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.
On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 21:14 +0100, samwise wrote:
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 is worse than that, if and when docx becomes the default (or more specifically when people stop bothering to set Office 12 to save as the "legacy" format of .doc) then, if I understand the licensing MS has encumbered the new format with then it will actually be illegal for any Free software to open or change these files.
On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 21:43 +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
It is worse than that, if and when docx becomes the default (or more specifically when people stop bothering to set Office 12 to save as the "legacy" format of .doc) then, if I understand the licensing MS has encumbered the new format with then it will actually be illegal for any Free software to open or change these files.
and almost as if it were a prophecy I had a client who operates solely on Mac's phone me up this afternoon to ask me how they are supposed to open some docx files that had been emailed to them. They have the most recent version of Office OSX, but the 2007 version is yet to become available.
So the answer seems to be at the moment, download a beta Microsoft utility that supposedly converts docx to RTF (and destroys a lot of formatting in the process), get someone with a Windows box and Office 2007 (or 2000,XP,2003 and the compatibility pack) to open,convert and return the documents or plead with the originator to resend in a different format.
samwise samwise@bagshot-row.org wrote:
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.
I've been mostly ignoring this topic because I don't think it affects me much. My first question is: who are the OpenDocument Foundation and why are they using a google domain?
I thought OpenDocument was under OASIS and I thought the main promoter was the OpenDocument Fellowship, not Foundation. http://opendocumentfellowship.org/ http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
'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.
Second question: does this look to anyone else like toys out of the pram because this Foundation can't take over the standard?
Regards,
-
MJ Ray -
samwise -
Wayne Stallwood