--- Ian Lynch wrote:

Curious as to why you are on this list then since its largely the same issues.

What can I say? I love nostalgia. ;)

You say there is nothing that can be done to get change. Things are changing, albeit slower than we might like. The changes are hard work and nothing worth having generally comes easy. Attitudes are changing - I now have regular meetings with BECTA on behalf of the OSS community, that in itself is a significant change - but there is still a long way to go.

Uh huh. But as I so often see, Microsoft easily combat that, at least for most people by slashing prices, reducing costs, etc. I hope your meetings with BECTA are fruitful.

We are at different stages of this in different applications. Apache is a winner, Linux at the desktop in schools is probably spread through the

Apache always was a winner, cited as Linux's killer-application when it was first launched.

ignore, laugh and fight stages. The use of Open Standards is certainly a high profile theme with BECTA these days but there is massive inertia in the system. Even with committed people now its going to take years,

How high profile? MS-Office is/will(?) purpotedly be using the open standard for office file formats, so that MS-Office and OpenOffice can play nicely together.

there never was a quick fix option. If we just give up and say its all impossible it'll just take longer.

I hope that's all it is; time. Thomas. ___________________________________________________________ Introducing the new Yahoo! Answers Beta – A new place to get answers to your questions – Try it http://uk.answers.yahoo.com

--- Adrian Wells wrote:

*** Will that be the same open standard that MS use for web development? So, a true open standard, or a special MS flavour of it? :D

Take your pick. I say it will be the latter, as I am sure you already guessed. -- Thomas Adam. ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 15:08 +0100, Thomas Adam wrote:

--- Adrian Wells wrote:

...

*** Will that be the same open standard that MS use for web development? So, a true open standard, or a special MS flavour of it? :D

Take your pick. I say it will be the latter, as I am sure you already guessed.

You need to read the most recent documentation from BECTA on infrastructure. I think that its going to be very unlikely that BECTA would specify a standard that was MS only. QCA and RM cocked up the KS3 test spec. and will no doubt blame each other. I think they are going to have to fix this somehow before its made compulsory. Any web based standards specified will be Open Standards. If schools choose to use FrontPage and break standards there is not much BECTA can do about it, just as if schools defy any of their policies. There is a marked change in BECTA's attitude to Open Source in the last 12 months, it still has some way to go but it would be a shame to let negative banter work against this just as we are starting to make some real progress. -- Ian Lynch www.theINGOTs.org www.opendocumentfellowship.org www.schoolforge.org.uk

--- Ian Lynch wrote:

You need to read the most recent documentation from BECTA on infrastructure. I think that its going to be very unlikely that BECTA

Sounds like bed-time material then. ;) Is this publically available?

There is a marked change in BECTA's attitude to Open Source in the last 12 months, it still has some way to go but it would be a shame to let negative banter work against this just as we are starting to make some real progress.

I don't wish for anything negative, and hope the marked shift in their attitude yields the results that have been long in coming to fruition. Thomas. ___________________________________________________________ NEW - Yahoo! 360 – Your one place to blog, create, publish and share! http://uk.360.yahoo.com

On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 15:33 +0100, Thomas Adam wrote:

Bah. Typical. Oh well. Here's to hoping. The current filters in OO aren't too bad, for most things.

They will get better once MSO adopts an almost identical XML based format. There are opportunities here as well as threats. Several governments and most of the big players are backing ODF. IBM, Oracle, Sun, Corel and whole host of others are members of the Open Document Alliance which was only launched in March. MS is fighting but there is a real chance that the EU will mandate ODF when it achieves ISO status. So the way I see it is that worse case scenario is that MS bring out a new version of MSO with a new default file format next year that will confuse half their users some of who will migrate to OOo. The new format is easier to hack so OOo filters get better. MS do not provide OOo filters but really that is certainly no worse than now. Best case scenario. EU mandate that all people who deal with them have to use ISO documents ie ODF. Several US States follow this trend (2 already have shown clear signs of doing this) Google continue to develop Web based office suite also using ODF. IBM and other office software producers support ODF and so many more people start using OOo and alternatives and ODF applications other than office software start to spring up all over the net. OOo 3.0 is released and MS Office 11 sells like a dog because most people find they have no need to upgrade so there are far more ODF users than MSXML users in 5 years time. Game over, MS don't control the document format anymore and are forced to adopt ODF like everyone else. Even the worst case is better than now so we are making progress, question is just how much and how quickly. -- Ian Lynch www.theINGOTs.org www.opendocumentfellowship.org www.schoolforge.org.uk

--- Ian Lynch wrote:

So the way I see it is that worse case scenario is that MS bring out a new version of MSO with a new default file format next year that will confuse half their users some of who will migrate to OOo. The new format

This is pretty much what a lot of other people are saying is likely to happen. And that's a good thing. It might just jolt the right people for the right reasons to do something constructive and (dare I say it) cooperative.

Even the worst case is better than now so we are making progress, question is just how much and how quickly.

You can only go so fast. Not many people can control the pace, alas. Thomas. ___________________________________________________________ Switch an email account to Yahoo! Mail, you could win FIFA World Cup tickets. http://uk.mail.yahoo.com