A fairly good piece of reporting. However, the title may be a little deceptive, and Gilbertson may not have given enough attention to Microsoft's position in the matter.

Well-written and informative story. Tech-Business journalism at its best.

Well-rounded, with quotes and concerns from both sides of the open-source debate.

Typically, although authoritative, this article ignors a crucial issue also related to freedom of information. It is a simple fact that proprietary file formats are a complete hinderence to productivity unless they offer specific unique features and are universally embraced. One problem lies with the ignorance of users themselves, Unless there is essential cause to open them (in this writer's case with Open Office on both Mac or Windows platforms) most "Doc" files and similar should be aimed at the bin. These days it costs nothing to export or print to PDF, Envoy, Flash Paper, Html (even "txt") or other universal portable formats, most of which are more compact and more easily navigatable than software-specific formats. We need ... More »