News Flash from Redmond: FOSS Causes Dissatisfaction!

"This isn't about switching to open source software, but to a format widely and well-supported by open source office formats," noted blogger Chris Travers. "The government could continue to run Microsoft Office, but the preferred data format would be ODF. This makes Microsoft's argument seem to be rather shrill. Why on earth would changing the default format of released documents be a big deal?"

Here in the Linux community, we're all familiar with the many benefits that come with using open source software -- customizability, interoperability, and freedom from vendor lock-in, to name just a few examples.

Well, Linux Girl has shocking news to report. It turns out there's also a BIG PROBLEM associated with open source software that we've all apparently overlooked: dissatisfaction!

Yes, that's right, dear readers: Open source software causes dissatisfaction and other assorted problems for its users! Thank goodness Microsoft is around to alert us to this worrying situation.

'This Will Cause Problems'

"You may not be aware, but the UK government is currently in the process of making important selections about which open standards to mandate the use of in future," began Microsoft blogger Alexbuk in a post last week.

"The government proposes to mandate Open Document format (ODF) and exclude the most widely supported and used open standard for document formats, Open XML (OOXML)," Alexbuk went on to helpfully explain.

"We believe this will cause problems for citizens and businesses who use office suites which don't support ODF," he suggested. Not only that, but "we believe very strongly that the current proposal is likely to increase costs, cause dissatisfaction amongst citizens and businesses, add complexity to the process of dealing with government and negatively impact some suppliers to government."

Imagine that, dear readers! All these years and we had no idea. Luckily, there's been plenty of tequila on hand down at the blogosphere's Broken Windows Lounge to help soften the blow.

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News Flash from Redmond: FOSS Causes Dissatisfaction!