[clug] AGIMO bad bad bad

[Robert Edwards]

On 19/01/11 17:01, Jason wrote:
> Interesting read, I haven't had much exposure to this kind of thing (I
> am only reading this out of interest as I am not even in a government
> department.
>

(apologies for copying in the list, hope you don't mind...).

I suspect that anyone/everyone on this list who _is_ in a government
department would be unable to comment on this. Ya know, open government,
protect the whistleblowers and all that (look how the PM and AG
initially responded to Julian Assange and the release of the US State
Dept. communications... makes you feel proud to be an Aussie!)

Probably anyone who works for companies in the ODF Alliance would also
have been warned not to comment (IBM, Oracle/Sun, Google etc.).

So, who does that leave us with? Micro$oft employees could probably
comment, but I suspect there aren't too many on this list...

There is some irony in the requirement to support Ecma-376, as M$ don't
(anymore).

I also like the title in the iTnews article:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/245276,australia-mandates-microsofts-open-office-xml.aspx
woops - slight typo in that title!

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

>
> a. Must support the Office Open XML file format as defined by ECMA-376
>
> a. The intention is to standardise on a file format to facilitate the
> exchange of information between agencies. This does not preclude the use
> of other file formats.
> b. An agency’s office suite must have the ability to read and write the
> endorsed file format.
>
> So does Microsoft Office actually do this? I thought the version they
> implemented didnt fully comply to the standard as approved by ECMA,
>
> Wikipedia says
> Starting with Microsoft Office 2007, the Office Open XML file formats
> have become the default[3] target file format of Microsoft Office,[4][5]
> although the Strict variant of the standard is not fully supported.[6]
> Microsoft Office 2010 provides read support for ECMA-376, read/write
> support for ISO/IEC 29500 Transitional, and read support for ISO/IEC
> 29500 Strict.[7]
>
> So does that mean it cant actually write to ECMA-376?
>
>
> Jason
>
>
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:11:57 +1100, Robert Edwards <bob at cs.anu.edu.au>
> wrote:
>
>> According to:
>> http://www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/docs/wofg_coe_policy.pdf
>>
>> AGIMO have effectively
>> locked all Commonwealth of Australia Government desktops etc.
>> into the M$ world.
>>
>> They have selected the non-ISO ECMA-376 OOXML standard (aka.
>> M$ .docx format) as the Whole-of-Government CoE standard leaving
>> little room for actual Open document formats (such as ODF)
>> to be used in the Australian Government.
>>
>> Boo. Sigh.
>>
>> Bob Edwards.