On Sat, 2007-07-07 at 11:56 -0400, Thomas Charron wrote: > On 7/7/07, Jon 'maddog' Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > I do not often just forward an email I got from some other mailing list, > > but I thought this was both significant and relates strongly to what > > happened in Massachusetts. > > Jon, > > I've recently been doing a lot of work getting a company to > actually follow several ANSI/ISO standards which will help them > certify their devices with the FDA faster, and something struck me. > > Isn't one of the BASIC CORE goals of ISO to LIMIT conflicting > standards? Why is ISO even considering it if this is the case? > Wouldn't a new document standard supersede any older ones? > I have never read ISO's charter close enough to see if limiting Conflicting standards is a "BASIC CORE goal" or not. I always thought that their main goal was simply to adequately define a standard.
I guess it makes a difference what you mean by "conflicting standards". If you take the Microsoft side, what they say they are doing is documenting and "standardizing on" a very widely used defacto standard. What ODF is doing is creating a standard that hopefully is easily and openly implementable and useful. Playing the devil's advocate, both of them might have their place. The question then becomes which standard is more valuable when you are purchasing a word processor? Will future word processors have to support both, just to be purchased? At least for the short run, the answer will probably be "yes". I think the real issue is not Microsoft Word's format, but the danger that ODF presents to Microsoft in general....a possible return to consortium-derived open standards as the basis for doing business. This has long been an issue in the server space, but having it hit "desktop" protocols will allow more players into that space. ODF is just the tip of the iceberg. md _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
