Urbane Tiger wrote:
On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:27:39 +1200, Michael Adams
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:06:20 +1000
Urbane Tiger wrote:
Now that OOXML has been accepted by the ISO as a standard can we
expect OOo will adopt it its the preferred format.
Please no rants - there are plenty of soapboxes that are very much
more visble to the world at large than is this mailing list.
Actually if you knew the issues you would know how stupid this question
really is.
* ISO accreditation will put OOXML on a par with ODF, not above it.
* ISO accreditation for OOXML is not finalised.
* OOXML is not finalised.
* Office 2007 XML (.docx etc.) is not OOXML.
* The Default format in OO.o can be set by the user.
* Sun, the developers, many governments and most OO.o users see ODF as
a better format for Office files.
Micheal everything you say is true, and I am in accordance with your
sympathies, but its not a perfect world.
Most contributors to this forum live in democratic, capitalist
societies; Churchill said something like - it maybe a lousy system but
its the best we have. If you don't believe it read "Under Two
Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler" by Margarete Buber-Neumann,
or ask a Tibetan and an Iranian.
As for which is best I have already drawn attention to Firewire v
USB, where the Intel backed USB won the day.
But take heart, back in the 80's we had Token Ring v Ethernet, TR was
a far superior technology. I just did a shopping engine search - 500+
ethernet adapters, 0 token ring adapters. Who was the major backer of
TR, IBM, on that occasion the minnows, Xerox-Parc & DEC, won.
A huge difference. Neither of those were forced through ISO by blatant
tampering. There is plenty of evidence of that from around the world,
such as in Norway where an 80% vote against OOXML suddenly became a yes
vote or the Swedish committee that admitted to being bought by
Microsoft. I don't know much about Firewire vs USB, but token ring,
while an excellent technology, tended to be expensive and lost many of
it's advantages when ethernet switches became available.
Take some time to study the complaints against OOXML and you'll find
that in addition to many technical flaws (why does a new file format
have to maintain a leap year bug in spread sheets?) that it's tightly
bound to Microsoft Office and Windows, with many vague specs and other
things, which will make it virtually impossible for anyone other than
Microsoft to produce truly compliant applications. Then there's the
issue of patents and Microsoft being very vague about what you can and
cannot use.
--
Use OpenOffice.org <http://www.openoffice.org>
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