July 5th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Some people have to use MS Office, whether because of outdated corporate policy or some other reason. But now, Sun’s ODF plugin for MSO will allow them to use OpenDocument Format from within MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Malte Timmermann discusses the new plugin on his blog.
It’s not the first plugin to do the job, but it is the most thorough and most user-friendly option. For example, it works with Word, Excel and PowerPoint for MS Office 2003, 2000 and XP. None of the others are so broad in their support.
It’s also more deeply integrated, making it much easier and more natural to work with ODF files from within MS Office. Timmermann writes, “It’s just another filter, and when you open some ODF file, you really work with the ODF file, which means you can save your modifications by pressing Ctrl+S. You can even configure Word to make ODF your default file format!”
Downloading the plugin requires registration at Sun’s website, but that is the only negative I have yet found with this tool.
Posted in ODF | 1 Comment »
June 29th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Mark Shuttleworth is unequivocal in his opinion that ODF is a superior format to MSOOXML:
“With regard to open standards on document formats, I have no confidence in Microsoft’s OpenXML specification to deliver a vibrant, competitive and healthy market of multiple implementations. I don’t believe that the specifications are good enough, nor that Microsoft will hold itself to the specification when it does not suit the company to do so. There is currently one implementation of the specification, and as far as I’m aware, Microsoft hasn’t even certified that their own Office12 completely implements OpenXML, or that OpenXML completely defines Office12’s behavior. The Open Document Format (ODF) specification is a much better, much cleaner and widely implemented specification that is already a global standard. I would invite Microsoft to participate in the OASIS Open Document Format working group, and to ensure that the existing import and export filters for Office12 to Open Document Format are improved and available as a standard option. Microsoft is already, I think, a member of OASIS. This would be a far more constructive open standard approach than OpenXML, which is merely a vague codification of current practice by one vendor.”
This is a clear and concise summary of the arguments around the ODF/MSOOXML debate that I have long been collecting here.
Further, Shuttleworth, and his company Canonical‘s attitude about the world of Free Software is in strong accordance with my own. I think it is the most elegant strategic direction to follow:
“My goal is to carry free software forward as far as I can, and then to help others take the baton to carry it further. At Canonical, we believe that we can be successful and also make a huge contribution to that goal. In the Ubuntu community, we believe that the freedom in free software is what’s powerful, not the openness of the code. Our role is not to be the ideologues-in-chief of the movement, our role is to deliver the benefits of that freedom to the widest possible audience. We recognize the value in “good now to get perfect later” (today we require free apps, tomorrow free drivers too, and someday free firmware to be part of the default Ubuntu configuration) we always act in support of the goals of the free software community as we perceive them.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source | 1 Comment »
June 27th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Tiffany Maleshefski writes OpenOffice Sports All-Around Improvements for eWeek.
“Going head to head with Microsoft 2007, the latest version of the free-for-all OpenOffice.org touts across-the-board improvements in the software’s word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation applications. However, the brightest aspects of OpenOffice.org 2.2, which began shipping at the end of March, are its price tag—free—and its impressively broad platform support.”
“During eWEEK Labs’ tests, we noted the improvements in OpenOffice.org’s popular PDF export function, as well as the progress the suite’s Calc spreadsheet application has undergone toward better matching the functionality of Microsoft Excel’s prized pivot table feature.
“IT managers looking for alternatives to Microsoft Office—particularly those unwilling to make the leap to Office 2007—will find OpenOffice.org 2.2 well worth evaluating.”
eWeek doesn’t mention the importance of the ODF file format, which I think is one of OOo’s greatest strengths. But from simply using OOo, as most people would perceive it, they do a good job of covering the basic experience. It’s great to see mainstream tech news sites recognize that OpenOffice is quite competitive with its vastly more expensive counterpart.
Now we just need a brave OEM (Dell, I’m talking about you!) to start pre-installing OpenOffice, and the tipping point will be here.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on eWeek Reviews OpenOffice.org 2.2
June 19th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Andy Updegrove of the Standards Blog is disappointed in the state legislators who have failed to pass open file format legislation. It’s their responsibility, he argues, to guarantee that government data is available into the future in an accessible format.
I would further argue it’s their responsibility to be as neutral as possible when it comes to provisioning and encouraging products, even just by using said products in their workplaces.
Though this first round in US state legislatures has not been a success, I am very encouraged to see the largest setbacks have been confined to the USA. Other countries around the world are standardizing on ODF at a fast pace, while many large governments have gone even further, to roll out OpenOffice.org on hundreds of thousands of government-owned computers (Brazil and France have been particularly aggressive, for two examples).
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Updegrove on State Open File Format Bills
June 11th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Heise Online reports “Governing coalition to push for the adoption of open IT standards” in which they cover a Linux Tag presentation where “Dr. Uwe Küster, the party whip of the parliamentary group of the Social Democrats (SPD) in the Bundestag, the lower chamber of Germany’s federal parliament, said that the governing coalition would within the next two weeks submit a motion that would make open formats mandatory for the information technology of the federal authorities of the Federal Republic. This, Mr. Küster declared, would boost competition on the software market and strengthen the position of small and medium-sized enterprises.
“The focus would be on office software, where with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) an ISO standard had been created that would foster competition between office applications, he declared. During the discussion, which was organized by the team of the Open Source Annual, Dr. Küster compared the step about to be taken to the regulatory measures adopted with regard to the telecommunications market, which, he said, had improved the competitive chances of small suppliers vis-à-vis the “hegemony of the major players.”
Germany, the most populous country in the EU, seems poised to move its government office standard to ODF–this is a huge step forward for open standards, ODF, and marketplace competition. It also could be a boon for OpenOffice.org (as well as KOffice, AbiWord, and all the other ODF-compliant applications).
Europe is rapidly becoming ODF territory! The more countries adopt it around the world, the better our case for it here in the USA too (admittedly, this didn’t work with the metric system, but I remain hopeful).
We may have lost this round of open file format legislation in the US states where it was proposed, but when a country with a population of 82 million picks it up instead, that more than outweighs those temporary setbacks.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | 1 Comment »
June 8th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
While Microsoft fiercely resists each and every state’s attempt to adopt free and open data formats, that doesn’t stop lawmakers from making efforts to do the right thing. Most recently, Infoworld reports on New York State’s open data formats bill in New York becomes latest state to ponder ODF.
“New York State Bill A08961, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, proposes the state study how government documents are created, exchanged, and preserved and how these documents can be used in a way that “encourages appropriate government control, access, choice, interoperability, and vendor neutrality,” according to the text of the bill.”
While it’s exciting to see states start this process, simply introducing the bill is a long way from successful implementation. Other states that have trod this path haven’t completed the journey yet:
“Bills that would have required state agencies to use freely available document formats in Texas, Connecticut, Florida, and Oregon were shot down mainly due to the pro-Microsoft lobby, while a bill in Minnesota was passed only to study the possibility of using open document formats, not to actually mandate them…
“So far, Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that has officially adopted an open documents policy that will include ODF support, though governments in other countries such as Belgium, Denmark, and France are ahead of the U.S. in mandating their agencies use open document formats.“
Nevertheless, this is an important step in the nation’s third most-populous state.
While Microsoft chases back and forth across the country trying to stamp out these grassroots efforts, they’ll have that much less attention to focus on other countries moving to ODF, schools and corporations adopting ODF, new software applications implementing ODF, and on and on. Pretty soon the dam will burst and ODF will become as ubiquitous as HTML, with all the benefits a single, open standard can bring to a (soon to be) competitive marketplace!
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | 1 Comment »
June 6th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Bob Sutor discusses Microsoft’s recent vote in favor of ODF as an American Standard. He suggests that MS should support ODF, but does not believe they are doing it for anything other than to game the process.
“The press release is a PR stunt, sorry to say. The real message is in the middle where Microsoft tries to advance the case for OOXML. That is, this is OOXML promotion using ODF as the vehicle. I think this is obvious.
“I’m not a cynical person by nature and I tried to watch my tone here, but a stunt is a stunt. I had hoped for better.
“Finally, it’s excellent news that ODF appears to be on the way to being an American National Standard!”
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May 29th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The sizable Chinese software developer “Beijing Redflag Chinese 2000” announced its commitment of 50 engineers to the global OpenOffice development community.
Beijing Redflag Chinese 2000 also develops a distro of OpenOffice tailored for the Chinese market, called RedOffice. From the press release, Sun announces:
“We are glad to welcome Redflag Chinese 2000 to partner with us on OpenOffice.org, the world’s leading free productivity suite and community,” said Rich Green, executive vice president, Software, Sun Microsystems. “Redflag’s dedication and commitment to OpenOffice.org further strengthens the community and enhances the product with Chinese localization, quality assurance, and core productivity applications.”
Erwin Tenhumberg covers this development as another pinnacle in the continuing rapid growth of the ODF format in his recent post, “Why ODF is a Safe Bet.”
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Beijing Redflag Joins OpenOffice.org Development Community
May 21st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
As the OpenDocument Format keeps growing in importance and usage-share around the world, and because of its well-written, simple spec for developers to work from, it is providing the data storage foundation for many new and innovative software programs.
Just as ODF supporters have long been predicting, a new wave of innovation is being unleashed before our eyes.
Rick Walker, of Thoughtslinger Corp, got in touch to introduce his new ODF-capable application:
“We’re a small startup and we’ve built a new simultaneous group editor that heavily uses the .odt format. Everyone in a team works on the same document at the same time, and everyone sees what everyone else is doing as they do it.We’re here: http://www.thoughtslinger.com/learn.php
We believe Thoughtslinger is complementary to Writer. A team would collaboratively edit an odt file in Thoughtslinger, then use Writer for final formatting, headers, footers etc. We embraced odt’s because the specification is open and very clean.
We went live with a beta about a week ago. We built it in Java – our first release is a Windows build and we don’t rule out future Mac and Linux builds. If you’re interested, please give me a call and I’ll give you a quick tour.
Regards,
Rick Walker
It looks like a great tool, so check it out! I suggested to Rick that he add it to the Wikipedia page on ODF software, to help others find it too.
Posted in ODF, Open Source | 4 Comments »
May 15th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Another forward-thinking country is moving toward mandatory government use of the open format ODF: Norway!
The Standards Blog has the full report here.
“Norway is the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use…
“The Norwegian recommendation was revealed by Minister of Renewal Heidi Grande Roys, on behalf of the Cabinet-appointed Norwegian Standards Council. If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on ODF for Norway