[odf-discuss] Promotion site

[M. Fioretti]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 19:13:26 PM +0100, Chris Puttick
(cputtick at gmail.com) wrote:

> @Marco:
> 
> I agree with the archaeology issue, that's why the new footer uses
> http://iso26300.info ;) - actually my concern is a lot of the
> recipients of our corporate emails will be regional government,
> consultancies and construction companies, who will be stung by the ISO
> tag and their inability to deal with it. I hope!
> 
> I deliberately avoid the suggestion there is already a standard, as
> for me de facto just doesn't count

But it doesn't matter what counts for you, me or the few others (1
every 10000 people) who understand and care enough to meet on lists
like these. This is the sense of my comment. Today, for almost every
desktop end user, a standard does exist and he or she is, more or less
unconsciously, is pretty happy with that because it makes life
(apparently, of course) simpler.


> - maybe if I prefixed it with
> "formal", "approved" and/or "vendor neutral"?

I had suggested something like:

> > "no standard method that didn't force you to depend on only one
> > company"?

because it is closer to natural, everyday language and points straight
to the concrete core of the problem: every time you write "license"
"source code", "vendor neutral", "formal" and similar you lose half of
your readers, if the audience isn't restricted to those who already
love and use FOSS, or are software professionals anyway.

This said, you decide how to word it. It is just important, in my
opinion, that you do add some sort of qualifier to that statement,
because otherwise lots of people _will_ think "did this guy live on
the moon in the last 15 years? Of course there is a standard, it's
Word". It doesn't matter that they are wrong.

Ciao,
      Marco
--
The one book on software and digital technologies that no parent or
teacher can ignore:                  http://digifreedom.net/node/84