UK citizens to Microsoft: Oi. We WANT ODF as our doc standard • The Channel

Open source zealots beat down on OOXML as consultation continues

Even if Microsoft bosses collectively whistled
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life they'd still struggle to drown
out people backing Cabinet Office proposals to adopt the Open Document
Format as the official standard for UK.gov missives.

The good folk of Blighty have until 26 February to make their position known as part of an open consultation.

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Of the 192 who have logged an opinion so far, many want to see an end to proprietary file formats.

"By
using a format like ODF, you gain the benefits of future-proofing the
data, supporting open standard for everyone, saving tens or hundreds of
millions on needless software licensing, opening the way to improve
software removing a single point of failure, [and] reducing reliance on
huge companies which abuse their market position," said JJ Beard.

Microsoft last week wrote to channel partners via the Partner Blog asking them to respond to draft proposals; not that it was telling them to vote in favour of ODF or Open XML. Oh no.

It
did, however, say the ODF route will "likely... increase costs, cause
dissatisfaction amongst citizens and businesses, add complexity to the
process of dealing with government and negatively impact some suppliers
to government".

The people at Microsoft initially branded the
government position as "ill conceived" but this draft of the blog was
not officially signed off, Microsoft's PRs tell us, and the post was
duly updated to remove those words.

Some 34 comments have been
posted below the Partner Blog, but it seems the detractors flooded this
forum too, with those in favour of open source branding OOXML as not
being very, er, open.

"I agree we should be heard," said one user
under the handle “UK Subject”. "Let's email in and say how wonderful it
is that the UK is embracing openness and freedom by ditching the
proprietary and closed OOXML."

The XML documents Microsoft
developed since 2007 as default standard for Office, but various people
on both forums dismissed it: "ODF is a vendor neutral standard… its
universally supported".

The open source brigade didn't have it
entirely all their own way, with some mentioning costs of training and
document conversion in moving to ODF, but they were rapidly shot down
and corrected.

In the war of words, it is 1-0 to the open source zealots