A sign of changing times

My lawyer made my day this morning. Not just because he does a great job, I’m used to that and that’s why he’s my lawyer. The reason he made my day today is because the document he just sent me is in ODF. 🙂

We’re talking about a small office of three lawyers with a couple of assistants in the South of France. For several years he’s been sending me all his documents in MS Word format. I’m not sure what made him change but it’s not because I told him to do so. I don’t think I ever mentioned anything about ODF to him or his staff.

In any case, no matter what the actual reason for the change is, I find it uplifting. The fact that such people, who are not part of the industry and not versed into the whole document format debate, are getting equipped with software such as OpenOffice and start using ODF is a clear sign of change.

The type of documents they produce in that office, as in many other offices if not most I’m sure, is just pure text with a little formatting. They really have no reason to keep buying licenses for MS Office for this.

I think it is this type of grassroot movement that will make the difference in the end.