December 11th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
In its world tour of governmental standards adoption, ODF makes a stop in the Netherlands.
CIO magazine (UK) writes:
“On Wednesday the Dutch parliament will discuss a plan to mandate use of the Open Document Format (ODF) at government agencies. The proposal is part of a wider plan to increase the sustainability of information and innovation, while lowering costs through the reuse of data.”
“Policy makers see interoperability as the key to achieving these goals and therefore recommend that open standards should be used whenever possible. Bodies that wish to deviate from the open standards policy can request a temporary stay, but have to show a timeline showing a planned implementation date — a policy described as “comply or explain.”
Taking it a step further, the plan also recommends that open source applications be used where possible, to save even more money:
“The proposal recommends the use of open source software if that’s a viable alternative over closed-source applications, which could give a major boost to applications like OpenOffice.”
Europe has certainly become a hotbed of ODF and OpenOffice.org adoption. We should begin to see this reflected in market share statistics over the next several years.
Posted in ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
December 7th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Andy Updegrove has begun work on a book chronicling the current struggle between the ODF and MSOOXML file formats.
As far as format wars go, this is turning into one of the biggest and most important that has occurred in years. Thus, Updegrove intends to keep track of the events so they may be analyzed by others in the future.
Chapter two was posted recently, inserting more historical context on the players involved.
The draft chapters posted so far have also generated a healthy conversation in the comments section, with a mix of theoretical discussions, editing, and other feedback. Writing the book itself is going to be an interesting process to follow along.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Updegrove Chronicles ODF vs MSOOXML
December 4th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
More applications seem to announce support for ODF every day. Erwin Tenhumberg writes a post titled “Fast-Growing ODF ISV Support” about this very fact:
“I refer to OpenOffice.org Solutions wiki page for a list of products. The three new products I found out about today are DEVONthink and DEVONnote as well as EMS SQL Manager for SQL Server. DEVONthink seems to be a note taking software with ODF support for the Mac platform and EMS SQL Manager for SQL Server allows importing and exporting ODF data into or from databases.”
Posted in Mac, ODF | Comments Off on Yet More Applications Supporting ODF
November 28th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The “Command Line Warriors” blog takes a look at programming language libraries available for ODF and MSOOXML.
Of Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, Java and C#, all six have libraries ready-to-go for ODF. Only one has libraries to work with MSOOXML, though projects have been started for two more.
From this loose litmus test, ODF is clearly far ahead in this contest. And as we have heard from Ballmer himself, developer interest is extremely important, because it results in usable products and services for end users. And thus adoption by those end users.
My prediction is that web-based document production will heavily favor ODF, as it’s technically much better adapted to the environment. And with a robust set of desktop editing options available too, users will find it an easy transition. ODF will also naturally flow back toward the desktop as it becomes firmly established on the web, getting some synergies from being strongly competent in both environments.
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on ODF vs MSOOXML via Language Library Support
November 27th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Slashdot discusses the current state of the ODF-MSOOXML struggle for national government data standards. Many countries have begun to standardize on ODF, while none have yet selected MSOOXML:
“13 nations have announced laws or rules that favor the use ODF over Microsoft’s Office formats. Those nations include Russia, Malaysia, Japan, France, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, and Norway.”
Computerworld started the latest round of discussion, writing “France is still making the strongest move to ODF and its native office suite, OpenOffice.” (Over 500,000 French government employees have adopted ODF by adopting OpenOffice.org as their default office suite.)
They also mention South Africa, the Netherlands, and Korea as additions to the list above.
Posted in ODF, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Slashdot: France Leading Charge Against OOXML
November 21st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Andy Updegrove picks up on a possible statement of support for ODF from Barack Obama.
Updegrove writes,
“Out of the campaign cacophony of the last week emerged a handful of words from Senator and Democratic party hopeful Barack Obama that could not fail to catch my attention. He used them during the presidential debate held in Las Vegas, and they also appear in the “Innovation Agenda” that Obama had released a few days before. He announced this agenda in a speech he delivered on November 14 at an aptly selected venue: the Google campus in Mountain View, California. One of the pledges he made in the course of that speech reads in part as follows:
To seize this moment, we have to use technology to open up our democracy. It’s no coincidence that one of the most secretive Administrations in history has favored special interests and pursued policies that could not stand up to sunlight. As President, I’ll change that. I’ll put government data online in universally accessible formats. [emphasis added]
“A presidential candidate that is including “universally accessible formats” in his platform? How did that come about?”
No doubt, there are plenty of possible interpretations here, but the statement could be positive for ODF users. If the US Federal government started to adopt ODF, it would catalyze the states and other municipal governments that have tried to act but been halted by wealthy lobbyists.
With other governments around the world rapidly moving to ODF, it’s also becoming a competitive necessity to follow suit. The last one to adopt a new standard will have some catching up to do, and hopefully the US government will recognize that and make its move before too much longer.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | 2 Comments »
November 19th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Open Malaysia blog reports on a neighbor’s success in “ODF a National Standard in Korea.”
They quote (and translate) the Korean newspaper that broke the story some months back:
“On August 27, Korea Agency for Technology and Standards announced it accepted ODF as national standard (KS). Office application such as word processor, spreadsheet, presentation has been accepted as document format for the first time. Following KS establishment, ODF now stands as the national standard.”
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on ODF Becomes Korea’s National Standard
November 15th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Bob Sutor rounds up several links on IBM Lotus Symphony this week.
Highlights: Symphony has surpassed 250,000 downloads, IBM is doubling the number of developers working on ODF-related products including Symphony to 70 people, a second beta became available for download on Nov 13, and interest in Symphony, ODF and the entire related ecosystem keeps growing at a fast pace.
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on A Week of IBM Lotus Symphony Links
November 13th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Wired seems excited about Everex’s $200 Linux PC–and why not, because it is an interesting little item!
Members of the OpenOffice community had predicted that cost pressures would eventually break Microsoft’s hold on the most price-sensitive part of the PC market, leading to OEMs installing OpenOffice on their machines. Everex did so earlier this year for the models they sell at Wal-Mart, and the last I heard, Wal-Mart was planning to require OOo on all the computer brands it sells.
The newest Everex innovation takes its commitment to open source one step further. A customized version of Ubuntu Linux helps the gPC to break the $200 barrier, the first for a retail personal computer.
After their initial post, Wired got even closer to the gPC with a hands-on review. And they like it!
Edit: Slashdot announces Wal-Mart has already sold out its stock of gPCs!
Our friends at Zareason also sell the gPC at the same price point.
Posted in GNU/Linux, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Wired on the $200 Everex PC
November 9th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Heise Online reports “German Foreign Office comes out in favor of Open Document Format.”
In fact, the German Foreign Office hosted an international workshop for users of ODF, and it seems this will become an annual event.
“At the first international workshop of users of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) in Berlin to which the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic had invited about 150 users and political observers, Brazil and India, in addition to German cities such as Munich, emerged as leading proponents of open standards in the office area.”
Across Brazil, India, Germany and other nations, ODF adoption is proceeding at an accelerating pace. The article provides several concrete examples in each of these countries, to which I am sure many more will be added in the coming year.
Posted in ODF | Comments Off on Heise on ODF in the German Federal Government