Re: [Fsfe-uk] Acceptable formats

[John Seago]

On Thursday 10 Mar 2005 12:31, Ian Lynch wrote:
<cut for brevity>
> Not quite as simple as that. Most serious WPs can handle rtf. Its an
> open standard in that there are no secrets about its way of handling
> things so its reasonable to accept it. .doc is just a practical reality
> for the time being at least. If I developed an obscure WP with an
> obscure format it would be a bit unreasonable to expect government
> agencies to know about it and use it, particularly if it cost them money
> to do it. Ideally an open format will become so common place that
> everyone will use it. Until then we are where we are.
>
> A useful campaign would be to get them to accept the ODF OASIS format on
> the gounds its an iso standard - when it becomes one.


Thank you for your interest in this matter and your patient explanation.

Having seen that AbiWord can save in 26 formats, I presume that the 
opposite is true and that it can translate nearly as many formats to 
readable text. Perhaps the government should consider installing it, how 
much would it cost them?

I keep a watch for ODF OASIS becoming an ISO standard.
-- 
John Seago
GNU/Linux User #219566 http://counter.li.org
AFFS http://www.affs.org.uk/