May 2nd, 2007 Benjamin Horst
It is no surprise that Microsoft is lobbying US state governments to block the gradual migration to open data formats, because of their fear of ODF.
ODF could trigger the erosion of Microsoft’s Office monopoly, because without the lock-in its binary file formats have provided for over 15 years, the company realizes it cannot compete (with its current enormous profit margins) against a broad range of other applications.
It has offered a competing file format, MSOOXML, which it claims is equally open and equally implemented by a range of competitors, but these claims are not true. No other software can currently work with MSOOXML, and it’s not clear if any will ever be able to implement it fully, aside from MS’ own products. By no “de facto” definition can this be considered open. In fact, most observers see it as a ruse intended to guarantee another decade of monopoly control, to the detriment of innovation and customers’ best interests.
Dow Jones’ MarketWatch tracks Microsoft’s exhaustive quest to head off ODF’s growth in state governments. Their assault is hitting Florida, Minnesota, Texas and California. (Too late for them in Massachusetts, and I’m not sure about Oregon.) Hopefully another round of states will take up the open data cause and force Microsoft to reshuffle their resources once again.
Meanwhile, Erwin Tenhumberg finds a similar situation with regard to German potatoes… It’s not just software markets that can be manipulated by unethical corporate behavior!
Posted in ODF, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Microsoft Lobbies Against Open Data Formats
May 1st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
ODF was approved as an OASIS standard in May 2005, kicking off two years of intense activity, and causing market giants to fear the loss of their monopoly in what may become a classic example of disruption.
Michael Brauer takes stock of two years’ worth of developments for ODF, including the major events and accomplishments that have been achieved in this short time.
Competition and innovation will be the lasting legacy of ODF, prices will fall and consumers will benefit greatly. The “office suite” will probably morph into something barely recognizable from its current incarnation. But unlike today, everyone will have equal access to the data it contains.
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on ODF is Two Years Old
April 25th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Open Malaysia blog writes a post on Why OpenDocument Format matters to Texans.
It’s based on testimony delivered to the Texas House and Senate by Bob Sutor in March. It’s detailed, it’s thorough, and it is relevant to Texas and any other regional, national, or local government that deals with digital data (thus, all of them around the world).
Sutor considers Microsoft’s monopoly on the current generation of file formats a hidden “tax” that is levied on everyone using it, and even affecting those who do not:
“When you and your citizens are effectively restricted to a single software supplier to access government information, you and they pay what I would consider taxes. Open standards avoid this.
“The first tax is the difference between what you must pay to that supplier vs. the lower cost if multiple suppliers existed and prices had to be competitive. You would also pay an innovation tax. The sole vendor has limited reasons to improve the product. Fresh ideas from new players such as Texan entrepreneurs are kept out of the product category. This is bad.”
It’s a clear argument that should be easy to understand. Competition in the marketplace has proven itself time and again, and software and data file formats are no exception. And open formats are the very essence of what led to the success of the world wide web (HTML, etc). The web is an unbeatable argument in favor of open standards–remember how quickly it overwhelmed the walled gardens of AOL, MSN, and others?
Sutor continues, “EVERYONE can implement a true open standard. This bill is about choice. ODF and open standards for file formats will drive choice of applications, innovative use of information, increased competition, and lower prices. Personally, I think these are good things.
“The world is shifting to non-proprietary open standards based on the amazing success of the World Wide Web, a success that was far more important than any single vendor’s market position or ideas for what was right for the world.”
Unfortunately, I’ve been hearing reports of open format bills being watered down in California, and being blocked by Microsoft lobbyists in Florida. Let’s hope that Texas’ bill avoids such a fate, and that other states (including my own, New York) start to move in the open data format direction as well.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Open Malaysia blog: “Why OpenDocument Format Matters to Texans”
April 18th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Walt Hucks posts another fusillade supporting efforts by California to set ODF as its default office applications format. He thoroughly destroys the FUD coming out of Redmond. (It’s not hard to counter their claims, since they are so outrageously wrong, but Hucks thoroughly takes them on, one-by-one, and links to a wide bibliography of information to back his arguments. He’s made a very useful resource for documenting the issue.)
I completely agree with Hucks when he titles his post “AB-1668 is Good for California.”
And I completely agree with his succinct and clear summation of the importance of ODF and open file formats:
“ODF being an industry-standard format that is not controlled by any vendor will greatly reduce the costs of software to the end-user and purchaser, while simultaneously enabling new and unexpected solutions to be created by ISVs, ASPs, corporate IT departments, and independent software houses. If Microsoft cares about consumer choice and innovation, let them fully-support ODF in their software, so that users will have choice where it matters to users, in the applications that they use, rather than choice in file formats, which only matters to vendors.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Hucks on ODF in California
April 17th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Newsforge reviews NeoOffice 2.1, the distribution of OpenOffice.org specifically for Mac OS X.
The review is positive, but it is balanced with recognition of some of the software’s shortcomings.
Newsforge concludes, “All in all, NeoOffice 2.1 is an incremental improvement over NeoOffice 2.0 Beta 3. Microsoft Office OpenXML compatibility is still a weak point, and if you are looking for help, you are better off avoiding the inconsistent and outdated documentation on the wiki and heading directly to the discussion forum. Nevertheless, NeoOffice remains far superior to the X11-based Mac builds of OpenOffice.org. The OS integration work is impressive, and the new features make the suite as a whole all the more indispensable.”
I’ve been using NeoOffice 2.1 since its recent release and am very pleased with it myself. I strongly recommend it over spending money on its MS competitor for Mac users. And I very strongly recommend avoiding the MS OOXML (“Office Open XML”) file format and using the ISO standard ODF instead (which is the default format for OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice, KOffice, and many other applications).
Posted in Mac, ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on NeoOffice 2.1 Review
April 10th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Hasan, of the Open Malaysia blog, posts the latest edition (April 9) of the ODF Alliance Newsletter.
Lots of important news about migrations to ODF and OpenOffice (“The German City of Freiburg will deploy OpenOffice.org on 2,000 desktops and expects to save Euro 0.5m (USD 0.7m) over the next two years compared to a migration to Microsoft Office 2007.”), national and regional governments adopting ODF, applications supporting ODF, the OpenOffice.org conference in Barcelona this summer, new ODF Alliance members, and a long list of ODF-related news.
The momentum continues to build each month, but in particular, I am looking forward to this summer’s Barcelona conference, which I hope to attend!
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on ODF Alliance Newsletter for April 2007
April 9th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
As we know, a bill has been put forward in California that would require state data be created and stored in an open format like ODF. (Slashdot reports on MSFT’s efforts to lobby, via astroturfing, against this bill.)
Walt Hucks lives in California and has been communicating with his representatives about this new bill. He’s written a very strong, very detailed essay in support of the California open format bill.
While we’re on the subject, I want to point out another of Hucks’ posts in which he describes how to use, write, edit and share ODF files. He provides a fairly comprehensive list of ODF-capable applications.
And, finally, Hucks finds that lots of people are searching for ODF, and arriving at his site: “65 to 70% of people that arrive from Web search engines are asking how do I open [.odt|.odp|.ods] files?.”
Okay, one more thing: video footage from Oregon showing Peter Buckley testifying in favor of his open formats bill for his state. Cool!
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source | Comments Off on Walt Hucks on ODF and California
April 6th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
My New York State Assemblymember has already responded to my email of March 30!
I am very happy with his response. He writes:
Dear Mr. Horst,
Thank you for contacting my office regarding data formatting and long term archiving of important digital information in New York. You will be happy to know that I am a consistent advocate of methods that make information more accessible and more sustainable in the future.
In fact, I am currently working with my colleagues to draft legislation that will address many of your concerns.
Please be assured that I will continue to advocate for improved data formatting and archiving methods and will work tirelessly to ensure that New Yorkers benefit from cutting edge information technology.
I appreciate your taking the time to inform me of your views on this important issue. If you have further thoughts on this or any other matter, please feel free to contact my office.
Sincerely yours,
MICHAEL N. GIANARIS
Member of Assembly
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Response from Michael Gianaris
April 2nd, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The site “Macintosh Biblioblog” publishes NeoOffice a Great, Free Microsoft Office Replacement.
The review is very positive and helps to get the word out. (That’s a pun–it’s a bible study blog!) Now is a great time to switch to NeoOffice:
“We’re putting in a computer lab of all iMacs at our church and so have been exploring Open Source solutions for our application needs. And with NeoOffice having a new version this week, I’ve downloaded it, installed it, and played with it. And I think I may never buy Microsoft Word again.”
Posted in Mac, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Macintosh Biblioblog Recommends NeoOffice
March 30th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Yesterday I emailed my New York State Assemblymember, Michael Gianaris, to suggest that the State of New York adopt open formats like ODF for state business. It’s easy to find your representatives by searching online; many states have pages like New York’s, that let you find them by your zip code and maps.
Below is pasted a copy of my message. Feel free to copy and/or modify it for your own use. You can send it not only to state representatives and senators, but to your county, city or town level elected officials too. (A city the size of New York has many more people than most states, so it is well worth communicating with cities about ODF, too.)
Dear Assemblymember Gianaris,
An issue that has started to get a lot of attention in other states is the data formats used for long term archiving of important digital information. Some formats in common use today are proprietary formulas that can only be accessed by a limited number of software tools made by monopoly suppliers.
So far, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Texas, California and Oregon have begun looking at better alternatives to this situation. Using an open document format (the premier option is called “ODF” or “OpenDocument Format”) can allow the government to create and store data in a way that is broadly accessible to users of many different programs, including free-of-cost options.
It would be beneficial to New York State residents if we also made a similar policy. Not only would data be stored in a better archive format, but it would be more accessible. Instead of needing Microsoft Office to open a “.doc” file, citizens could use one of many options, including OpenOffice.org, KOffice, Google Docs, Zoho Writer, TextMaker, or many more to open a file saved as “ODF.”
For more information on other states concerned about this issue, please take a look at this summary article:
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070328043534903
Thanks for your time and attention,
Benjamin Horst
Astoria, NY
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | 1 Comment »