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Subject:Re: Open doc format From:"Bill Hall" <bill -dot- hall -at- hotkey -dot- net -dot- au> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sun, 24 Nov 2002 08:45:08 +1100
Bruce Byfield, Eric Dunn and John Posada have been discussing pressures from
governments to forbid the use of "proprietary" software applications in
order to move away from M$ "standards".
I have been too busy to track back to the beginning of this thread, but
these contributions seem to miss the main point. The major problems with
proprietary formats is not the applications themselves - which can be very
useful, easy to use, etc, but with the difficulties of sharing and
exchanging content between different applications.
What is needed are non-proprietary, STANDARDISED, content formats able to
facilitate electronic sharing and exchange of knowledge across all
applications.
Thanks to W3C, we are actually already well down that path with XML
standards, and hopefully within 2-3 years that will be the defacto standard
everyone is using. Those who love Billy Gates can continue to use M$
products, but there will no longer be a major barrier preventing competitors
from offering other more specialised or simpler applications also able to
share information via the standardised formats.
It also meets one of Andrew Plato's ideals - separating the authoring of
content from fondling fonts and styles. In an XML world the establishment
and maintenance of styles can (and should) be a task that is completely
separated from the writing task, and is one that is best left to genuine
graphics and design experts, such that writers can concentrate on distilling
knowledge and creating content.
Bill Hall
--------------------------------------------------
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
---------------------------------------------------
TS Eliot - The Rock
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