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ODF Offers MS Word Plugin to MA
Goalie_Ca writes "Groklaw just posted that the OpenDocument Foundation is offering Massachusetts a plugin that could 'allow Microsoft Office to easily open, render, and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between Microsoft's binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF ... The testing has been extensive and thorough. As far as we can tell there isn't a problem, even with Accessibility add ons, which as you know is a major concern for Massachusetts.'"
Microsoft wins yet again.
.doc and .xls. This one will solve the .doc issue and, if widely distributed, have two effects:
No, this is not correct.
The Office division of Microsoft has long been one of their major profit centers. MS Office is also a bigger monopoly than Windows, having greater penetration in the market percentagewise. These facts stem from the ability to lock-in customers by holding their data hostage to a closed format.
This plug-in is a door to the world of non-MS Office products -- a way out, if you will. Yes, other office-type products exist, but none of them have gained serious traction because of the perceived lack of totally compatibility with MS
1. It will increase the market share of non-MS Office products at the expense of MS Office;
2. It will cause Microsoft to lower the price of MS Office to compete, thus lowering their profits on what is widely rumored to be their LARGEST profit center, Office.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
You're right, it's not useful. And for those wondering, the plugin is not yet availible for download (ref:Groklaw article).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
FTFA: all versions of MS Office dating back to MS Office 97. RTFA!
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Actually you got it wrong - its "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus runs".
s _aint_done_t.html
http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/08/do
Which is really the reason why Windows is so buggy and unstable - they have/had to support all the OLD bugs and undefined behaviors exploited by other software vendors. You can't really sell another version of Windows if say, Adobe Acrobat, doesn't run anymore - even if its Adobe's fault!
you're violating when you write a plugin for Office.
Not that Office invented the concept of plug-ins, but it probably is one of the most used targets for plug-ins there is. From CRM systems, advanced securities pricing models, Adobe Acrobat, etc, etc, etc, etc. There are TONs of plug-ins and MS explicitly built thier framework to encourage this.
Isn't that pretty much what the whole Open Doc format debate was about after all? While there may be technical ways to get through Microsoft's bullshit formats, the patent threats may make it illegal to do so.
Not an issue in this case. Just like Adobe's plug-ins which can convert and Office documents to thier format, this plug-in I'm sure won't even bother messing with the raw binary data. Just open the document in the Office application and then each application exposes a friendly API to be able to play with, convert, ect, etc the document all you want. No need to even consider the underlieing documents format (in fact would be quite silly to) just use the API provided.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
RTF has no standard (other than various halfway-compatible implementations from Microsoft and open-source products), and has extremely little support for any useful formatting or metadata that you would want in an office format. Choosing RTF as your common-denominator standard format would be a lot like choosing HTML 2.0 for the same task. ODF, on the other hand, is flexible, with a complete and open spec, and one of its design goals is feature-compatibility with existing software.
So while I haven't tried this plugin, I find it entirely possible that it supports all or very nearly all Word features, allowing for open-standards interoperability without compromising the quality of the document. It also doesn't hurt that it's apparently implemented in terms of XSLT transforms -- translating OOo XML to Word XML.
On the topic of Office 2007's user interface, the recent promotional movie published on the Microsoft web site seems like they're trying especially hard in this next release to be different for the sake of being different. So hard that some of their innovative ideas may prove better in concept than implementation. Here were some of my thoughts on this 12 minute video.
But if the government uses MS formats, everyone who wants to deal with the government has to use MS software. If the government uses an open format, then even if the government continues to use Office MS can't force the sale to people who need to work with the government.
That plugin only allows importing of OO.o documents into Word, at least AFAICT (I just installed it, I have office 2003.) It's precisely the opposite of what we're talking about here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And it's idiots like you who made it possible for the calm speaking lawyers of people like the RIAA/MPAA to manage to weasle the DMCA law past those who should have stopped it at the beginning.
That said, the DMCA is quite restrictive and does indeed apply to a surprising amount. I believe that it specifies bypassing PROTECTIONS though. The use of a published API to create a plugin allowing the use of a published documentation format doesn't really qualify obviously. There is no protection whatsoever at any point in that process. Neither one which gets bypassed, nor one which is followed through normally.
You own the DVD. You do not own the copyright on the DVD. Therefore CSS is a system for protecting a copyright that you do not own.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.