Many talk about the benefits of OpenOffice over proprietary office suites like MS Office, but the CSIR has opted for open document format in its migration to an open source environment. This is HUGE vote of confidence by a significant actor in the scientific community. The biggest barrier to wider adoption of ODF has historically been the first-mover disadvantage, also known as the "nobody else is doing it, I better not either" effect. Yet now, "Towards the end of 2006, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) adopted the open document format (ODF) in support of access to information and as an enabler of the adoption of open source software (OSS). In terms of the adoption of the standard, CSIR word processor, spreadsheet and presentation files will be in ODF, wherever possible."
As a five-year user of OpenOffice, I couldn't be more pleased by this news. OOOnward!
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