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The Massachusetts Office Party
Quattro Vezina writes "The Inquirer reports that the state of Massachusetts has performed a modern-day Boston Tea Party, by dumping Microsoft Office in the proverbial ocean. According to the article, 'every state document must be in PDF or using Open Office formats' starting in 2007." Forbes has the story as well. More from the article: "The switch to open formats such as these was needed to ensure that the state could guarantee that citizens could open and read electronic documents in the future, according to Massachusetts - something that was not possible using closed formats. The proposal, which is open for comment until the end of next week before it takes effect, would represent a big boost for open source software such as Open Office, which is created by volunteer programmers and made available free of charge."
Nah, Microsoft Office was "dumped in the proverbial ocean" because Teddy was driving.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Most people are under the impression that it is free, because it most likely came with their computers.
So, you're saying we should do whatever fits the impression people have because it's most likely true. If that's not what you're saying then where's your point?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
It's good that stupidities like this make it to the news, so that we can be sure that no matter what software they use, they're always gonna remain stupid, lazy ass, money wasting bozos that they've always been.
/.? While sensational, it is technically idiotic approach which as such only deserves trashing.
1) MS Office can produce PDF docs
Yes, they need either a commercial or free (doc2pdf.sourceforge.net) add on, but that's trivial to implement (and even buy) compared to the useless overhaul proposed.
2) MS Office docs can be viewed and printed using the free Microsoft Viewer software.
And OpenOffice can read Microsoft Office docs, can't it?
3) Probably the simplest solution is to Save As... RTF.
All in all, yet another stupid government move that makes me sick.
Even more puzzling is why did this make it to
"The State of Fagachusetts embraces communism"
Well, really only in Cambridge, Amherst and Northampton, but we are more liberal than some states. Think of us as a counterbalancing force to Utah and Kansas.
This would make an interesting SAT question:
IBM was to Microsoft as Micorsoft is to:
A. openSores
B. Public Good
C. Your Wallet
D. "...Corrupts Absolutely"
E. All of the Above
PDF? Why pick this abysmal format when there are other open formats widely available to everyone? They might as well have picked Word Perfect format. Switching to Open Office is progress but switching from one proprietary format to another isn't.