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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 12:59:50
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On Monday 11 March 2002 13:50, Rob Landley wrote:
|   On Sunday 10 March 2002 05:18 pm, Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote:
|   > > Doesn't mp3 remind you KOffice here?
|
|   Nope.  Not in the slightest.
|
|   > > 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)
|
|   If people were even slightly bothered by the size of their word
| processing documents, they wouldn't be saving .doc files.  (Word has RTF
| and such built in, you know.)

Unfortunately, people are:
* not aware of other formats than MS Word's .doc
 (for documents exchange, with possibility to edit)
Ami Pro, WordPerfect, WordStar, etc. - all are gone!..

|
|   Nobody fits files on a 1.4 floppy anymore.  We all have 20 gig drives,
| and 50% of the population now has broadband at HOME, let alone in the
| office...

Just yesterday copied 3 files (indeed, .doc) on floppy - to move data from 
one computer to another.
As about BROADBAND - well, I believe to you that 50% of _US_ population has 
broadband.
Situation is different here - broadband is less than 1% for home users, and 
companies have usually 128Kbit-256Kbit connections (ISDN)

If you rememeber, in my mail to Cathy I exactly mentioned differences on 
*being on broadband* and *being on diaplup*, and some arguments *pro* KWord 
were exactly based on it.
 
|
|   > 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.
|
|   Nah, the analogy falls apart because the only reason mp3 was ever
| interesting in the first place is that you could convert back and forth to
| CD format trivially.  (All that MP3 music was originally ripped from CD,

I hope one day we will be able to convert back and forth to MS Word (from 
KWord) And this will be trivial...

| and you can burn CDs from your MP3 files to give them to friends in your
| dorm.  THAT is why MP3 took off.  The format could eventually establish
| itself once it had reached critical mass, but it did so by piggybacking on
| CD music.)

well, situation is again different here.
You can buy any music CD for around $2-$3 on street, but people buy MP3 CD's 
as well. But not because they are cheaper. Well, you have 10 albums on one 
MP3 CD - but the reason to take MP3 CD in this take is *convinience*, not 
*price*.
You insert one such CD into computer, and can listen music for 10 hours...
Besides, another argumnet for *convinience* - you buy one CDs with 10 albums, 
say, of Phil Collins - and that's it. You don't need to rush and find some 
album not available in the store.
|
|   I'd also like to point out that the analogy breaks down because the
| standard way CDs are used is read-only.  Very few people regularly edit
| CDs.  With the commercial ones, you can't do so, and not too many people
| have music editing software, or the skill, or the time to remix songs
| without the source tapes nicely separated into tracks...
|
|   > > What we missing now is "KOffice players".
|   > > WE NEED KOFFICE PLAYER FOR WINDOWS, that's it!
|
|   I hate to break this to you, but your file format could cure cancer and
| it wouldn't make a difference.  It's totally irrelevant.
|
|   People send me data.  What format do they send me data in?  I send people
|   data.  What format can those people understand?
|
|   There are a ton of file formats better than HTML.  What are all the web
| pages still written in?  (How many web pages were belched out with
| frontpage?  Your browser still needs to read them, and IF your browser can
| still read them, you don't really have to care how ugly the underlying HTML
| is...)

It depends.
If you are going to *change* data people send to you - than you should be 
able to edit that format.
And this is a big problem with PDF.
Ok, it's portable - but what's the matter with that if you can't edit text?
And that format "behind PDF" is usually .doc
A lot of terrible things happen every day, indeed.
You translate .doc to another language, send to agency. Than agency (which is 
usually overseas from the first one which created English-language PDF from 
English-lang. .doc) cretaes new *layout* in Quark Xpress or Pagemaker or 
whatever. And charges you money for their "services", of course.
Next time you make changes to design or text - they charge you again.
And why this happens?
Because of those stupid formats.

As about formats better than HTML - I fully agree that XML is better than 
HTML. And point is that KWord uses XML for storing data, not HTML (but still 
able to generate HTML on demand)
I am not aware about other formats universal enough, not owned by some 
company, which can provide you same kind of services.
PostScript and PDF are wrong ways to go. SVG - we are still in the beginning 
to see wether it's sutable for those tasks or not.  
|
|   > > Later: we get KOffice on Qt/Embedded, working on Compaq iPAQ / Sharp
|   > > Zaurus / Casio Cassiopea, and you get really "portable documents".
|
|   I've got portable documents.  I've got a dell laptop.  It came with
| windows before I reformatted it.  The zaurus has an annoying keyboard, and
| the rest don't have any keyboard.  (Have you ever tried doing any actual
| work on a zaurus screen?)
|
|   That's nice, but the entire userbase of those three products combined is
|   considerably smaller than that of the macintosh.  Why not go after the
| 90% of the market using windows first, and THEN worry about the corner
| cases?

Well, Mac has less than 1% of the market share here (In Russia), with Linux 
(estimated by me, by traffic analysis on several general-purpose information 
sites) around 1.5% - 2.5%.
This means Windows has 96%-97% of the market.
But: problem with PDAs is their price. As soon as price goes down to $100 
USD, market will expand. And than you will get millions of those devices.
And many of them will be used as "readers" (books, manuals, etc.)
Which format they should read/use to store data? I hope not MS Word's .doc.
They should use some derivative from XML or XHTML, probbaly zip'ed (bzip'ed), 
like KWord's .kwd.
 
|
|   > > Having smaller size of document is one of KWord benefits.
|
|   It's the only one I've heard mentioned, and it's completely irrelevant to
|   most users.

Common, it's very rellevant!

Other benefits:
* XML usage
* National Language support (in particular, Cyrillic  and Chineese support)
* PDF generation feature
* True WYSIWYG (KWord 1.2 from CVS, new unique feature)
* ah: available for *free*
* small size of KOffice package (less than 10MB, comparing to 69MB for Open 
Office or 1CD/650MB for MS Office) -> you can update it over Internet -> 
"Live Update"
* Internet-enabled file operations (inherited from KDE I/O slaves)
  BTW: have you tried to open file from ftp server in MS Office?)
* Frame support, including Frames' z-index (KWord from CVS)
 -> so you can use it as a DTP tool.

|
|   > > "can you translate the format" problem doesn't exist for KOffice -
|   > > but indeed very serious in MS Office.
|
|   The "I was driving to fast" problem doesn't exist for me, but Mr.
| Policeman is very very upset by it.

they are usually just hungry for money, no?..
You give him half of amount in cash, that's it. And can drive further.

|
|   There are certain points of view that are so amazingly insular they
| cannot be fully described in a printed medium.
|
|   > > MS Office was designed to read many formats, but to write only
|   > > (mostly) MS Office formats, "to lock" the user base into MS Office.
|   >
|   > Right; it's one of MS's tools for maintaining its monopoly; I
|   > understand that.
|
|   One detail he missed is that the product has over a 90% market share of
| all word processing documents being produced in north america.  This lock
| in has been very very effective, and any solution that hopes it simply goes
| away without having to address it goes well beyond wishful thinking...

Indeed, lock was very effective.
But now MS is doomed to loose position.
KDE2 is here, KDE3 is coming, in one year MS will feel marketshare errosion.

|
|   > > Taking into consideration that KWord's native format is XML, you can
|   > > translate it into virtually everything, using XSLT. Filter to do it
|   > > via UI is not ready yet.  But you still can do it using manual
|   > > coding.
|   >
|   > Sure; but the UI's the thing that will give ordinary users the power to
|   > chuck MS off their desktops, etc. forever.  :-)
|
|   I've looked at the XML, and it seems nice.  I've also looked at the
|   infrastructure of the unfinished skyscraper that Intel was building in
|   downtown austin, and it too seems very nice.  It has no roof, walls, or
|   floors between levels, and Intel has stopped construction on it for the
|   forseeable future, but the girders look quite lovely.
|
|   When (if ever) the building is complete, I hope that the girders will be
|   covered up in such a way that ordinary users of the building, taking the
|   elevator from floor to floor and visiting offices and such, won't have to
| see or interact with them if they don't want to.  Right now, Intel's
| looking to sell it, and it may be torn down so something else can be built
| on the site...

Funny. Funny.
But do know what's most funny in this?
That KWord/KOffice *already uses* XML for its docs. You should not wait *next 
major release* for XML support, as in case with StarOffice.

|
|   > > 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.
|
|   Didn't happen with e-books, I don't see why KOffice would be any
| different.

Com'on, they charge premioum for e-books!
KOffice is *free*.

|
|   People keep THINKING this sort of thing would happen.  They spent rather
| a lot of money speculating it would.  And after about three years of
| absolutely nothing, they packed it in.  (The lord of the rings is still
| available in paperback, you know...)

Well, I never was spending a lot of money on this, I rather was earning money.
Now when I don't have "what to eat" problem, I can start spending money. :-)
It always depends *who speaks* and *whah does he speak*.
If you have a wrong orator, or bad speech - you fail.
That's why there are some people specialized in *writing speeches*, and othe 
rpeople, who speak well - *speak* pre-compiled speeches.

|
|   > >  (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.
|
|   Saying one killer app is going to launch your platform above an
| established contender with a dozen killer apps is like saying "Voyager" was
| bound to make UPN a more popular network than NBC, ABC, or CBS.
|
|   And this is assuming you get even one killer application, and that nobody
|   clones it.  Wishful thinking again...

Have you ever tried Konqueror? :-)
I can agree that KWord is not MS Office-kiler (yet), but Konq... It rulez!..

|   > >
|   > > Problem with Star Office that it can't support Cyrillic correctly.
|
|   But it can support ENGLISH correctly...

And ... you think it's enough?
|
|   > > People who tried it here suggested that a whole StarOffice is a joke,
|   > > nothing more.
|
|   And yet it's what Linus Torvalds has on his box.  Why?  It reads and
| writes Word files, that's why.  (Read "just for fun", it's mentioned more
| than once...)

Hmmm. It has been mentioned several times, in different places that Linus is 
not very good advocate for Linux, or Linux apps.
He tells that he is interested in *developing* (not *advocating*). And about 
competitors, he just "doesn't care". WHy he should care about .doc support?..
BTW: I doubt Linus uses MS Word or .doc files.
Frankly speaking, I don't know  what he should use it for. Kernel updates are 
published in plain text.

|
|   I don't LIKE Star Office.  It just happens to be the only system that
|   currently meets the minimum definition of working.  (It's also hideously
|   bundled together into a big single monolithic pig of an application with
| the unbundled version not available for download, and I like KDE anyway...)
|
|   Rob

-- 

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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