most likely not American.
I've been thinking about the XML document format problem, and I don't think there will ever be a "pure and beautiful implementation" that will ever be perfect.
As the capabilities of the document format grow, people gain the ability to embed images, arbitrary objects, graphs, etc. Much of this can be written in a self-describing style (ie: plain text XML nodes,) but there comes a point where the developers have to simply hack XML and embed some nasty CDATA kludge.
Just looking at the embedded image problem alone -- static SVG is a great, pure-XML image format. Unfortunately, it will never have the power to describe the full set of images that you could create in a binary format.
It all goes downhill from first post
For another, it recommends a public sector-led effort to adopt an XML-based standard document format, either that of OpenOffice or a new one developed by the EU. Will they push ahead with these plans or is it just more talk?
What's wrong with good old reliable existing formats?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's in Danishland. See? not all of us Americans are stupid ...
Post a link if you have one, this is a riot
Could you cut that out? How many times have you done this now?
A small island situated somewhere around Europe or somewhere like that.
See the CIA World Factbook Entry for more info.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
The format is not the problem; it is the layout algorithm. It is no longer sufficient to be able to transfer the data, but the it needs to look the same on different systems. The layout algorithms need to be standardized to a bit-perfect level in order to have true compatibility between two word processing systems. Another (perhaps less intelligent possibility) is to add layout information to the file when it is saved, and this layout info is manipulated when and if the document is manipulated in different systems, removing the need to standardize layout algorithms.
-- Imperial units must die --
make graduation from law school a capital crime.
Punishable by death. No appeal.
All this litigation is gonna drag humanity back to
the bloody stone age.
siggy played guitar
either that of OpenOffice or a new one developed by the EU
Just what we need: another XML document format. As if we didn't already have enough.
I must say that I am a bit confused. Not long time ago our "beloved" government (I even voted for them) were in favor of software patents and the use of industry standard software (read Microsoft) ... Open Source has been discussed in the Danish parlament for some years, even before the current government (2 years old in a month). The former government promised to change all state-institutions to OSS, but still nothing has happened. SSLUG (Skane Sjaelland Linux User Group, biggest LUG in Denmark) have had some discussions on this topic without much succes ... but saying this, I am looking forward to a initiative from our very quiet IT-minister. The report is from the Board of Technology, that have many good and forgotten discussions.
(yes this can be compared with sex)
It's hard to imagine something smart to come from a fascist country that sent a corvette, snow plows and other winter equipment and a submarine and then killed unarmed innocent Iraki fishermen.
Snow plow in iraq.... maybe they know something we don't. It should be noted that the corvette in question was not a car:)
7 29744%5E13762,00.html
Links:
http://www.denmarkemb.org/news/news_03_28_03.html
And the snow plow:
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6
You're not even worth the heat
It's in Danishland. See? not all of us Americans are stupid ...
Polite applause. The answer is significantly better than Deutschland, Disneyland or Erdbeerland.
The problem is all these people coming up with new XML document formats. They should just use plain XML.
;)
The largest product development center Micrsoft has outside the United States is in Vedbaek, Denmark.
Should be interesting following this story...
threadeds blog
Better yet than XML... bundles!!!
.rtfd files on NeXT and Mac OS X. They're basically super-RTF files. They are actually a folder ending with .rtfd that the operating system presents to the user as a single file (for mere aesthetic and encapsulation reasons). They contain an RTF file and all the non-RTF resources (images, sounds, etc) that are embedded in the document as separate files in their own formats. I believe images are saved as TIFF by default.
:)
Go research
So why not combine open XML document formats and rtfd-style bundles! A complex document is really a folder full of files, but it appears to the user as a single file. This makes it easy to move around, esp from computer to computer, and presents a nice sensible metaphor to the user. It's also difficult to screw things up by messing with the components (but it is possible to get into the bundle if you need to). Inside these complex documents is an XML file that describes the components of the document. Then there are files that contain the components, in whatever (open) format you wish. RTF or OpenOffice or whatever for text, Ogg sounds, PNG or SVG images, CSV or more complex spreadsheet/table formats, all the fonts the document needs, etc.
One of the replies to the parent addressed the issue of pixel-exact rendering. That's easy - just use the same rendering engine everywhere! All Gecko browsers render exactly the same everywhere (assuming the same fonts are available). So just use a single homogenous rendering engine everywhere. (And include fonts in the document bundle).
I sure hope some brilliant application-software engineer reads this!
(Final note: Another, more risky option would be to provide an API for rendering modules written in some suitable language, which would then be included in the bundle. You want to render, say, Maya IFF images? Include the IFF renderer in the bundle. Of course great security precautions would need to be taken, and optimally the rendering modules would have access to nothing outside the document-world, and preferably only a buffer to draw into and layout above them would be managed by the program. This has been tried before, I think. But maybe its time has come?)
Save time now so you can waste it later
The Kingdom of Denmark is actually located both in Europe and North America (we gave up on Wineland aka New Foundland). It includes Denmark, The Faroe Islands and Greenland. The country and state Denmark is the "little hat" you see on top of Germany. And happy to tell this, we are still feared in east-England because of our past (even the CIA calls us raiders! :)
(yes this can be compared with sex)
Microsoft Office 2003 saves documents in XML. It's not quite an open standard, but then again, it's not totally proprietary.
Then it was just in the media that Steve Ballmer spoke out vehemently against Open Source. (again)
I'd like to know how the Danish study would factor those two together? In other words, would they consider the overall 'philosophy' of the manufacturer of a certain piece of software when choosing that manufacturer's software?
"Snow plow in iraq.... maybe they know something we don't. "
:O
Yes, maybe they indeed do. Hint: go to www.google.com , type words "iraq", "climate", "winter" and "snow" in the box and press "I feel lucky".
It wasn't a snowplow it was a groundleveler, don't listen to stupid journalists.
I was just thinking of posting something along these lines. XML shouldn't be used for storing binary data, because we already have file formats for this. You could also use an open compression form so that you actually have one single file (or just use tar, whichever, since compressing images doesn't do jack shit) which is easier to send out.
The main issue with using the same rendering engine is that screens are never the same. Colors are different, even font packages are different amongst Windows, Mac, and Linux. What about multi-lingual support, with right to left text support, etc? It gets pretty tricky working around all that stuff.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
nice...if the EU uses a public open format, their economic power will force MS to have filters for the format!!
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Oh man, I'm Danish - no wonder I haven't heard about the snow plow. :-)
Anyway this part of our military is a support unit (ie. not our special forces) and for that matte their usual role is peace keeping. A role much more needed in Iraq about now - a pitty they're only a couple of hundred as I fear they won't make a difference like in Bosnia, Macedonia, the former Yugoslavia, etc.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
"Oh, but I don't need to outrun the tiger... I just need to outrun you... ;-P"
.doc format.
It needs not to be perfect, it must only be as "good" as MS'
Have a nice day!
From Webster's ...
So, it's obviously in a bakery! Get a clue!Danish: a light pastry leavened with yeast and often filled with cheese, fruit, etc
There is no spoon or sig.
So why not combine open XML document formats and rtfd-style bundles!
You mean like the native openoffice formats, which are essentially zip archives?
That's when you know the concept of bundles has been implemented well, when people don't even realise they're using bundles.
OpenOffice uses zip to combine several xml files (one for content, others for meta-info and editor advice) and any image files or similar embedded content in their native formats. IIRC, KOffice uses tar.bzip2 and Abiword uses tar.gz, but I don't have those in front of me at the moment.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
Ain't that something you eat?
Det kan du bande paa, det ikke er!
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
That's exactly the point. While proprietary software may be better that free software in some cases, tying yourself to proprietary software is not wise.
First see the New York times: "Elsinore Journal; Something Cheap in the State of Denmark: Liquor"
Second: FREE GREENLAND! Stop Danish imperialism! Support Greenland workers who labor under sweatshop conditions making sealskin garments for rich New Yorkers! Stop the baby seal clubbers! Denmark out!
I've been thinking about the XML document format problem, and I don't think there will ever be a "pure and beautiful implementation" that will ever be perfect.
Perhaps you want to share your thoughts by joining the OASIS Openoffice XML file format standardization effort
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Oh come-on! EVERYONE knows that the Danish government is in Daneland, just like the Scotish government is in Scotland and the Irish government is in Ireland. If there was this place "Denmark", clearly, the government would Denmarky or Denmarkan.
Silly Europeans! Too bad you don't have an education system like us Americans!
It is a dark and fearsome land, beyond the scary edge of the world. So, Americans can't go there - you'll fall off...
Oh well, what the hell...
However, the report recognised that establishing a existing alternative or a new format would be an uphill battle, given that Microsoft Office cannot read OpenOffice documents or other formats.
is real simple to correct. Start using OO format (via OO/SO) in government and M$ would be compelled by competition forces to support OO format...of be locked out of government. An OSS developer could also whip up an OO document "viewer" of small size so people could easily download this "plugin" and view OO government docs on their M$ systems (for those unwilling due to bandwidth constraints or obtuseness to simply install OO/SO).
It is wrong to essentially require people to spend lots of money for a specific, propriatory wordprocessor just so they can view government documents. It is another thing entirely for them to "have to" download and install a free-of-charge office suite to do the same (though a plugin would alleviate most unreasonable heartburn). Even if they didn't do either, the contents of the document are still fully available to them in a cluttered form if they simply unzip the OO document and look at the ascii contents. Can't do that with word docs.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Open Standards are all about interoperability creating a level playing field where companies can compeat to produce the best readers and writers of the standards. Consumers and Govs are free to choose which suits them best. This is one of the reasons the web took off as html was essentially an open standard, even though there were no open source browsers about in the early days.
Open Source is a different beast. I don't think the the benifits for a company to open source its products are as clear. Yes there are advantages with transpanancy for govemental use. Yes its great for hobbyiest, probably great for products aimed at developers. But the economic model is dificult, the viral licencing can cause problems.
In general I'm much more passionatle about Open Standard than Open Source.
There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
It is a dark and fearsome land, beyond the scary edge of the world. So, Americans can't go there - you'll fall off...
This is crap - it can be done and it has been done. It is well known in American circles that Europe was discovered in March 1493, when Columbus sailed back to Spain.
My good man, you underestimate the power of the Market.
The Market is present even when it is not.
The Market is what gives a young entrepreneurial man his power, it's an energy field created by all intellectual property, it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.
Rand be praised! Peace be upon her.
Bite me.
I'm danish.. Did we send snow-plows? I think you, at least with the snowplow-thing, really thought about the swedes..
thats cos the vikings still live there, hiding in caves and whatever is the denmarkish for fjiords...
95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
FREE GREENLAND! Stop Danish imperialism! Support Greenland workers who labor under sweatshop conditions making sealskin garments for rich New Yorkers! Stop the baby seal clubbers! Denmark out!
Now the news. Greenland. A bunch of misinformed Americans stormed the country and burned down a local sauna to which a frightened witness pointed them when they asked where they could find "the sweatshop". When they later tried to free some animals they mistook for seals they were surrounded by angry penguins on the beach and driven back into the ocean where most of them drowned. The few remaining made three humpback whales, five tumblers and a fishing cutter run ashore when they tried to reach the beach again. Greenland's local officials could not be reached for comments, because they are still sorting out what was going on.
fjiords
OT - didn't Slartybartfast win an award for those?
OK. Hold fingeren frem!
Anyway, my good friend Bjorn got run over by a snowplough as a child, and he is still kind of weird. He is also very afraid of horses
And yes, i live in Denmark too!
If its not better why would I switch?
Stikker en finger frem ;)
You mean like:
$ ls
chap1.sxw
$ file chap1.sxz
chap1.sxw: Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract
$ unzip chap1.sxw
Archive: chap1.sxw
extracting: Pictures/10000000000002BB000000E0A5892BF2.jpg
extracting: Pictures/10000000000001AA000000E98217936A.jpg
extracting: Pictures/10000000000001CD000000FB9C72793D.jpg
extracting: Pictures/10000000000001C30000010DA8FFD18C.jpg
extracting: Pictures/100000000000026B000000B59CB54057.jpg
extracting: layout-cache
inflating: content.xml
inflating: styles.xml
extracting: meta.xml
inflating: settings.xml
inflating: META-INF/manifest.xml
$
penguins,....??
sorry, no penguins in greenland... onley seals and big scary white bears. (which actually see americans as food)
And now we only have to wait for the FUD to come along from Redmond on this topic too ...
What could have been a good paper was, sadly, another example of researcher bias. Perhaps the the worst of it is their cite of a 2001 IDC comparison of Linux vs. Unix TCO. IDC claims that "Linux, which is open source, and Unix, which is proprietary"! Really? Haven't they heard of BSD? How about OSX? They really dig themselves into a hole further down where they explain this claim!
There's a table comparing Unix and Linix item costs. Somehow "deinstallation and disposal" costs 7x more for Unix (RICS/Unix) than Linux. This may be true for really cheap x86 hardware vis-a-vis mid to high end RISC, but a more realistinc RISC system like the Blade100 would be at most 2x its x86 analog. They completely left out Solaris x86, Mac OSX, and Linux SPARC? A monkey could see that this is comparing apples and oranges.
The Danish Board of Technology/IDC also indicates that "website management" administrative costs are 60% higher for Unix than Linux, among the other similarly biased garbage out.
The very next table indicates about the same level of selective garbage in for software cost comparisons. Makes you wonder exactly what they're smoking^H^H^H^H^H using.
It's too bad too. You'll never sell MS buyers on Linux or Unix, much less MacOS, with such shoddy and easily shot down "research". 5 to 10 SuSE funded the paper and supplied the "researchers".
r7
I think the study is only recognizing that being locked into a irreplaceable propietary platform is a problem. It's not saying that it's the only or even the worst possible problem.
Common sense as this may seem, it needs to be said anyway. How many companies realized before adopting .DOC as a de-facto standard that this effectively prevented them from switching to non-Microsoft solutions, should the need arise?
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
Aren't they fucking ignorant?
Amazingly the danish word for fjiord is fjord. The plural of which is fjorde.
-- Christian
Your informations are dated. I just moved to greenland. I like Americans, too.
No, Inherently bad is correct.
:)
If the government requires that all communications be in MS Word format, everybody wanting to do business with the government suddenly has to pay money to Microsoft. Either that, or break the law. Neither option is really all that great.
And don't try to tell me that you can save your OpenOffice documents in MSWord format, that's flakey at best.
If, on the other hand, the government required all communication to be in PDF, then it would be a level playing field. You can create PDFs with OpenOffice, or Adobe products, or whatever. You can create PDFs with vim, but that's easier said than done
Amazingly the danish word for fjiord is fjord.
But most amazingly the english word for "fjiord" is fjord, too. What language is "fjiord", and is this all amazing at all? In any case, I like this thread.
As a dane I can safely say that this is all talk and no they want push ahead with anything. Denmark is one of the most Microsoft-centric countries in Europe. What a shame.
Actually, if you want to learn something about Denmark, then state.gov's info on Denmark is a much more informative resource.
I recommend reading the 'People and history' and 'Cultural Achievements' sections.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Ive hears about these initiatives in my country before, and well talk is cheap. I'm a free software user and supporter. We need at least open standards for all companies wanting to do business with our goverments. Open source would be nice, but i could settle for open standards as the next best thing.. ;)
And yes we danish are a lot more than pastry, for years we were known and feared as the notoriuos vikings at sea.
Tro det eller lad vaer - Believe it or not.. ;)
Why is the parent modded "+4, Funny"? I find it interesting and informative, but there isn't anything "funny" about it really. (Well, I do find it funny that people still bother to vote, as if it would actually make a difference, but that's another story...)
"If I can't have a revolution, what is there to dance about?" - Albert Meltzer
Second: FREE GREENLAND!
I agree, I am sick and tired of sending Greenland money every. They want to be free, but they also still want to recieve the money.
So they are pretty fast to shut up about wanting to be free when they get told that it means no more money.
Well said, Pfafrich. The overriding importance of Open Standards cannot be overemphasized. Although it won't be easy, the job of selecting preferred open standards should really be carried out at the highest possible level, i.e. the EU. Or the UN .... one can dream.....
I don't so I will end it here!.. here goes!
You sir, are worse than Hitler!
And the prime minister of Denmark are a jerk who likes to kiss Americas ass. I still wonder why he didn't take the advice from Bush and let Turkey join the EU.
I only feel sorry for the soldiers that have to spend years and years cleaning up the mess.
TCP/IP is a technology trap. Let each hardware/software vendor adopt its own communication protocol and have gazillion protocol converters. THis surely will keep programmers busy. Choice, my ass. Consumers want the choice of *applications*, not the choice of low-level standards, such as OO XML-based document layout.
Oh, come on! My Mozilla breaks the (fixed) example down to:
... </o:DocumentProperties> ... </w:fonts> ... </w:styles> ... </w:docPr> ... </w:body>
<w:wordDocument xml:space="preserve">
<o:DocumentProperties>
<w:fonts>
<w:styles>
<w:docPr>
<w:body>
</w:wordDocument>
The actual body is really, really simple:
<w:body>
<wx:sect>
<w:p>
<w:r>
<w:t>Hello World</w:t>
</w:r>
</w:p>
<w:sectPr>
<w:pgSz w:w="12240" w:h="15840"/>
<w:pgMar w:top="1440" w:right="1800" w:bottom="1440" w:left="1800" w:header="720" w:footer="720" w:gutter="0"/>
<w:cols w:space="720"/>
<w:docGrid w:line-pitch="360"/>
</w:sectPr>
</wx:sect>
</w:body>
People really should not degrade themselves by pretending that they're not able to comprehend simple XML. If it's incomprehensable use Mozilla or IE (or a dedicated XML-editor) to view the XML-file.
It's structured - it's not meant to be looked at as one long line in a slashdot-post.
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
At least that's what you say.
I wondered because I didn't figure that any American can locate Denmark on a map or even knows about the participation in Iraq, implementing the bush doctrine for a better world(tm).
MORKNIBBER! Thats all i know...
Actually, in Danmark danish bakery is called 'wienerbrod'. That's because the baking techniques originated in Wien - the capitol of Austria. The technique was then refined by the danish bakers and re-exported, becomming known as 'danish' while we here in Danmark still honour the original place of origin
Isn't that The Faroe Islands? Or both?
Cheese? Eeeew, never tried that... I think
Morknepper... and it sounds pretty dumb I'll tell ya
True, I seem to recall the same sceneario from both, I think they are getting money too. Only they thought that they had found oil, but further research showed that there might not be any after all so the talk seemed to calm down.
Moderknepper lyder lidt mere dognerdansk - Morknepper lyder som en paedagog der fortaeller i TV-Avisen hvad bornene siger
Check out my PHP Url Validator
What's this - beer, supermodels, semilegal canabis - you forgot the obvious: PORN :) Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize pornography and back in the early 70's that was major business for Denmark. A good thing the Internet didn't really exist back then. Would have been impossible to get any bandwidth in and out of the country.
On such issues the EU should not show itself to be as parochial as mainland China and the US Congress and President. The EU should request action by the UN to develop such globally important standards.
...) centers that translate voice and/or documents on-the-fly (real-time) for Collaborative Learning Interactive Communities (CLIC), ... continue to all the benifits for developing nations and global business/commerse/markets/...
Such "Open Technology" actions that do not focus on the UN as the only path towards success are counter productive for humanity and wasteful of valuable and limited resources.
"Open Technology" for all of humanity to develop. Learning Environment Independent Architecture (LEIA) technology from digitized common format content to global broadcast hardware and software open source/standards. Research and Development (Medicine, Science, Technology,
GET MOVING ASAP for all humanity.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Not as high as Bill Gates but that's because Linus has a day job and volunteers to produce something useful unlike Slashdot trolls.
One day the community will be put ahead of the corporation and you will be eating your words.
Instead of taking the heat like France, donate things that won't be used to kill people.
One of my American friends insists on calling me Denmarkian. I insist on calling him a fool.
Ja, du har ret. Sjovt at skrive pa dansk pa /. ... bliver nok snart mod'et offtopic
I'm relatively sure only one of you is correct!
Vi har alligevel kun det skaeg vi selv sidder paa
Damn :/ Kan du side paa dit skaeg?
In case you have not noticed most gov docs are available in PDF which is already an open format. That is the next big target Redmond will focus on, after crushing Linux, Adobe is next. The EU knows this so does Adobe. Hell the very fact that MS office or Windows does not include a PDF reader should clue most people in.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Jeez, spikes and smack - those socialist northern european junkies will never change.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
"Still feared in East England because of our past"
???
I think feared is a bit strong.
The Danish football team is a respected adversary but the threat of longboats full of phycopathic vikings is not something that affects property prices in East Anglia these days.
Nah - he won for the Norwegian fjords.
Not a whole lot of fjords in Denmark. Lots and lots in Norway. Come see our beautiful scenery! Come see... oh, sorry.
.sig? No.
You've got a good point, but at the same time you're also illustrating mine :)
I'm not saying at all that any given document format sucks. What I'm saying is that XML starts to become a poor framework once the format grows powerful enough. A cool XPath query isn't really that cool when you still have to unpack the binary blob it returns! Bundles sound like a good document format, as do many of the other binary-based formats.
Don't get me wrong -- I am fully behind XML document formats, and quite enjoy the standardization that XML has brought to data interchange. I just think that any sufficiently powerful XML-based document format will end up working around XML for certain things, not with it.
It all goes downhill from first post
What the Americans insist on calling Danish pastry is so poor, I lost my appetite for the rest of the day when I tried it on my recent visit to the US. Combine this with American bad quality coffee, and there's even a better reason to stay at home in Europe.
Who's "we"?
The world needs more diversity of software. More choice not less. A healthy software ecosystem depends on a wide variety of different software, all suited to doing particular jobs well, not one or two giant monoliths trying to do everything, and doing it badly as a consequence.
File format compatability is needed. We're getting there, thanks to projects like OpenOffice.
One size does not fit all. For example, on a small machine for light-weight tasks, AbiWord might be appropriate. OpenOffice.org would be overkill (and might be too big to run on the hardware). In another case, people may want tight integration with KDE, hence KOffice.
Please, less of the zealotry and more pragmatism.
Stick Men
Oh, I don't know. From what I've seen of the inhabitants of Maldon, in Essex, there's still a lot of irrational fear and hatred going about... but that's just of each other on a Friday night. Goodness knows what they'd do to a buch of Danes visiting...
Stick Men
As one of the authors, I will point to one major and one minor error in the original posting: - It is not a report from the government, but from the Danich Board of Technology - an independet, public technology assesment board. - It was not a 2 year study. Work started in jan. 2002 and the Danish report was published on oct. 12, 2002. The English translation (financed by EU Commision) was published last week. The report is available from www.tekno.dk
...only if you use the english character set, otherwise you're a bit screwed.
Hence unicode.
PDF is a proprietory format. Owned by Adobe.
Lots of lovely parrots too!
Denmark owns one or two old submarines and many intelligent people have remarked that such a small country could spend its money on less stupid weapons. NATO and uncle Sam disagree however, and whenever DK asks NATO which weapons they should send to conflict area XYZ, the answer is ALWAYS the submarine, even if XYZ happens to be inner Mongolia.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Hej pa er skaningar och andra danskar.
PDF is a proprietory format. Owned by Adobe.
If this is out there, then I can see no reason that MicroSoft can't roll thier own PDF filters, viewers or editors.
Read, L
Just follow your nose.
Read, L
No, it is not.
har du ikke skaeg i maasen?
Yes it is. Just look into the specification: "NOTICE: All information contained herein is the property of Adobe Systems Incorporated." Adope publicises its proprietory specifications and makes them open to be used under the conditions, set by Adobe.