[Linux-aus] Australian Government Desktop Standard mandates OOXML due to lack of input to the contrary

[Daniel Black]

On Friday 21 January 2011 16:12:58 Jeff Waugh wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 08:03, Daniel Black > > 
> > The final product came up short of this.
> 
> I don't think so, it just wasn't explicitly mentioned in the COE -- which
> makes sense, considering. There's nothing in the document which would
> exclude an operating system, unless it was geriatric or a toy.

I certianly agree with the sentiment. My basis for this statement was 
ironically an over specification of mail protocols (MAPI explictly) in 
combination with other hard standards like OOXML. Products like OpenChange 
certianly have proven that hard standards can be implemented and the 
OpenOffice/LibreOffice and like developers have done a remarkable effort too. 

The specificaton of hard to implement standards doesn't precude OSes, it just 
makes it harder for those products that haven't been around as long. I see 
this as fair when there's significant benefit in the standard, but not a step 
to be taken lightly.

Since there's now an whole blog devoted to the issue I can't add much more.
http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2011/01/21/back-to-the-future-another-chance-to-
influence-coe-development/

> (I've heard some people complaining about the requirement to support MPEG
> video and audio, DVDs, etc... that seems like tilting at windmills to me.)
does to me too.

thanks for enforcing the clarification Jeff.