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

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

[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: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.

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.

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?

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: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: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.
"

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?

[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.

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.