[odf-discuss] Huge Success for the ODF Community - Erwin's StarOffice Tango

[Lars Noodén]

Simon Phipps wrote:
>...
> The fact is that Microsoft has held back from the obvious embrace and
> extinguish play for so long that they may well have taken the step too
> late. I certainly hope so. Time to help lots and lots of local
> governments take the step to ODF now it is no longer an anti-Microsoft
> move :-)

I suppose that Koffice, OpenOffice.org, etc. can now play on the fact
that MS support for ODF is at least a few years out.  So these tools
could help bridge the two+ year gap.  Otherwise, users will end up with
documents in Yet-Another-Format-Unreadable-in-Three-Years, like WordML,
etc.

Since even MS is now moving to ODF, it would make since to move to ODF
as quickly as possible to minimize the amount of data/documents that
will be lost or undergo costly (and lossy) retrofitting.  The way to do
that is to phase in ODF-supporting applications.  AFAIK these, contrary
to MS dogma, can actually be installed along side existing office
applications and even run concurrently -- on the same machine.  :P

Regards,
-Lars