Explaining Open Standards email attachements

[David Gerard]

On 6 April 2010 12:59, Matthias Kirschner <mk at fsfe.org> wrote:
> * David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> [2010-04-06 11:52:21 +0100]:
>> On 6 April 2010 10:36, Matthias Kirschner <mk at fsfe.org> wrote:

>> > Do you have five examples of widespread _standards_ which are not Open
>> > Standards?

>> Microsoft Word .DOC . So many people, places and businesses accept
>> them by default and often refuse to accept anything else. It's only in
>> the past few years that I've seen even computing recruiters accept
>> PDF, for instance.

> That's a nice example. In that case widespread standards are not
> interoperability but monopoly.


Indeed. However, as far as the users are concerned, they're interoperability.

If this proposed document is to be heeded by users, the writer needs
to keep in mind when the user uses a word to have a different meaning
to the one the writer wants it to mean. Else the users will feel the
writer has been deliberately duplicitous.


- d.