On 04/02/10 13:11, Wm Stewart wrote: <snip />
If there is a forum for focusing on this last 1% of interoperability issues that I'm not aware of, please let me know. Otherwise, I recommend we establish one as a key initiative required to realize OpenOffice widespread use. 99% is so close. OpenOffice can win for the long term, but only when we accept how critically important that last 1% of interoperability is to the vast majority of the world's office suite users.
But that is the point. You can't get to 100%. Microsoft, or whoever else you want to be interoperable with, only have to change one line of code in a service pack and bang! everything else gets screwed.
It is in the interests of companies like MS to keep their formats as proprietary and opaque as possible. That way you have to buy their products.
The only real way out of this mess is to *enforce* truly open standards and this has to come from the top. Demand that your municipality provide you with electronic records in public, patent-free & open formats. Anything less is essentially telling you to go and buy a particular vendor's product. And that is exclusionist.
Al -- The Open Learning Centre http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-h...@openoffice.org
