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Tim Bray on Implications of OpenDocument Format
Jure Cuhalev writes "In todays keynote, at the OpenOffice.org conference, Tim Bray focused on what OpenDocument format means for office suits. He compared the impact that OpenDocument will have on regular documents to kick-off of the web with selection of HTML as file format. You can watch the video or listen to audio track. Also check out the media page for more conference coverage."
the web for "common folks" haven't existed practically before HTML. Not so with office suits... (suit)
One that hath name thou can not otter
However, it would probably make for a nice tie in Times Roman 14.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I submitted a story yesterday commenting on James Prendergast's article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170724,00.html but it got rejected.
This clown's organization lists Microsoft as a founding member and he makes so many false claims it's not even laughable.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
what OpenDocument format means for office suits
What has a document format got to do with the company dress code? Or was that a veiled insult to the management?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
What the hell? I cannot view this in Windows Media Player? WHAT'S HAPPENING? WHAT'S THIS OGG? IS IT A VIRUS?
Full Tilt
I can't hear audio, and online video is never high enough quality to lip-read from. And I'm not going to waste half an hour trying to connect and download the video when I can be 99% sure they won't have bothered to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and provide subtitles.
So, like, any chance of a transcript?
If you put it in the recycle bin it can be retrieved/reused - not what you want!
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
You can watch the video or listen to audio track. Also check out the media page for more conference coverage or I could just NOT RTFA and spurt opinions. I prefer the true ./ way.
Disclosure: I'm stupid
How predictable of them. BS BS BS.
It's funny. Laugh.
In the suite,
Since you so 1337
Just one way
To Redmond defeat:
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Normal people doesn't know/doesn't care about OpenDocument, they only care about how they write documents and whether or not their documents can be read and/or edited by their colleagues. And the standard is word-documents for everything. Word doesn't read and/or edit OpenDocuments and that means that the new standard won't be widely accepted.
He said it would've cost $1000 for MS office per desktop, I couldn't hear how much he said it would've cost per openoffice.
This (friday) morning we just had an encounter with a Microsoft techie, in the Q&A session of the keynote conference about migration to OpenOffice.
Of course, he just kept repeating the standard Microsoft ideas, saying the speaker (!!) seems Anti-American, anti-corporate, saying that the Microsoft DOC format (the new one) IS open for everyone, citing some EU decision on that. This Microsoft guy has also agressively offered to "help the speaker get the facts right" for his slides for next time.
Then, in the corridor, talking with him lead of course nowhere, but what else did you expect? He only could repeat the standart MS panel replies to every question raised...
People from non-US don't have disabilities, hence the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Neither the audio or video have the complete presentation. Nice. Very nice.
Personally, i find the MS response to the OpenDocument format quite interesting, and I think it is rather short sighted.
MS currently seems to be going through a phase where it is lacking innovation and agility, and is trying to buy these concepts (see for example their aquisition of Groove).
By adopting the OpenDocument format, MS would make it a lot easier for 3rd parties to create applications that interwork easily with MS Office documents, in all sorts of ways that they don't at the moment. For example, MS Equation Editor is a dog, so even though at work I have to use Offie, I do all my equation editing in OpenOffice, because the equation editor is much nicer.
If there is a sea of 3rd party vendors offering applications which extend the functionality of MS Office (by working directly with OpenDocument files), then there is an awful lot of scope for MS to aquire the best of them - and MS has awfully deep pockets.
So is MS missing a trick here?
Best regards,
treefrog
"He compared the impact that OpenDocument will have on regular documents to kick-off of the web with selection of HTML as file format."
What the hell does this mean? It's not even a sentence. The "editors" of slashdot have *really* been dragging their heels lately -- the quality of language getting used here is becoming appalling.
OpenOffice isn't in beta anymore, rc1 is out... so the beta "canard" that MS have been trying to fly is an ex-canard... days to do are getting few for the final full release.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
MS is like the Titanic. They are unsinkable I tell you, unsinkable. They need not correct course or reduce speed to avoid obstacles. Their sheer weight will carry them through.
Full steam ahead!
It's going to be an interesting battle between Microsofts 'Open' Document format and the real ODT, I'm sure MS's format uses Open in a very very very loose way...
Open Office is getting stronger and stronger, the new interface looks great, let's hope this persuades more people to use a truly open format.
Share your Knowlege - Kung-Fu Geekery
A little off-topic, but I was wondering about the standardization of OpenDocument. Several OpenOffice.org files have namespaces like "oooc:" in various sections (like formulas) and they are not imported correctly by KOffice. Any pointers to more information about this?
All this oposition from Microsoft is only play for the gallery. Fact is that it would be dead easy for them to wite a filter or plug-in to MS Office that could read or write files in the OpenDocument formats.
... Which of course all current software out there is equally incompatible with as the OpenDocument format.
Such a move would of course also invalidate many of the claims and concerns about replacing software, including the ones voiced from a disabilites point of view.
Of course there will be massive costs in converting documents from older Win-Word formats to OpenDocument, but Microsoft is planning on slapping this cost on businesses and states anyway since they will be changing the default fileformats in Office 12 to MS XML.
The future is in beta
Unlike some posters on this board, I never hated fox news, until now.
1 34232923
FWIW: here is my email:
Subject: Where is the full disclosure on this biased article?
To: Comments@foxnews.com
In regards to your article:
Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
By James Prendergast
Should you not, at the very least, have mentioned that the ATL is a Microsoft funded organization? And that the ATL has been caught in pro-Microsoft "astro-turfing" before?
Aside from that, the article was poorly reasoned, and full of outright lies.
I refer you to the following link:'
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050929
Thank you,
Walter Byrd
An ex-Fox News viewer.
The Cycle of the Standards
while (OSS != £) {
they start out great -> developers stick to them -> designers stick to them -> the public are happy, things are working -> our big fluffy friend Microsoft comes along and decides that everybody else has got it wrong to date, and its up to them, the unappreciated e-heros of redmond to step in and relese some inferior software -> read through all the GPL code -> claim they're sticking to the standard right up until release -> do no such thing -> within two weeks release security updates for IE6/7 and XP/Vista making the original standard impossible to use -> people buy microsoft products -> microsoft corner the market share for that particular product -> service industry depression, too much money going toward software licensing -> gov depts lose money, again licensing -> voters begin to feel the sting of less publically invested money -> lose faith in gov -> bush goes to war -> OSS community send out the message "there is another way" -> decides to write up a standard so them compatability is assured
}
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
He compared the impact that OpenDocument will have on regular documents to kick-off of the web with selection of HTML as file format.
Then he has to give up his clue card. Prior to HTML hundreds of people used "the web". Currently millions of people create office docs...this is just another page in the format wars.
On the issue of patents, Sun also did a clear announcement today on the issue of patents that Sun might/does have that could related to the standard (since it's based on work by OOo via Sun, naturally they do have patents): See this blog entry by Simon Phipps (Sun's Open Source Ombudsman) for more info. It's a blanket promise, irrevocable, global, not time-limited, reciprocal...
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Both links do not stream for me. Just download, and then play. This on FC3.
Sheesh.
The practicality of my world as a businessman is I exchange documents every day in Microsoft Office formats with other businesses, government agencies and internally within my company. I never ask what format we are going to exchange documents in (unlike the early days of PCs). It just works.
The cost of Microsoft Office is trivial to me compared to the benefits it brings by its providing me de-facto standards that allow my productivity. If I waste 4 hours of my time fiddling with files that won't convert, I've more than paid for the Office license. My mantra: PCs and Software are cheap compared to the business value of the time of talented people
When another format can provide the same ease of exchange, edit, return edit, return, etc then it will become the de-facto standard.
This can happen several ways. A big gorilla called the US Government can mandate it (but look how long it is taking them to implement the already mandated IPv6). A collection of smaller entities can mandate it and ultimately achieve critical mass. Microsoft can adopt it. But in any of these cases, it will take 5 years at least before the same trivial exchange can be achieved.
Until that time, any attempt by a single small entity to adopt a standard the rest of us can't use without change, training, hassle is a major problem.
We have developed much of our product documentation in HTML format for its ease of use as well as its portability across platforms. One set of documents has thousands of links within and between documents rather than massive indexes. We find no negatives in using that format for exchange because everyone can use it (if the feature set is somewhat restricted). But even that format would be a problem if it had to be shared with a Microsoft Office user as the returned document would be a nightmare to compare due to the differences in HTML formatting. And HTML has been out there for years.
My conclusion:
This isn't going to happen overnight.
It is going to take some serious players saying things like "I won't buy your next office product if it doesn't support xyz open standard."
There better be some darn good converters.
In the bast case, it will cost business billions to convert not in $ to M$ but in upgrades, training, lost productivity, etc.
Here is a transcript of the first part of it. There are a few blanks where I couldn't hear names or something happened, like a cell phone went off. :-\ That'll teach you to leave your phone ringing during a presentation! The rest will come later.
This is unusual; normally when you go to speak at a conference, it's some city in the middle of the United States that's exactly like 50 other cities and you're at some hotel that's exactly like 50 other hotels, and if you want to eat, you go to some restaurant, it's a member of a restaurant chain exactly like 5000 other restaurants. But none of that is true here! This is really quite different...if you go to most businesses, it feels like going to ___: everybody's using the same software, the same monopoly software. What we're trying to do is give the business desktop a little bit of a different flavor, a better flavor. So let's hope that using the nice analogy between the location of this talk ___ and making the ordinary business desktop a little more interesting and varied place. So, do we have somebody to do slides? Okay. (laughs) My computer's up there, so if somebody could find my computer and press the down arrow button... Okay, good job. So, on the program, it says I'm going to talk about the future of office suites. And I will talk about the future of office suites a little bit, but I think that, you know, we should pay attention to the news that's going on in the world. Recently there's been some tremendously interesting news come out of the state of Massachusetts. I'm sure some of you followed that story, but I thought I would invest a little bit of time talking about what actually happened in Massachusetts, and what I think it might mean for OpenOffice, open source software, and office software in general. Before I do that, I'll take your picture, so (laughs) would everybody please wave? Thank you. __ So Massachusetts is a state that has about three times as many people as Lavinia (?), and I think in terms of money they probably have more than three times the money of Lavinia. It's a small American state, but it's a very rich one. It's formally called the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts", so if you are reading the correspondence you will see a lot of references to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Really, it's just a state. So the end of the story happened--what is it today? the 28th? the 29th. So the end of the story happened eight days ago. __ So this is hard to read, but it's a slide from the Massachusetts government Information Technology division. I would have put the URL up there, but it's one of these __ URL's that go off to three lines, and it's actually pretty easy to find. You just go to mass.gov. At the end of the long, long evaluation, study, work, or process, they came up with this thing: the ETRM--I forget what ETRM stands for... E is "electronic", anyhow. And notice that this is available in two formats, PDF and OpenDocument, so that's nice. And the interesting part is actually down here at the bottom, where it talks about data interoperability, data management, data formats, records management... it's the third point that's all abuzz (?). The objective is to establish some rules for what the employees and __ of the state government are allowed to use for data formats. And it's important to note that in this whole process, they never mentioned Microsoft Office, they never mentioned OpenOffice, they never mentioned any other office suite. All they ever talked about was data formats. And that is actually, I think, the correct way forward. So let's take a small poll here. How many people here in the audience __ think that you'll be using, five years from now, the same office software? __ I see one or two hands. You're using vi, right? (laughs) Okay, so how many of you think that, in five years from now, some of the data you have today will still be interesting, or at least legally required to be preserved? Okay, I see a lot of hands. This is not a new lesson, and it's an old lesson
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Many moons ago, word processor software was sufficiently cheap, that most corporations had two or three different word processor packages on each desktop and people used whichever one supported the file format.
If MS Word cost $50, then the same would happen again and people would have MS Word, OOo, WP, KOffice etc and nobody would bat an eye about compatibility issues, All this drivel about compatibility and retraining is just a stupid non-issue, caused by the inflated pricing of MS products.
Oh well, what the hell...
Yesterday James Prendergast said Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument. A snippet...
Constitutionally Correct
The rest of Europe could be Americans, but they keep defying our President, and worse yet they seem to refuse to be insulted when we insinuate that their countries' names are synonymous with Freedom!
So therefore Office 12 XML should not happen, then? 'cos 80% are using .doc.
If anyone can write a word processor that has 100% compatibility with the format Microsoft uses ... then what's to keep people using MSOffice?
People don't buy MSOffice because they love it or because it's the best or because it's the cheapest. They buy it because everyone else uses it and that means that everyone else uses that document format.
Crack the format lock-in and you've cracked the office suite.
Crack the office suite and you've cracked the desktop monopoly.
Crack the desktop monopoly and you've cracked Microsoft.
For Microsoft, an open document format means one thing, the end of their era. Of course they're going to fight this any way they can. Their revenues are going to plummet.
A truely fair and balanced news source would have wanted (neah demanded) an alternate POV. Instead, they push this as news worthy, and then do not allow others. However, If they are truely keeping with how they operate, they will allow some response to the article, but it will be weak, poorly formed, and written by a nobody (or somebody that has already been discredited in the OSS community).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yes you know what it will cost money to migrate, however not migrating will eventually cost you more. It is really simple, pay once now or pay MS for eternity. In addition to paying loose the ability to do with your documents as you see fit.
I don't care how you look at it, MS is dead wrong for not supporting their customers
needs by offering ODF format as a default file format. It is MS's choice not to support ODF and it is MA's choice not to buy their office suite.
Nobody can put forth a valid argument that MA is somehow doing something wrong with their decision to go with ODF.
Got Code?
If I waste 4 hours of my time fiddling with files that won't convert, I've more than paid for the Office license.
You've had a lot better time with .doc than I have. I have dozens of old files that will not open in new versions of Word, and dozens more that open improperly in the current version of Word. I also work with a lot of people that don't have Word (engineers running Linux, or a BSD, or who just did not bother to pay to license a word processor since their are good, free ones available. You making the mistake of believing .doc is a format, when it is really a whole series of formats that are partially compatible with one another.
When another format can provide the same ease of exchange, edit, return edit, return, etc then it will become the de-facto standard. This can happen several ways.
You missed a couple of possibilities, like a widespread, destructive internet worm corrupts the vast majority of .doc files on the internet and people switch to avoid the same thing from happening in the future. Or, much more likely, the EU and China mandate the Open Doc format for all public organizations, businesses are forced to buy a word processor that will use that format (OpenOffice will do both .doc and OpenDoc and is free). At this point smart businesses migrate away from Word and MS will either be forced to provide the requested functionality or lose a lot of market share. Without being able to lock customers in using its file format MS will have to (gasp) compete based upon features and might actually fix some of the long-standing bugs in Word.
In the bast case, it will cost business billions to convert not in $ to M$ but in upgrades, training, lost productivity, etc.
Which will be more than paid for the next purchase cycle for PC's since a critical application will now be subject to competitive bids, with multiple free options available.
Regardless of what anyone says about the benefits of open document format, I won't start using it until Google Desktop for Windows and Spotlight for my Mac can index the contents. Until then I will (reluctantly) stick with Microsoft Office.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
From the blurb:
-- Alastair
I'm willing to accept your claim that your time is wort $100/hr. But the same is not true for most of your customers and business partners. Your mantra makes sense for you, but by insisting on .doc, you're insisting that others accept the same time/money/value tradeoff. The ideal of an open format is that people can interact with data in whatever way they choose, rather than having to use a single program from a single vendor.
Though there are efficiencies that occur when everyone uses the exact same software, most of them can happen just by using a program that properly implements an open format. In other ways, an open format is even better, because different programs can be used to interact with the data in different ways, ways that a single vendor like Microsoft would never think of doing. So long as "de facto standards" are as acceptable as real standards to businesses like yours, you're going to have to accept the ongoing costs of vendor lock-in. It sounds like you have, and I can respect that. But it would be in your best interests if there were multiple vendors of your data exchange solution (It always astounds me that people use Office in that way) who were able to compete on price, quality, and features.
I think that, for a long while to come, non-Microsoft office suites will have to stick to providing their own converters. For the most part, I've never had trouble with OpenOffice's conversions. But if Massachusetts sticks to its guns, Microsoft doesn't have much choice but to create its own converter (which they'll probably try to limit to Massachusetts alone), and they should prepare for a brutal mocking if their converter isn't significantly better than OpenOffice's.
I'm not clear on the point you were trying to make about HTML. HTML wasn't intended to be a "presentation format", which is one of its strengths. Well-done HTML can be viewed in one way by a standard browser, another way on a mobile phone or other portable device, yet another way on a text browser, and still another on a "browser for the blind". HTML is for data, CSS is for presentation.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I have transcribed the portion of the keynote that is contained in the audio file listed above. You can get it here.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
I just received this email:
l > that appeared on FOXnews.com Sept. 28 identified author James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, but failed to disclose that Microsoft is a founding member of that organization.
l l
Thank you for writing.
The column "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170724,00.htm
ATL is a coalition of technology companies, professionals and organizations that advocates for limited government regulation of technology and for competitive market solutions to technology policy. In addition to Microsoft, ATL's founding members include Staples, Inc., CompUSA, Citizens Against Government Waste, CompTIA, Small Business Survival Committee, Clarity Consulting, Cityscape Filmworks, Association for Competitive Technology and 60Plus Association.
Mr. Prendergast's affiliation with Microsoft should have been stated clearly in the article.
An Editor's Note is now displayed on our Web site:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170724,00.htm
and the disclosure has been inserted at the end of the original article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170916,00.htm
FOXNews.com
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Here is my honest, simple response.
PDF.
The company I work for has ms servers, novell netware, etc, etc. We use AutoCAD, and desktops range from 2k to xp. We NEED compatibility with other companies file formats, and AutoCAD is the standard for architectural design. Sure, theres BricsCAD, etc, and I'm toying with the idea (I may buy a license for me at home... I dont have anything MS in my house. At all.), but it comes down to being able to share files quickly and easily.
You know what we've found? Office file formats tend to screw up when shared AMONG EACH OTHER! Yes, Office 97, 2000, XP, 2003, etc.. they tend to screw up dealing with their own native file format. So how could I possibly use that?
Besides, I usually don't want anyone outside my company editing a document I send them. So, PDF is a better idea. Not to mention I can create PDF's when I'm using OpenSuSe on the laptop, or SuSe/Gentoo/Fedora/Slack (sharing one machine - now that was annoying to set up) on my workstation. So, in short - I can make PDF with anything, and I know it can be read by anyone I send it to - or I tlel them to install a reader. They should have one already anyways.
So your worries about office formats? Hell, 80% of MS OFfice users can't read MS Office files...
(NOTE: Much like parent, "80%" number resolved from rear digestive pipework, left-hand side.)
...to their suite that are unsupported by the open format. That's what they did to IE, Java, C#, etc.-- there's no reason to think the office file format will be any different...
You making the mistake of believing .doc is a format, when it is really a whole series of formats that are partially compatible with one another.
Avoid costly upgrades and format changes. Stick with MS Office 97. More than good enough for me.
"So, is faster always better? Is that why you aren't even a one minute man?" - by mikefe (98074) on Saturday October 01, @05:42AM
6 92352
6 92366
My goodness! Are you always that clever? lol!
Hey - As far as computer performance?
Faster IS better imo... I would wager it thought of that way, by most people.
(At least those that know wtf they are talking about, unlike yourself, especially in your first rather uncouth reply, but I can do that too, see my p.s. (when in Rome, do as the romans do, etc./et all)).
There is little to NO question that binary formatted data will outperform formats like HTML, XML, & even normal text... they are expensive cpu-time wise to process as well as being slower & larger generally.
So... How hard is it, I ask you, to develop a header reader & binary I/O code method, once you have the data schema layout set right for ANY document format?
Personally, I expect this question is above most NOOBZ (especially webchumps which this field is WAY overloaded with the last few years, since it is so easy) like yourself.
Anyhow, answer - It's pretty damn easy & you get WAY better performance!
FIRST? Well, imo, You did a pretty poor job here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163861&cid=13
(I open with that quote from you as my first line in fact, VERY poor, & uncouth imo @ least!)
vs. here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163861&cid=13
"Yes structured formats use more space and can be slower. It is ineresting to see that saving only takes 2x the time in OOo it does in word, and that includes compression time." - by mikefe (98074) on Saturday October 01, @05:50AM
Aha - So, in your 2nd reply to me which I quote above? You see my point, finally, & admit I am correct!
(The 2nd URL is where I took your quote above from, where you saw the light finally!)
APK
P.S. => NOW - As far as my being a one-minute man? Hey, when I shot a load off in YOUR mouth?? Well, lol, you were just the kind that merited that... and I must admit, you did one heck of a good job so I just could not 'hold off any longer', lol! apk
I know of a companie that does this exactly. (they also take 5 months to pay thier bill).
OPne of the problems with sticking to old formats and office programs is that sometimes newer operating systems or computers cannot run them. Office 97/8 needs the microsoft version of the java virtual machine to install some features. Interestingly, windows XP doesn't have that anymore.
It is sad that microsoft cannot just include support for the open document format. There used to be plugins you could get that would allow you to open older corel files as well as some even more obscure formats directly in word (even edit them). There is no reason microsoft cannot do this too. Maybe only offering these plugins for thier more recent versions of office would still force an upgrade cycle for some that would still use thier office product over the others.
The interesting part of this is that the cost of upgrading, converting, and all the other BS expected to come around is about the same as if they continued to use MS office and just upgraded some systems. The benifits are that now the people the governments serve aren't locked into some high priced office suite from microsoft. If you cut though all the market speak and read the true meaning of whats being said, you will see it is the small person wanting to interact with the government who is microsoft's cash cow. They don't want to lose this portion of revenue. Governments get thier software from microsoft discounted mostly for this reason alone. MS can recoupe any loses from discount to governments and large companies by sales to smaler companies and indeviduals wishing to participate in the activities or the former.