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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: file formats [Re: Question about your KPresenter's review]
From:       Vadim Plessky <lucy-ples () mtu-net ! ru>
Date:       2002-03-11 8:47:33
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On Monday 11 March 2002 01:18, Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote:
|   On Friday 08 March 2002 05:40 am, Vadim Plessky wrote:
|   [text cut here]
|
|   > Now let me illustrate this on Music Industry:
|   >
|   > Musician created original  melody (Original content creator / owner)
|   >   ->
|   >     Melody/song recorded using some music software on computer, MIDi
|   > keyboard, etc. (Authoring tool)
|   >     ->
|   >       Melody/Song recorder to CD (CD Audio format)
|   >        ->
|   >         Music CDs sent to Retail stores and to on-line retailers
|   >           ->
|   >            You bought CD in Music Store.
|   >            (Customer getting *content* in some *distribution format*)
|   >              ->
|   >              No conversion happens when you insert it into CD player
|   >                Content is converted from "distribution format" to
|   > "suitable format"
|   >                  ->
|   >                   You listen the CD using CD player
|   >                    [content is reproduced to the Customer]
|   >
|   > So, indeed when you have a critical mass of users using the same format
|   > (CD Audio, CD players), you can't change this for a moment.
|   > But: as you know, mp3 is coming, and replacing CD Audio in many cases
|   > (applications).
|   > Why? Because it's smaller, quality is about the same for typical pop
|   > songs, plus *you can distribute it via Internet*.
|   > Besides, smallest mp3 player is much smaller than CD player, and it's
|   > more reliable (no moving parts, etc.)
|   >
|   > Doesn't mp3 remind you KOffice here?
|   > mp3 offers about 1:10 savings in size (comparing to Audio CD), Koffice
|   > - about 1:6, which is quite comparable (may be, can be imprroved
|   > further)
|
|   I see the analogy.  I observe, however, that many of the advantages of
| the mp3 format (ease of distribution, greater reliability) are easy for a
| user to understand.  That's less true, I fear, for the advantages of
| KOffice.

It depends how you count :-)
mp3 [sorry for off-topic here] is not just "let's rip our own disks" ideology.
Without significant compression (appx. 1:10), you were not able to distribute 
music to wide audience, even with modern broadband (ADSL, xDSL, cable, T1) 
connection.
So, on top of "being digital and small in size", it has opened new audience 
and new markets.
One of those markets is "listening to the mp3 music in your car"
I know it's still emerging, but it's coming.

And... the same is valid for KWord/XML.
Can you imagine viewing MS Word document in your car, say, on built-in or 
optional TFT LCD display (GPRS, DVD, etc.)?
I can't.
And you *can* view KWord docs on such embedded devices, due to XML 
flexibility. You just need to right correct CSS stylesheets, that's it.
"XHTML Basic" suits exactly such applications, and was designed, by the way, 
with "mobile phones in mind". 

Therefor, you can use KWord fo normal wordprocessing tasks for now, and later 
use it for Digital Publishing - on different medias.
(from mobile phones to PDAs to multimedia kiosks to computers)

|   > |   > Portable Document Format.  Naturally, since it has the word
|   > |   > "portable" in the name, it's pretty much by one company only
|   > |   > (Adobe), and by "portable" they mean "both windows and
|   > |   > macintosh".  (Queue blues brothers: "We have both kinds of music
|   > |   > here: Country and Western!")
|   >
|   > Funny.
|
|   Eric, Rob and I are thinking about a follow-up presentation to Drag.net
| (for a future LinuxWorld?) that would have a "Blues Brothers" theme and
| talk about our (especially mine) testing of various different apps for the
| basic functions I need.  Maybe the "windows and macintosh" /Country and
| Western" analogy will fit into it.  :-)

In my opinion, Windows is very close to "Bad Boys Blue" music.
Have you visoted Microsoft site recently? It's completely in Blue color, 
changing variations from time to time.
Last redesign (related to Win XP announce) results in "lighter" colors.
Taking into consideration mass-culture, and comparing it to Windows - I think 
they are very close, in cultural aspects of it.
In both cases, this is somewhat "given", what you meet everywhere. 
And you need to go to a special place to hear Mozart or some Rock classics, 
or to do that at home....

|   > One of the key questions is how powerfull the Content Owner.
|   > Imagine for a minute: "Lord of The Rings" is available only in KWord
|   > format (say, for on-line sales or downloading)
|   > What will happen in this case?
|   > I guess most people who want to read this book, will buy some Linux
|   > distribution, install KOffice - just in order to get / read famous
|   > book. (I do not discuss copy protection here)
|
|   I understand the analogy.  But, of course, that is not the world we live
| in. Here, KWord is a minority format at this point.

Ah, The World is getting more and more strange every day. And more 
dangerous...
I am not sure anymore what exactly world we are living at. :-)

Anyway, children are growing, and they are visiting schools.
If we can manage to get KDE into schools - than in 5-7 years we can have 
KOffice in offices.
 
[...]
|   >
|   > Problem with Star Office that it can't support Cyrillic correctly.
|   > People who tried it here suggested that a whole StarOffice is a joke,
|   > nothing more. Hope Sun will fix it for upcoming StarOffice6 - but my
|   > impression that Sun's goal is to ditch Microsoft, not to bring out
|   > "perfect product".
|
|   Probably true.  If more people used Cyrillic, though, it would be a
| different story. :-)

Yes, I know - 250 mln. is not a lot. :-)
But I am not sure in Chineese support in StarOffice, either. (and that's over 
1 billion of people)
I heard that SO6 will have Asian languages support, but don't know to what 
extent (and wether it will be able to print in those languages, or just 
display on screen?)
During my visit to Taiwan in January this year, I haven't seen people testing 
(or using)  StarOffice/OpenOffice.
[to be fare: I haven't seen KDE/KOfice users, either... :-( ]

|
|   So it's unlikely problem like this will go away with new release.
|
|   I gather Open Office doesn't support Cyrillic either...?

I need to check. Don't know yet...
I tried to download StarOffice6 beta from Sun site couple of months ago, but 
download process was always stopping in the middle (after 50MB). And server 
was rejecting to restore download.

So, obviously OpenSource distribution process (including mirrors for major 
Linux distributions) is much better for me, comparing to Sun's distribution...
To be fair, OO finally appeared on Rpmfind.net:
http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=openoffice
(MadeInLinux and Mandrake Cooker)
But for Mandrake: it's in Contributions folder, therefor not included into 
2-CD Download edition, and people downloading ISO images of latest 
Linux-Mandrake Beta, do not get it (and can't test...)
  Probably, reason for this is HUGE size of that RPM - 69MB.
One more argument in favour of KOffice :-)

My best regards,
-- 

Vadim Plessky
http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE
http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html
KDE mini-Themes
http://kde2.newmail.ru/themes/
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