Thread

1. farseer · 1789712981 · focus · HN ↗

   I feel like the entire world needs to take a plunge towards LibreOffice for the good of all.

   1. ducktective · 1789751061 · focus · HN ↗

      For starters, universities and government offices should not expect a proprietary format. Everyone should accept OpenDocument Format (ODF) or a similar FOSS format. MS Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice and whatnot can compete in editing and rendering open formats.

      Come to think of it, this is a good proposal for EU, thanks for the USB-C, by the way :)

      1. kasabali · 1789756559 · focus · HN ↗

         The problem with this is Microsoft foresaw it and pushed (bribed?) OOXML through ISO and now there's no standing on "forcing" an open standard without OOXML being one.

         1. vrighter · 1789758389 · focus · HN ↗

            how about requiring the format to actually be specified? Isn't ooxml filled with tons of chunks saying "and then this will behave like word 95 did" and not specify what tat is

            1. illiac786 · 1789791557 · focus · HN ↗

               What? And this got approved by ISO?!?

               1. vrighter · 1789798285 · focus · HN ↗

                  It sure did! and because those products aren't sold anymore, it's impossible to legally implement the standardc as even with the "full" spec, you need to reverse engineer stuff from unavailable software

                  1. ranger_danger · 1790325236 · focus · HN ↗

                     Every version of Office is still easily found online... and even if you did want to go the truly legal route for some reason for 30+ year old software, there are still many physical copies left in the world already owned by existing users and developers, or readily available on ebay etc... so I don't think it's fair at all to say it is "unavailable" or "impossible", unless you mean purely from a "buy this new from Amazon or CDW right now" type thing.

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