"A study published by the Norwegian "Direktoratet for forvaltning og IKT" (Agency for public adminstration and ICT) comes to the result that OOXML is not suitable for being used by the Norwegian government. The study is available online in Norwegian. Amongst the reasons that are given are that the standard with its more than 6000 pages is not appropriate; it is not suitable for collaboration; and there is only one software that can implement it and produce the respective file format. Norway recommends pdf for electronic document exchange of documents that don't need to be edited and ODF (open document format) for all other documents."
"File formats are the rules that define the meaning of all the sequences of bits that you can find inside a computer file. If the format of a file isn't really open, that is completely known and useable by everybody without paying fees or asking some permit, that file will surely readable without errors only with one or very few software programs and only until those programs exist. Therefore, their authors will be able to ask whatever price they want for every new version of their program(s), especially if citizens are trained in public schools to know (only) those same programs. "
Group items tagged 
