Denmark Chooses OpenDocument Format

Seahawk was one of several readers to write in with news of Denmark's decision to embrace ODF. "On Friday morning Denmark decided to choose ODF over Microsoft's OOXML. For now the decision is only effective for governmental institutions, but regions and municipalities will most likely follow some time in the future. The decision has unfolded over a period of four years, and many open source advocates were fearing the worst, but it looks like the minister finally caved in and listened to what a lot of people were saying." While in transition away from Microsoft Office formats, the Danes may find use for this new OpenOffice integration guide (sent in by reader AdeleWard).

Re:Queue the Complimentary Office 2k7 Licenses in.

[oloron]

but, how long will MS stay true to the ODF format, just because its a 'standard' doesnt mean they won't throw their own proprietary sh#t into the mix, they have done this before with other standards

Re:Wrong decision

[Just Some Guy]

As a free market libertarian, I think this move sucks, and anyone with half a brain should too.

As a free market Libertarian, I think you'd be well advised to learn why a group would choose an open standard that multiple vendors can compete for, rather than a closed (ISO can kiss my ass), single-vendor product.

Re:Wrong decision

[mspohr]

I just received a document yesterday from a co-worker in MS Word .doc format (big organization with a homogeneous MS Office deployment). This is a 5 page file with tables and graphs. Something is screwed up with MS Office and I don't see the graphs when I open it with MS Office. However, OpenOffice.org opens and displays the document perfectly.

I only mention this because it happens to me all of the time. Usually with different versions of MS Word but in this case it can't even read its own file from the same version.

Re:Wrong decision

[lurch_mojoff]

OK, let me break down fuzzyfuzzyfungus' argument into simple sentences for you, because you seem unable to wrap your mind around it.

-- Government chooses a proprietary format
-- Everybody who is part of "the market" inevitably has to interact with the government and their documentation.
-- The software of the company owning said format, regardless of its merits, is the only one that can be used to comunicate with the government.
-- "The market" can go fuck itself selecting the best product.

-- Government chooses an open, unencumbered with patents format
-- Everybody who is part of "the market" inevitably has to interact with the government and their documentation.
-- Anyone can write software that can be used to comunicate with the government.
-- "The market" can freely choose whichever products they fancy.

And you seem to be absolutely right, only evil socialist governments and the pinko commies who've elected them seem to understand these two simple concepts. Hoorah for libertarianism.

Re:It's CUE

[NoPane]

Forgive me, but I'm a native Englishman and I'm patient enough to pass on a little education. Think of a performance; E.g. Cue the music, maestro. Cue the record, DJ. Yes it's similar to "a queue", but the implication of the word "cue" is to set things up ready to release the pause button on the tape deck ... yes, yes I am that old! In my day we used a chinagraph pencil to make a mark on the tape which we aligned to the tape head - a cue mark. { While I'm in teacher mode, please do NOT use the non-word Walla! It's really a French word: Voila! } Thanks for listening!

No formula standard

[Anonymous Coward]

How are you supposed to use a spreadsheet to calculate your taxes when there is no standard for formulas in spreadsheets?

Re:Wrong decision

[FrankieBaby1986]

Plural of anecdote... yadda yadda...

One of my teachers last semester created Powerpoints. He saved them in .pptx format.

*I have NO IDEA what version of office he was using to create them.* Likely to be 07 though

...but when opened in Office 07, The Office 07 free ppt viewer, or OpenOffice, they were all screwed up, formatting was all wonky, tables, graphs and images were all misaligned (often times half off the screen). And text was overlapping all over the place. WTF? This happened to him while giving the presentations in class using Office 07.

Re:Apple, please help.

[pauljlucas]

The iPad's iBook Store's books are all in ODF.

Re:another step in the right direction

[Bert64]

Hence the "first step"...
Once you have open standards, then MS get pushed into the relatively small niche of people who need the extra features of excel and powerpoint and are willing to pay a premium for them... The rest of the "sally secretary", home user and casual user types get OO because it saves a lot of money.
The only reason this isn't happening already is because of proprietary format lock-in.

I've worked at a lot of companies of various sizes, and most of them spend ridiculous sums of money to have msoffice on every desktop, yet the majority of those users use the apps to view files sent to them by others, or to type up/modify very simple letters. Most of these users would find wordpad more than adequate for their needs.