[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: FYI: Petition for Microsoft to support OpenDocument
From:       Jaroslaw Staniek <js () iidea ! pl>
Date:       2005-11-03 19:24:34
Message-ID: 436A63F2.1080307 () iidea ! pl
[Download RAW message or body]

Alejandro Exojo said the following, On 2005-11-03 12:13:
> El Lunes, 31 de Octubre de 2005 11:34, Jarosław Staniek escribió:> \
> >>Hello KOffice users!>>>>* Microsoft has stated that they will support \
> > > the OpenDocument format in MS>>Office if there is customer \
> > > demand:>>>>http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051016105739574>>>>The \
> > > purpose of this petition is to quantify the customer demand \
> > > for>>OpenDocument support.> > > Just an innocent question:> > Do you \
> > > think it is really a good idea to have OpenDocument in MS Office? I'm \
> > > > thinking in the "embrace and extend" strategy. It will suck if they \
> > > > figure > how to add "bugs" that make their files look different in \
> > > > different office > suites.> 
What you're proposing is more or less: isolationism. You can play \
isolationism in parallel a world where you are enjoing 90%+ market share \
with your format :) Open standards are designed for use by everyone. \
Everybody here know about embrace-and-extend dirty tactics developed by MS. \
But don't forget that with ODF you will be able to stand up and say to your \
software evendors: ODF support is poor in MS apps, while our organization \
depends on it. Improve it and back here _or_ go away. For now you have _no_ \
such ability. MS has its super-dirty super-secret set of "memory dump" \
binary formats + a set of "open as long as you buy us" XML specs (I've seen \
that these do not even support styles!).Customers from government who are \
in process of migration to MS XML, being in trouble, keep sending XML files \
and asking to company I work for: <citation>They - We are unable to open \
that with OpenOffice, what to do?Me   - OpenOffice supports OpenDocument \
XML and (old) properietary binary        formatsThey - Oh. Isn't OpenOffice \
XML the same ad MS "Open" XML?Me   - No, it's entirely different thingThey \
- Then, we were fooled by somebody.</citation> Summing up: wait a few \
months more with ODF not being available (read: familiar) to everyone and \
people will forget about it. MS will be able to push its own 100% controled \
XML much easier.I could see a reason to push ODF to MS as a way to cause MS \
completely dropping proprietary MS XML. The petiton is not the only way, I \
would equally much (or even more) like to see _small_, _robust_ plugin for \
reading/writing ODF by MS Office.  > And I say "bugs", because many people \
think that the way box problem with the > CSS rendering of IE, is \
intentional, to make web pages look different in one > browser or another. \
It's a bit different story:- HTML/CSS code is usually generated by humans. \
ODF is machine-generated. Humans are lazy, they need to work harder (e.g. \
thing more intensive) if they want to comply with w3c standards. OTOH, ODF \
support can be fixed once per application.- HTML/CSS is most usually used \
as read-only data. A single ODF file can be edited by multiple people on \
different platforms and software versions. For read-only solutions, we're \
                still comfortable with PDF.
-- regards / pozdrawiam,  Jaroslaw Staniek / OpenOffice Polska  Kexi \
Developer:      http://www.kexi-project.org | http://koffice.org/kexi  Kexi \
support:      http://www.kexi-project.org/support.html  KDE3, KDE4 \
libraries for developing MS Windows applications:      \
http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDElibs+for+win32 \
____________________________________koffice mailing listkoffice@kde.orgTo \
unsubscribe please visit:https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]