July 6th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
OpenOffice.org issued a press release in response to Microsoft’s announcement of an ODF-MSXML translator:
“OpenOffice.org welcomes the news that Microsoft has bowed to pressure from the marketplace, which is demanding Microsoft adopt ISO 26300 Open Document Format (ODF) as its native file format for all its Office products. Microsoft’s announcement of official support for a proposed ODF converter is the first step towards meeting that demand, and will give users of its Office software partial access to the standard.”
It appears that Microsoft will be releasing an open source component (downloaded separately, not included with MS Office) to handle the translations. Now we have to see how difficult and inconvenient they will make it, in their effort to dissuade potential users. (Though, if it is truly open source, the community can come in and fix MS’ deliberate errors in the program…)
The other big question is whether their support of ODF will be complete and honest, or whether they’ll try to undermine it through “embrace, extend, extinguish” as they have done with numerous standards in the past. On this point too, I remain highly skeptical.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Microsoft to Support ODF?
June 29th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
Zoho Writer now supports ODF! And Zoho has a collection of other very useful, AJAX web applications that are very well-written and effective, including a personal organizer, spreadsheet, and presentation program.
See the full suite of Zoho applications at Zoho.com.
Posted in ODF, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Zoho Applications!
June 28th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
According to Economic Times Delhi (India), the government of Delhi is abandoning Microsoft Office in favor of ODF-compliant free office suites. More than 2/3 of the government’s software purchases in 2004-2005 were spent on office suite licenses! The motivation behind the change to free ODF-based suites is to save that money for better uses.
In addition, the national goverment of India “also plans to use ODF-based software in the national egovernance project. The project envisages setting up of over one lakh IT kiosks in rural areas across the country.” I believe a “lakh” is 100,000, therefore this project will be quite sizable.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
June 26th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
ZDNet reports the government of Belgium will only use ODF and other open formats for document exchange:
“The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is to be the standard format for exchanging documents within the Belgian government. This proposal, which is expected to be approved by Belgium’s Council of Ministers on Friday, increases the pressure from governments worldwide on Microsoft to embrace open standards.
From September 2008 onwards, all document exchanges within the services of the Belgian Government will have to be in an open, standard format, according to the proposal now before the Belgian Ministers. Only ODF is accepted as such a standard in the proposal. Earlier drafts of the Belgian proposal had treated ODF and Microsoft’s own Open XML format (which is to be included in Office 2007) on equal footing.”
Posted in ODF | 1 Comment »
June 23rd, 2006 Benjamin Horst
Consortium Info’s Standards Blog covers two stories about Microsoft’s attempts to steamroll democratic decision-making in Massachusetts.
First, Andy Updegrove covers Microsoft’s donation of “$30 million” worth of software to MA schools. (Of course, MS is measuring the value based on sticker price of the software boxes in stores, not on the marginal cost for the production of each additional unit, which would be about $0.25 per CD delivered.) MS’ obvious bribe attempt was accompanied by a large ad next to the opinion pieces in the Boston Globe, in which convoluted and irrational arguments were made that MS’ new XML format allows for great interoperability! (Nothing but irony and satire!)
Secondly, Updegrove discusses the RFI responses received by Massachusetts with regard to an ODF-reading and -writing plugin for Microsoft Office. Microsoft responded and used the opportunity to soapbox, but didn’t provide any information of value. Sun also responded with a detailed proposal and a workable solution to Massachusetts’ request.
In general, it appears that MS is responding to the ODF situation in Massachusetts with a series of uncoordinated actions that will probably not move the Commonwealth to accept its so-called logic. All that is needed now, to really throw the monopolist into disarray, is for one or two more states to announce their imminent adoption of ODF.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Microsoft Attacking Massachusetts
June 18th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
The first national OpenOffice.org community meeting (“BrOffice.org”) was held in Brazil.
OpenOffice.org is becoming a juggernaut in Brazil. Perhaps it will be the first country where OOo gains majority marketshare?
Of particular interest are the success cases mentioned at the meeting:
“Three success cases in the migration to BrOffice.org illustrated the second part of the meeting. Banco do Brasil, Brazilian Army, and FIEC presented their migration cases detailing strategies and techniques used in the deployment of the software.
From Brasília, the senior analyst Dinis dos Santos presented Banco do Brasil’s case. Altogether, OpenOffice.org 2.0 was installed in all 4,000 branch offices, in the central management, and departments, adding up to 31 thousand workstations. According to Banco’s information, the savings were in the order of 7 million Reais.
Soon after, in Fortaleza, it was the Brazilian Army’s turn to present their case in the person of Major Alexandre. In the Army, migration was based on the strategical planning for Free Software in the Federal Government, from October, 2003. According do Major Alexandre’s presentation, BrOffice.org is perfectly adequate for organizations of any size. However, one of the decisive aspects for their success was the training of human resources.
Ending the presentation of cases, César Cals Neto, from FIEC, presented the institution’s case of success, showing that over 80% of the 1000 workstation network already uses BrOffice.org. The project used São Paulo’s Subway’s Authority’s experience as reference for their Free Software Migration.”
Posted in ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Brazilian National OpenOffice.org Meeting (BrOffice.org)
June 13th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
Groklaw reports on the recent Danish resolution in support of open standards. It passed on June 2, and reads in summary:
“Motion for Parliament Resolution Regarding Use of Open Standards for Software with Public Authorities
Parliament directs the government to ensure that the use of information technology, including software, within public authorities is based upon open standards.
No later than January 1st, 2008, the government should introduce and maintain a set of open standards that can serve as inspiration for other public authorities. Hereafter, open standards should be a part of the basis for public authorities’ development and purchase of IT software, with the aim of furthering competition.
The government should ensure that all digital information and data that public authorities exchange with citizens, corporations and institutions are available in formats based on open standards.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on ODF for Denmark?
June 6th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
Andy Updegrove has published the third interview in his zeitgeist of the ODF ecosystem, “The Emerging ODF Environment Part III: Spotlight on StarOffice 8.0.”
Updegrove begins, “In this third in-depth interview focusing on ODF-compliant office productivity suites, I interviewed Erwin Tenhumberg, Sun’s Product Marketing Manager, Client Systems Group (Erwin’s own blog is called Erwin’s StarOffice Tango). This series of interviews, and the other activities I have planned to follow, are intended to illustrate the rich environment of applications and tools that are evolving around the OpenDocument Format (ODF) specification developed by OASIS, and now adopted by ISO/IEC. (You can find the previous interview with Inge Wallin of KOffice here, and with Louis Suarez-Potts and John McCreesh of OpenOffice.org here).”
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May 31st, 2006 Benjamin Horst
The May 2006 OpenOffice.org newsletter came out today. Read it on the mailing list archive or the OpenOffice newsletter blog.
Many big events this month, including:
Posted in ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice Newsletter May 2006
May 27th, 2006 Benjamin Horst
Erwin Tenhumberg translates some French documents discussing the gradual standardization around ODF for French governmental documents.
He quotes:
“RIT0025 Il est RECOMMANDÉ d’utiliser le format Open Document pour les échanges de documents bureautiques semi-structurés (traitement de texte, tableur, présentation).
RIT0026 Il est OBLIGATOIRE d accepter tout document au format Open Document pour les échanges de documents bureautiques semi-structurés (traitement de texte, tableur, présentation).
RIT0027 Il est INTERDIT de faire une migration depuis le format bureautique couramment utilisé par une organisation, vers un format autre que le format ouvert Open Document.”
Roughly translated, these read:
Use of OpenDocument format is recommended for the exchange of semi-structured office documents (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations).
Accepting any office document in OpenDocument format… is required.
Migrating from an organization’s current office document format to anything other than OpenDocument is forbidden.
The last sentence is particularly interesting, because it prevents the use of Microsoft’s new XML file formats. They don’t exist yet, so they cannot be the current format for any organization. This means that any French government agency that wants to use MS Office 2007 will have to use the ODF plugin (that isn’t in the wild yet), or save files to the old MS Office formats, or just keep it simple and straightforward, and migrate wholly to an ODF-native suite like OpenOffice.org.
Tenhumberg links to a collection of official French documents on this new regulation.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on France Adopting ODF in Massachusetts’ Footsteps?