Why OpenOffice.org? Open Document Formats

Jem Berkes writes "In this current article about OpenOffice.org (also covered at Linux Today), I try to make a point about OpenOffice's commitment to open document formats and interchange as the strongest selling point - never mind cost. The OOo developers are putting a lot of effort into their XML format; will this pay off, and will users notice the significance of OpenDocument/OASIS document formats?" This can't be said enough: file formats are what determine whether and how easily data is portable, or whether the user is just stuck.

Comments

Sam Hiser, OpenOffice.org - interviewed at LW

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a cool interview with Sam Hiser of OpenOffice.org here

Re:file size

[figleaf]

It is a compressed zip file.
Rename it to zip and extract the files.
The extracted files are usually larger or about the size of Word documents.

Re:Who cares if its XML?

[MrBandersnatch]

OMG the parent was modified up as insightful!!!

The point of XML isnt that its human readable. Its that its machine PARSIBLE and that one can use a rather large number of tools in order to process the CONTENT without having to deal with all the proprietary ***** that is normally in there.

Being able to apply XSL alone on a document means it incredibly simplifys the process of converting from one format to another WITHOUT having to learn YA proprietary format/tools.

And to give you an idea of the value of this - Ive just spent 3 weeks converting a LARGE word document to XHTML (properly, i.e. its accessible, well formed etc etc). If this document had been written in OO (or if it had been possible to import it into OO without OO having convulsions on many of the tables), Id easily have shaved a week off that work.

Re:Stability

[DeTHZiT]

Usually when you experience many random crashes, or seemingly random results from a program, there's usually a problem with your system memory (RAM).

Try using Memtest86 to diagnose your system. It may be nothing, bad luck, or some other component of your system misbehaving, but it's usually bad memory.

Important for government work as well.

[jbn-o]

For Peruvian Congressman Villanueva, use of free software and free formats was critical--his letter to Microsoft on why he was rejecting their arguments explains how important not being locked in is to doing transparent government work in addition to treating citizens well. I'm sure he's not the only one, but his letter to Microsoft is well worth reading.