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Massachusetts Finalizes OpenDocument Standard Plan
wellington map writes "The state of Massachusetts has finalized a proposed move to an open, nonproprietary format for office documents, a plan that involves phasing out versions of Microsoft's Office productivity suite deployed in the state's executive branch agencies. Massachusetts expects its agencies to develop phased migration plans away from productivity suites that do not support OpenDocument, with a target implementation date of January 1, 2007. Looks like it's finally cemented after some heated discussions."
... governments are getting geekier.
My father died in the vietnam war. By accepting unpatriotic "open" standards, you are pissing on his grave.
from choose somehting truely open. I am suer this OpenDocument format will not leave Microsoft's doors without a license that says you won't use it with GNU-licensed software (or maybe even MIT and BSD.) They don't want people having Office interoperability with non-Microsoft products anymore than they want people replacing Office (namely Word and Excel) entirely. Of course, if they do allow things like OOo and abiword to open and edit their OpenDocument-formatted documents, at least Massachusetts won't be as angry and they will probably still get plenty of customers buying Office. However, now it will be more difficult to force upgrades. Institutions are already fed up with Office costs and many (like the local school system) are using OpenOffice.org instead. I predict that Office will become much less profitable if everyone starts using OpenDocument format.
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This is good news. When I heard Mass. had made its policy final, I immediately went to OpenOffice.org and downloaded OpenOffice.org 2 beta and installed it on my Debian system. I created a new text document, and when I saved it, the default format was OpenDocument! And it worked great. It's fitting that Mass. is leading the way. This is like the Boston Tea party.
Here's to the Boston Office party!
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Make the formats open and they will come...
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Did you just violate Microsoft's Intellectual Property? I didn't sign any microsoft agreement and now I know how to make a simple document with their patented XML schema....
Jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
How are massachusetts administration going to embed their innovative Voice-Over-IP content in their text documents now?
Why not just grok and use TeX (LaTeX fine too). Do something like LyX.