Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 1st Nov 2005 19:33 UTC, submitted by Mark Brunelli
Open standards and open source software got political on Monday when Linda Hamel, the general counsel for the Massachusetts Information Technology Department, suggested that groups that oppose the OpenDocument file format standard might be influenced by Microsoft. Hamel was testifying before the Senate's committee on Post Audit and Oversight at a hearing regarding the state's switch to the OpenDocument file format. 
Thread beginning with comment 54490
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[3]: Politicians and Special Interests
by archiesteel on Wed 2nd Nov 2005 06:24
in reply to "RE[2]: Politicians and Special Interests"
Member since:2005-07-02
You're wrong. Exchange of information requires common standards not open standards.
It certainly doesn't need standards that are the IP of a single private entity.
MS only had to support ODF in the next office. They can do it easily. The fact that they don't is a clear demonstration that they don't have the public's good at heart, and this is really what this is about.
MS doesn't want to let go because it know its monopoly relies on the vendor lock-in created by MS Office format. And it is lock-in: even I, a Linux user, have to use MS Office (though OpenOffice filters are becoming better).
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
You're wrong. Exchange of information requires common standards not open standards. The most open standard in the world won't help you exchange information if next to noone supports it.
And Senators should not be involved in this sort of rubbish. Leave them to the higher issues (the ones the broad public actually worry about) and let decisions on which document format to use be made by the people who can decide best - those actually creating the documents and know how format choice will affect the document's creators and users.
You freaks would be in fits if a Senate committee was considering standardising an entire government on MS Office documents (and rightly so), but there's nothing but wholehearted hypocritical support if the document format they're trying to shove down everybody's throats is the latest open source fad.