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Belgian Gov't requires ODF From 09/2008
An anonymous reader writes "The Belgian government has decided all government agencies will be required to use only open document standards from September 2008 onwards. One year earlier, they should be able to read them. In practice this means only ODF will be supported, although OpenXML will be considered if it becomes an accepted standard, and enough applications use it. According to a Belgian Microsoft-spokesman, Microsoft is considering supporting ODF (article in Dutch)."
You can tell they've definitely made up their minds !!!
Who needs a
Here you go guys:
Government bans Microsoft-documents
From September 2008 onwards all digital office-documents of the federal
government wil be ODF-files.
ODF or open document format is a file format for office documents that
was officially accepted last month by the international
standards-organisation ISO.
It concerns an "open standard", that can be used at will by software
developers to create applications. ODF is therefor a potential
concurrent for the own file formats the software giant Microsoft uses
in its office software Microsoft Office.
The federal ministrial counsel took the radical decision last friday to
make the ODF-standards obligatory from September 2008 onwards for all
federal governmental services. One year earlier all services must
already be able to read the ODF documents. According to the magazine IT
Professional Belgium is the first country in the world to take such
measures, and thus de facto forbids the usage of the Microsoft formats.
However the door isn't entirely closed for Microsoft. The company now
has the choise: either they open their programs for ODF-files, or they
develop a standard themselves that can be used next to ODF. The most
important candidate for the latter is the by Microsoft designed Open
XML.
But according to Peter Strickx, who is responsible for software
standards at the federal government, Open XML has to be first
officially recognized and there have to be enough applications
supporting the format. According to Microsoft spokesman Frank De Graeve
they also consider supporting ODF in the Office software.
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Don't forget that, even Belgium is a small country, its captial city is Brussels, which is also the capital of Europe.
Brussels is the seat of CoEU, EC and EP and is unofficially called the capital of the EU, but it's not official. Also Europe != EU != Euro-countries. We're in Europe, but like hell if Brussels is any sort of capital for us.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You did notice I said I'm a student, right? ; )
Anyway, most of my (limited) experience has been with AutoCAD and SolidEdge, which are both expensive and Windows-only. I have done some research into the matter at times, though, but I don't think I'll be of much help.
First of all, if your needs really are simple, you could just use a drawing/diagramming tool like xFig, Dia, or Inkscape. Beyond that, though, all I can really suggest is QCad or possibly BRL-CAD, seeing as how those are about the only two Free* CAD apps for Linux that aren't already dead or "in planning" or whatever.
I also found this list, although I suspect it isn't of much help.
*I don't like QCad's license either, especially seeing as how the Free Software version is crippleware. I'm surprised nobody's forked it yet -- it needs it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz