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France Leading Charge Against OOXML

Posted by kdawson on Tue Nov 27, 2007 06:29 AM
from the ceci-n'est-pas-ouvert dept.
Microsoft Government Politics
Bergkamp10 writes "As Microsoft's Office Open XML document format waits in ISO limbo, South Africa, Korea, and the Netherlands are now actively pursuing the alternative Open Document Format instead, said the ODF Alliance. The Alliance now claims 500 members, and by their count 13 nations have announced laws or rules that favor the use ODF over Microsoft's Office formats. Those nations include Russia, Malaysia, Japan, France, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, and Norway. The French have been the most aggressive in their rejection of Microsoft's standard; nearly half a million French government employees are being switched to OpenOffice. There has been no similar move in the US, though in a speech at Google last week Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for data to be stored in 'universally accessible formats.'"
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  • Viva la french! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeeQ (1194763) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:31AM (#21490165)
    Viva la French for their choice of OpenOffice

      • Re:Viva la french! (Score:4, Informative)

        by daem0n1x (748565) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @08:37AM (#21490767)

        Look who's talking. How about the high-profile Hollywood screenwriter strike? And it's not "la French", it's "LES French".

        I can't avoid feeling antipathy for the French, but I must concede to them, it takes balls to stand up for their rights the way they do. It's hard to be on strike and lose many days of pay.

        • Re:Viva la french! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2007, @09:21AM (#21491067)
          Of course I realise it's just a cheap joke. But I am always puzzled by the contradictory sentiment given by our North American readers. They are always the first to advocate ones freedom to act in matters of employment with "If you don't like a job then go find another". Yet they ridicule the French and other countries whos workers act, to less radical degree, by temporarily withdrawing their services in protest at single issues in the workplace. Do people in the USA have no sense of proportion? Are they conditioned to believe that protesting is somehow less dignified than quitting? Or are they just racists?

          I believe there is a strong connection between the Puritan work ethic and the Stockholm effect in conditions of kidnap. To some degree it's culturally normal for the North American to bond with his abuser, to tolerate abuse, to see those who reject abuse as weak and those who organise to collecitvely challenge abuse as "troublemakers". The puzzle, is that this flies directly against their stated values of freedom and democracy.

          • Re:Viva la french! (Score:4, Insightful)

            by hey! (33014) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @11:29AM (#21492479) Homepage Journal
            Conditioned?

            Let me tell you a story.

            A few years ago there was a song that got a lot of play at Republican campaign events, that had the lyrics, "I'm proud to be an American/where at least I know I'm free."

            Now, being the kind of nerd I am, my immediate reaction was, "How do you know you're free?" and "What do you mean by at least?" I suspect the answer to the former is "Because I was told I'm free," and the latter is "I may not have control over my work or personal privacy, but it's nice to be told that I'm free nonetheless."

          • Re:Viva la french! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @12:13PM (#21493091)
            Here is my take on it as a libertarian/liberal.

            We recognize that left unchecked, the workers will destroy the business. They have essentially done that in the united states. People with high school degrees used collective bargaining to get college level wages and even better retirement plans. Now the industry is collapsing under that weight.

            We also recognize that the executive class is currently unchecked and looting and pillaging our large businesses at grossly abusive rates ( I personally cannot see the justification for paying *ANYONE* over about $10 million a year-- much less giving them $150+ million dollars for being fired).

            America is big on capitalism. When constrained by social values, it produces a very good outcome. Unproductive activities are terminated fairly rapidly (and everyone loses their job). Costs are aggressively reduced. Until recently the result was more wealth for us on average with some short term damage to a lot, and a small group people's lives destroyed periodically as buggy whips, or osbourne's or whatever went out of fashion.

            We also see that socialism will grow to the point that a lot of society becomes unproductive and leeches off of the working classes. Our welfare system was reaching a point that many people born in it, died in it and had more children who would enter the system and keep it expanding.

            Until fairly recently, when the capitol requirements became so high and the existing businesses successfully set up fairly high barriers to new competition, it was fairly easy for an american who wanted to be rich to get out and start a business and make it work.

            As the rich get a stranglehold on the company- as the republicans become identified with corporations and the wealthy more than with religious and ethical causes- this is going to change. I expect us to swing hard left very soon. High taxes on the rich, limits on executive compensation, limits on corporate power, stronger better social services nets.

            Personally, i think the french have it right. I prefer to work 37 hour weeks myself and usually find a way too. It is ridiculous that after decades of constant productivity improvements we STILL have to work 8 hours a day to earn a living- I suppose it is an artifact of the 24 hour day. 7 hours is reasonable but perhaps 6 hours is what we should drive for- or 8 hours 4 days a week.

            I was talking to a labor lawyer on a flight last year and he said that labor's ability to strike effectively in the us has basically been removed. For example- you can't do industry strikes if I understand him correctly.
            So if you want to strike against amalgamated butter, all the other butter companies keep churning it out. Back in the 60's, you could shut down butter production period by striking at all companies- and even the butter delivery companies.

            We are not conditioned to see striking as worse than quitting. We have less unions tho. So when a union effectively strikes and takes away our ability to get garbage collected or police protection- we just get pissed at the strikers. And really- there is an ongoing debate on whether vital services people should have a right to strike.

        • Re:Viva la french! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Fozzyuw (950608) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @11:52AM (#21492807)

          Oh well, I guess I'll burn some karma for this topic.

          How about the high-profile Hollywood screenwriter strike?

          High profile? Are you kidding? Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears, and Lindsy Lohan got more press coverage for drunk driving in one day than this entire strike has garnered this entire time. In fact, the last I heard in the news was how the Screenwriters are screaming conspiracy because they're NOT getting the air-time they want!

          And it's not "la French", it's "LES French".

          You're right, but I think he was going for "la France" as that's the popular phrase, but this isn't French class. Would it be too ironic to call you a French grammar Nazi?

          I can't avoid feeling antipathy for the French

          Why?The France are generally great people (as much as I love to give them the hardest time about their poor government programs, shitty service at banks and government offices, or their military victories [albinoblacksheep.com]). Speaking as an American who's engaged to and has been dating a French woman for over 4-years. By no means am I an expert, but I've a fair share of French Culture, sometimes the hard way.

          but I must concede to them

          That would be a first. You'd definitely take them by surprise. ;P

          it takes balls to stand up for their rights the way they do.

          See, now I know that you don't understand the French. It doesn't take balls. It doesn't take much at all. Striking in France is practically a hobby. They... Do... It... All... The... Time... Seriously, I cannot remember a time I was in France that didn't have strikes (or riots). I only laugh when CNN or some other outlet covers it as some sort of "end of France" like story.

          Sadly, there's a group of people (usually college students) that don't even know half the facts about what they're striking about. All they want to do is participate in a strike. Strikes also go far beyond "right". Just ask all the students and professors that where forcibly turned away from their classes (during important exams no less) by other students that were protesting. "My 'Rights' trump yours" is a more realistic motto for for some.

          France is also as media driven as the U.S. All it takes is one news broadcast or paper to say "train works will have to work more for less" to send all government workers on Strike without understanding the situation. Simply put, protest is part of the French culture. Just ask Marie Antoinette, who took away their baguettes and she lost her head. =P

          It's hard to be on strike and lose many days of pay.

          Tell that to the endless number of people who are not striking and cannot make it to their jobs against their will because they rely on public transportation. How about the harm to their countries economy? For what? The reasons for these strikes are just asinine. They're not trying to abolish the train system, striking to show what it would be like to not have trains isn't going to make a point. They're not trying to layoff the train work force. Striking to show how less workers would mean less trains and poorer service is not going to make a point.

          In fact, that extra 6 billion euros a year they will get for moving the retirement age back to 55, instead of 50, could be spent to INCREASE the number of jobs available. Something that France still needs badly. But this small group of French activists don't see it like that. It's "more work, less pay" and that's how the media totes it. Good thing the majority of France isn't that stupid and support president Sarko's reforms despite the hardships the monopolist unions are trying to strangle the French citizens with by forcing them into submission and making their lives hell.

          The real story about the recent train strikes isn't the train strikers but the average French commuter who continues to go to work in defiance to the strikes. That speaks louder than the *yawn* Paris marches.

          Cheers,
          Fozzy

  • Barack Obama called for data to be stored in 'universally accessible formats.'

    And all it takes is for Microsoft to say "Look, our document format is also universally accessible, we even have 'open' in the name," and most people would believe them. Good thing though, Obama seems to have some sort of grasp about the concept of computers and the interwebs.

  • Not France, the UK is! (Score:5, Funny)

    by FredDC (1048502) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:35AM (#21490177)
    The UK is even going as far as open sourcing their data!

    • UK has a very bad record on this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CarpetShark (865376) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:51AM (#21490263)
      The UK has had a policy of equal consideration for open source solutions for years now. Unfortunately there are still many cases of corruption -- Microsoft's recent "Schools 2000" (I think that was the name, but possibly not) program, for instance, where it gets a monopoly in every school, and cases where the best bidders on non-IT contracts have been told that they "said all the right things, except that they didn't use the word 'Microsoft'".

      Unfortunately it's easy for a country to say it supports open standards, just as it's easy for a country to say it's "helping" in Iraq. Reality is often much different.

  • France... (Score:5, Informative)

    by lastrainson (993279) <lastrainson@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:52AM (#21490275) Homepage
    There have been some very bad things happening lately in France like the Olivennes report which is to lead us to some massive and generalized internet filtering (this has already been discussed on slashdot here : http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/23/1355220&from=rss [slashdot.org]) and having a president who is a friend of major media corporations doesn't help in this regard. I guess the ODF support is at least something I can be proud of in my country. And I definitely hope it will last as Sarkozy makes me kind of pessimistic both for French and European future (sadly, not only in a technology-related fashion)

  • Two different replies to this. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thanshin (1188877) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:53AM (#21490279)
    From two coworkers not directly related to computer science:

    - What? Everybody uses Word.

    - Oh, dear god, please let them reach a consensus.

    Guess which one works as the step between scientific writers and printing services.

  • France submitted 591 comments on the OOXML spec (Score:5, Informative)

    by dominux (731134) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @07:58AM (#21490557) Homepage
    here they are: http://www.dis29500.org/category/countries/france/ [dis29500.org] nearly as much as the UK and more than twice the USA total. Raw totals of comments can be a bit missleading, but the UK, France and the USA were the top three in terms of numbers of comments. That kind of indicates the level of detail with which they looked at the standard, not the depth of feeling they have about it and how resistant they will be to MS lobbying during March (they have 30 days after the BRM to change their votes - it will be a crazy amount of lobbying and no doubt there will be more corruption/allegations of corruption)

    • Re:Korea (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:39AM (#21490199)
      So they know the pains of vendor lockin.

    • Re:Korea (Score:5, Funny)

      by MichaelSmith (789609) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @06:45AM (#21490235) Homepage Journal

      how many websites there relied on active x code that was incompatible with Vista

      God don't get me started. I spent a week working at a customer site in S Korea about a month ago. At one point I had to get a deb package for my laptop and asked if I could plug it into their internet facing network. But it was no-go. Whatever URL I put in got back a javascript redirect to a page apparently telling me I had to use IE. Not an easy thing to do in Ubuntu.

      So I gave a USB stick to a Korean co-worker and he tried to download the same file. Again no go. Gets the same page. Then he gave me the USB stick back and retried the page on the off chance and the bloody thing worked. This machine only gets you to real web pages if you are on windows and don't have a USB storage device mounted. Its meant to be secure I suppose.

      For some reason the Koreans just love hacks like that. I don't know why. I was happy to get back home after that.

    • Becasue OOXML is absolutely *not* open (Score:5, Informative)

      by walterbyrd (182728) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @09:07AM (#21490949)
      >>Law that says i need to use odf format, is as bad as using M$.

      Wrong. ODF is honestly open, OOXML is absolutely *not* open. In the OOXML specs there are several sections that essentially say: "do this the same as in Word-95" but the Word-95 specs are still closed.

      BTW: ODF does not exclude msft. There are pluggins that allow ms-office to work just fine with ODF. Also, msft is entirely free to incorporate ODF if msft so choses. Msft's claims that ODF excludes msft is pure bullsh!t.

    • Free choice for whom? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Per Abrahamsen (1397) on Tuesday November 27 2007, @10:01AM (#21491461) Homepage
      It makes perfectly sense for the government to standardize when practical on some formats for its own documents, so citizens won't have to have converters for zillions of different formats, just in order to talk to the government. In this regard, the government is like any other big organization, and should have the free choice you seem to advocate against.

      Where the free choice of the government should be limited is that they should not be allowed standardize on formats that are entangled with legal limitations.

      Apart from that, we can argue on technical merits on what formats to standardize on.

       

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