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Texas Bill For Open Documents

Posted by kdawson on from the et-tu-texas? dept.

Ditesh Kumar tips us to a blog entry by Sam Hiser noting a bill filed in Texas that would require state agencies to conduct their work in an open document format. After Microsoft's grueling battle against ODF in Massachusetts, bluest of blue states, it must be galling to face te same fight in the reddest of the red. Hiser notes that the bill includes a rigorous and sound definition of an open document format, which ODF would meet but Microsoft's current OOXML submission would not.

7 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. One "open" format versus another... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I always say beware of that for which you crusade. The majority of people fighting for "open document formats" do so as they see it as a way to exercise (or exorcise) their hatred of Microsoft. A minority do so precisely because the "open" formats are those that MS can't handle, using open formats as a front for requiring folks to abandon office.

    The entire point of an open format is that anyone can read it and anyone can write it.

    Why rant and rave against another open format that is as documented as your own?

    Do not overlook the financial gain that some are making off of this move to push alternatives to Office. Many use the words "open" and "free" when they really are just shilling for their own contracting gain.

    Beware of anyone promising "the one true way" in a quest that exchanges one evil for another.

    ed

  2. GREASED UP YODA DOLL UP ASS IS PATRIOTIC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I pledge Allegiance to the Doll
    of the Greased Up States of Yodarica
    and to the Republic for which it shoves,
    one nation under Yoda, rectal intrusion,
    with anal lube and ass grease for all.

  3. Yeehaw by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    My name is Texas Bill, and I am for open documents.

    TexasBill

  4. and you aren't that relevant either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Enjoy your trans texas corridor. I'll bet they really will let you ride your bike on it too..really.

    texas-save 20 mil a year using open documents

    lose 150 billion building unneeded, expensive, privately owned toll roads, and close off a lot of the existing roads. And yepperz, still make you pay a road fuel tax as well. (and even if you personally ride a bike, 100% of your tangible reality gets delivered to you via burning dino-doo and trucks. So that means, all your prices for everything will go up drastically-despite your bicycles and despite any open documents.

    ya, sounds like a good trade

    1. Re:and you aren't that relevant either by Grishnakh · · Score: -1, Troll

      Texans aren't a terribly bright lot, from what I can tell.

      For instance, they claim to be a very "red" state, and they also claim to be a gun-friendly state. I've frequently heard Texans brag about their love of guns. However, look closer and you'll find out that while guns may be legal, expandable metal (police) batons are highly illegal, just like in California where rapper Snoop Dogg was arrested for carrying one. Why on earth would a metal pole be illegal when guns are legal? Are they going to ban baseball bats too? They're just as lethal, if not more so. So apparently Texas takes some cues from California when it comes to weapons laws.

      Even better, it seems that switchblade (automatic) knives are illegal in Texas as well. According to the rather confusing laws quoted on my linked page, it also seems that brass knuckles, swords, and bowie knives are illegal in Texas. I'm sorry, but that state sounds like a bunch of pansies to me.

      So, Texas may be "red" in that they happily vote for a moronic Neo-con who gets our country involved in a foreign war in the interest of destabilizing the Middle East and keeping oil prices down while simultaneously revoking all our civil liberties, but it certainly isn't any place that's friendly to truly conservative (or really libertarian) people who like to own weapons or be allowed to defend themselves against criminals.

      For a truly libertarian state, come to Arizona. Here, not only is it fully legal to walk down the street with a handgun holstered on your hip in plain view (or a rifle or shotgun slug over your shoulder), it's also fully legal to carry expandable batons, brass knuckles, switchblades, swords, or whatever other weapons you care to own. Not just own in your house, but you can carry these things around in public, with no permit whatsoever. You can even buy and own machine guns and silencers, though you need a $200 permit from the BATFE for that.

      The only state more free than this, that I know of, is Vermont. While here in AZ you must get a permit to carry a handgun concealed (but not openly as I mentioned above), in Vermont you cannot get such a permit because it doesn't exist. If you want to carry a concealed gun, just do it, because there's no law against it.

      Texas may be a red state, but it's not really a freedom-loving state.

  5. Re:Utah has 'Bama Pwned! by ChameleonDave · · Score: -1, Troll

    But the Republican candidate is a mass murderer, with over half a million Iraqi dead on his conscience.

  6. Re:Why not OpenXML? by dave562 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The heavy Linux bias on this forum is obvious, but despite that, the site is billed as "News for Nerds..." Because of that, your analogy with Mazdas and BMWs doesn't really hold water.