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A Look At MS's MA Talking Points
tbray writes "It may not be a Halloween Document, but one of the lobby groups in the thick of the Massachusetts office-doc standardization fray passed me 'The Other Side's Talking Points', so I've published (and slightly deconstructed) them with a barnyard-animal picture." From the article: "The direction toward interoperability using XML data standards is clearly a good one. However, limiting the document formats to the OpenOffice format is unnecessary, unfair and gives preferential treatment for specific vendor products, and prohibits others. The proposed approach and process for use of XML data is quite open to multiple standards, yet the proposed standard for documents is quite narrow, preferential, and may not enable optimal use of the data-centric standards."
For those of you wondering who Tim Bray is or why you should read somebody's weblog, Tim Bray co-created XML. If anybody's fit to speak authoritatively on the subject of XML formats, then it's him.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
First, the format is called Open Document, not Open Office. Open Office is the program. Second, Massachusetts is not specifying any particular software, only that any software must read/write Open Document format. Everything, and I mean everything, that Microsoft claims in their so-called talking points is self-serving rubbish. Remember that reaching a compromise with Microsoft is like reaching a compromise with cannibals that they will only eat your right arm.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Massachusetts isn't using OpenOffice's format, it's using OpenDocument. This is an open format that OOo just happens to use as well. I understand OOo had a hand in creating it, but it's not "their" format. Here's the wiki link explaining it a little further
From Groklaw's article on the subject:
"Some may contend that the decision is unfairly dictating a software preference. This is entirely wrong; the guidelines make it clear that any applications need only support an open, unencumbered document format. Your guidelines do not limit any vendor's ability to compete for state business because the required open formats are available equally to all, and participation in their development is equally open to all."
IT'S NOT OPENOFFICE.ORG'S FORMAT
It's simply an open XML format for storing data that the developers of OpenOffice.org developed and utilize. It would be simple to modify other word processing applications to use this format... or if they stick with MS (who claims an open format in the future) I'm sure OO.o will migrate to that format.
Just because they are considering moving to OO.o doesn't mean that they are giving unfair or preferential treatment to a specific vendor... you could be their vendor if you bid low enough! All they have done is researched and chose the best open format for storing thier data that has a usable application that utilizes it.
I would bet if MS moved to an open format, they would use that instead... their objective is to have readable documents in 50 years... not to get away from MS (yet).
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
The idea of an "open" format isn't that it will get preference to the OSS community. It is that it will give preference to no one.
The standard in question isnt the "Open Office" format, its "OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications". OO.o 2.0 happens to support that format nativly.
Anyone, including Microsoft, is free to implement the Open Document format.
Tim Bray is also an employee of Sun, the company who started OO.o. I agree with what he says & am quite sympathetic to the cause, but this is like Scoble saying MA should standardize on MS word format.
Openoffice comes with a wizard to do mass conversions. It can recursively sweep through a file structure, creating a .sxw file every time a .doc file is encountered (keeping the same name).
So this strengthens the point made by the author of the article:
.sxw files for every .doc file, why not give give it a test on some smaller portion of your folder tree.
"Unless the cost of conversion right now is awfully damn high, this sounds like a good investment."
To find this insanely under-hyped feature:
File -> AutoPilot -> Document Converter
If your file server has enough room for a bunch of new
Then you can all easily see how good OpenOffice is in it's conversions on your existing data RIGHT NOW, and everyone can learn firsthand how realistic a switch to OpenOffice REALLY is.
Aren't you dying to know first hand if it's actually just that easy and we can all quit theorizing about how viable this whole thing is?
MA is using the OpenDocument format, not OpenOffice's format.
OpenDocument is not vendor-specific. Anyone can use it. The only reason MS doesn't want to support it in Word is because they know that allowing people to use a non-Word format would make it easy for people to switch away from Word.
Massachusetts has been going down this road a long time; it's not just something that appeared out of nowhere and they've already done some work weighing the various options. I don't think MS is going to be able to change things with FUD this late in the game.
It's worth noting that parts of Massachusetts have already changed over. Saugus started going this route some years ago; you can see Saugus' official response to the state's announcement or my entry in the Saugus blog discussing the same.
Saugus has been pushing free and open software since the mid to late '90s. Massachusetts developed an "open source trough" for use by all state departments a couple of years back. Switching to open formats is just a natural step along the path that Massachusetts has been heading for quite some time now.
Is that a Request for Proposal? Because sure, I'd be happy to make money training people in a technology that empowers them rather than locks them into the products of a single vendor. It's certainly no harder to develop a curriculum for OpenOffice than it is for Microsoft Office, and the benefits are much more enduring.
In fact, the Government of Ontario contacted me about just this sort of training a couple of weeks ago. Clearly, Massachusetts is not alone in taking this initiative. And as the world moves systematically toward open document formats, I expect there will be many more of these business opportunities coming.
This doesn't even get into explaining to grandparents how to file/read state tax forms online.
You mean that Massachusetts is using an online tax form that only works with proprietary software? If true, it seems pretty irresponsible to limit public access to a process which they are required by law to follow. Yes, it will definitely be an improvement to get rid of artifacts like this.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Huh? There are 7 programs that have implemented OD support in a stable release. Open Office is not one of them. How is this an OOo format?
And no, Microsoft is *not* moving to an open format. It is not documented and other programs can't read it without reverse engineering. That's not very good for data security or stopping vendor lock-in.
Markup is profit/cost.
ex. $1 items sells for $1.50. Margin is 0.50/1.50, or 33%. Markup is 0.50/1.00, or 50%. One cannot have a margin of more than 100%.
The original statement, that MS had a 72% margin, is correct.
This is high school business stuff.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
creating a filter so word can natively open OASIS docs should not take microsoft more than a week or two, but doing so would make it easier for companies to switch away from MS so it is unlikely to happen.
IIRC the patents related to PDF's are not in the document formats themselves but rather in variour protection techniques and DRM which are optional comnponents rarely used excepf for things like downloadable ebooks etc.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
David Wheeler on why opendoc won: link
I have to say it even though I'll probably get troll rated, people who consistently appologize for corporations have a vested interest in that company and therefore there opinions are worthless because it is biased.
The fact is Microsoft can use and contribute to the OASIS OpenDocument format if they want to, it is not Openoffice.org centeric. The reverse is not true.
You might want to read that again. According to the Wiki, OO.o was in fact a participator in standardization of the specification, and both the latest 1.1rc and 2.0 beta OpenOffice releases support the format. I don't know if the stable releases support it, but if not it's only a matter of time, and government moves slow enough to wait. It helps that there are already other (stable) programs that support it, like Koffice.
"The OASIS OpenDocument format is, was, and always will be centered around OpenOffice.org. It is as much OOo's format as Microsoft's XML formats are Microsoft's."
BFD. It doesn't matter. Microsoft can have its special,more advanced XML format too. Just add the simple option of SAVE AS->OpenDocument to their Office suite. Now the user has a choice.
No they didn't. Only Sun Microsystems, IBM and Adobe Systems however did. Sponsoring OASIS is very different from sponsoring a certain TC. Why do I have repeat this every single time a new article about the OpenDocument comes along?
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
No, but they did, once upon a time when every vendor had its own TCP/IP stack that you loaded on top of whatever flavor OS you were using.
Sometimes I have to say to hell with it and just eat my jellybeans.