Ahoy, On Sunday 23 July 2006 01:30, Simon Morris wrote: > http://beerandspeech.org/fsfe/Letter_to_ICT_Hub_rev1.txt
I think it would be worth picking up the weird allegation about the size of RTF files versus DOCs. I always thought it was the reverse - bloaty DOC files taking forever to download for a bit of thin formatting! What is this "one user's experience"? The whole paragraph comes across as a bit of fluff written on Slashdot, which is unfortunate because the rest of the article is informal but at least more informative. A suggested rewrite of the format bit, which is longer but I hope a bit clearer. The mention of PDFs is also not necessarily on message ;-) ---- I believe this paragraph misses the point of open formats, and misleads readers about the practicalities of exchanging documents. First, the suggestion that RTF files are considerably larger than DOCs is false. There are sometimes issues with complex formatting not translating well between different software packages, but otherwise RTF files are a good option, along with HTML, PDF and numerous other well-supported file formats. Second, there are important long term benefits from using the OpenDocument formats. Organisations using Microsoft Office file formats lock themselves into that product, compromising their independence and the accessibility of their data in the long term. Microsoft Office file formats are undocumented and it is questionable if data created by the MS Word package (for example) 10 years ago will be accessible today, even in modern versions of Word. There are no guarantees that data created in today's version of Word will be accessible in the future. The OpenDocument formats offers organisations the ability to have access to their data at any time in the future through documented, open and free file formats. Already several office suites, including OpenOffice.org, support the formats. When sharing documents with those who use Microsoft Word, you can simply save the documents as RTF, HTML, PDF or other widely supported formats. Organisations would be wise to consider migrating to open file formats. By dismissing the use of open file formats you are prolonging and encouraging this situation where valuable data is locked into proprietary formats. ---- > "...the economical benefits..." the economic benefits. Regards, Tom -- The task of critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the name of the betrayed ideal (Fromm – Beyond The Chains Of Illusion) _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
