Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
Sadly, I think forum users need to realise that this has got nothing to do with open government, free sdoftware, GNU/Linux etc ... aqnd also that the headline on the Register article is misleading. Francis Maude is a leading Tory MP whos remit at the Cabinet Office is to made so-called efficiency savings in the civil service, a code word that we all know means cuts. The document is a *reccomendation* on documents that are exchanged in Government, not an actual decision that will start pushing the Govenment towards software freedom. Software and IT provisions/spending government is extremely profitable and surrounded by bullshit, corruption and lies. Maybe as part of an efficiency campaign, Maude may be going after some of the more outrageous practices, but that does not make him a freind of the free software movement. A former managing director of Morgan Stanley, a director at Asda and at Salomon Brothers duing the mid 1990's (not a good time for Salomon), this guy is not to be trusted, he's speaking Tory code for cuts and austerity imposed because multi-millionaires like him who caused the problems want to keep their power and position. Sorry to be a bit ad hominem, but this guy is not working against the corporate machine, he is part of it.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
Debian can be fully free, as long as you don't enable the non-free repositories.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
If using 4.2 already, just install libreoffice-style-sifr (from https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ppa ) and configure LibO to use it: Tools - Options - LibreOffice - View - User interface, icons... I bet that PPA is FaiF; I wouldn't expect TDF to be naughty.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
THE NSA will still be able to infiltrate if they use windows, and changing the GNU/linux would be quite a big thing, quite expensive
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
GNU/linux would be quite a big thing, quite expensive Yeah, almost as expensive in the short run as not changing and infinitely cheaper in the long run.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
Hopefully some of that money could go towards updating the ugly and outdated interface of LO. I'm not saying to copy MS Office, but at least make it more appealing to look at.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
Not really, unless they decided to buy German support. I'm sure one can find British LibreOffice support if so inclined, much more so if you say here's £100,000 for implementing this or that feature. That's one of the major perks of free software.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
It's really the fallout of a (IIRC) 2012 consultation on what sort of standards the UK Government should use. FSFE sent a mailing asking people to write in. The conclusion was open standards first. The UK, like the rest of the EU, has a large part of its private/real economy made up of SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises) and so it's really a no brainer on a pork barrel like basis for the UK Government to give UK (and therefore EU) businesses a cut of their contract budgets. Open standards are the only way to go if you want to do that. Besides, with the EU Competition Commissioner investigating Microsoft for stacking the committee that voted OOXML a standard, the UK Government was unlikely to adopt it. Another factor is the UK has had stringent cuts and there's nothing like being short of the money to throw the economic inefficiency of the proprietary software business models into stark relief. When the cost of producing proprietary software is at most 5% of the license fee then their business model is so easily open to price competition. Of course, as RMS is keen to point out, we have to teach economic and other convenience converts (e.g. super computers, mainframe, server room / data center, and embedded where GNU/Linux is endemic) the meaning of the freedoms.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
Hey, as long as they save in ODF and PDF in the ISO standardized PDF/A or PDF/X, then I don't care if they use Microsoft Office or not.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
If they went with LibreOffice, wouldn't the money be going towards a German non-profit? Either way, the money isn't supporting a British company.
Re: [Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
I live in London, UK. I have read this before, it seems great. A few quotes that I like lock-in to propriety vendors Get their work done without having to buy a particular propriety brand. The next step will be for them to use GNU/Linux. They would probabaly use one with lots of propriatory blobs, but that is much better than windows. They would probabaly use Ubuntu or Debian.
[Trisquel-users] UK government switches to OpenDocument
Big news all around: http://ur1.ca/gj4hk (I used a shortened URL because this forum hates underscores)
