Slashdot Mirror
UK Forces Microsoft To Adopt Open Document Standards
First time accepted submitter Barsteward writes Microsoft has confirmed it will start supporting the Open Documents Format (ODF) in the next update to Office 365, following a lengthy battle against the UK government. In 2014, Microsoft went against the government's request to support ODF, claiming its own XML format was more heavily adopted. The UK government refutes the claim, stating that ODF allows users to not be boxed into one ecosystem.
Who are you and what have you done with the UK government?
They were (a) right, (b) stuck to their guns and (c) have a technical solution which didn't simply involve shovelling heaps of money at microsoft in exchange for a brutal lock in. Very out of character, not that I'm complaining!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
10% effort into actually implementing this, and
90% effort into examination how to creatively misunderstand OPF, extend ODF with "open" binary extensions, denigrate users of ODF, or just plain break ODF
Or maybe it's 1% vs 99%, I don't know.
Seriously, the only reason I'm obliged to use MS Office is when a company sends a Word (xl...) doc that uses some features that Libre/Open Office don't support (well, or at all). That's basically any of the "comfort" feature. I'm lucky there is a version of MS Office for the Mac, but unfortunately it is badly supported and there are compatibility issues (the MS folks did a fork of MSOffice to develop the Mac version independently of the Windows version. That's severely retarded, but we've got no choice).
If only ODF could be adopted everywhere...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Put simply, its still the best thing going, FOSS Office is great for basic tasks, the best solution I have found is to use both, task dependent, being able to span ODF documents across platforms would be great. The availability of FOSS Office on a ram stick is its greatest feature, one that Microsoft has never attempted to emulate.
And that makes them hostile to open software in my book. They insist on treating Linux-formatted disks as essentially blank and have Windows tell the user the volume must be formatted to be used; fixing this would be simple in the extreme and would not even require an ability to read an Ext* volume. They stonewall AV formats like Vorbis when they could be added easily to existing apps. Really, the list goes on. The place where they have capitulated is formats that are intrinsic to the web (while parading their proprietary stuff as "open" hoping enough people will take the bait).
MS still promotes lock-in. And from what I gather even their new .NET licensing terms are designed to leave you on the hook.
The linked article cites no sources, so the article is no better than a joke.
Ditch the Mac, use Windows and buy Office like all the normal people.
Why are you troubling the people at Microsoft with the self-imposed problems you have created for yourself just because you are trying to be "different"?
You decided to be "different" and but you keep depending on others to fix your problems now that things have gone south. At what point are you going to be a positive member contributing back to society instead of siphoning resources away from the productive members of society?
If that's a joke, that's unfortunate (and not funny).
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The linked story is dated 30th March
--- To save space, would readers please insert their own witty comment -here-
Microsoft remembers how they took over Lotus' market share for spreadsheets. Lotus had no obscurity with their file format. Excel could read and write it perfectly. Open formats means the product must be as good or better for the price or users can jump ship. Closed formats are a buffer for mistakes or resting on laurels.
I always wondered why Microsoft weren't terminally ashamed that they were the only company in the world that could
1. produce a very good web based email/calendar client
and
2. yet have it not work properly on any browser other than MSIE
surely that fact hurt them when bidding for contracts?
But I don't doubt that their ODF implementation will be equally poor.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Sounds good!
What is this rubbish? Didn't we have these talks a long time ago already?
- Office 2007 and Office 2010 support ODF 1.1
- Office 2013 also supports ODF 1.2
Go open your Microsoft Office, and the option to save in OpenDocument is right there in the Save As dialog.
Whether anyone actually uses it, is the real question.
Word 2007 supports ODF my anonymous friend.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
My experience and opinion: Microsoft is the most EVIL software company.
Wow, that's a pretty bold statement to make here on slashdot. If you're really brave, you could say you quite like Star Wars.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
first of all, I get annoyed every time that Word bugs me with the question of whether I'd rather use ODF or OOXML... I always choose Microsoft's format as it doesn't really give me anything I didn't have before to use ODF.
Second, ODF is a dog with flees. Unless two or more word processors actually support the same feature sets, it doesn't actually support a standard format beyond very very basic functionality. Different word processors (or other office products) regularly differentiate themselves from each other by adding multiple awesome features. So, if Microsoft were to standardize on ODF, it would need to add all the features required to support all their extensions. Just as other office products do the same. I've used many features in ODF word processors that just don't work in other ODF word processors.
I simply don't see how half-assed support of OOXML in other office packages is any worse than their half assed support for ODF.
10 years ago, maybe. But Slashdot has changed somewhat and, reputedly, so has M$
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
EndSoftPatents.org makes multiple relevant points very clear in their warning against relying on Microsoft's "promise" for .NET core listing the limits and foreseeable risks in Microsoft's offer. It seems to me there's enough there to make anyone wary of relying on .NET and instead heed what the Free Software Foundation said in 2009 warning against developing in C#.
You asked:
I don't speak for Burz and I don't argue for anything "OSS", in fact this issue is one reason why looking at this from the perspective of the open source movement is so dangerous. But it seems to me that the FSF has explained this well as they point out in their aforementioned article, Microsoft is "the only major software company that has declared itself the enemy of GNU/Linux and stated its intention to attack our community with patents" which makes Microsoft more of a threat. Also, there's more than one BSD license and it's better to be clear about what you're referring to.
EndSoftPatents.org and the FSF both manage to make their points referring to specifics, linking to their sources, and without using the word "Chinese" to denote confusion or incomprehensibility. So it seems to me that EndSoftPatents.org's conclusion, "This patent licence looks fine for users of the code published by Microsoft, but its protections disappear very quickly for those who wish to modify or re-use the code." is entirely sensible and hardly worthy of your offensive dismissal.
Digital Citizen
https://www.gov.uk/government/...
Yeah, now you have to request a start button.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.