Hi,
For the open source activists on the list. We had a bit of a discussion on the use of ODF vs. MSOOXML in a corporate environment at the last Ipswich meet (more specifically, my ability to invoke a flame fest on the topic at work, without trying).
I'm rather glad I didn't get too deeply involved in the debate - because I'm convinced now I'd've probably been on the losing side. ;) I'm not sure how widely it's been picked up, but I noticed yesterday that the OpenDocument Foundation's site [http://opendocument.foundation.googlepages.com/] has had a small note quietly appended.
'Note: All work on ODF da Vinci has ended. Without OASIS approval of our five generic eXtensions, known as the iX enhancements, we can not effectively convert existing Microsoft documents, applications and processes to ODF. The loss of fidelity and feature — business process specific information is too great. We are however able to make full, high fidelity "round trip" conversions to the W3C's CDF — meeting critical market requirements. If at some point in the future, the OASIS ODF TC does approve both our ODF iX enhancements, and, our "Universal Interoperability Framework Proposal", we will configure da Vinci to support both CDF and ODF iX.'
Given this was the only MS Office plugin that was claimed would eventually provide a 100% perfect 'round trip' conversion fidelity, this sounds like a blow for ODF interoperability with MS Office and I think we're going to have to continue along in the era of document conversions mostly working, except for those tricky bits (i.e. anything involving tables or diagrams!).
It's a shame - I'm big on promoting open standards but if the Massachusetts result didn't spell the end to ODF's challenge to MS Office, practically I think this might ...
Peter.