On Thu, September 6, 2007 4:12 pm, RÄzvan Sandu wrote: > Since it's my first post on this list, please let me introduce myself: > RÄzvan Sandu
> In the light of recent events - rejection of OOXML by ISO - I've discussed > with many people on http://www.nooxml.org . They pointed me to this list > for discussing some ideas about practical means for accelerating ODF > adoption. the sooner ODF becomes the de-facto standard the better. This said, I have the feeling that you are looking in the wrong direction. What I mean is that you have listed only technical solutions to problems which are legal, burocratical or otherwise due to human nature. I don't mean to turn down your proposals, but it is essential to remember that measures like these are the smallest part of the solution. For example: > it becomes increasingly critical that we *quickly* migrate from binary > Microsoft documents... directly to ODF who is "we" in this sentence? We private citizens, each one converting his or her own private files? But those files are private, so it really doesn't matter, society-wise, what format they are in or if and when each one of us converts them. Or do you mean "we" as in "the companies we work in"? In that case, unless one is in a CTO position, I don't see what would change. And if by "we" you mean "our Public Administrations"...: 1) When it comes to existing documents, what matters is to push so that those administration take the decision to do the conversion out of political reasons. Once that happens, they will surely find the money to make development happen. 2) But what really, really matters, much more than conversion of what exists, as far as PAs are concerned, is that they stop as soon as possible to demand or publish NEW office files in any formats different from ODF (or PDF/A in some cases). But this is again a law-making/regulatory issue, not a technical one (or it is only in a minimal part). And once that happens, everybody else will follow suit. > when we speak about mass-converting tens of thousands of documents, > buried in complex directory structures, the task becomes more difficult: your summary of the problem is technically perfect, but the truth is that: when it comes to private (people or companies) collection of documents it is only their business to decide when and how to migrate existing files (which may be totally useless, regardless of the format...) when it is public documents, or documents that private entities must exchange with a public administration (that is when it _is_ a matter of equal opportunities, fair competition, saving tax money, public data ownership in the long term and so on), then you only, or mainly, care of making it mandatory that such files are in odf format. > - maybe we can use the existing converter code to obtain a plugin for > amavisd-new (http://www.ijs.si/software/amavisd/) that will convert, on > the fly, Microsoft e-mail attachements to their ODF counterparts, when > passsing through an e-mail server (similar to virus scanning). Frankly, I don't see the point in such a proposal: 1) If John sends a private .doc file to Jane, their ISPs have NO right to mess with their private email 2) About corporate servers filtering incoming mail: if what you want is to make ODF the only format worldwide (and I agree on this) it is much more technically sound and light on the server to just *reject* such email messages. In this way, you avoid all the risks of automatic conversion that you yourself described, and put the burden of generating documents in decent formats where it belongs: on those who produce them > I would suggest pairs of Unix-like command-line utilities like "doc2odt" > or "odt2doc" (with command-line configuration parameters) and/or a > standalone GUI version. docvert is already usable in this way, or on the way of being usable, but again, the most helpful and effective thing that we non-programmers can do to spread ODF remains to make clear to our administrations that we don't want our money to be spent in any other way. > The general idea is to develop and distribute such > utilities ASAP, to help people migrate as many Microsoft documents as > possible till February 2008 and create a huge, critical mass of ODF files 90% of that huge "critical" mass is stuff that won't be distributed anymore. It's neutered. If you convert them all, but let people create and send around new oxml files with Office 2007, it won't make any difference. this said, I suggest everybody who want to help on the technical side to try docvert with as many documents as possible, in order to help its developer to improve it. Then there is also the fact that ODF in and by itself is not enough to free us from proprietary formats (1), but that's another issue. Ciao, Marco (1) http://robertogaloppini.net/2007/04/01/file-format-hidden-traps-in-opendocument-or-any-other-open-standard-and-how-to-avoid-them/ -- Help *everybody* love Free Standards and Software: http://digifreedom.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
