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 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
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 »
March 29th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
A fifth state, and the fourth in just this year, joins the tidal shift: an open formats bill has been introduced in Oregon’s legislature.
Andy Updegrove writes:
“While the Oregon bill falls into a current trend, it is in some ways less similar to the bills introduced earlier this year than they are to each other. Most notably, it would establish a clear preference for open formats that are deployed in the greatest variety of programs and services that are available as “free ware,” which it defines as “computer software made available or distributed to the public for use free of charge for an unlimited time.” Through this and other provisions, it is clear that only ODF, and not OOXML, would pass muster for the foreseeable future in Oregon. The bill was introduced by State Representative Peter Buckley as House Bill 2920.
Looking first to the central definition of an “open format,” we see that the Oregon definition is more detailed than that which is found in most of the other bills. For example, while the California formulation is very high level and would provide more flexibility in interpretation, the Oregon text is more precise, and often provides examples of what would be required in order to comply with the bill.”
Oregon’s legislation is also mentioned in a Computerworld article.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF | Comments Off on Oregon Going for ODF
March 21st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Free Software Magazine contributor Daniel Escasa writes The lazy user’s guide to OpenOffice.org Writer.
It’s a fun article in style, and in substance it takes account of a very important fact: users are lazy! But we have good reason for it. There are too many tasks to do and too little time to do them.
Escasa begins, “All hail the lazy, for they will find the most efficient way to work a computer in general, and a word processor in particular. In this article, I’ll look at three lazy writer’s tricks that can relieve you of most of the drudgery involved in creating a fairly large document in OpenOffice.org Writer.”
Escasa covers creating a title page, creating a table of contents, and changing the page numbering styles. Quick bites of useful information for Writer beginners (and helpful as a reminder to old-timers, too).
It’s a useful article, and I think the name could be expanded into a book series concept in the tradition of the “For Dummies” books. He’s sharing this article under a CC-license for others to benefit from, but I think he should keep growing until he’s got a full book to publish! (There’s no reason why that shouldn’t be CC-licensed, too.)
Posted in Free Culture, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on “The lazy user’s guide to OpenOffice.org Writer”
March 6th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
I’m in Israel for work this week, so I won’t be able to keep my usual schedule of posting here at SolidOffice. However, bandwidth is good and most of the internet’s activity is unconstrained by physical-world geography.
The OpenOffice.org project publishes an interview with BharateeyaOO.o, the team responsible for OOo development in India, and translation into numerous Indian languages.
RKVS Raman, head of BharateeyaOO.o, describes the project’s history, milestones, community development, and future goals in this interview. His team has already translated OpenOffice into 15 of India’s 22 official languages, and is scheduled to complete the remainder by December 2007.
Raman’s organization is pragmatic and effective in its work, and also strives toward a very idealistic purpose: “Long term goals involve studying the cultural aspects of Indic computing; create sturdy speech recognition engines for Indian languages; continuously create/explore avenues for wide adoption of FOSS in various sectors by active promotion and support, and to become an instrument in the proliferation of ICT in rural and underprivileged areas.”
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Interview with BharateeyaOO.o: OpenOffice.org for India
February 28th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Computerworld writes California may join rush of states toward ODF.
“A California legislator last Friday introduced a bill that would mandate the use of open, XML-based document file formats by the state government starting next January. It is the third such state-level legislation to be introduced this month.”
This follows Massachusetts’ move to ODF (not by a state law, but by a decision of its IT agency), and bills introduced in Minnesota and Texas to adopt an open format for state agencies as well.
“Like the other two measures, the bill in the California Assembly doesn’t list any specific document formats that could be used. But as in Minnesota and Texas, the introduction of such a bill appears to be another potential win for backers of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for Office Applications.”
If you put these four states on a map, you’ve got the compass points covered: Massachusetts in the East, Minnesota in the North, Texas in the South, and California in the West. We just need to fill the in-betweens!
Also, California is the most populous state (37 million people, more than 12% of the entire USA), and Texas is second (24 million people, about 8% of the US population), meaning that a large number of Americans will be affected by these bills.
Further, California, Massachusetts and Texas contain important high technology nodes; where they pioneer tech issues, other states are likely to follow along.
Any way you slice it, this is good news for open formats, ODF, and data liberation! It is bringing the entire country very close to the digital tipping point.
Also see a post on Andy Updegrove’s Standards Blog for more information and analysis:
“It was 18 months ago that Massachusetts began this trend, when its Information Technical Division revised the Enterprise Technical Resource Model (ETRM) upon which its IT procurement is based. That revision not only required open standards and welcomed open source in its procurement, but also blessed an open document format standard called OpenDocument Format, or ODF. Since then, government procurement based on open standards in general, and the role of ODF in particular, have been very much in the spotlight.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
February 27th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
An open document standard, though not explicitly ODF, will become mandatory in Denmark beginning January 1, 2008.
Sam Hiser says not to worry, as MSOOXML cannot stand up to ODF in a fair comparison:
“This gives me no anxiety whatsoever. MSOOXML has already been thoroughly de-bunked vis a vis its repudiation of other existing standards; it is in perhaps a perpetual deep-freeze at ISO (from which Microsoft will not seek or wish to remove it, since “ISO status pending” is all they need to sell it; the alternative is to re-wire their entire new catalog of software); under further use testing and scrutiny in Denmark, its repudiation of the basic intentions of XML will be highlighted; and under scrutiny in Denmark the thorough dependency of MSOOXML documents upon the Microsoft stack (Vista, Exchange, Sharepoint, Outlook, MS SQL Server, IE7, Office 2007, Groove, etc.) and their lack of interoperability & compatibility outside the new Microsoft stack will be underscored and well understood. The Danes will find that MSOOXML is no solution.”
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, Open Source | Comments Off on Denmark: Open Standards Mandatory