open formats

Why you should try free software

June 6, 2008

“Free” has two meanings: (1) gratis, and (2) libertas. When I say free software, I mean libertas, although much free software is gratis, as well. Choice There are two parts to choice: (1) different software that does the same thing, and (2) the ability to modify software to do what you want. Don’t like the [...]

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Minnesota study supports open document formats

May 29, 2008

New York and Minnesota just completed studies into the merits of using open formats. In the Minnesota report, the Office of Enterprise Technology came out in favor of open document formats, but stated that the marketplace is in flux, and it may be too early to recommend one format over another. (In related news, Microsoft [...]

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Brits shying away from Microsoft Office

May 14, 2008

According to InformationWeek, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency is advocating for removing Microsoft Office from the classroom in favor of open-standards compliant office suites like OpenOffice.org. It is good to see this kind of pressure on Microsoft. If they would either open up their OOXML standard or else support the Open Document Format [...]

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Open standards in legal software

April 28, 2008

The world is going the way of open standards. Even Microsoft, long a proponent of closed, proprietary standards, just got finished pushing and shoving its flawed OOXML document standard (hint: what you use if you use Office 2007) through ISO certification. What about the legal industry? Nope, nary an open standard to be seen in [...]

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Hardware -> software -> standards (platform irrelevance)

October 4, 2007

In the beginning, there was hardware. With early computers, operating systems were not really conceived separately from the hardware. Software was hard-coded into computing systems. Soon after, however, hardware became the means to run an operating system. All hardware was made to run with an operating system–usually Windows, after Microsoft became dominant. And the operating [...]

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Document longevity

July 6, 2007

Last week on the MSBA’s SoloSmall list serve, I asked for reasons why attorneys do not yet have a paperless law office. To me, one of the most interesting reasons was based on a fear of obsolescence. In other words, will we still be able to read the PDF and word processor documents we create [...]

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