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ODF Threat to Microsoft in US Governments Grows
Tookis writes "Another setback for Microsoft has cropped up in the space of document formats in government organizations. The state of California has introduced a bill to make open document format (ODF) a mandatory requirement in the software used by state agencies. Similar legislation in Texas and Minnesota has added further to the pressure on Microsoft, which is pushing its own proprietary Office Open XML (OOXML) document format in the recently released Office 2007. The bill doesn't specify ODF by name, but instead requires the use of an open XML-based format."
...Government mandated mediocrity.
Better than Micro$loth's Monopoly(tm) where we pay ever increasing prices for buggy bloatware.
The way to beat the MS Monopoly(tm) is to let the people have real choices and not have MS Crap(tm) shoved down their throats from the moment they buy a new computer at a big box store (Worst Buy, Corrupt City, Office Last, etc.) or have to deal with government forms, to the point where they need to deal with computer security/privacy issues. Microsoft is amazingly lame at building safe software. But most consumers don't realize there are alternatives to the crapware M$ foists upon them.
Ideally, a consumer should buy a new computer and have several choices as to which OS(es) will run on it, many of them being non-M$ OSes (read: various flavors of Linux, even a reborn OS/2, Solaris, or perhaps a newer, even better OpenVMS). For documents, the standard should be completely non-proprietary. The specs should be simple and brief, not 6000+ pages of M$ dreck.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
The sad fact is that someone, somewhere got a bee in their bonnet after being told open=good but has no real grasp of the matter. The people who will ultimately make these sort of decisions are senior guys who know how to network (personal, not wires) and make hard decisions. They know squat about the stuff that this thread will no doubt cover and the final decision will be based on whoever is best at pulling wool over people's eyes, double-speak and/or greasing palms.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Cue the AC Microsoft Astroturf Champions:-
$ M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$
They have a solid policy of responding to any use of "M$" with a tantrum any 2 year old would be proud of. Poor little weenies. Of course they could be getting paid for it so I for one am willing to help them earn a few coppers, here you go:
M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M$M
There are so many nice features in Office that aren't available in OpenOffice. Microsoft could easily switch their product to use a different file format, or even just add the different format as an option. Open source is a nice idea, but so is socialism. The revenue model for most open source software, is to give the software away and provide support at a premium price, or place ads in the software. Ad revenue is already spread too thin... Who thinks a government agency can create software that will be reusable, upgradeable and secure?