From the Campaign for Document Freedom
THE BIGGEST piece of news about OpenDocument Format (ODF) is probably IBM's internal migration from the proprietary Microsoft Office to the proprietary Lotus Symphony. But it's not exactly news; it seems like news that IBM occasionally re-announces to generate buzz. Either way, it is another "Big Win for ODF," to use the summary of a Sun employee.
IBM asks all their employees to stop using Microsoft Office, and completely switch to Lotus Symphony - IBM's office suite which is based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.
American IT giant IBM plans to have its staff abandon Microsoft office software. According to a report in German daily Handelsblatt, the some 360,000 employees of the firm are to switch from the MS Office Suite to IBM's own Lotus Symphony. The paper's report (German link), is based on leaked internal IBM correspondence from upper management. IBM's internal move away from Microsoft Office began in June 2008 with early pilots. By the end of the year, IBM documents are to be created in the ODF format, which is license-free for everyone.
IBM's aggressive new campaign comes as Microsoft faces legal challenges over the lynchpin of its Office suite. Canadian software firm i4i has accused Microsoft of violating its patents on XML components within the word processing application. The case nearly halted sales of Word within the US.
The growing public-sector support for ODF was on display at the 3rd International ODF User Workshop, which concluded last week in Brasilia. The event—organized by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SERPRO (Federal Service for Data Processing - Ministry of Finance, Brazil) and Caixa Econômica Federal, in collaboration with the ODF Alliance—brought together representatives from governments around the world that have already made the move to ODF or are actively considering how best to utilize an open format to preserve access to documents and records, increase software choice, and save some money in the process. The first day of the event was held at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty Palace) and the second day at CONSEGI, the largest international free software and electronic government conference organized by the Brazilian Federal Government.
After his presentation, the debate was basically done by a group that agrees that we need a stronger stance against proprietary technologies and the group that believes that we must continue addressing the issue more calmly … and we had almost two hours of debate, perhaps the most interesting I’ve ever attended.
“They try to get into panels where they can promote Microsoft without it seeming that way.”Yes, Seattle/Microsoft will be the place in which to discuss ODF. And meanwhile, Microsoft proponents Rick Jelliffe and Jesper Lund Stocholm are grilling Rob Weir over ODF in their continued battle to mock ODF (based on simple track record and business affiliations/payments).
Stocholm, for instance, is flirting with other ODF people like Jomar Silva, hoping to hide his agenda and mingle with those whose work he later abuses. Privately, we've heard similar stories about Microsoft proponent/partners who attend FOSS events across the world for the purpose of getting inside, understanding the people (reporting/ousting 'troublemakers' to Microsoft) and later affecting the agenda from the inside. That's what Microsoft and its ecosystem do best. Here is Stocholm getting inside another panel. Very typical. They try to get into panels where they can promote Microsoft without it seeming that way.
Comments
JohnD
2009-09-12 16:15:34
Roy Schestowitz
2009-09-12 17:58:19
JohnD
2009-09-12 18:14:51
JohnD
2009-09-12 16:01:42
JohnD
2009-09-12 14:54:59
Roy Schestowitz
2009-09-12 15:11:27
I've already asked some people in IBM about this and it is not Free software. IBM exploits people's inability to discern gratis from libre.
JohnD
2009-09-12 15:47:19
Roy Schestowitz
2009-09-12 18:21:53
So it's not Free software. IBM still controls it.
Saying "hardly makes Symphony a proprietary product" is like saying "this lady is hardly pregnant."
JohnD
2009-09-12 18:37:58
Roy Schestowitz
2009-09-12 18:41:16