"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote in message news:2211280.9LdVGQltc9@schestowitz.com... > ____/ NoStop on Friday 14 December 2007 02:51 : \____ > >> December 13, 2007 at 1:52 PM EST >> >> AMSTERDAM - The Dutch government has set a soft deadline of April 2008 >> for >> its agencies to start using open-source software - freely distributed >> programs that anyone can modify - the Netherlands Economic Affairs >> Ministry >> said Thursday. >> >> http://tinyurl.com/3ae3ey >> I personally believe this isn't groundbreaking stuff. First off all, the civil servants would be able to wiggle their way out of it by simply using the OOXML-to-ODF converter. In fact, this policy could even jump-start sales of Office 2007 since the converter only works in Office 2007! I'd be much more impressed if the Dutch government mandates that all desktops switch over to Linux, maybe running some Windows program in a virtual machine for the time being. That would *really* be earth-shattering news. So far there are very few mass-migrations in Western nations to Linux, and that's disappointing. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote in message news:2211280.9LdVGQltc9@schestowitz.com... > ____/ NoStop on Friday 14 December 2007 02:51 : \____ > >> December 13, 2007 at 1:52 PM EST >> >> AMSTERDAM - The Dutch government has set a soft deadline of April 2008 >> for >> its agencies to start using open-source software - freely distributed >> programs that anyone can modify - the Netherlands Economic Affairs >> Ministry >> said Thursday. >> >> http://tinyurl.com/3ae3ey >> I personally believe this isn't groundbreaking stuff. First off all, the civil servants would be able to wiggle their way out of it by simply using the OOXML-to-ODF converter. In fact, this policy could even jump-start sales of Office 2007 since the converter only works in Office 2007! I'd be much more impressed if the Dutch government mandates that all desktops switch over to Linux, maybe running some Windows program in a virtual machine for the time being. That would *really* be earth-shattering news. So far there are very few mass-migrations in Western nations to Linux, and that's disappointing. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com