Slashdot Mirror
New York Decision On ODF Vs. OOXML Approaching
christian.einfeldt writes "In August of 2007, the State of New York passed legislation requiring its CIO, Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, to gather information on the advantages and disadvantages of adopting either ODF or OOXML as a document standard, and to report her findings by 15 January 2008. As part of her duties under that legislation, the CIO issued a Request For Public Comment to get feedback on the topic. The deadline for that public comment is 28 December 2007 — so there is still time for the Slashdot crowd to be heard."
correct... another words use constructive criticism should you add input before the decision is made. List the pros and cons and be clear and to the point. Its kind of like a resume... If the employer sees many misspelled words, way to long, or with a font thats hard to read, etc will be ignored. If I was to write in with feedback I would put what I want in bullet points and have the text bold. Under that I will argue the pros and cons etc... I would follow the same form throughout my commenting. I find it to be the best way to get your point across. Forgive my horrible comment grammer but I just wanted to add my comment to the discussion. Getting back to History final exam prep along with the Spanish one... :-(
The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard:
* The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
* The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
* The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
* There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
These commonly accepted criteria are enough to ignore the whole OOXML vs ODF discussions as OOXML patent licesing conditions only fake compliance. No one trusts the OSP and the CNS from Microsoft. And openness of the ongoing ISO process is a running gag.
The problem with that is that ODF is also undergoing massive changes. The version currently working its way through standardization adds the OpenFormula spec to ODF, which is something like 25% of the size of ODF. That's a pretty massive change!
Gah. Here's a FAQ you may find useful:
Q: What does open office and MS Office have to do with a document standard?
A: Nothing.
Q: What does the GUI of your word processor have to do with the format you save a document in?
A: Nothing.
Q: Why do you need to use open office if you use ODF?
A: You don't, use whatever software you like.
Q: What does the open source software development model have to do with open information standards?
A: Nothing.
Q: Does using ODF mean that communists will steal my children?
A: No.
Q: Will aliens eat my brain if I equate information standards with software implementations?
A: Yes.