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Norwegian Minister: No More Proprietary Formats
Been on TV writes "The Norwegian Minister of Modernization today at a press conference in Oslo declared that proprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communcation with government. He also calls for all parts of government to have a plan ready by 2006 for use of open source solutions. Taking great care not to mention the name Microsoft directly, but rather referring to 'the spreadsheet almost everyone uses' or saying this is the last time I will present a plan for information technology being broadcast on the net in Windows Media, the Minister sent strong signals in the direction of Redmond to open up or become irrelevant to the Norwegian Government."
Since .doc and .xls can be opened by just about every alternative to Office out there, just how closed is it...
This is a very good example for other countries to follow. This actually encourages competition and speeds up the embrace of open standards. The government should always be involved in iniciatives like this.
Absolutely. I think I'll fire up Outlook and send the minister a Word attachment thanking him for taking this position.
require "something.clever";
Personally, i'd rather make them buy a product from the US, as it would help the US economy for them to have spend money on a US product.
What, no death penalty? That's an outrage from the viewpoint of the Heritage Foundation. Why, Norway must be overrun by snipers because of their lack of a death penalty.
... if by competitors, you mean people who take their formats, rip them apart, and try to make software based on it. I call that copy-catting.
A competitor would put forth a product of their own merit, that would be good enough that companies would be willing to switch formats to use it. Now watch me get modded -1, flamebait for saying it (i dont care, I got karma to burn) but the proof is in the pudding: companies will pay thousands of dollars for Office, but won't use OpenOffice for free.
-everphilski-
"the Minister sent strong signals in the direction of Redmond to open up or become irrelevant to the Norwegian Government."
.pdf is a proprietary format. Gonna get rid of that too? And even then one has to ask why they are being used in the first place?
Sorry, but I'm gonna call bullshit on this one. "Open up"? You do realize what we're referencing here, right? Word documents? Spreadsheets? Text? It's not as if you need a proprietary reader to use them anymore in the first place. For all intents and purposes, these items are open, or close enough not to matter. So what "proprietary formats are we actually talking about?
Somebody else earlier on mentioned that this action will also promote competition. Again, we're seriously wading it it because whatever "mystery proprietary format" they're using now got that position for some reason, most likely because there WAS compeition and it didn't stack up to what they decided to go with and are using now. Or their is some decent amount of governemntal corruption in our righteous tale of open source, your choice. But don't even kid yourself; Outright removing a competitor is not promoting compeition. That's somebodies political cudgel at work. because if there really is something better out there, you can name it and replace what you have, not exile a company on the moral high grounds of open source just because it's not open source. it's a justification and an excuse, nothing more.
Sorry, this entire thing reeks of a political blugeon and if they're willing to exile MS, it can work the opposite way too for open source. Keep that in mind as you put MS to the fire.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I think Bush said it best, or tried to: "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me"
HA HA HA I am pretty sure Bush didn't coin this phrase... *snicker* If you heard it from him first.. well, you have my sympathy.
They got their first what? Oh wait you don't speak English. You mean "there".
Mange takk. Oh, vente - du snakker ikke norsk.
Idiot.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.