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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
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?
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.
Oh come now. Linux is nice for technical users, but Windows has its uses. The bottom line with linux right now is that it's still a pain in the ass to do most things that are only cumbersome in other platforms...
...
When I can put my (70 year old) parents on a linux install that requires basically zero maintainence and zero support from me and stays up to date by itself then I'll consider taking them off of OSX....
Plus user applications are just well.. more mature on other platforms. The Gimp is neat. It really is. But Photoshop kicks its ass for useability. Likewise on a crapload of other flagship software.
One of the things that makes other platforms shine is that there is a central authority imposing order at least on the user interface. Sure, it's a mess under the hood. But companies POLISH their turds so that they can sell them. Good or bad, to compete with that polish for Joe User, the linux community needs a central user interface vision and polish... and attention to features creep and bloat. I mean... my linux box is great, but I want a full featured UI that doesn't run like a dog on ancient hardware as long as there's enough RAM. Because I only run linux on my ancient hardware (k6/3, P2, and etc). If you compare say redhat 5.2 era distros with modern distros, there has been a LOT of bloat that has creeped in in the last couple years. Debian does much better than redhat, but still... I wonder about the performance tradeoffs for a lot of the shit that comes setup by default now. In the olden days, you could throw redhat 5.2 on a P75 and it would run better than an (older) Sun workstation. Nowadays... well.... you would have to really pare down a distro to do that
Anyone spot the irony there? I know Americans aren't blessed with irony-spotting skills, but the EU being used to bolster an argument about anti-Americanism really takes the biscuit.
I say, "Roll on Gallileo!" ;-)
"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.
The moment they face a competing spec which allows users to pick applications based on features and price instead of MS compatibility they will face a steady erosion of customers that find alternatives that work for them.
Look at any other monopoly that have been forced to open up to competition - many of them have remained strong players, but I can't name a single one that have been able to avoid a dramatic reduction in market share.
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.
"Microsoft products can't read file formats they refuse to implement" is what you meant, I think.
it sounds like microsoft is the one screwing you, not OSS.
their reasons are obvious, they don't want to compete, and refuse to participate in anything that would make them do so. they're pulling the equiv. of covering their ears and closing their eyes and screaming "na na na na na I don't hear you you don't exist."
it pisses me off that people take the viewpoint that this is OSS's fault that MS refuses to support their customers.
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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.
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.
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.
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