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California may adopt OpenDocument (ZDNet)
ZDNet reports
that California is considering making the OpenDocument Format the required
standard for state agencies. "Similar to the ODF bills proposed in
Texas and Minnesota, California Assembly bill AB 1668 would require that
state agencies "become equipped to accept all documents in an open,
XML-based file format for office applications, and shall not adopt a file
format used by only one entity.""
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California may adopt OpenDocument (ZDNet) Posted Mar 2, 2007 5:07 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] Yeah!!! If three such populous states as CA, MN, and TX could conceivably enact such "non-single entity" file format legislation, then imagine the possibilities of ODF (and similar non-proprietary format standards) gaining even more widespread usage. Slightly off-topic - Hear it first on LWN. This is the first I've read about Texas having a bill endorsing ODF.... and I live in Texas!
California may adopt OpenDocument (ZDNet) Posted Mar 2, 2007 10:12 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I think California is enough. It's huge.
Anyways it's it's own country pretty much nowadays.
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 2, 2007 5:26 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Microsoft Office 2003 XML-based, and doesn't OpenOffice read and write those files (meaning that there are two vendors)?
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 2, 2007 5:39 UTC (Fri) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link] openoffice doesn't fully implement the microsoft format (especially since it's not clear what it takes to fully implement the spec, remember the many 'make it work like X' clauses, where the behavior of X isn't defined anywhere)
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 2, 2007 7:39 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] But is a technical detail like this enough to keep the MS format excluded? Without further clarifications, a law saying "shall not adopt a file format used by only one entity" can be circumvented by finding just one alternate implementation, however incomplete. It might actually be worthwhile for Microsoft to financially sponsor developing support for their flavour of XML format in open source software just for this reason (hey, didn't they recently announce to do this for OpenOffice jointly with Novell?? - farsighted!)
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 2, 2007 11:46 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] How many office suites (that run on Windows) other then OpenOffice.org faithfully support the OpenDocument Format?
Is even Koffice's support any good?
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 2, 2007 13:31 UTC (Fri) by cpm (subscriber, #3554) [Link] The overarchingpoint would be, that the barriers to supporting odf on behalf of folks doing office suites, are all political and not technical.
If you want to support, you do it. You don't need permission, you don't need licenses, you don't need anything aside from the will to work and play well with others.
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 2, 2007 14:21 UTC (Fri) by ghelmling (subscriber, #4140) [Link] How many office suites (that run on Windows) other then OpenOffice.org faithfully support the OpenDocument Format?By the look of it, quite a few -- you could start with the OpenDocument Fellowship's list of applications.
It is not just OpenOffice, no matter how often Microsoft claims it is Posted Mar 2, 2007 14:22 UTC (Fri) by kh (subscriber, #19413) [Link] Well, there is OpenOffice, Star Office, Google's Docs and Spreadsheets, Abiword, and IBM Workplace. There seems to be a pretty good list on Wikipedia. Microsoft keeps trying to frame the argument in terms of OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office, I don't think that is acceptable - it's much better to argue formats, but when they do bring up that argument I think it is important to point out all the alternatives, on all of the platforms (even if people do not think desktop Linux is important, maybe they will acknowledge the importance of OLPC and OS X support) before taking the argument back to single product, single vendor format vs. multi-vendor, multi-product format argument.
Um, isn't there a loophole? Posted Mar 11, 2007 20:31 UTC (Sun) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Being "xml-based" in itself says precisely nothing about openness. A document that consists of a start-tag, 1MB of opaque data and then an end-tag is "xml-based" but no more readable because of this.The xml used by office contains numerous features that are undocumented and that are therefore by nessecity one-vendor. Such as "Word-Spacing-like-Word-5-on-Mac". Could always aswell have been [interpret-following-as-office-xp]CHUNK-of-data[/end]
Assembly Bill comment form Posted Mar 4, 2007 2:16 UTC (Sun) by raf (guest, #35151) [Link] There is an easy form for constituents to let their representatives know how they feel about this here:
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/legcomment/legcomment.asp?...
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