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It's not a group at all, nor even a monoid ;-)

I'm not a math geek, what are you trying to say?

But seriously, the set cannot be empty at the time when Massachusetts adopts ODF, or Massachusetts will be in trouble with the feds.

The set isn't empty now, what makes you think it could be when Massachusetts adopts it?

As I understand it, the company developing an ODF file filter for Microsoft Office Word has no immediate plans to offer it for distribution it to the public.

They're not the only ones working on one. As I said, only a matter of time, and probably not that long of a time.

But will "over time" occur before this technology adoption goes into effect? If not, then Massachusetts is putting the cart before the horse and John Winske has a legitimate beef.

Massachusetts will probably wait until the plugins are finished and released to the public so ODF is usable in MS Office. Once that happens there's no reason for Massechusetts to not change to ODF.

This is from their website: "A couple of news reports have suggested or implied (incorrectly) that a plugin has already been completed. This is not the case." From: "OpenOpenOffice" - http://o3.phase-n.com/faq.html

Does anybody talk here about OpenOpenOffice ? http://o3.phase-n.com/ They are still promising a release without giving us anything to eat but anyway, be aware that one day, it will be really easy for everybody to switch between all office suite. Manu

But to me, the key is not OpenOffice but OpenDocument. With the widespread adaptation of an open document format, in a few years people will stop caring what Office suite you are running - just like I don't care about your brand of email client, I just assume you can read the emails I send you.

Nice point! And that's the idea behind the O3 project:

"While the majority of the software industry is gathering around this new standard, the notable exception has been Microsoft and its industry-dominating Microsoft Office suite of products. Whether this is due to lack of demand, technical difficulty or specific intent does not matter."

"The import and export filters built into the OpenOffice.org suite are not only a way to get files of other types in and out of OpenOffice.org. They represent a collection of mature, well maintained, and continuously improving document format converters.

All that needs to be done is to take existing functionality from OpenOffice.org, and inject it into Microsoft Office in reverse, but without having to spend a lot of development time, or making it hard for Office users to install."

http://o3.phase-n.com/

But to me, the key is not OpenOffice but OpenDocument. With the widespread adaptation of an open document format, in a few years people will stop caring what Office suite you are running - just like I don't care about your brand of email client, I just assume you can read the emails I send you.

Nice point! And that's the idea behind the O3 project:

"While the majority of the software industry is gathering around this new standard, the notable exception has been Microsoft and its industry-dominating Microsoft Office suite of products. Whether this is due to lack of demand, technical difficulty or specific intent does not matter."

"The import and export filters built into the OpenOffice.org suite are not only a way to get files of other types in and out of OpenOffice.org. They represent a collection of mature, well maintained, and continuously improving document format converters.

All that needs to be done is to take existing functionality from OpenOffice.org, and inject it into Microsoft Office in reverse, but without having to spend a lot of development time, or making it hard for Office users to install."

http://o3.phase-n.com/

And what's more, the more work they put into compatability the better the OpenDocument-in-Microsoft-Office stuff the OpenOpenOffice guys are doing too will get too. Or at least, as I understand their "OpenOffice SOAP Server" idea anyway.

A little birdie says that they already have a working server, and that I "should listen out for a big announcement as soon as the media gets back to work after New Years".

I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but here's me hoping that means I can send odf files to Office people now. :)

Please look at the OpenOpenOffice project The plug in is already under way, at least if you have network access or are willing to install OpenOpenOffice locally. OpenOffice can already read & write Microsoft formats, so it makes sense to leverage this in the OpenOpenOffice solution. Of course, this doesn't help if Microsoft decides to sue OpeOffice for implementing MS Office Open XML, but that would result in a seperate firestorm of criticism for Microsoft, espeically overseas. The OpenOpenOffice solution is simple (as in elegant, not as in brain dead) & should be done long before January 2007. A cottage industry for OpenOffice is already underway.

A few days ago on OSNews I noticed this following news article to No MS won't, Yes MS will, No MS won't.. http://o3.phase-n.com/index.html Microsoft is irrevelent as to if it want's to add support for Open Document Format. We, the Open Source community CAN add it ourselves..