Hi Charles,
I hope you don't mid that I mail you *off-list*. Since the subject is a
little controversial, I'd rather ask my things in this way.
To have a look in the mirror, try to understand others point of view, I
would like to put it as follows, so that you can (if you will like to)
explain.
a - Organizations hate to switch, also theire office-application.
b - When they switch, they expect savings (less licence-costs).
c - So when the (sometimes) big horde of macro's is taken (and the
interaction between orther apps, i.e. CRM's etc.) they will be glad when
exchanging their docs with others, isn't a (big) problem.
d - Thus the question is: does a good ODF plugin serve this goal?
Would you prefer, I'll put this on-list, so that you can react there.
Greetings,
Cor
Charles-H. Schulz wrote:
Hello,
I agree with Jacqueline here. While I believe that the theory according
to which ODF, if implemented inside MS Office, would help the adoption
of OOo, is tempting, it is jut not what I hear from customers, members
of the administrations, and CIOs of the private sector. To them it would
be, in contrary, their best excuse for *not going OOo*, actually.
Remember, people hate to change. CIOs do even more :) . Office suites
are a crucial part of the infrastructure they have to deal with and at
the same time, it's a commodity. You can tell them whatever you want and
show them the fanciest technology, at the end of the day their job is to
keep the IT working, if not the entire corporate processes running from
the production facilities to the accounting dept.
So I think it should be clear that, despite the respect we have of the
OD fellowship's work, the interests of the two, OOo and the fellowship
converge on many points but do not match exactly.
I don't see how this statement could be hostile toward one or another,
by the way. But it may be good and useful to draw lines, sometimes.
Besides, I don't think that allowing MS to have access to ODF is a good
thing. Let's isolate them increasingly rather than give them the stick
they'll use to beat us down and the whole community.
Me, I'd rather have no ODF plugin for MS Office, unless it's an absolute
customer's requirement. As I said, customers hate to change, and the
more they stick with MS Office the happier they will be. When you prove
them that OOo is as feature rich than MS Office, they'll tell you that
macros can't be implemented in a similar way. When macros don't matter
after all, they'll tell you about the format. And so at that point, I'd
rather go on showing them what is possible and what brings them value
with OOo and ODF. But an ODF plugin, whatever the technological interest
it might create, is not wishable, for OOo, for SO, for KOffice, for
Workplace and for FOSS in general.
Hope this helps,
Charles.
It is not so much inside and outside, but the fact that we are here to
promote and encourage the use of OpenOffice.org, which I would think is
just one of tools in the OpenDocument Fellowship toolbox. Another is
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20060505081533186
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Cor Nouws
www.bsooo.nl - www.nouenoff.nl
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