What is Digg?231 Comments
- dynacrylic, on 12/21/2007, -12/+131"every citizen will be able to choose which software they want to use to get access to public information" and "we will not accept that govermental agencies lock the users of public information to closed formats"
Wake the F|_|CK up USA! It's not rocket science...
I'm seriously waiting for the USA to morph into MSUSA, much like NBC did when it went to MSNBC. - Spr0k3t, on 12/21/2007, -3/+72Fantastic news for Norway. I hope other countries follow suit.
- dsmx, on 12/21/2007, -3/+63Great Idea, now we just need every country to follow suit and we can all get pleasure from watching MS squirm.
- whiteyMcBrown, on 12/21/2007, -1/+48This is awesome. It doesn't need to be an anti-microsoft thing... gov't documents should simply be open to everyone and having them in open formats is the best way of doing this... and they'll still open just fine on Windows.
- loconet, on 12/21/2007, -4/+47And that my friends is why Norway is considered one of the most progressive and successful nations in the world right now.
- Bicep, on 12/21/2007, -2/+36How can this be true in Norway and not in USA, aren't we the land of the free?
Arggghh this is so frustrating, somebody do something about it!!
I'm off to write another 20 emails to people whom can do something about it (but may not necessarily even care). - maxxin, on 12/21/2007, -0/+28Close :) "Jeg elsker Norge"
- belarund, on 12/21/2007, -1/+24"How can this be true in Norway and not in USA, aren't we the land of the free?" Because, in spite of Norway being a social democracy and once used to tax their citizens rather heavily, the basic principle in Norway is that the nation is being built for its people, not for it's government, or businesses. Civil liberties are respected very strongly, and I would dare say that they believe that the government should answer to its citizens, and not vice-versa. Who hired who, anyway?
- galeninjapan, on 12/21/2007, -2/+21I have an idea for americans. What if you only use open formats now. That way ou dont need government to tell you what to do.
- Raerth, on 12/21/2007, -1/+20Adope released it as an open format, it is in the process of approval as an ISO standard right now.
- sajnikanth, on 12/21/2007, -5/+24Jeg elskede Norge
- Bicep, on 12/21/2007, -2/+19Anybody that thinks capitalism = freedom = we as Americans have to PAY some company in order to have access to public information(that is freely availalbe) is a victim of Television Advertising and Highly Effective Marketing (not to mention they're smoking crack!). Since when are companies like Microsoft included in our yearly American taxes? The idea that we should have to pay some private company in order to benefit from technology as individuals and companies is poppycock!
The US has the right to NOT put up with this whole closed format crap, it just takes enough of us Americans to believe in what we already have and stand up and fight for it! Just ask Richard Stallman.
Wow, I'm about to fall out of my chair at how much Microsoft has brainwashed people into thinking they have to use Microsoft products to be an American - somebody please help them!!
When I commented before that I'll be emailing people that can do something about this problem, and then said they probably don't even care, I wasn't mocking the system. Rather, the reason document formats aren't on the mind of the people who can fix this problem for the USA is because document formats are not on the mind of the average American computer user. Open Documents are not popular like the Spears family or the latest 50-cent album(this is a real problem in the USA).
Get the common user to understand (and care) about document formats, and encourage them to tell their government representatives - that's where we Americans have the power to be free.
Meanwhile, I encourage other technical people like myself to vigorously inform their government representatives about this problem and to also think about this problem when choosing software products for their company. - FredFredrickson, on 12/21/2007, -1/+17HD-DVD isn't Microsoft's format... it's Toshiba's, isn't it?
- Tias, on 12/21/2007, -4/+18The USA is the the land of the free? What the hell has given you that impression? It might have been true in the 18th and 19th century (as long as you were white and heterosexual), but in this day of age the US is regarded as a conservative nation that suppresses its inhabitants.
- Rubuntu, on 12/21/2007, -1/+14A list of 50 great FREE Open Source programs for PDF: http://www.cogniview.com/convert-pdf-to-excel/post ...
And yes PDF is an open standard: ISO 32000 - inactive, on 12/21/2007, -0/+13you dont need to care about other countries. Brazil, India, china, most of Africa, the EU have already embraced open standards. its only the USA which is lagging behind.
- xtragedy, on 12/21/2007, -1/+14Nope. Get your specs here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html .
- zgoos, on 12/21/2007, -1/+14I thought so too, but I just did some research and apparently it isn't.
- WZot, on 12/21/2007, -0/+13"elskede" means "my love". "love you" is "elsker deg".:)
- maxxin, on 12/21/2007, -2/+14Dude.. do some basic research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf
- dual, on 12/21/2007, -0/+12They have that... sounds like you're on windows; check out FOXIT READER, my favorite, free, light PDF reader on win (on mac you don't really need one)
- EarlOfLade, on 12/21/2007, -1/+13"I, beloved, Norway"? LOL, no... it should be " Jeg elsker Norge"
"A" for effort though :) - loconet, on 12/21/2007, -0/+11A lot less than the longer term direct and indirect costs of being locked into one format that only company XYZ controls.
- richardiscool, on 12/21/2007, -0/+11Taxpayer Krones...
- loconet, on 12/21/2007, -1/+12Ah but MS doesn't have to squirm. That is the beauty of open standards. They are more than welcomed to play by these easy to follow rules and have their software read/edit ODF. This move just levels the playing field for all. They should be ok ....... oh wait what?, silly me, their whole empire is built on everything BUT this principle! .. I guess they will squirm after all.
- dual, on 12/21/2007, -12/+22Lol MS *is* allowed to but *chooses* not to, so you are forced to use their software to open their documents... On Mac, you can get around this by going to the "Print" dialog and then clicking the quick & easy "PDF" option that Apple added :) Thanks, Apple! Anyway that just shows how easy it would be... Also, Adobe has a toolbar you can add to Word to save as PDF. I'm sure they wouldn't mind MS doing it themselves, but like I said, it's strategy
- jonshipman, on 12/21/2007, -2/+12When is this? Has Adobe sued Foxit? PDF as long as I have known it has been open.
- inactive, on 12/21/2007, -2/+12how many of those run on linux?
- mooninite, on 12/21/2007, -0/+10Adobe doesn't make the only PDF reader. There are lots of open source and/or free readers available on every operating system. I hardly use the "official" Adobe Reader to read PDFs. Even encrypted PDFs are *easily* read by alternative viewers.
- bumcheekcity, on 12/21/2007, -1/+10http://www.betanews.com/article/Adobe_to_Sue_Micro ...
- theaceoffire, on 12/21/2007, -4/+13The method of creating and opening a pdf is public knowledge, and can be recreated into third party readers and writers.
Can't do that with OOXML or Doc that well. - Styleboost, on 12/21/2007, -0/+9Søtt.
- TheSwashbuckler, on 12/21/2007, -1/+10Since it's going through the ISO approval process as we speak... err... write.
- known, on 12/21/2007, -4/+12Open source = Competition
Closed source = Collusion - stoanhart, on 12/21/2007, -0/+8Use the GPL source code in OpenOffice.org's implementation of .doc, which is well over 90% correct.
- tempusrob, on 12/21/2007, -1/+9And that's why a government that's truly of, by, and for *the people* should have more noble interests in mind (read: use of truly open data formats), instead of being some other *company's* bitch.
- inactive, on 12/21/2007, -3/+11Oh, your somebodies b*tch alright, your Corporate America's b*tch. Freedom, you have lost more than the Terrorist.
- W3bbo, on 12/21/2007, -0/+7Socialism doesn't advocate "taking the rights away from others", it's just the socio-economic principle of pooling resources for the benefit of society as a whole (like single-payer healthcare). Whether it works or not is another story.
- loconet, on 12/21/2007, -0/+7How is that open? isn't the fact that people get the FREEDOM of CHOICE to choose whatever application / platform they want to use to read/edit these documents not a good sign? Isn't the fact that governments will not be locked into one vendor a good thing? I think the fact that any citizen can read/edit these documents with such flexibly is an amazing thing. Nobody is forcing anything, all they are doing is leveling the playing field by for the sake of the country's own good. Microsoft, Apple, Sun, whoever it is can have their software edit/read these documents, the market will decide which one is "best". All that is being "forced", as you like to call it, on people is CHOICE.
- SSUK, on 12/21/2007, -6/+13Yes because Microsoft is the only company to use closed document formats.
Plus, you conveniently forgot to mention that Office 2007 can now export to PDF with ease, Excel has been able to save worksheets to a variety of formats including CSV for the longest of times now. Just because people save to .doc doesn't mean MS isn't offering these utilities to people.
For the record, I'm an OpenOffice user, however I wont stand by and watch this ***** go unquestioned. - rabalder, on 12/21/2007, -2/+9Makes me proud to be norwegian.
- euvirtual, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6So, you are only free when you are forced by the companies to use a closed format that only one office suite can edit correctly?
Hum... Got it. Companies controlling you? good! Government controlling you? bad! - jefferygomer, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Because I am free to use any file format and standard I choose. If I write documents other people can't read, then I am the one being an idiot, not the other people. I don't need the government to tell me I'm stupid, my friends, family, diggers do that just fine.
- theclashrocker, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Jeg elskede HTML
- MWeather, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6I do some volunteer sysadmin work at a local school. They have a computer lab full of Macs. They run XP.
- dynacrylic, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6for a second there I was really turned on by the "..i will either join the rebels" thinking "the Rebel Alliance is too well equipped, they're more dangerous than you realize", but then you trailed off...
- digduality2, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6 There's really no way to promote ODF other than top-down. What? Am i going to apply for a job and send my resume in and tell them to download open office or the odf converter?
Or maybe at my desk at work i'll email people documents they can't open all day long. - roodammy44, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Since I downloaded that reader I no longer have a fear of pdfs
- Tias, on 12/21/2007, -2/+8Cute.
- sundancekid503, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6I'm sure that since literally millions of other people would be facing the same issue, there would be a simple solution to your problem.
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