Re: [tlug] google ditching windows and going for open source software

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Ai Ling writes:
 > On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Godwin Stewart <gstewart@example.com>wrote:
 > 
 > > On Fri, 4 Jun 2010 00:24:02 +0900, Ai Ling <alchow@example.com> wrote:
 > >
 > > > Out of curiousity, why do you have Rule 1? Why force documents to be
 > > saved
 > > > in ODF?
 > >
 > > Because it allows them to change productivity suites if necessary while
 > > still maintaining compatibility with their documents, maybe?
 > 
 > On a global scale, DOC is still the most-used format, isn't it?

Yes[1], and on any scale, .doc sucks both as a storage format and an
exchange format.  You can't even get reliable results from .doc on
Windows machines using MSFT Word, let alone Macs using Word or anybody
using OOo.

It's only the most-used format because Microsoft had the foresight to
just about give away copies of Word with every new PC for ten years.
Even so, it took them ages to bury Ichitaro (which in my opinion was
even worse than Word).

 > If it's going to stand in the way of change, perhaps it's a rule
 > that needs revisiting.  Incremental change is better than no change
 > in this case, wouldn't you say?

For the users (especially the ones with the featherbedding union),
yes.  It's not necessarily better when you include the costs of
dealing with interoperability, maintenance, etc.


Footnotes: 
[1]  But .docx, which is .odf on acid and six other hallucinogens, is
making substantial inroads.  In the academic world it's about 30% of
the Word-alike documents I see (ODF is negligible, of course).