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Microsoft Spinning Against OpenDocument Via Fox News
srwalter writes "As previously reported, Fox News previously ran an article by James Prendergast criticizing Massachussetts for switching to OpenDocument format. Today, Fox News has distanced itself from that article significantly. In a new front page story they post several emails in defense of Massachussetts and OpenDocument in general, as well as apologize for not acknowledging that Prendergast's organization is funded by Microsoft."
The most important thing that seems to be ignored. Various cities around the country provide "Starter Kits" for their citizens that include such software as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, etc.
What would stop Massachusets from providing a CD of OpenOffice.org for a minimal fee ($1.75 or something) for all citizens. You want to do business with MA and complain about not having the software to view their documents? Fine, just follow the download link on their website, or simply ask for the CD. This doesn't have to stop to office documents. Their map viewer (which is rather excellent) can also be bundled on the CD (along with data).
Imagine this. Want to open up a new store in MA? Here, grab this CD with maps of our demographics, major roads, excisting facilities. Many cities in Washington state have done something similar, on the web only currently. Then, the required forms are also included in the CD, as well as software to view and edit them. Just print them and bring them over to the closest state office.
Why should the state of Massachusets not do such a thing? Promote business, empower your citizens. Is that so wrong?
There seems to be this assumption that if you're a conservative, than you're in bed with MS and hostile to Linux, Open Source, yada yada.
It's probably part of the misconception that there is only one kind of Conservative. The news story in question will cause rankles between at least two sub-species of Conservatives: Idealogues and Corporate Whores.
Idealogues favor a free-market capitalistic approach in which a minimal government acquires its services from the free market at minimal cost. Being locked into an expensive monopoly like Microsoft is very unappealing.
OTOH, Corporate Whores take the attitude that since Microsoft won in the domination of its industry, it deserves whatever it can take. Survival of the fittest, baby! They have a dim view of those hippy, commie OSS advocates, though they don't seem to realize that effectively they favor a centrally-planned economy by unelected officials.
from the article
Comments made by the IT chief for the state said there would be costs to convert from the current office suite regardless of what was replacing it. The costs to convert to OpenDocument were estimated at $5 million; upgrading the current vendor's product would cost $50 million, both in license fees and upgraded PCs to support the newer product.
I could see a little ballooning in the price being possible, but I don't see it topping the cost for upgrading to the next version of MS Office.
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Yes they have a policy of being biased. Myrdoch himself used to send down directives on exactly which way he wanted the story slanted. There were focus reports do make people believe a certain way, and "phrases" that were approved to sway public opinion. Fox is VERY biased.
Julius Caesar - Act I, Scene i: "What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!"
Bzzt. Thanks for playing. First off, to say that someone is just a liberal commentator doesn't make them so. I'll take the two you mentioned, even though neither has a regular show on Fox but what about Juan Williams? If you listen to his reporting on NPR, he's anything but a liberal. How about liberal think tanks he's associated with? Maybe a list of liberal books he's written? On the opposite side of these three you mention on Fox, there's:
Sean Hannity
Brit Hume
Neal Cavuto
Bill O'Reilly
Oliver North
Dick Morris
So just off the top of my head, I've names twice as many conservatives that appear regularly on Fox than the three 'liberals' you mentioned.
Saying there are no conservatives on the broadcast TV and the major cable news stations is just a fallacy, especially when they're run by conservatives. Maybe they're not as conservative as you wish them to be, but they're still right-of-center. It's really fun to see Ann Coulter go on CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, FOX, get her books reviewed in just about every major newspaper in the country, and watch her bemoan (whine?) the fact that conservatives never get their voices heard.
Isn't 'People for the American Way' a left-leaning organization?
I have become convinced over time that Bill O'Reilly is not actually a conservative. He is a mock conservative with the intention of discrediting conservative ideas by becoming a reprehensible representative of some of those ideals. He's a self-important blowhard first and a conservative a distant third. if at all.
Bill O'Reilly is as good an example of conservatives as Dan Rather.
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