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>To ignore open source tools as an option is not wise, but to only
>focus on them or only on proprietary tools is also not wise.
>
>
The OpenDocument format is not exclusive to OpenOffice. It is a standard
XML format created by OASIS, formerly the SGML group, whose board
includes Sun, Nokia, Microsoft, SAP, and others. The standard was mostly
developed by Sun, IBM, and Adobe. Groups who voted to approve the
standard produced by the technical committee include BEA Systems, the
American Bar Association, Cisco, Booz Allen Hamilton, Computer
Associates, LBNL, RSA Security, VISA Int'l, Boeing, and the British
Ministry of Defence and Inland Revenue. The XML format used by
OpenOffice 1.0 was the starting point for the standard, but is not the
only application which can use it.
>I've been using a combination of open source and proprietary tools
>over the past several years. Each has their benefits and drawbacks,
>though each also has their perfect fit.
>
>
Microsoft was noticably silent during the voting on OpenDocument (having
been eligible to vote, but abstaining). One can only suppose that the
Massachusetts ruling will compel them to recognize the OpenDocument
format as an open/save format, in order to maintain their hegemony of
installations. Nothing in the document type definition says that only
open-source tools must be used to /create/ the documents, after all.
But it's the responsibility of government to make their documents
readable to all citizens, and therefore to use the most widely-available
and freely-available format.
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