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Why Open Standards Matter

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the why-behind-the-smile dept.

Tina Gasperson over at Newsforge (Also owned by VA Software) has an interesting writeup about her experience at the Government Day sub-conference at LinuxWorld Boston. Government Day addressed some interesting issues including some of the more tangible reasons behind supporting open standards. From the article: "Speaking to the audience of government workers, Villa said, 'Maybe 2006 is not the year that Linux ends up on your desktops.' But, he encouraged them, if they begin using software that supports open standards now, such as Firefox and OpenOffice.org, then when Linux is ready it will be that much easier to make a switch. 'And maybe you'll decide not to make that switch,' Villa said. 'But at least the choice will be yours.'"

2 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. author mistaken? by phreakv6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has the author mistaken Open standards to Open source ?
    We use Open standards very much in our everyday life dont
    we?
    HTML, TCP/IP, GSM, PCI , XMPP ( jabber, google talk ).. etc. etc.

    --
    fifteen jugglers, five believers
    1. Re:author mistaken? by Fanboy+Troy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      HTML, TCP/IP, GSM, PCI , XMPP ( jabber, google talk ).. etc. etc.

      We use Open standards very much in our everyday life dont we?

      Word, ppt, excel, smb, quicken, asf, wmv


      Even more interesting: compare which of the above said standards actually fostered growth in technology and paved new ways of doing business:

      The first set brought everyone the web, the internet, mobile phones, a plethora of choices for expansion cards, etc... all going down price-wise. Alot of opportunities of doing business also.

      The second ones, well... made us have to pick certain platforms/vendors to be relevant... I don't know about everyone else, but over here the price of windows or Office is not going down! Magic food indeed.