Novell Releases OO–OOXML Translator

Tookis writes in with news that Novell has released an Office Open XML (OOXML) translator for OpenOffice.org. The article argues that, though this move may represent a nail in the coffin of the franchise known as Microsoft Office, and therefore a Good Thing, what is truly needed is a fully supported Evolution on Windows.

Comments

hmm

[heyyou_overhere]

I think the article is confusing larger memory usage with greater efficiency.

Re:hmm

[guruevi]

Currently running Office 2007 at work here, only Outlook, Word and SharePoint Designer open uses already near 300MB for these programs alone (not including OS or any supporting daemons).

Evolution for Windows?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

what is truly needed is a fully supported Evolution on Windows.

How about an (ABI compatable) Exchange-equivilant for linux?

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[julesh]

Isn't that what SuSE OpenExchange is?

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[bubulubugoth]

There is no "SuSE OpenExchange", OpenExchange is a separate product, and it uses the binary connector to allow outlook clienten access calendar, taks and appointments at the openExchange.

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[Antique Geekmeister]

How about actual documentation for Evolution. It assumes you already know your local network settings, and provides no or almost no clues on how to actually look up your settings from a live MS Outlook client so you can switch over, or what is necessary on the Exchange server end to support its use.

Of course, with the recent patent deals with Microsoft, expect Novell to cooperate a lot more in supporting Microsoft's closed source, proprietary tools, and MS-violated standards.

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[electronerdz]

When I set up Evolution with my Exchange server, I just needed the Exchange server address, and the username and password. Most people should know this without having to look it up. Nothing needed to be done on the Exchange server I believe (other than maybe ActiveSync turned on, which if you want to have ANY fun with stuff like phones, you need turned on).

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Not for me: even obtaining the Exchange Server address required negotation through the IT department, and there are intricacies of the OWA URL that may not match properly, depending on the vagaries of your Exchange setup.

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[PastaLover]

The versions of MS Outlook I've worked with also required you to know the server address (and username stuff), so I think they just copied it over.

Re:Evolution for Windows?

[imemyself]

Actually that's not quite true. Outlook can connect directly to an Exchange frontend or backend server server. (I can't remember which. I have the frontend and backend on a single box, but I think I remember reading that a frontend server is only needed for IMAP/POP/SMTP connections in Exchange 2007.)

Exchange frontend servers handle the connections, while backend servers store the mailboxes. Evolution connects to Exchange via OWA (Outlook Web Access), which can be installed on yet another server. The same way MS's own client on Mac (Entourage) does, amusingly enough.

In a lot of (smaller) companies, the frontend, backend, and OWA may be running on the same box. But that is not necessarily true. Its not uncommon for OWA to be on a separate box in a DMZ or something.

So, in the case of a small company, the Exchange server's (acting as a frontend, backend, and OWA server) address could be mail.companyname.com. In that case the address for Outlook Web Access would be http://mail.companyname.com/exchange. But that would not be the case if they had OWA running on another server.

15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the yearly revenue for Microsoft Office is about 15 billion which is about one third of the total revenue Microsoft makes every year. Correct me if I'm off. Over the past five years or so Microsoft's stock has been essentially stagnant. And Microsoft has had to make huge cuts over many of the preceding quarters to hit their street expectations and keep the stock from tanking.

Even a modest hit to the Microsoft Office revenue due to the upgrade treadmill from the format lock-in would have a massive effect on the company. Over the years Microsoft used their rapidly growing stock to keep salaries down and attract people with the lure of huge gains from their option grants. If office software revenue starts falling and Microsoft exec options start turning worthless I think you will start to see dramatic cuts at the company - the multi-billion dollar Xbox fiasco, the Zune mess, and many of the other let's throw money at new markets to try to get the stock moving attempts that Ballmer and others have tried since the stock peaked back around 2000.

I have to imagine that Microsoft will fight this move to open office formats with a fury never seen before. This isn't just extra billions that Microsoft won't miss, it is the multi-million dollar retirement money for a whole lot of execs up in Redmond under direct assault by a bunch of dirty hippies.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[TheDugong]

"bunch of dirty hippies."

Actually, I think you will find the the correct term is "Long haired smellies".

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[SnprBoB86]

"I have to imagine that Microsoft will fight this move to open office formats with a fury never seen before"

You'd imagine wrong. Microsoft is fullly supporting this because they have opted for a more traditional (and ethical) approach to competing in this generation of office suites: simply having a superior product. Office 2007 is leaps and bounds easier and more plesant to use than Office 2003 and it produces prettier results to boot. Let's not even talk about how Office 2007 compares to OO.o....

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Ballmer only threw chairs. Someone educate me please.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[killjoe]

So why doesn't office support OO documents then?

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[drgonzo59]

The best thing Microsoft can do is to crack down on all those illegal copies of Office. I dream of the imaginary day when Microsoft will issue an update that will disable invalid copies of Windows and Office. That will be the day when OO will start shinning. Not because it is a better product but because it will simply appear in the spotlight as everyone will rush to find a replacement. Most people will just have to deal with OO's problems, but 1 out of 10,000 new users might be a developer and eventually decide to contribute to the project. A lot of those developers, including some companies and we got ourselves a nice open source office product.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to imagine that Microsoft will fight this move to open office formats with a fury never seen before. No it will not. First it will "buy" some people with disabilities. Then it will promote for their "open" OOXML as "the only choice these people".

I'm certain there are several organizations which are easily bought.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[advocate_one]

I'm certain there are several organizations which are easily bought.

from what I've seen, ECMA appears to have been one of them... Microsoft are having a little more trouble with ISO though...

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Anonymous Coward]

what color is the sky on your planet?

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Anonymous Coward]

If you breakdown the users of Microsoft's office software into categories of feature levels needed, I would imagine it is something like this:

1. People who don't actually use the software but were given a copy along with the work machine as part of the standard bundle
2. Basic word processing and simple spreadsheets
3. Basic word processing and simple spreadsheets but need perfect MS office compatibility or interoperability
4. High level word processing - features that might be missing from OO or don't work as well in OO
5. High level spreadsheet users - legacy macro users and higher level feature users missing in OO

Category 1 are probably the vast majority of office software users and could obviously be given OO.

Category 2 users probably can easily switch to OO with some simple training or ramp up period.

Category 3 users most likely won't be able to switch until more governments and other organization switch to open document formats

Categories 4 & 5 obviously would be the biggest hurdle but smallest percentage of users

I would assume percentage of userswise 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5

Losing a large percentage of 1 & 2 would probably be 50 to 75 percent of the current global office market. And there is little business or financial justification for organizations or governments to continue writing checks to Microsoft for effectively no reason.

Of course this is just my estimations from personal experience, but I have to think Microsoft is looking at the potential of losing a huge chunk of their office software revenue if not a large number of government institutions and large businesses switch to a standard office document format. It is absolutely nuts to suggest that somehow Microsoft 'got religion' over competition.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Jessta]

dirty hippies aka. Employees of Sun Microsystems and Novell.
Open Office might be Free software but that doesn't mean dirty hippies are involved.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[SnprBoB86]

There is plenty of good information on motivation, etc. here: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/default.aspx

A great summary of arguments can be in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/09/ 21/interoperability-of-the-office-open-xml-formats .aspx

Reguarding your particular question, that post states:

"If you look at my blog, I probably spend less than 5% of my time discussing ODF. The only reason I talk about it is that people have asked me why we didn't use it as our default format. A simple "it wouldn't work" answer obviously isn't good enough, so I had to show specific examples to help explain my view."

In this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/07/ 27/679703.aspx
Brian lists a whole bunch of examples of why it "wouldn't work" with references to previous posts with more details:

"
The OASIS ODF technical committee claims it's still over a year away from defining spreadsheet functions and tables in presentations, and no mention of solutions to the international numbering issues or even simple things like character highlighting.
"

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[larry bagina]

You're analysis is a few years too late. Everybody (stock analysts, MS Execs) recognized that microsoft is no longer a small cap/high growth company years ago. They've also reduced using stock options in favor of salary and have been paying a dividend since 2003. They've got 6 billion in cash and 37 billion in short/long term investments. They can afford to invest money in new products. The fact that they're doing that rather than sitting around and milking a cash cow means that, even if open office formats/linux/google/apple gain market share, MS will still be making cash.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[jkrise]

a superior product. Office 2007 is leaps and bounds easier and more plesant to use than Office 2003 and it produces prettier results to boot. Let's not even talk about how Office 2007 compares to OO.o....

Having used word processors for more than 15 years, I can confidently say that there is nothing prettier than Office 95, insofar as word-processing is concerned. The mail client (LookOut) is total crap, and has been so since it first launched.

Users don't waste time making documents pretty; they use word processors for 3 things:
1. To create them.
2. To read them.
3. To share them (that includes mail AND print).

Office 95 does all the above to the satisfaction of more than 99% users out there. Every subsequent version has been silly Bloatware and Bugware, and nothing innovative or useful, except maybe Clippie ;-)

To create, read and share documents, there are much better packages than Office.... personally, I find AbiWord and LaTex the best packages among the lot.

MS Office is certainly not a superior product for any of the above tasks.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[killjoe]

You think anybody buys that "it wouldn't work" argument?

OO can save as doc but not one person at MS is smart enough to make word save a document as OO xml.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[bmo]

"The best thing Microsoft can do is to crack down on all those illegal copies of Office."

Despite what Steve Ballmer bellowed lately there is no "11" on the knob for WGA and OGA. Indeed it is not likely for anyone at Microsoft to even paint an "11" on the WGA/OGA knob. That's because they view copyright infringement as a way to lock out competitors. As Bill Gates said in 1998, about the Chinese being the largest copyright infringers: "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." http://preview.tinyurl.com/2vmw4d

Nine years later, that statement still holds true. It will always be the reason why Windows will never have true whips-and-chains bondage type copy protection. From Microsoft's point of view, if some people go through the trouble of breaking WGA to install Windows, at least they're not installing Linux. The pain of breaking WGA/OGA will never exceed the (imagined) pain of going to alternatives.

--
BMO

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[ajs318]

Oh, come on. If Microsoft had clamped down on illegal copies of MS Office, then alternative office suites costing one tenth of the price of MS Office would have taken over already by now. Microsoft Office has become the industry standard because, to all intents and purposes, it's free. So people learn word processing (using spaces for formatting) and spreadsheets (using a calculator to add up figures) in their own time using a pirated copy of Office, then businesses have to pay for Office because that's what all their staff know. And people who work in businesses where Office is used get a pirate copy to use at home, because that's what they know from work. It's a vicious circle.

Imagine a small company, Mom + Pop Software Ltd. They manufacture someting called Cheap Office. It can't boast all the features of MS Office, but it has most of the ones people actually use. (It also defaults to A4 paper, so your printer won't insist for you to press the "paper" button after printing each page.) So it's ideal for writing everyday letters, doing accounts and keeping track of your CD collection, and it retails at £50. Now, our hypothetical customer John Thomas (who has letters to write, accounts to do and a CD collection to keep track of) sees Cheap Office and figures he could save £450 by buying it instead of MS Office. But then he figures he could pirate MS Office and save £500. If enough people do that, Mom + Pop Software Ltd. go out of business, due to piracy -- even though nobody has ever pirated a Mom + Pop product!

This is how Microsoft have traditionally killed off the competition. But unfortunately, Open Source software isn't susceptible to the same technique. If people aren't making heavy use of OpenOffice.org, nobody has lost anything. In fact it could give the developers time to move on and produce something different. (Watch that dark horse KOffice, too. It isn't even pretending to be like MS Office -- which could well turn out to be its salvation.) I'm sort of reminded of an episode of King of the Hill, in which the kid starts kicking people in the bollocks and grows to think he's unstoppable ..... till he finds himself up against his own mother!

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Ed Avis]

I like Word 6.0, which is essentially the same as Word 95 but with the retro Win3.1 buttons and dialogue boxes. Get the 32-bit version and run it on Windows NT 3.51... mmm, lovely.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[johnw]

Office 2007 is leaps and bounds easier and more plesant to use than Office 2003 ...as long as you don't mind writing all your e-mails in French.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[TheNinjaroach]

Microsoft Office has become the industry standard because, to all intents and purposes, it's free. ... And people who work in businesses where Office is used get a pirate copy to use at home, because that's what they know from work. Microsoft actually gives away nearly free ($15 for media + shipping) copies of Office Professional to all of our employees because of our license agreement. So half of your argument is good and valid (people use it at home which makes them want to use it at work which makes them want to use it at home) but they don't even have to pirate it.

Microsoft gets the employers to foot the bill, making it "free" to all of the employees. Employees throw fits at the first signs of change because they don't see any reason to change away from the "free" software they're used to.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[itlurksbeneath]

I love his blog comment about compatibility:

If the goal is to guarantee perfect fidelity with the existing base of Microsoft Office documents (which would be implied by the "billions of documents" statement), then there is still a long way to go. Why are they so strict in wanting "perfect fidelity" for a conversion to ODF when you don't even get perfect fidelity upgrading from one version of Office to the next?

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[Anonymous Coward]

not defending MS but there's a world of difference between defining and implementing a standard set of features and a format and getting something to work a la schlubs in their basements.

if you really thinks it's a matter of smarts vs. time/money/resources/returns that come into play, you are deluded.

if there's not a standard and a business prioritization to comply with the standard, it's a waste of time and resources to put the effort into working it out. you can be plenty smart but if your boss says "no" or even "meh", you may be wasting your (work) time to do something like that.

i may not like that model of dev, lots of folks may not like it, but it's part of commercial software (and technology) development and it's got less than 0 to do with the smarts of respective groups of coders.

Re:15 Billion Dollars A Year At Stake

[orkysoft]

Funny, I made a similar argument in a recent post, and got accused of making a pirate's rationalization! Granted, the accusation was by an AC, but still...

Anyway, I remarked that this same exact mechanism is what keeps Photoshop so popular, despite it being very expensive for non-professional users. FWIW, I never pirated MS Office or Adobe Photoshop, but lots of people seem to do so, and in doing so, they are strengthening those companies' market positions, yet making themselves vulnerable to lawsuits from these same companies. Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to do to me.

Visionaries

[Deadbolt]

It's really comforting to know that there are such men as this -- such utter, bigbrained geniuses who deign to drop us mortals a few crumbs of the great bread of awesome.

Sarcasm aside: I am sick to death of people going, "I want this for my computer, therefore everybody else wants it too, and therefore the only rational course is what I say." Have you considered asking the users what they wanted? Instead of assuming that "the users" want "full-featured desktop apps", do you think it might be worthwhile to check with them if that's true? Maybe they're already using gmail and love it. Maybe they don't even know about Google Calendar. Maybe they haven't ever heard of Zimbra.

Why should I, as J. Random Developer, bust my hump porting Evolution to Windows (which I couldn't do anyway as I know zip about Windows programming) just because this clown says what's good for him is good for everyone else?

Re:Visionaries

[Goalie_Ca]

This MS blogger seems to think differently as well.

From the blog:

If we ever were really in a war, it's now over, and both sides are winners.

Re:Visionaries

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

If we ever were really in a war,

WTF? That (MS) blogger is on crack.

Not only was it a war, it's a dirty war that's not over yet.

We've had accusations of corruption for State official's daring to consider ODF, Microsoft paying people for favorable wikipedia edits, Alleged attempts by IBM to influence OOXML standardisation process, etc etc etc.

It's not over yet folks. There's billions of dollars at stake. Of course its a war, of course its a dirty war.

Re:Visionaries

[jez9999]

Why should I, as J. Random Developer, bust my hump porting Evolution to Windows (which I couldn't do anyway as I know zip about Windows programming) just because this clown says what's good for him is good for everyone else?

Too right; the writer of TFA sounds like a moron.

I can almost hear the Linux crowd jumping up and down screaming: "Move over to Linux and you can have it all - OpenOffice.org plus the Linux-based equivalent to Outlook, Evolution." My answer is yes Evolution is what I want - but I want it on Windows.

The problem is that the year of the Linux desktop has still not arrived. Bullshit. Sounds like a quote from someone who hasn't even tried. Maybe he should try switching to Ubuntu for 30 days and report back.

Evolution for Windows

[Coryoth]

So what is needed is Evolution for Windows eh? Kind of like this? I don't have Windows around anywhere to try it out, but it looks like it runs fine. I expect it still has a few kinks to be worked out, but it is certainly up and running, so not only is a port in progress, it looks like it is even usable already.

Re:Evolution for Windows

[Pikoro]

I've been using Evolution on windows for a few months now and it works fine. Slow, but fully functional...

Re:Evolution for Windows

[julesh]

but it is certainly up and running, so not only is a port in progress, it looks like it is even usable already.

Having recently tried to use it, I'd say no. There are several major issues:

* Redraws are nightmarishly slow (admittedly this could be because I'm using an old PC, but I haven't seen any application redraw this slowly before).
* Initial configuration doesn't seem to work entirely correctly: if you need to change between SSL modes for an IMAP connection, you have to restart the program, but nothing tells you this. This may or may not be a Windows-only issue, I don't know.
* It stores its files in a subdirectory called ".evolution" of your user profile directory, not your application data or local settings directory. If you're using roaming profiles, this just plain won't work.

Re:Evolution for Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

* It stores its files in a subdirectory called ".evolution" of your user profile directory, not your application data or local settings directory. If you're using roaming profiles, this just plain won't work.

Roaming profiles can (and by default do) copy your ENTIRE user profile, so it does work (many other F/OSS apps do the same & they work with our roaming profiles).

Re:Evolution for Windows

[julesh]

Roaming profiles can (and by default do) copy your ENTIRE user profile, so it does work

Yes, OK, it works. Barely. The problem is that it stores temporary cache information in this directory, which should be stored in the 'Local Settings' directory so that it *isn't* copied. This resulted in login times on my network of in excess of five minutes after I'd been using it for a few weeks.

(many other F/OSS apps do the same & they work with our roaming profiles).

I've had exactly the same problem with GIMP before now; it stores its tile cache outside of the local directory, causing it to be copied across the network during login. Not exactly sensible behaviour.

Re:Evolution for Windows

[SanityInAnarchy]

To be fair, your first two issues probably also exist on Linux. Evolution really is that bad.

I remember at one point people were tracking down various performance issues with Reiser4. Now, Reiser4 fsync performance sucks balls, although that really isn't a huge issue with most of what I use it for. But nothing makes it look worse than crap like Evolution -- case in point -- resizing the columns. As you drag, it does its opaque/animation thing, so you're dragging it 5-10 pixels at a time, and the window and all the data is resizing itself as you drag it. Which is fine, but Evolution decided to not only save that to your configuration (presumably gconf?), not only flush that configuration out to a file immediately, but fsync it out to disk.

Yes, Evolution was worried that you'd lose power halfway through resizing a column and wanted to make sure everything was exactly where you left it!

Re:Evolution for Windows

[jZnat]

* It stores its files in a subdirectory called ".evolution" of your user profile directory, not your application data or local settings directory. If you're using roaming profiles, this just plain won't work. Your point? That's how settings are saved in every other operating system. Although, it could probably do better and mark the .evolution/ directory as hidden since Windows doesn't respect the .hidden syntax.

Re:Evolution for Windows

[julesh]

Your point? That's how settings are saved in every other operating system.

My point is that when porting software to a new operating system, changing its behaviour so that it respects local platform conventions is desirable.

Nails/Coffins

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping for a "final solution", if you will, to the XML problem.

Re:Nails/Coffins

[shawn443]

I've said it once and I will say it again. "If you don't love PERL times XML, you love Microsoft"!

Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[puppetluva]

1. Naive programmers implement patented microsoft CLR/C#
2. Novell buys liability nightmare language/runtime implementation
3. Novell does patent deal with Microsoft
4. Novell releases patented information for Office translator
5. Microsoft starts raising legitimate lawsuits against both Novel (mono) and everyone else (using Novell precedent of signing patent protection agreement)
6. . . .
7. Loss!!!

Wake up, little Suse. . .

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[PhrostyMcByte]

Don't worry - this ends good either way.

Either we'll have a good migration path, or Microsoft will demonstrate its definition of "Open" very clearly to governments and ODF will win over a lot more governments.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[j-pimp]

Novell is a worthless piece of shit company IMO, but the open source community has no one to blame but themselves for letting that little shit Miguel de Icaza do all of this damage.

You guys threw your little temper-tantrums over Java and now you are paying the price for that stupidity.

And now Java is GPL, so all us C# open source developers go back to writing Java programs. Microsoft knows as long as Mono is playing catchup, it can't attack mono or it will piss of us "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!." If that does happen, there is a perl one liner waiting to be written that will translate all the open source C# code into Java.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[kripkenstein]

3. Novell does patent deal with Microsoft
[...]
5. Microsoft starts raising legitimate lawsuits against [...] Novel (mono)

So, you are saying that Novell entered into a patent deal with Microsoft, so that they could get sued by Microsoft for infringing patents? I don't think that makes any sense. Novell's lawyers did read the contract, after all.

Your argument that other parties could get sued, however, is plausible in theory.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[halex-ab]

[...] 4. Novell releases patented information for Office translator [...] Isn't OOXML (Office Open XML) supposedly open? How is an open interface in any way patented?

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you are saying that Novell entered into a patent deal with Microsoft, so that they could get sued by Microsoft for infringing patents?

If I recall correctly, the deal with Microsoft is only for five years. If in five years Microsoft thinks that Linux is a serious threat, they simply won't renew the patent deal.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[kripkenstein]

If I recall correctly, the deal with Microsoft is only for five years. If in five years Microsoft thinks that Linux is a serious threat, they simply won't renew the patent deal.

That is true, it is for a limited period of time. It may also have clauses to cancel it beforehand (we simply don't know). Yet, this isn't a useful angle to use against Novell, I don't think. After all, Microsoft are paying Novell more for Novell's patents than vice versa. So patent litigation against Novell wouldn't be wise; Novell have more to gain.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[growse]

The deal is that MS won't sue Novell's *customers*, not Novell themselves.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[kripkenstein]

True, but as I said elsewhere in this thread, Microsoft are paying Novell far more for their patents than vice versa. So, I don't think this deal is meant to be the basis for patent lawsuits against Novell (Novell would have more to gain).

Microsoft's angle is probably something else - lawsuits against other people, or insurance against Linux taking off (by making money off of it through Novell), or by getting legitimization through Novell (as shown in TFA), etc.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[Octorian]

Hmmm.... Perl C# to Java translator:

Step 1: Translate keywords... Check
Step 2: Transform camel-case styles... Check
Step 3: Transform properties into get/set methods... Check
Step 4: Convert events and delegates into some hideous mess of interfaces and anonymous classes... uhhh... Might be more than a line of Perl.

Re:Microsoft lawyers are licking their chops

[Macthorpe]

Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit!

I'm willing to take the hit for this one. Everyone should do this once in their posting life.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[shawn443]

I'm surprised that Novell wants to kill Microsoft. I thought they were friends. I am not surprised that all Novell did is use XML as it was intended?

Nail in the coffin?

[280Z28]

Nail in the coffin? Pretty bold thing to say about Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is a great, free product, but IMO it's no replacement for Office in a never-look-back sense. Yes, they should keep putting pressure on MS regarding open formats, but I'm not about to switch from Office 2007 after my [wonderful] experience with it so far.

Techies love to complain about things like the ribbon, but everyone I see actually use it loves it.

MS Office isn't going anywhere. Neither is OpenOffice. And apparently neither is the Drama Llama.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[Anonymous Coward]

//Yes, they should keep putting pressure on MS regarding open formats, but I'm not about to switch from Office 2007 after my [wonderful] experience with it so far.//

You will forever require a Windows platform in order to open and manipulate (with fidelity) the documents you have created using Office 2007 and saved in OOXML.

For some people, this is (claimed to be) not an issue.

For most sane people, however, they are quite interested in escaping the Microsoft upgrade trap, and escaping reliance on a single vendor to supply any and all software products.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[ClosedSource]

"escaping reliance on a single vendor to supply any and all software products."

Sure because nobody ever has run Turbo Tax, Quicken, iTunes, Photoshop, AutoCAD, Google Desktop, Lotus Notes, MATLAB, non-MS games, (10,000 other non-MS apps) on Windows.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[Columcille]

For most sane people, however, they are quite interested in escaping the Microsoft upgrade trap, and escaping reliance on a single vendor to supply any and all software products.

The vast majority of sane people would have no idea what you are talking about. A small minority of people would know what you are saying and would agree with you. Many people who know what you are saying disagree with you because (to use myself as an example) I don't particularly mind being "trapped" in an OS and/or office system (currently I'm running Vista/Office 2007) that I consider superior. It may not always be superior, Linux is making progress and Apple is doing some interesting things, but I don't foresee a great change in the wind anytime soon. As it is, if I do someday decide to switch to a more open product, I feel pretty confident that between other products ability to read old formats, and Office's ability to save in different formats, I shouldn't have any real difficulty working with my files.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[jkrise]

Techies love to complain about things like the ribbon, but everyone I see actually use it loves it.

I'm not so sure. Using ribbons to tie up the hair is so 18th century. Nice-looking girls have switched to prettier things like hair-bands ....

Besides, do female techies exist? And if so, do they read Slashdot???

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[jez9999]

Ever considered that not everyone has as much cash as you and mightn't be able to afford the exorbitant figures MS asks on a bi-yearly basis for their Office suite upgrades, to be able to stick with the 'superior' system, just so MS shareholders can grow fatter on their investments? That's why I have a problem with MS Office.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay I may be off topic here, but pray tell: How is vista superior to $Distro?

Unless you count the driver issues(which vista is suffering as well) I cannot see one single point where Vista wins.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Weavng ribbons *into* hair braids and styles, however, remains amazingly attractive. It looks a bit odd on a beard, but I've met folks who consider it quite attractive.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[zippthorne]

Matlab, at least, has a linux version. or linux wrappers or something. The student edition for instance comes with both windows and linux versions on the same disk.

Re:Nail in the coffin?

[ClosedSource]

I don't doubt it. MATLAB has always been available on multiple platforms. My point is that using Windows doesn't lock you into using only MS applications.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[Anonymous Coward]

//Microsoft made a new format (instead of using ODF) because they thought they could do it better, not because they wanted to lock people into using Office 2007.//

That is not correct. Microsoft's supposedly "open" format in fact avoids "open" as much as it can. For example, where OpenDocument uses SVG for graphics, which is itself a W3C open format that any vendor may use, in the Microsoft format Office Open XML (OOXML) they could have used SVG, but no, they could have used CGM, but no, what did they use? WMF. That is right, a buggy Microsoft proprietary graphics format, the one with the security hole, WMF. WMF relies on the Microsoft GUI API to render properly, as WMF has embedded metadata meant for calls to the Microsoft GUI API.

That is not the only thing in OOXML like that. If there is an open format for anything, Microsoft avoids it. Microsoft's OOXML is as packed as can be on dependencies that the underlying platform on which any application runs is a Windows platform.

Microsoft wanted to lock people in all right. It will be impossible to achieve perfect fidelity with OOXML on any platform other than a Windows platform.

If you have documents saved in OOXML format, you will be locked in to Windows platforms.

a nail in the coffin

[chiasmus1]

I fail to see how this can be considered "a nail in the coffin"? Not even the article really talked about what Novell releasing this would do, and why. Am I missing something?

Re:a nail in the coffin

[L4m3rthanyou]

Seriously... unless they're talking about a coffin full of money or something. Last I heard OOo wasn't making any significant dent in Microsoft Office.

As much as I hate to admit it, nothing comes close to Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is slow, lacks features, and is really a poor substitute... though they did to a much better job than their parent StarOffice (which sucked balls). Given time they could become better, but right now they're still a long way off.

Frankly, after trying to deal with OpenOffice I just added M$ Office to my short list of "reasons why I keep that Windows partition".

Re:a nail in the coffin

[westlake]

I fail to see how this can be considered "a nail in the coffin"? Am I missing something?

There is always room for another "Death of Microsoft" post on the Slashdot front page.

Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

> what is truly needed is a fully supported Evolution on Windows.

Oh fuck no.. How about a fully supported version for Linux first?

If they could fix some bugs, it wouldn't be such a steaming pile of shit.

Re:Evolution

[arevos]

Disclaimer: I use Evolution. Yeah, I used Evolution for quite a while, since it integrates nicely with GNOME. Unfortunately, as you say, it's a complete pile of excrement with a stability that would shame beta software, let alone an application that claims to be stable.

Thunderbird's quite a nice replacement, if you just want an email client. I'm guessing you need something more, though.

Re:Evolution

[lennier]

I use Evolution at home, and while I think it's a nice email client, I find myself avoiding it as a calendar and writing contact numbers in text files in Gedit rather than trusting them to its contact system. That probably says something.

I really, really wish it did not use '.evolution' as its main folder. I have a couple of gigabytes of email in there. Who was it who thought I want that folder to be hidden when I go to copy my essential documents out of my home directory? (say when the next release of Ubuntu comes out)?

Last I recall, it did not have a good way of bulk importing and exporting appointments, or bulk erasing my calendar so I can synchronise my Palm with it without getting duplicates. Eventually I jus gave up trying to get my Palm to sync with it cleanly, and therefore abandoned it as a calendar. Anything less than absolutely 100% perfect syncing, every time, means data loss, and data loss in a calendar/PIM means you either miss an important meeting or lose a friend's contact details forever. My Palm is my life. It's not worth the risk.

What you need is a calendaring system that works

[cheros]

The stranglehold is in the calendaring AFAIK.

Nail in the coffin huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you remember the classic IE vs netscape battles back in the 90's?

Microsoft came out with a fast release and quick delivery iterations.
Yes, they had an advantage by forcing it upon every windows 9X user, but their original release was pitiful, and netscape had an opportunity to deliver a superior product and win the browser majority.

What did they do?

Netscape spent their time working in multiple directions without releasing a core product.

In the end, the mozilla project came out with the superior browser, but since it took so long to deliver, it fights with opera and safari for 10% of the browser market.

Do I see history repeating itself here in the desktop office app battles?

Re:Nail in the coffin huh?

[mgiuca]

If you're comparing MS Office to IE, and OpenOffice.org to Firefox, well history is starting to look quite good on the open side...

Re:Nail in the coffin huh?

[Vexorian]

Firefox isn't fighting with opera and safari for 10% of the browser market...

Re:Nail in the coffin huh?

[tepples]

Microsoft came out with a fast release and quick delivery iterations. Until version 6, when IE stagnated arguably as much as Netscape had.

In the end, the mozilla project came out with the superior browser, but since it took so long to deliver, it fights with opera But because this 10 percent is greater than 2 percent, web developers can't ignore the existence of alternate web browsers and computing platforms the way they could before.

and safari The majority of home PCs run a Microsoft Windows XP operating system. Safari and other KHTML based browsers don't run on Windows unless the user uses VMware to dedicate a gigabyte of RAM to running an emulated PC including Linux, X11, Qt, KDE, and Konqueror.

Re:Nail in the coffin huh?

[Brunellus]

Tell that to the great unwashed mass of users that don't use Firefox because it's not their default browser. But be sure to speak slowly, because they won't understand that the blue E isn't all of the Internet

Re:Nail in the coffin huh?

[roscivs]

Actually I see MS Office as IE and OpenOffice.org as the newly-open-sourced Mozilla: big, bloated, and buggy. I'm just waiting for someone to turn OpenOffice.org into a lean, mean Firefox machine. *Then* we'll start seeing real competition.

Re:Nail in the coffin huh?

[mgiuca]

Sounds about right, but as far as the competition goes, I think Firefox is about as slim as IE, while OO and Office are as bloated as each other. Office suites tend to be.

I personally haven't had much trouble with OOo.

What about Evolution for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason I use Evolution on my Linux desktops is because it lets me talk to Exchange servers. Thunderbird and KMail are both great if all you need is a GUI mail client that talks POP and IMAP. Evolution does those pretty well too.

But Evolution can also (sort of) speak to Exchange servers (through Outlook Web Access), which is supposed to make it possible to do things like manipulating Exchange calendars, managing Exchange tasks, and using Exchange global address lists. Unfortunately, it's still not all there yet. And from what I've seen lately, it's getting worse. There are some major connector regressions in the 2.8.x release of Evolution that make me regret upgrading to Fedora Core 6 every day. And no one seems to be interested in doing anything about it, the bugs have been open for weeks -- even months.

Outlook is a killer application for business desktop users, and I say "killer" because not having an equivalent for Linux will KILL Linux desktop adoption. Hell, even cell phones work better with Exchange than Evolution does right now.

Who didn't know what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that Novell wants to kill Microsoft.

You'd be even more surprised then to lear that Microsoft wants to kill Microsoft. This project is sponsored by them.

Thunderbird

[iamacat]

Evolution may be trying to clone Outlook, but it's not great as a standalone e-mail program. There is nothing really wrong with Thunderbird. For a calendar, try Palm Desktop. There is a little program to sync it to iPod.

Re:Thunderbird

[Verunks]

there is also mozilla sunbird as a standalone calendar program that you can use, or if someone use vista the new windows calendar works pretty good, there is also kontact for kde that is really good

Re:Thunderbird

[Octorian]

I'd love a good open-source cross-platform calendar program. The problem is that Sunbird is still way-too-pre-release, and so is Chandler (another good option). Neither seem to want to handle remote calendar subscriptions without barfing, while iCal (which sucks in many other ways) handles them just fine.

The only ones that are actually usable are integrated into other programs (i.e. Evolution, Kontact, etc.) that don't seem so wonderful if you spend your day using Windows, MacOS, and Linux. (yes, I use all three, and all the good Linux stuff becomes close-to-worthless on MacOS, and of limited utility on Windows. Yes, I know you can point me to porting projects. No, they aren't the same as actual core app support.)

Re:Thunderbird

[Anonymous Coward]

Chandler is too flaky for me, but we use Sunbird for real, collaborative calendaring. My experience is quite a bit different than yours--Sunbird is able to work with remote calendars more robustly than iCal. When we initially evaluated the two products, iCal needed nasty work arounds to be able to both receive updates from and post to remote calendars. I think this has since changed, but Sunbird has supported this since the beginning.

Our only objection is that Sunbird-03 doesn't retrieve updates periodically or before it tries to publish the calendar. If you forget to manually refresh, you can overwrite old events. 0.2 seemed to handle this correctly, the new version of 0.3 tries to put the calendar into read-only mode before it tries to make a change, and the 0.5/above releases have a feature to auto-update every N minutes (where N is initially 30, but is user-configurable). These will mitigate our only complaint, but for now we keep everything on subversion (over webdav) anyway, so we can revert as needed.

What specific objections do you have about Sunbird?

Re:Thunderbird

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lightning extension for Thunderbird works pretty well, is free/open source, and cross-platform

Re:Thunderbird

[Octorian]

It actually didn't handle the calendars I was trying to subscribe to properly, while iCal did. (though such calendar setups are in desperate need of upgrading)

I think the bigger problem is that the open calendaring protocols (i.e. CalDAV) are still in their infancy, and not yet very well supported across the board. That will change, of course, but it'll take time.

MicroShafting cynicism aside ...

[Somnus]

... this could make Linux desktops (KDE, GNOME, etc.) suitable for SOHO use. I work independently, but I need 100% compatibility with Word and PowerPoint to collaborate with colleagues and funding agencies who are still dedicated to MS Office. I can save money and headaches over CrossOver.

In particular, I'm hoping that there will emerge a GNOME alternative to Impress, and that AbiWord .doc filtering will be perfect. (.xls filtering in Gnumeric has been pretty good.)

Nail in the coffin, my foot - MS wanted this

[SnprBoB86]

This will do squat for putting any nails in anything.

Microsoft wanted this. Infact, Microsoft helped Novel do this: http://www.novell.com/ctoblog/?p=43
And the Microsoft Open XML developers were more than helpful to advertise this: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/03/ 02/openoffice-support-for-the-openxml-formats.aspx

This is a GOOD THING for everyone. OpenOffice.org users get interopability with MS Office. MS Office meets many government required interopability and open XML format requirements. Win-win.

Let's keep the absurd commentary out of the summary and in the modded down comments, please?

Re:Nail in the coffin, my foot - MS wanted this

[zakeria]

correct!

Is it safe?

[pembo13]

Since there seems to be no way around this entire IP mess, I shall go with the flow for now and ask - is it (legally) safe to include this in any Linux OSS project?

Re:Who didn't know this?

[jonwil]

The reason why OOXML uses WMF and relies on quirks of old versions of Word (and of WordPerfect etc) and all this other stuff is because OOXML has to be able to store every piece of data that the word *.doc file format stores. Because Word has used WMF ever since Microsoft invented WMF (which was long before SVG came along), Word will continue to use WMF.

Only Good For Novell OpenOffice

[Zatoichi007]

After reading the article and comments, it appears the compatibility is only good for Novell's version of Open Office. It is not available for the "standard" Open Office.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[XanC]

OOXML has to be able to store every piece of data that the word *.doc file format stores

Not true; Office 2007 could have a WMF -> SVG converter in it. Storing graphics as SVG would then just be part of saving into an XML format.

The worrying thing is Novell's reputation

[jkrise]

Throughout it's existence, Novell has never been a credible threat to Microsoft over a reasonable lenth of time. Their agreement with Microsoft further reinforces the suspicion that Novell might not be realy competing, rather they might be collaborating with Microsoft to further extend the monopoly situation and exclude genuine choice, and freedom of software. Some concerns:

1. Does Novell's translator work well with OO.org, or Novell's version of Open Office only?
2. Like Mono's port of VB, is the usage of the translator covered by the patent deal between MS and Novell?
3. Why did Novell abandon the Netware range of products?

This does not appear to be a nail in the coffin of Office, it seems to be an extended lease of life for a dying format and bloatware from the 800lb gorilla.

-

Re:The worrying thing is Novell's reputation

[growse]

1. Does Novell's translator work well with OO.org, or Novell's version of Open Office only?

Probably both, Novell aren't doing anything drastic (if at all) to OO.o. They're certainly not putting MS patents in their own version - they can't as it's GPL.

2. Like Mono's port of VB, is the usage of the translator covered by the patent deal between MS and Novell?

Depends. If it's released under GPL or similar, then it doesn't have MS patents in it, and Novell will have checked that. If they're selling the converter, then it's entirely possible it does have patents in it, and will be covered.

3. Why did Novell abandon the Netware range of products?

Wasn't it rubbish? There's more money in SLED.

Re:The worrying thing is Novell's reputation

[lennier]

3. Why did Novell abandon the Netware range of products?

What an odd question. They didn't. They ported it to Linux. That's what Open Enterprise Server is. SuSE + Netware. And at the same time they built a whole lot more web-service type services off to the side of the 'Netware' box.

By 'Netware' I mean the bundle of core file-and-print technologies that date back to the old-school Netware 4.x/5.x/6.x days: Novell Storage Services file system, Novell Core Protocol for file access, Novell Distributed Printer Services, the Novell Client for Windows, ConsoleOne for administration. They're all still there. As is Groupwise, only now it runs on OES.

There's also a bunch of 'Novell' rather than 'Netware'-branded services such as eDirectory (the directory formerly known as Novell Directory Services), ZEN Desktop Management, ZEN Imaging, ZEN Asset Management, exteNd Composer/Director portal/webservices platform, and Identity Manager, which from the start were not written with dependencies on Netware but in Java or .NET/Mono or as crossplatform binaries (eDirectory for example runs on Linux, Solaris, Windows and Netware).

Netware itself was basically just a low level kernel/OS with a fair few limitations (though it was simple... NLMs were like a hybrid of EXEs and DLLs), and was showing its age, so replacing Netware with SuSE was a huge step forward.

Granted, Novell is really bad for constantly changing the names of its products just for the sake of trendiness (Identity Manager, formerly Novell Account Manager, formerly DirXML...), so I suppose it's not surprising people constantly get confused - but it's not like Novell has stopped shipping Netware any more than Microsoft has stopped shipping, say, Win32 or SMB.

Translators are fine but

[obarthelemy]

1- How well does it work ? In my experience, translators and export filters are never that great. So even a translator is not enough, it has to be a GOOD translator.

2- More generally, how well does OpenDoc travel from one program to another, and from one platform to another ? We all know .doc is not very good at maintaining layout across platforms / versions / even PCs... is OpenDoc any better ?

Re:Who didn't know this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? So often you can not have correct conversion of WMF to SVG. I don't know why but probably WMF (or EMF to be more precise) can do things that SVG cannot. Now, would you do it if you were Microsoft and did this move did broke lots of current documents of your customers because you couldn't keep the figures the same way they are? Would you as a customer buy Office 2007 if you knew that there is a 1% probability that some of your Office 2003 documents could not be read correctly?

Evolution

[dotpl]

We don't need Evolution for windows, we need something other than the pile of crap that Evolution is.

Disclaimer: I use Evolution.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[modeless]

If only it was that easy. The real problem is that Word must without fail remain 100.0% compatible with every previous version, down to the pixel. The feature sets of WMF and SVG are not identical, and a converter with true 100% compatibility is not something anyone is going to whip up in a few days. It may not even be feasible. And after conversion, even if the document looks the same, the structure will be different. The way you edit it will change. The saved undo history will probably have to be thrown away. The interaction with other Word features like Track Changes might be different. etc etc...

People expect their documents to always look and work *exactly* the same, even though they do incredibly boneheaded things that end up relying on every feature and bug Word has ever had. For just one example, a relative of mine who will remain nameless typed out all his Word documents using tabs in place of carriage returns. That's right: between every paragraph, instead of pressing enter, he pressed tab to fill up lines until he got far enough down the page to start another paragraph. He centered text using this method too. Not a single carriage return in the entire document. What do you think that document will look like after *any* conversion at all? The precise to-the-pixel word-wrap decisions made by Word define everything about how that document looks. But if this person upgrades their Word and their documents are messed up, are they going to say "Boy I'm a dumbass, thanks Microsoft for showing me the error of my ways, I'll just retype all my documents now"? I think you know the answer.

This is why the OOXML spec is 6000 pages of hacks like 'autoSpaceLikeWord95' or 'lineWrapLikeWord6'. Not just to be obtuse; not as a grand conspiracy to hinder interoperability and shut out Open Office; not because Microsoft is incompetent. Because people demand uncompromising perfect backwards compatibility, and that's the only way to truly deliver it.

Grow up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Storing graphics as SVG would then just be part of saving into an XML format.

Alright, this is just dumb. Now compatibility pack for Office 2003 and earlier would have to convert SVG -> WMF on load and then WMF -> SVG *ever* *time* someone with older Office works with Office 2007 XML document. And it must do it with full feature parity or parts of user documents would be lost.

Error on installation

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to modify manifest.xml and get rid of application/octet-stream to install this oxt file without those unsupported media type errors. (it was on Windows...)

Although with those errors, it seems to be installed just fine, though.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. It all makes sense... except for the fact that if the goal is 100 % compatibility, then there is no point in actually creating a new format, or in particular building it on top of XML and marketing as an "open" format.

Now they are creating a new format that will undoubtedly create new bugs and incompatibility problems, however hard they try to avoid them. If they wanted to, they could reach even better compatibility by using the same old binary format, with minor extensions for new features. But that would mean their marketing would have no answer to calls for open standard formats, and they cannot have that.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowhere in the 6000 spec do they claim that every application needs to implement 100% of the spec. Office 2007 does and that makes it compatible with old version binary documents. Open Office .org can implement a small part with all SVG-type additions they want - that is what new formats are about.

Sun's ODF Word Plugin

[Anonymous Coward]

A few weeks ago Sun released a plugin for Word that allows it to read and wright .odf (i.e. OpenOffice.org) documents.

It's free.

OOo-OOXML

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be easy to fix. It is quite obvious that memory usage can be decreased simply by changing it to 5OXML

Re:Who didn't know this?

[slashbart]

People expect their documents to always look and work *exactly* the same, even though they do incredibly boneheaded things that end up relying on every feature and bug Word has ever had

Dude, there has never been this pixel perfect rendition between different Word versions, not even on Windows, let alone if you also include the Mac versions. I absolutely don't buy your argument as a valid reason for all the renderAsWord1OnMacintosh1984 attributes

Re:Who didn't know this?

[StrawberryFrog]

OOXML uses WMF and relies on quirks of old versions of Word ... Word has used WMF ever since Microsoft invented WMF (which was long before SVG came along), Word will continue to use WMF.

So, Word is using all the quirks and legacy formats that it has been using, except now it's "open" because it's got XML wrapped around it. It's not that easy - you can't have it both ways.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you wouldn't disagree that it is impossible to write an implementation
on a non-Windows platform, and you'd agree that it would be right for
Governments to avoid OOXML as a lock-in format?

Microsoft Office isn't going anywhere.

[Caspian]

...a nail in the coffin of the franchise known as Microsoft Office...

Please. Office isn't going anywhere. As long as there are Microsoft-loving managers, MS Office will be overwhelmingly dominant. Frankly-- and bear in mind that I hate MS-- Office is a far sight better than OpenOffice.org, which I've always found to be bloated and amateurish.

This whole "OOH OFFICE IS GOIN' DOOOOOOOOWN" mentality strikes me as wishful thinking.

What I need more..

[rockypg]

..is an evolution plugin that connects to Microsoft Exchange server Outlook Web Access through a proxy.

My job requires me to program on Linux, and I also prefer using Linux full time as ITservices here has draconian policies here for Windows users (Everyone is a restricted user and they cannot even change their own wallpaper). On my linux box, I have root access, my own wallpaper and mp3 player. There are so few linux boxen here that ITS let me have root access. They aren't well versed enough, and they don't want the extra hassles.

I don't get to choose what Mail server my employer uses. I can choose my client though. IT services refuses to support POP or SMTP as they have had to deal with Viruses before.I work on a Dual Boot FC6/WinXp box, and am forced to forced to boot into WinXp just to manage my email. Outlook Web Access does not work that great with Firefox, and does not provide for a way to pull email off the server and store them locally. Our web access is through an authenticated Proxy and the evolution plugin cannot deal with that (yet). What do the other folks out there with linux boxen and M$ mail servers deal with this?

Re:What I need more..

[old_kennyp]

How about running a VMware session with windows version of your choice. Only having Outlook installed to manage your mail No need to reboot and run windows just do mail. Leave the vmware session running minimised and open it when you need. VMware player is free and runs well under linux and you will only still be using you existing windows licence.

Re:What I need more..

[aurelianito]

What you need more is to try outlook web access with ie4linux ;-).

Nail in the coffin?

[heffrey]

Perhaps people find MS Office better to use than OpenOffice.org. Just a thought....

Re:Who didn't know this?

[johnw]

The real problem is that Word must without fail remain 100.0% compatible with every previous version, down to the pixel. Pure drivel - the incompatibilities between one version of Word and the next are too numerous to count. People might expect this level of functionality, but they've never received it from Word.

Not so much a nail in the coffin

[Anonymous Coward]

as the seeds of a new tyranny enabled by patents on the CLR and supporting libraries.

That's not flamebait

[Reality Master 201]

That's a good point. Some dudes at sun with a bunch of schlubs in their underwear at home can
figure out the various office formats and save their docs to them. Why can't MS work that out

Re:That's not flamebait

[jank1887]

Why can't MS work that out.

They can. They don't need to. Next question.

Re:That's not flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words:

Corporate groupthink.

Re:That's not flamebait

[vondiggity]

Whats even worse it that Microsoft is taking six months to make the translators for Office 2004 on the Mac to read their own new XML formatted docs, and they own both products!

Missed something basic

[g2devi]

> OpenOffice.org users get interopability with MS Office.

The problem is, this translator is "lossy", meaning that any translation will lose information *both ways*:
http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/features.html

Also, being a translator instead of an exporter means that a double save will have to happen which has it's own set of issues.

> Win-win.

Actually, it's win-lose since it's the appearance of openness without actual openness, so MS Office devotes will be able to claim that no change in status quo is required (after all competition exists so there's no vendor lockin) but no-one will trust ODF translations into OOXML since they will look bad. Another side effect is that people will move away from DOC which has better support universally (through years of reverse engineering) in favour of OOXML (which has poorer universal support) since "XML is the future". Not good.

But if you're going to support OOXML in OpenOffice despite this last comment, a better approach would be an OOXML *exporter*. The key difference between an exporter and a translator is that an exporter has access to a lot more information about the document (the internal application representation of document) and so the exporter can be more accurate than the translator (which could in theory rebuild those data structures, but in practice won't unless OpenOffice and MS Office are refactored so that the creation of the internal data structures from the file system is available through a library) and an exporter will be faster (no double-save, no external tool, no recreation of even minimal internal data structures).

Re:Missed something basic

[bigpat]

Actually, it's win-lose since it's the appearance of openness without actual openness, so MS Office devotes will be able to claim that no change in status quo is required (after all competition exists so there's no vendor lockin) but no-one will trust ODF translations into OOXML since they will look bad. Another side effect is that people will move away from DOC which has better support universally (through years of reverse engineering) in favour of OOXML (which has poorer universal support) since "XML is the future". Not good. Yes, this was my impression also. But since Microsoft is hell bent on pushing OOXML as the next format, then it was likely that OOXML will be a de facto standard for MS Word in about a year or two once a critical mass of Office 07 installations are in the market. Having some compatibility in Open Office for that format is desirable, but if it is a way way conversion then it could very well be a trap. Much better to have the ability to read and write ODF in Microsoft Office, so that people have the option to use ODF in Microsoft Office. To that end the ODF converter for Word attemps to do just that and has just made their initial release. So now you can write .odt files in Open Office or MS Office and people will be able to share them and there is no danger of proprietary lock-in. Hopefully the other file types will follow.

But people need to keep driving home the point that OOXML is not really an open standard. It is simply a open wrapper for proprietary formats.

Hit it Harder

[electronerdz]

Just to drive the nail in even further, distros like Ubuntu and Fedora should offer it in the updates almost immediately, or even in the updater for OOo, as to show how fast OSS can really be.

Real-world test - Fails with OO.o

[AYeomans]

It's fascinating how slashdot still prefers opinions to facts.

I downloaded the odfconverter-1.0.0-2.oxt file and tried to install into OpenOffice.org 2.1.0 for Windows (as downloaded from openoffice.org web site, not the Novell version).

I had to use Tools -> Extension manager (not Package manager), and when installing, had several pop-ups stating "This media-type is not supported: application/octet-stream". OKing these showed the odfconverter installed into "My extensions". And "Microsoft Word 2007 Document (.docx)" was added to the list of files in File -> Open.

But trying to open a .docx file (the Windows Vista Product Guide failed, with nothing happening or displayed.

Anyone want to try the other options of Linux, OO.o 2.0.4, Novel OO.o 2.0.4 and report back?

Re:Real-world test - Fails with OO.o

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the download page specifically states that this only works with the Novell version of OpenOffice.org. It lists this as a "requirement" for installation. I have tried to install to the "standard" version of OpenOffice.org (version 2.1) and got the same results. I am currently downloading the Novell version of OOo to check this out...

Franchise

[Tim C]

n. The right to sell a company's products in a particular area using the company's name

From Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Office is not a franchise, it is a product, like any other piece of software. Please stop using words you don't understand, it lowers the tone of the entire site and leads to otherwise utterly redundant posts like this one.

Re:Franchise

[gc8005]

it lowers the tone of the entire site and leads to otherwise utterly redundant posts like this one.

You're new here, right?

Schlubs

[Savage-Rabbit]

That's a good point. Some dudes at sun with a bunch of schlubs in their underwear at home can
figure out the various office formats and save their docs to them. Why can't MS work that out What kind of an animal is a 'schlub'? And why is it's preferred habitat the underwear of dudes@Sun.com? Perhaps the whole problem could be solved by breeding some more shlubs and setting them free in the underwear of dudes@Microsoft.com?

Re:Schlubs

[Reality Master 201]

Sorry; I'd written my post for native speakers of English, who are able to speak the
sentence with proper intonation, such that the indented reading is clear.

Re:Schlubs

[ubuwalker31]

A 'schlub' is usually a person regarded as clumsy, stupid, or unattractive. It is an old yiddish or polish word meaning a blockhead, a yokel, or a boor. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=zhlob

Re:Schlubs

[BobPaul]

Sorry; I'd written my post for native speakers of English, who are able to speak the sentence with proper intonation, such that the indented reading is clear. Translation: "Because English is my native language, I'm excused from understanding how commas work. Therefore, you're an idiot."

Oh, and double points for the lacking a sense of humor. Congrats!

Re:Schlubs

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah! Where'd that whooshing noise come from?

Reality-matters meant: "Some dudes at sun and a bunch of schlubs at home in their underwear can..."
Otherwise the dudes at sun are the only actors in the sentence. So when he meant to say there were two groups of programmers: underwear donning schlubs sitting around at home AND a group of Sun employees, he actually stated the Sun employees were working from home, apparently infested with genital schlubs.

Re:Schlubs

[Reality Master 201]

I understand perfectly well how commas work. I also understand how native speakers of
a language can take a potentially ambiguous orthographic representation and determine
the proper reading from it by use of pragmatic factors, world knowledge, and an understanding
of intonational features that would be present in a spoken rendering of said sentence.

Finally, there's nothing wrong with my sense of humor; I just didn't find the post funny.

It does no such thing

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

The article argues that, though this move may represent a nail in the coffin of the franchise known as Microsoft Office

It does no such thing. Which is good, because that would be an incredibly stupid thing to claim.

Office won't be going anywhere...

[nerdstrap]

Microsoft will simply add a ODF exporter as well... It's still the best office productivity software out there. The feature set and development capabilities cannot be ignored.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[tepples]

The reason why OOXML uses WMF and relies on quirks of old versions of Word (and of WordPerfect etc) and all this other stuff is because OOXML has to be able to store every piece of data that the word *.doc file format stores Then why isn't it broken into a simpler subset designed for new documents and a legacy extension designed for lossless round tripping of old documents?

Re:Who didn't know this?

[tepples]

Nowhere in the 6000 spec do they claim that every application needs to implement 100% of the spec. That's because they reserve the right to claim it elsewhere and use the threat of patent litigation to back up that claim. It's also because they know that governments like to spend tax money on things that implement 100 percent of a spec.

...the article is just confused

[listening to triplej]

Apart from the good news of an OOXML translator for OpenOffice.org, that was a terrible article!

It seems the author is a noob who is only just putting his toe in the water with a first install of OOo. After anouncing the news of the translator, he then starts rambling on about Evolution on windows, whatever.

Who said it was the goal of the open-source community to crush Microsoft??! While it may be true that many in open-source folk don't like Microsoft, I think it would be more accurate to say that the goal of open-source is to produce good free software that is based on open standards that anyone can use, improve and learn from. It's about freedom, not Microsoft bashing.

Sure, Evolution on Windows might be great for some people - but that's another story, can't we just be happy with the good news (about the translator) for the moment?

Built in obsolescence

[Serious Callers Only]

and all this other stuff is because OOXML has to be able to store every piece of data that the word *.doc file format stores.

And if you believe that, and believe it's a good idea to further lock yourself in to the products of a user-hostile company, MS has several other bridges to sell you. There's never been a better time to move away from binary, ephemeral, inscrutable formats for our documents. Word can't even open these memory dump docs consistently across versions/platforms.

The fact that MS either hasn't grasped this (highly unlikely, given the level of people they have working there), or actually chooses to lock in its customers with OOXML, tells me, as a customer, all I need to know.

I have to be the one who says this...

[Grashnak]

what is truly needed is a fully supported Evolution on Windows. Evolution? I would have that that what was needed was Intelligent Design.

AITSNMO*

[imikem]

Acronym Is Too Short, Needs More OOs

What we really need is an Object Oriented OpenOffice.org Office Open XML translator (OOOOoOOXML).

where the hell is it?

[DigDuality]

For a released product, i sure can't find it anywhere.

Re:where the hell is it?

[assassinator42]

I agree. Seriously, what's with this Slashdot post and the linked article? And why aren't other people asking where the hell it is? And why isn't someone providing a link?

Switching Offices...

[ZwJGR]

Currently I use MSOffice 2003 on WinXP SP2.
(I also run Slackware 11.0 under coLinux).
This has always worked fine for me, I'm used to it and many of my documents are saved in this format.
A converter between two competing XML document format changes absolutely nothing for me or anybody I know, at all.
If you really want pixel/layout perfect compatability between all machines running all weird and wonderful OSs, then you realistically have to store you data in plain text with monospaced font, HTML or PDF.
Office documents contain too much stuff instrinsic to the program used to create them.
For example, you can include COM-based VB macros, OLE embedded objects (such as equation editor), and other miscallaneous items in MS Word documents, getting them to work correctly on different OSs correctly would be a nightmare.
If the OpenOffice suite did absolutely everything that MS Office did (including in particular Excel with its myriad features, a real must), than I would just write all my new documents/spreadsheets with that and be done with it, leaving my existing documents as they are.
The goal is mostly stationary as the real useful improvements in Office since 2000 (except Access, and perhaps Excel 2003), are frankly negligible (Word 2000 added nested tables, that is the only useful difference I have noticed between Word 2003 and Word 1997).
Outlook in my opinion is rubbish so I try to avoid it wherever possible (what is wrong with webmail).
Also, why do people seem to need an integrated calendar, email client and word processor?
Calendar: Calendar program/piece-of-paper-on-wall.
Word processor: Whatever you like/have.
Email: Whatever, (webmail is least hassle by far).

What would really be useful is if MS Office would run properly and smoothly without huge amounts of messing about with WINE or paying for Cedega, under Linux. That is more important than whether I can convert (lossily), between the two formats at the moment.
That and games are mostly what are stopping me leaving MS Windows.
One day I'll reserve the order and run windows as a VM under Linux...

Re:Switching Offices...

[dos.one]

Outlook in my opinion is rubbish so I try to avoid it wherever possible (what is wrong with webmail). Also, why do people seem to need an integrated calendar, email client and word processor? Calendar: Calendar program/piece-of-paper-on-wall. I quit reading after that. I think anyone who's ever worked in a large corporate setting will find the "piece-of-paper-on-wall" calendar to be lacking in certain essential features.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[bigpat]

Really? So often you can not have correct conversion of WMF to SVG. I don't know why but probably WMF (or EMF to be more precise) can do things that SVG cannot. Now, would you do it if you were Microsoft and did this move did broke lots of current documents of your customers because you couldn't keep the figures the same way they are? Would you as a customer buy Office 2007 if you knew that there is a 1% probability that some of your Office 2003 documents could not be read correctly? I think the original point was that OOXML is not an open standards based format. Maybe it makes sense in terms of backwards compatibility for Microsoft to keep it based on its proprietary formats, or maybe it is just laziness on their part, or maybe it is because they are still trying for vendor lock in. Who cares? It is still a proprietary format being sold as an open standard, which is misleading and harmful to new customers. Fine let MS maintain backwards compatibility and continue to use proprietary formats, but they should stop lying about it so that consumers and institutions know they are going to be stuck with Microsoft if they go down that path.

Re:Who didn't know this?

[Man Eating Duck]

Dude, there has never been this pixel perfect rendition between different Word versions

I agree with you completely, and raise 2 cents.

Try the same version on the same OS.

I work in the publishing business, and you kan never rely on a word document looking the same on any two computers. Things like OS language, printer margins, the phase of the moon, and even more obscure factors will ensure that it never happens.

OpenOffice is, despite its other shortcomings, a lot better in this respect.

When a customer wants to deliver a "ready for press" document we demand PDF. Even then you run into problems with font substitutions, missing fonts, ligatures that the production machine can't handle, and so on.

The only sure way to get a pixel perfect replication is... a bitmap. And even then you depend on the production machine's ripping process not mangling it, wich often happens if you try to achieve exactly THAT shade of gray by rasterizing manually in Photoshop (tested on a Xerox DocuTech 6135, 6180, and DocuColor 2040). Have fun :)