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OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 04 - Issue 1 - 07/2006
Please send news clippings to:
newsletter@marketing.openoffice.org
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For up-to-date news visit the OpenOffice.org Newsletter Blog:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com
To read all of this month's stories in full:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_ooonewsletter_archive.html
ATOM feed:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/atom.xml
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Contents
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1. Announcements
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* OOoCon Lyon Programme Announced
* Asian CJK Group Announced
2. Success Stories
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* Northern Netherlands Municipality of Groningen
3. Featured News
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* French department of defense damns OpenOffice.org?
* Stefan Taxhet wins open source award
4. Tips & Tricks
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* Kohei Yoshida is the new OpenOffice.org contest winner
5. OpenDocument News Roundup
6. Clippings
7. Events
All news for this month can be found at:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_ooonewsletter_archive.html
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Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our
To Do List!!
http://www.openoffice.org/contributing.html
http://development.openoffice.org/todo.html
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Announcements
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OOoCon Lyon Programme Announced
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"The annual OpenOffice.org Conference will be held in Lyons, France from
September 11th-13th. The organising committee has now completed the
difficult task of selecting the best of the proposals for papers, and
the provisional Conference Programme is now on-line at
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2006/schedule.html
Conference highlights include keynote speakers from Novell and Google,
and a panel discussion with representatives from Sun Microsystems, IBM,
and OpenOffice.org. Over the three days, the conference streams cover
topics of interest to developers and users, newcomers and veterans alike.
There will be a particular focus on this year on OpenOffice.org and Open
Document Format (ODF), following ODF's ratification as the international
standard for office documents (ISO/IEC 26300)."
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006/07/ooocon-lyon-programme-announced.html
Asian CJK Group Announced
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"On the 17th of July 2006, the Chinese, Japanese and Korean
native-language projects of OpenOffice.org have decided to join
forces to form the Asian CJK Native-Language Group of OpenOffice.org.
Kazunari Hirano will act as the communications & technical coordinator
of the group."
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_ooonewsletter_archive.html
Success Stories
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Northern Netherlands Municipality of Groningen
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"The northern Netherlands municipality of Groningen has opted to drop
Microsoft Office and switch to OpenOffice.org, saving a total of
€330,000 [US$418,500] annually."
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006/07/northern-netherlands-municipality-of.html
Featured News
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French department of defense damns OpenOffice.org?
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"We talked about 3 different issues, but I can't talk about all
details here.
One of the issues is simply a bug which we should fix soon. But it
is not really a security issue, but more about how users trust certain
kind of documents.
An other issue was about how our trust in installed macros might ease
viral effects, and we talked about some interesting options here.
The last point was about integrity checks for documents, which can also
give users some more security.
All together, I must say that it was really a good call, and that
Mr. Filiol and his organization are really in favor of open source
software. They like our short response time, which they probably
won't have in some commercial products."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/malte?entry=french_department_of_defense_damns
Stefan Taxhet wins open source award
------------------------------------
"At the opening evening of OSCON in Portland, Stefan Taxhet received
an award in the O'Reilly/Google Open Source Awards, recognising his
very long commitment to the software now known as OpenOffice.org
- well deserved."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink?entry=stefan_s_award
Tips & Tricks
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Kohei Yoshida is the new OpenOffice.org contest winner
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"Kohei Yoshida is the winner for June in the OpenOffice.org Developer
Article Contest. His article about "Hacking Calc" can be found here.
All developers are invited to submit their articles for the current
round of the contest, which ends on July 31."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=kohei_yoshida_is_the_new
OpenDocument News Roundup
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ODF proposed to become Malaysian Standard by year-end 2006
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Hasannudin Saidin, Manager, Government Programs at IBM Malaysia Sdn Bhd,
blogged on July 18, "Today, Yoon Kit and I, together with another fellow
blogger here, Ditesh, each of us representing different organizations,
were part of another historic SIRIM TC4 meeting, because the meeting now
unanimously voted YES to proceed with the "project" for ODF
(now ISO/IEC 26300) to be made a Malaysian Standard (acronym "MS")."
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006/07/odf-proposed-to-become-malaysian.html
Google Joins ODF Alliance
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http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-joins-odf-alliance.html
Brazil adopting ODF!?
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"I just found this Portuguese article which talks about the use of open
source software and the OpenDocument Format (ODF) in Brazil. I don't speak
Portuguese, but if I translated the article correctly (using online
dictionaries), ODF is considered for adoption by the federal government
in Brazil."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=brazil_adopting_odf1
An accessibile OpenDocument reader
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"Inspired by discussions with the Ubuntu Accessibility team, we have
written a fully accessible text-based OpenDocument reader.
Some quick notes:
* It runs on Linux/Unix only.
* It requires xsltproc and either elinks or links or lynx (Recommended:
elinks).
* It is more usable with elinks. Please use that if you can.
* It is very small! (4KB - because it reuses elinks)
* It is very fast!"
http://trac.opendocumentfellowship.org/odf2html/wiki/odfreader
Malaysia considering ODF
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http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-27-2006/0004404834&EDATE=
Office Open XML vs. ODF: Tag Size
---------------------------------
"I like this example a lot, because it hightlights one of the advantages
of ODF. What do you think which of the two file formats can be more easily
"deciphered" in 100 years from now? Yes, sure, you can always look at the
spec, but do you want to always save the spec with every file just to be
sure that you can still access the content in 100 years?
One additional good reason why ODF uses longer tags than Microsoft Office
Open XML is that in contrast to Office Open XML, ODF reuses existing
standards wherever possible. Therefore, the "language" (i.e. the tags)
used in ODF is often exactly the same or at least very similar to what
other open standards are using. Therefore, there is less learning effort
and better support for interoperability between established standards."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=office_open_xml_vs_odf
New ODF viewer under development
--------------------------------
http://www.opendocumentfellowship.org/node/145
http://trac.opendocumentfellowship.org/odfviewer/wiki/WikiStart
IBM's Rob Weir blogs about ODF
------------------------------
"I think it is a legitimate concern that a document format with such
obvious cultural biases is moving forward toward an international
standard. Further, I am concerned that the specification includes any
sizeable collection of clipart. What rights does the implementor have
to reproduce this clipart. Keep in mind that Microsoft's "Covenant Not
to Sue" covers patents, not copyrights. I haven't seen anything that
would grant implementors of OOXML a royalty-free copyright to reproduce
this clipart. Is the specification hard-coded to use clipart which we
cannot copy? Please, someone correct me if I'm mistaken in this.
...
Of course, this approach would require some code changes in the Word
product itself to support this extensible mechanism. But remaining
backwards compatible with the Word product was never a stated constraint.
No one ever said that the goal of Ecma Office Open XML was to reduce
the cost for Microsoft to implement. It is all about the legacy documents,
right?"
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=ibm_s_rob_weir_blogs
Bristol about Microsoft's ODF announcement
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"Bristol city council, which is moving 5,500 staff to Sun's StarOffice
which uses ODF, sounds unrepentant. "Our decision was very much driven
by cost," says Gavin Beckett, the city's IT strategy manager. Escaping
manufacturer lock-in was "a fairly minor part of the decision" - Bristol
was to adopt StarOffice before its formats became approved as an open
standard.
But he is pleased by the move. The city is keeping a few employees on
Microsoft Office, because they need specific spreadsheet and
accessibility functions that are not available in StarOffice.
"What will be great is that we will be able to exchange ODF documents
with them completely transparently," he says."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=bristol_about_microsoft_s_odf
Software Freedom Law Center clears ODF
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"I'm pleased that the SFLC has definitively spoken on ODF," said Chris
DiBona, Open Source Program Manager at Google, Inc. "Free software
developers need to be able to use ODF without worrying about litigation
or licensing fees, and it's great to hear the SFLC say they can do
just that."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=software_freedom_law_center_clears
OpenIndexer with ODF and PDF support
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http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=openindexer_with_odf_and_pdf
Bristol City Council joins ODF Alliance
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"As part of its drive to reduce the cost of services without compromising
quality, Bristol City Council today joined the Open Document Format (ODF)
Alliance. The move is expected to make it easier to share documents in
different formats and avoid the frustrating 'can't open yours' culture,
which slows down work."
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/6656
"The Microsoft/ODF Day After: Almost everyone gets it wrong"
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"Microsoft is on the record as saying it will not be offering technical
support to end-users for this translator. In fact, as far as I know, no
one will officially be offering support (perhaps one of the three
companies involved will, for a fee). As said earlier, Microsoft will
accept bug reports and forward them on to the project's developers.
But as a long as this is a download from Sourceforge that end-users
install on their own, this is no different from a support point of view
than any other Office plug-in from a third-party. For example, if I built
a plug-in for Outlook that converts your entire email database to
something that's Eudora compatible, you wouldn't say "Outlook supports
conversion to Eudora." This implies that the support is built into
Outlook and is backed up (including technical support) by Microsoft.
You'd say "Support for conversion to Eudora is available from
David Berlind.""
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3300
First reactions to Microsoft's ODF announcement
-----------------------------------------------
Andy Updegrove writes:
"What does this latest concession mean in the grander scheme of
things? Most significantly, it clearly makes it easier for
governments and other users to feel safe in making the switch
from Office to ODF-supporting software, since Microsoft itself
will be collaborating to make document exchanges smooth and
effortless. Critics of the Massachusetts (and Danish, French and
Belgian) initiative will now know that not only will Massachusetts
government workers and the keepers of public records be able to
easily exchange documents, but those with disabilities may simply
continue to use Office as their peers convert to ODF software,
later changing over themselves when accessibility tools for ODF
software become available."
IBM's Bob Sutor writes:
"All right, all right, ODF is under active development by a
worldwide community of experts not under the control of a single
vendor who are making it state of the art in such areas as
accessibility! We admit it!
ODF is architected to make it widely implementable and to easily
fit into customer and government workflow. That is, ODF is
architected in a modern way to make information more widely
usable and to enable broad innovation. Many applications on all
sorts of platforms and devices both now and in the future will
be able to take advantage of ODF’s clean design to improve customer
value. Vive le difference!"
Simon Phipps writes:
"The main lesson I draw from all this, though, is that if we want
to see Microsoft behaving in a way that respects customers and
standards, they will need to be dragged kicking and screaming and
FUDing all the way to that conclusion."
RedMonk's Stephen O'Grady writes:
"With that support having been delivered, after a fashion, I'm
hardly in a position to complain. Whatever the impetus, Microsoft
supporting an open standard - one that's competitive with their
own - is a positive move in my book. I likewise applaud the
decision to turn the effort into an open source project, even
more one hosted externally. But I do think that Microsoft has
carefully throttled the support that they have provided; I can't
see us using the ODF componentry effectively, for instance.
Not without the ability to tell Word that when I say save, I mean
ODF, and have that choice persist - until I tell it differently."
eWeek's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes:
"What could Microsoft do if it were really interested in supporting
open standards? Easy: Bake ODF import and export support into
Office 2007. This? This Translator support is just another trap to
keep users locked into Microsoft Office."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=first_reactions_to_microsoft_s
More reactions to Microsoft's latest move
-----------------------------------------
ZDNet's David Berlind writes:
"That said, ODF is getting enough traction, especially on the
international front, that Microsoft sees it as a threat to Office.
Without support for ODF, Office automatically gets bumped off the
procurement lists of any organizations (especially governments)
that decide to go the ODF route. With more organizations going that
route now that ODF is ISO ratified, Microsoft had a choice: say good
riddance to those customers or find another ODF-compliant way to
keep Office on the procurement list. Judging by yesterday's
announcement which was another baby step towards a place that
Microsoft probably never imagined itself in just a couple of years
ago, it wisely chose the second path. It's a circuitous one. But
it's a path nonetheless."
Jupiter's Joe Wilcox writes:
"But I scratch my head and wonder: Why doesn't Microsoft just more
directly work with the OASIS group with respect to reducing the
technical issues? For that matter, if Microsoft truly wants to be
"open," why not work with others to establish a truly interoperable
set of productivity suite formats. If Office is as superior to other
products as Microsoft contends, the file format shouldn't matter.
...
For open-source developers and ODF supporters: Microsoft has given
you a huge opportunity show up the company. I would seize that
advantage. Microsoft argues that the commercial software development
method is better than open source. Do "all eyes" see all? Here is
opportunity for the open-source community to answer Microsoft, by
rapidly working on the Word converter and getting the others out
faster than expected. In the process, the open-source community can
show up Microsoft in its own backyard. Rapid converter delivery also
could showcase ODF benefits and dispel some of the PR that the
open-standard format is inferior to, say, Office or WordPerfect formats.
For Microsoft: I would encourage the company to closely watch this
project, which could be incubation for others. A number of other
commercial vendors use open-source software or community involvement
to improve products. Microsoft has previously made overtures to the
open-source community, but this project goes further in many respects."
Marino Marcich from the ODF Alliance says:
"While welcoming the Open XML Translator project as a "first baby
step," Marcich did sound a note of caution, saying that it remained to
be seen what the Redmond, Wash., software giant would do going forward."
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=more_reactions_to_microsoft_s
ODF and PDF/A will become mandatory in Extremadura
--------------------------------------------------
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/dancer?entry=odf_and_pdf_a_will
Clippings
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EContent Magazine reviews StarOffice 8
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/chhandomay?entry=positive_staroffice_8_review_in
Events
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Upcoming
========
OpenOffice.org Conference 2006
Lyon, France
11-13 September 2006
http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference/
Newsletter Archive
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