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October 2005

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Open Document Fellowship Launched
by Ian Lynch 09 Oct '05

09 Oct '05

Embargoed until 2000 UTC OpenDocument Gathers Worldwide Support 10 October 2005 The Open Document Fellowship promotes the new internationally agreed standard for digital documents, Open Document Format (OpenDocument). The Fellowship, formed in September, has attracted support and interest from around the globe. The Fellowship's aims include providing factual information about the Open Document Format, such as the degree to which companies and their products are committed to supporting the format, and making sure that OpenDocument can be always supported by any software application or company. The organisation also supports the development of software tools to complement the format. Founding members include Gary Edwards (OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee), Mark Taylor (Executive Director of the Open Source Consortium), and Richard Rothwell (Chair of SchoolForge UK). Founding member Adam Moore, Friends of OpenDocument Inc., said: "As a true Open Standard, OpenDocument is available for the benefit of all. It levels the competitive playing field and provides wider opportumities for innovation, diversity and choice. This choice and diversity is a natural evolutionary consequence of the market maturity of general productivity software. We believe all responsible citizens in the digital market place will embrace ODF as the central focus for document production." Users whose data is stored in OpenDocument will never again face the problem of not being able to access data because the application that created it is no longer available to them. Open standards already enable users of different computer systems (both hardware and software) to access the Internet and communicate with each other. ODF enables users of different computer systems to freely exchange and use files. For more information, see the Fellowship's website, http://opendocumentfellowship.org Press Contact Information ian.lynch(a)opendocumentfellowship.org or find your regional contact at http://www.opendocumentfellowship.org/Main/Contact -- Ian Lynch <ian.lynch(a)zmsl.com> ZMSL

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Linux in HE-FE
by Luke Maslany 04 Oct '05

04 Oct '05

Hello all, Just a quick intro: I have been dabbling with various Linux distributions for a couple of years now, usually focusing on purpose-built distros, but it is only recently that I've taken the plunge and installed it as my primary OS on my work computer (actually my own from home; work's were too slow!), my laptop and my home desktop machine. For those that are interested my distro of choice was SUSE 9.3 Professional. In truth is hasn't been that much of a wrench as I have access to a Win2003 terminal server so pretty much everything is still available should I need it... Back to my point: I was wondering whether anyone uses Linux in a HE/FE environment? I am particularly interested in whether you have encountered problems when asked to support educational solutions be they installables or web-based resources (such as Learndirect courses)? Does anyone have a requirement for Microsoft-specific applications such as Visual Studio? How about realistic alternatives for things like Adobe Photoshop and AutoCAD? While I guess these would be more applicable to Colleges I would have thought that schools and Universities may have had to deal with such issues? How about users on the administrative network? While OO seems like a pretty suitable replacement for MSOffice (I'm still unsure abount an MSAccess replacement) how do you deal with the mandatory Windows software doled out by Government bodies such as the LEA? Many thanks for your time, Luke Maslany

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