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Microsoft Government Politics

France Leading Charge Against OOXML 242

Posted by kdawson from the ceci-n'est-pas-ouvert dept.
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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France Leading Charge Against OOXML

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  • Viva la french! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DeeQ ( 1194763 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:31AM (#21490165)
    Viva la French for their choice of OpenOffice

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Hognoxious ( 631665 )
      It's just an interim move until OnStrikeOffice comes out.

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

        by daem0n1x ( 748565 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @07:37AM (#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: (Score:2, Funny)

          by smittyoneeach ( 243267 ) *
          Hmmm...sending all those coke-addled Hollywood degenerates to France...not such a bad idea...
          Oh, and maybe they can take Rendition with them.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by DFJA ( 680282 )
          I don't think they lose pay when they go on strike in France. If they ever tried to introduce such a measure then the whole country would go on strike.

          Oh hang on.........

          • Losing pay is one of the main principles behind the idea of strike. Otherwise, nobody would work, not only in France, but also in the USA and the rest of the World.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by o'reor ( 581921 )
            Check your facts [actuchomage.org]. It used to be that in *some* state-owned corporations, after a few days at the ol' bargaining table, the union workers would get *part* of the pay they would have earned if they had not been on strike. This has not happened for at least 5 years now.

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

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @08:21AM (#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.

          • Yeah, it puzzles me too. I think it's the effect of decades of conservative propaganda brainwash. In my own country most working people hate unions and strikes with all their guts.

            Funny that the people I know that are more vocal against worker rights are the first to slack at the slightest opportunity.

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

            by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @10:29AM (#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: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Just Some Guy ( 3352 )

              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?"

              In the context of that song, it means that "everything might not be perfect in my life, but even if I have nothing else, I have my freedom". You probably don't need to spend a lot of time reading between the lines there.

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

            by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @11:13AM (#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: (Score:3, Informative)

              by Watson Ladd ( 955755 )
              A capitalist will make a profit doing whatever he can that is profitable. If he can make a profit from working his workers 16 hours a day he will do so. If you want to work 7 hours a day then he will fire you and get one of the 4% of workers that are unemployed at the 'best' of times to replace you.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by sodul ( 833177 )
          It's hard to be on strike and lose many days of pay.

          Actually the french unions have treasure funds so that the strikers do get compensation when thy go on strike. Wht I've sen pretty often as well is that once the strikers get all they wanted after weeks of strikes: pay us our strike days or we keep going. So no, strikes are not a financial burden on the strikers in many cases. On top of that unions often behave as mobs; torture, kidnaping and even eco-terrorism (dump toxic stuff in rivers) is not beyond th

          • Unions are financially supported by workers. So, if they have funds to cover for strikes, good. It's their money, they do whatever they want with it.

            About French politics, I can't argue with you, I don't know enough.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by o'reor ( 581921 )

            Wht I've sen pretty often as well is that once the strikers get all they wanted after weeks of strikes: pay us our strike days or we keep going.

            How long since the last time such a bargain happened ? Care to give us some links ?

            On top of that unions often behave as mobs; torture, kidnaping and even eco-terrorism (dump toxic stuff in rivers) is not beyond them.

            ... and of course, corporations would never behave that way, never engage in rogue practices whatsoever, would they ? [wsws.org] Would they ? [wired.com]

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by kbielefe ( 606566 )

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

          Considering that he wrote the first word in Spanish and the last word in English, it probably doesn't matter if the middle word isn't proper French.

          • I risk some butthead modding me offtopic, but I will clarify your doubts. "la" is also French. It means "the" in the feminine, as in Spanish and Italian.

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

          by Fozzyuw ( 950608 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @10:52AM (#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

    • They said ODF. ODF != Open Office

      You can use ODF in MS Word, as well as many non-OO.org open source office/word processing apps.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
      Since the French tend to reverse everything when translating from English, wouldn't Office Open XML become Open Office XML (or possibly XML Open Office)? Am I the only one who things MS had a major case of trademark infringement on this one calling their format Office Open XML? Every Time I see OOXML, I have to stop and think and then remember that it's not related to OpenOffice.

  • Korea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mastershake_phd ( 1050150 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:33AM (#21490171) Homepage
    I am surprised Korea is on the list. I remember a story here on slashdot about how many websites there relied on active x code that was incompatible with Vista, so much so that very few in the country were expected to make the switch to Vista.

    • Re:Korea (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:39AM (#21490199)
      So they know the pains of vendor lockin.

    • Re:Korea (Score:5, Funny)

      by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:45AM (#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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Daengbo ( 523424 )
      My school (here in SK) fought some worm all last week. They couldn't get rid of it. They re-installed all the computers in the school (except my clean box), but couldn't get rid of it. I tried to tell them that they had better be patched up before they connected.

      Anyway, they just upgraded everyone to Vista (except, again, me), so there's here's another 100 or so computers with Vista. I have to assume it's pirated. Who knows? It appears to have worked, but large numbers of people lost months of work. See t

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by freaknl ( 1194831 )

        I don't buy that they're supporting ODF for a second. I believe they're against OOXML, but that's because almost everyone uses HanSoft's Han Office, which doesn't support it. This is one of the few places in the world where MS Office doesn't have a majority of installs.

        All of the computers I have used in South Korea ran Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft Office (2000 I think?). No variation at all beyond that. I never ran once into Han Office, but my experience is mainly limited to Kyunghee

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Fred_A ( 10934 )

        Regarding lock-in, though, the online banking industry here standardized on an ActiveX plugin before SSL was common, so anyone who wants to bank online has to be on MS Windows. It sucks here.

        IIRC SSL was built into the Netscape browsers as soon as 94. I'm not sure ActiveX even existed back then. Granted the first versions of SSL weren't very good but the secured versions quickly followed.
        Anyway I doubt the reason for that strange Korean particularity is because of the unavailability of SSL. There must have been another reason.

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

      Actually, the problem was not in vista, but with the "enhanced" security of IE 7. It was pretty bad, a lot of banking and financial sites were broken in IE 7. At the time, Microsoft was contemplating making it a required update for automatic updates.

  • Barack Obama called for data to be stored in... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pipatron ( 966506 ) <pipatron@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:34AM (#21490173) Homepage

    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.

    • Re:Barack Obama called for data to be stored in... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by idiotwithastick ( 1036612 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:38AM (#21490193)

      Good thing though, Obama seems to have some sort of grasp about the concept of computers and the interwebs.
      Or just a good grasp of what his advisors tell him to say, in order to get the vote of the "Slashdot crowd."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Asmodai ( 13932 )
        Then just hope he keeps listening to said advisors and work towards those advices, yes?

      • Re:Barack Obama called for data to be stored in... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dkleinsc ( 563838 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @07:41AM (#21490785) Homepage
        I have no problem supporting a candidate who hires and listens to advisers that tell him to talk about the value of open file formats. Heck, acknowledging there's a problem that publicly is a great step. Compare that to another candidate, say someone named Willamy Blimpton, who listens to advisers that tell her to play down the issue or waffle so they can gain the support of Microsoft, and you'll see that the "he just listens to his advisers" isn't all that useful an argument.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DMoylan ( 65079 )
      > we even have 'open' in the name,"

      an old trick. from the brilliant series "yes minister"

      Sir Humphrey Appleby, the supreme bureaucrat says, "I explained that we are calling the white paper 'Open Government' because you always dispose of the difficult bit in the title. It does less harm there than in the statute books. It is the law of inverse relevance: The less you intend to do about something, the more you keep talking about it."

    • Making government data available online in universally accessible formats... - Barack Obama [docstoc.com]

      Making government data on 25 million citizens available in universally accessible formats (zip files)... - Prime Minister Brown [bbc.co.uk]

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by coolGuyZak ( 844482 )
        There's some irony in that Obama's technology proposal on docstoc is a Word document and that you can't download it without logging in.

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

    by FredDC ( 1048502 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:35AM (#21490177)
    The UK is even going as far as open sourcing their data!
    • Would they let me cvs changes I made back in?

      *ducks*

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

      by CarpetShark ( 865376 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:51AM (#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.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by the_cosmocat ( 1009803 )
        I think it was a joke about the news referring to the fact that the england tax administration have lost 2 cd with millions of personal and confidential data.

        http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2203890/25m-records-lost-tax-man [computing.co.uk]

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ct1972 ( 814272 )
        I think you mean C2k - Classroom 2000, and the project has been rolled out across Northern Ireland as a test bed. The cost of the project is put at £400 million, for help for 400,000 students over the period of the project. For that money it's hard not to believe that there are better uses for the money - I mean you could buy each kid a laptop to keep and fill it chock full of free software, and still have money for school infrastructure. The project is now poised to roll out over other territories;

  • France... (Score:5, Informative)

    by lastrainson ( 993279 ) <lastrainson@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @05:52AM (#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 @05:53AM (#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.
    • What, don't all scientific writers use some form of TeX? I'm shocked. Shocked to the core!

      • Re:Two different replies to this. (Score:4, Funny)

        by Algorithmnast ( 1105517 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @06:38AM (#21490459)

        What, don't all scientific writers use some form of TeX? I'm shocked. Shocked to the core!
        Some day they'll discover that Word's binary format is actually Microsoft's best attempt to encrypt TeX source. :)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by o'reor ( 581921 )

          Some day they'll discover that Word's binary format is actually Microsoft's best attempt to encrypt TeX source. :)
          Maybe not the binary .doc format, but you should take a look at Microsoft's Rich Text Format [wikipedia.org] and consider how much of it was inspired by (La)TeX...

          • Some day they'll discover that Word's binary format is actually Microsoft's best attempt to encrypt TeX source. :)

            Maybe not the binary .doc format, but you should take a look at Microsoft's Rich Text Format [wikipedia.org] and consider how much of it was inspired by (La)TeX...

            (to the tune of "Video killed the Radio Star") Your hard facts killed my insipid joke....

    • But, I guess, msft has done a good job in hiding that fact.
  • The general opinion of many of the Brits I've known has been: "if France is for it, there's got to be something wrong with it." Maybe the British can still support OOXML, but the French will pronounce the acronym as "oohjemel" while the British will annoy the French by pronouncing it "oxemul".

    - Greg
    • Actually, the french tend to invert acronyms (for example, "OTAN" instead of "NATO"), so I would expect them to use LMXOO.

      Of course, now that France is surrendering to open formats, the americans will have no choice but to create a new "Freedom Office", complete with its own "Office Free XML" (OFXML). Freedom Office will quickly become the official office suit of choice is Free and Democratic Countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

      • Re:Great, now the U.K. has to support Microsoft. (Score:4, Informative)

        by bahbar ( 982972 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @06:34AM (#21490437)
        We translate acronyms (how arrogant!)
        AIDS = SIDA
        kB = kO
        OPEC = OPEP
        And the list goes on. We do that less than the French speaking Canadians though... KFC = PFK is my favorite.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by stjobe ( 78285 )

        the french tend to invert acronyms (for example, "OTAN" instead of "NATO")
        I really, really hope you're trying to make a joke and that you don't really believe that... The reason the French refer to NATO as OTAN is that they translate just about everything into french, so NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) becomes "Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord", i.e. OTAN.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        I've seen french road signs depicting an exploding car with the letters "GPL" written below it.
      • You will also notice that the french don't really have a sensor of humor. Yes, previous posters, I know it is because your language has a different word order, I was just making a joke. You know, an ekoj ;-)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mgblst ( 80109 )
          As somebody who doesn't speak french, and enjoys laughing at them, I must say you didn't make the joke very well. Try to fit more funny in it next time!

    • The general opinion of many of the Brits I've known has been: "if France is for it, there's got to be something wrong with it."
      Do you blame us? France don't particularly have a history of winning things. [albinoblacksheep.com] ;)

    • GPT (Score:2)

      by threaded ( 89367 )
      GPT is always good for a laugh in French.
  • Barack Obama called for data to be stored in 'universally accessible formats.'

    Like printouts?

  • Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for data to be stored in 'universally accessible formats'.
    Plain old paper, then ? Maybe microfilm ?
    Or carved on stones, good for durability :)

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

    by dominux ( 731134 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @06:58AM (#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)
  • Goverments documents should be stored in format that is free and open and has free converters to other accepted formats - that is all. Law that says i need to use odf format, is as bad as using M$. Hey but looking at other people comments i see: "as long it is odf SCREW FREE CHOICE".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cduffy ( 652 )
      Familiar with the concept of a natural monopoly? File formats are onesuch; look it up. Converters aren't an adequate fix, because for a document of significant complexity they're inevitably lossy.

      In any event, your post is based on a false premise. Most of the "pro-ODF" laws I've seen proposed are in fact endorsements of free and open formats, with a definition of "free and open" sufficiently exhaustive as to exclude OOXML. Once a law is in place requiring the use of free and open formats, deciding which sp

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

      by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @08:07AM (#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.
      • I think you missed the point of the grand parent post. A law saying that "You must use >" is a problem period. It does matter if > is open and free or closed. It still forces me to use >. Right now I like having the choice to save in .doc or .txt or .rtf or whatever format I fucking choose.
        • think you missed the point of the grand parent post. A law saying that "You must use (INSERT FORMAT HERE)" is a problem period. It does matter if (INSERT FORMAT HERE) is open and free or closed. It still forces me to use (INSERT FORMAT HERE). Right now I like having the choice to save in .doc or .txt or .rtf or whatever format I fucking choose.
          • But is the law saying that? If so, I agree, it's broken. OTOH, if the law says "Official document formats must meet critera FOO, BAR, and BAZ in terms of accessibility, etc..." is fine. If that precludes using OOXML, tough titty for MS.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nine-times ( 778537 )

        Well, I also think that the big distinction is: You're allowed to use whatever format you damned well please. In most cases where they're talking about a government adopting "open formats", they're talking about using open formats for specific kinds of communications. More specifically, the laws force the governments themselves use open formats for documentation that is supposed to be "publicly available". So if your local/state/federal government tells you that you must download a particular form or doc

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

      by Per Abrahamsen ( 1397 ) on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @09:01AM (#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.

       
    • > Goverments documents should be stored in format that is free and open and has free
      > converters to other accepted formats - that is all. Law that says i need to use odf format,
      > is as bad as using M$. Hey but looking at other people comments i see: "as long it is odf
      > SCREW FREE CHOICE".

      It is Government documents we're talking about, not YOUR (personal) documents. So I agree Government documents should be stored in a format that is Free and Open, like ODF.

      Nobody is proposing a law that

  • At least some admit that they have been bribed :-) See China's sole comment (http://www.dis29500.org/category/countries/china/ [dis29500.org]):

    China National Body have been paid special attention to the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 ballot. Great work have been done and during the process we found it is a very complex technology which needs further more time to establish testing environment for thoroughly and deeply evaluation. We think the fast-track procedure is not suitable for this DIS. ...

  • ODF? (Score:2)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 )
    Now that there isn't an ODF, Inc, who is in charge of the format? I'm assuming it's the OpenOffice developers, isn't it?

  • Legal? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fitten ( 521191 )
    Obviously, other countries may be different, but it should be illegal for the USA Government to enforce, by law, the use of one product/standard over the other, IMO. Certainly laws should exist saying something like all data should be stored in open standards formats approved by X$ organization, which at this point is the same thing (since OOXML isn't approved by any such organization, yet). It shouldn't dictate exactly which standard, though... because at the very least, they'll also get bogged down in s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )
      Well, yes, that's why we need a law that says open standards should be used. Currently if you want to get something from the government, you get PDF or DOC files sometimes even WordPerfect files. If you want to interact with the government you need to send it using paper, some halfassed web form that only works with IE or PDF or DOC or implement some type of arcane XML which you only have access to if you are a developer.

      The law should require open formats to be used by everyone for any interaction with the
  • The harder they squeeze, the more sand will slip through their fingers.

    The mantra of "lock in, lock in, lock in" may yet be their downfall... ...but I doubt it. I expect they've got a proper file format prepared for when the going gets tough. Kinda like the way they announced C# on the exact same day the lost the Java court case.

    All I'd bet money on is that they won't "lose" this fight, and they won't ever support ODF.

    • It would be most interesting if they did have such a format planned, but they are losing this fight in a way that's really starting to get some attention. "OpenOffice.org" isn't yet on the radar for most common people yet, but much more of this stuff and it will be and Microsoft probably knows this. They are gambling quite a bit with this and if they had something that would satisfy ISO format standards, I think it is long past time that they attempted to introduce it.

      Now with that said, I'm curious to kn

  • in a speech at Google last week Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for data to be stored in 'universally accessible formats.

    With the availability of the free (as in beer) Word document viewer [microsoft.com], it's arguable that Word .doc files are in fact universally accessible already, for some reasonable definition of universal (cf. universal telephone access). You might argue that people still have to buy Windows, which could constitute an obstacle to universal access; but going one level further,

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