[Linux-aus] Microsoft Office 2003 lock-in via DRM

[Jonathan Oxer]

On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 10:52, David Cartwright wrote:
> The following story at CNET highlights Microsoft's plans to lock-in users to
> proprietary Office 2003 formats via DRM.
> 
> http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed

Hard to believe some people still don't see them as deliberately
engaging in monopolistic practices.

This just makes it even more important to vocally and energetically push
the line about requiring governments etc to use open formats. In some
ways I don't really care about whether open source software itself sees
much uptake, as long as there isn't an environment that prevents myself
and others from using it if we choose to.

Forcing people to use restricted proprietary formats like this really
sucks, because it takes away the rights of not just the people who use
the software but those who choose not to, but still want to communicate
with those who do.

What to do? Push the OASIS doc format everywhere possible. OpenOffice
uses it, it's just been announced that the next Koffice will use it by
default. What we need is for key sectors such as government departments
to use open document formats irrespective of what software they run.

Cheers  :-)

Jonathan
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