French Government Recommends Standardizing on ODF
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "From the InfoWorld article:
All French government publications should be made available in OpenDocument Format (ODF), according to a report commissioned by the French prime minister. The new report
also suggests that France ask its European partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European level. It is recommended that the government will fund a research center dedicated to open-source software security as well, adds the article."
Just because something is free doesn't mean it is better.
The "France surrenders preemptively" comment is a standard France joke - see Fark.com, not an Iraq jibe
while most people here im sure hate microsoft, it kind of bothers me that europe is increasingly resorting to government mandated efforts to battle against american companies. yes it is smart on their part to stop being so reliant on american technology companies, but this action coupled with the tariffs and fines they are leveraging against many US companies are showing signs of a negative trend to me.
What exactly is the problem here? They want on Open Standard. Why? Nearly everyone already uses .DOC.
If they don't like it why not author their own OS or Productivity Suite? Why not buy one from IBM or Sun or some Unix derivative. Ohhhh, that's right...they can't make it work as well as those authored by Microsoft.
So, instead of innovating, they are going to litigate and legislate the hard working Americans in Redmond to GIVE IT TO THEM. That's so European...let's whine until somebody else does it for us.