Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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?
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
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...
Neither the audio or video have the complete presentation. Nice. Very nice.
Agreed, but don't you think we ought to try and break that trend? It wasn't always this way, it doesn't have to stay this way. This way is stupid. Word Documents are binary, about ten times larger than they need to be, proprietary, and they don't hold formatting information properly.
So, instead of bitching about how OpenDocument isn't going to amount to anything, and doing your part to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, why not join the rest of us that are trying to make sure it does, and tell your colleagues, and the people you share documents with, about its benefits?
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
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.
Just being American is a disability in it's own right.
Money for nothing, pix for free