OpenDocument/PDF in Massachussetts and the definition of "Open"

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1884775,00.asp

I've been keeping up with the OpenDocument/PDF battle in that state.  One thing that I have never understood is that if PDF is acceptable, why isn't MSWord.  They are both perceived to be propietary formats controlled by a single vendor.  MSWord has probably 10-100x the market acceptance of PDF based on the number of documents and the amount of work that goes into a particular MS Word document.

This just shows that the definition of words is truly whatever you want them to be.  For me, the sheer volume of MSWord documents shows that it is accepted as a standard.  The definition of Open: "There is a documented API to do that action, somewhere." 

In this case, market acceptance has driven a standard.  The world is full of plenty of technology standards that were never accepted in the marketplace.  Unless, MSWord supports it, OpenDocument will be another technology standard that is not accepted in the marketplace for the next 18-24 months.

4 Comments

  • I'm not sure you can equate MSWord to PDF. There are many tools to read/write PDF files and the PDF spec is 'open' enough for those tools to exist without licensing/eula snafus. I'm not sure the same is true for MSWord files, otherwise you would think we're have more/better MSWord readers/writers out there.



    MSWord is not an accepted standard because of volume. It's the excepted standard because of Windows market share. SLight difference.



    Personally, anything above a text file with outlines is more complicated than I can stand, regardless of the editor and the format. :-)



  • You have never understood it? It is simple...it is the F$ck Microsoft, those evil-empire monopolist bastards, strategy. Plain and simple. People and governments have agenda's and the whole issue is politics driven by the CIO of Mass.



    Just my two cents.

  • Look, the truth is we all know MS is not our friend. Don't use MS tech.

  • Microsoft rules in the business world. I'm sorry that academia hasn't recognized that yet. I'm more comfortable with working technology than openness and sometime working technology.



    How many versions of non-backward compatible Java do I have to have on my machine? I have four versions running now to support six applications. It takes forever to load and run. If they run. I can hardly wait until we migrate from Novell to Microsoft. One less Java App. Hooray.



Comments have been disabled for this content.