OpenDocument Movement Gains Steam
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" Membership in the OpenDocument Format Alliance has almost quadrupled over the past month.
"The Alliance, a coalition of organizations from across the world whose goal is to enable governments to have direct Debt Management and greater control over their documents, was launched on March 3 with 36 initial members, but that has now grown to 138 members worldwide...
"But the Alliance's establishment has not been without controversy, with Microsoft accusing it of pushing an exclusive standard to the detriment of all others and not enabling choice....
"...there is some concern that this new file format could significantly slow the adoption of Office 2007.
"Many of the supporters of the Alliance are also Microsoft's Linux and open-source foes such as Corel, IBM, Novell, OpenOffice.org, Opera Software, Oracle, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems, which is aggressively pushing for greater adoption of ODF....
In a state controlled country, "People Ready SoftwareŠ" takes on a whole new Orwellian meaning. With Google and Yahoo supplying restricted search engines...
"In March 2006, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates, speaking at the Microsoft Office System Developers Conference, announced that the company has joined with 39 other organizations to form the Open XML Formats Developer Group.
C.O.L.A. Newcomer FAQ and Primer + + Edition: 11 - 1-4-03 + + Group: comp.os.linux.advocacy + + + + Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Linux Reality Team + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Welcome to comp.os.linux.advocacy, otherwise known as cola. This FAQ will try to address most of the issues...
"At the time, Microsoft claimed that Apple, Intel and numerous Microsoft partners and resellers, such as InterKnowlogy and The Computer Solution Company, had joined the OpenXML group."