I totally agree with all this--but in a pinch, as everyone I'm sure knows, one can open a document (most of them at least), and go back and "decode" it with a text processor like Notepad or Notepad++; come to think of it, I'm actually surprised that Sourceforge doesn't offer a converter for all those old documents--not to mention all the documents written on Apple II's, etc. All of us have them. I have many documents written in Wordstar, Wordperfect, and so on. There IS a Wordstar converter (google it), but I don't know how it works on the early versions--I had version 3.3, and it works fine for me. I STILL think that the way to go is to separate text and formatting, rather than embedding it, if that's possible. It might not be possible with Calc and other similar documents. Also, and not to be forgotten, is Google Drive; Drive has never failed to upload and convert any of my Word documents, although I admit I've not gone below Word 2000 in my attempts. I don't think I have any Word 97 docs to try, since I was still using a combination of Word for Windows 3.1 and Wordperfect (I loved Wordperfect, but it was rapidly being "eaten" by the MS behemoth). I also used a program called askSam (pretty much defunct now, and pretty primitive), which was a textually-oriented database; that has given me the most satisfaction, since the newest version gives me a choice of export to a number of common formats, and will import most Word versions, and also html--however, it's been pretty much supplanted by the Google products, since one can search any text across documents. I think that some of my greatest challenges are going to come from the documents I put together in Publisher and similar programs over the years, not thinking I'd want them again--but of course I do. I am still thinking, "Text Processor with external formats added on top for retrievability/interoperability." I can't imagine what these issues must be like for a corporation with terabytes of data, or a government with similar quantities of data. I have megabytes, but my problems are small compared to say, Germany. --Steve Bradley
On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:39 AM, Tom Davies <tomdavie...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Hi :) > Arachaic formats (ie old formats that are almost never used nowadays but > may have been popular once) might be something that Extensions could be > used to deal with. We might not want legacy code retained in the main code > to read ancient formats that 'no-one' uses anymore but it might be nice to > be able to add-on an Extension to read old love letters and such. > > Also formats that kept the same name but went through many changes. So > that one Extension might help people read Doc formats prior to the 1997 > version and another reads the 97 one. That might be something to help our > poor devs deal with the 3 different DocX formats now in use. One to read > DocXs from MSO 2007, another for the 2010 and the 3rd for MSO 365. At the > moment it would probably be best to have the 2010 one by default but if > that could easily be swapped-out and replaced by the 365 one in a couple of > years then we might retain a way of being able to read all of them. > > I think such Extensions would need to be released on OpenSource licenses > either BSD type licenses that need to attribute previous > artists/authors/coders or GPL type ones that don't acknowledge previous > coders. Then when the Extensions become outdated it might still be > possible for people to update them so they work in whichever future version > of LO we are on by that time. > Regards from > Tom :) > > > > > > >________________________________ > > From: Jay Lozier <jsloz...@gmail.com> > >To: users@global.libreoffice.org > >Sent: Sunday, 25 November 2012, 23:56 > >Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Good Article > for LibreOffice > > > >On 11/25/2012 05:27 PM, Girvin R. Herr wrote: > >> > >> > >> Tom Davies wrote: > >>> Hi :) > >>> It's interesting that there has been almost no posts about articles > such as this one. > >>> > https://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/660608-libreoffice-a-continuing-tale-of-foss-success > >>> > >>> There are some interesting stats that are very well presented in there > and it's worth using to spread the word of how LibreOffice works. > >>> > >>> For me one of the key things that no article seems to mention is that > while many hefty companies are vanishing seemingly overnight it seems > somewhat dangerous to rely on just one. It would be like not making > back-ups of critical information!! If we can bear to think of LO and AOO > as being similar enough that users can migrate from one to the other fairly > easily and thus as being 2 prioducts supported by 1 community then that > community is massive. Taken as being 1 product it is so robust that even > if 1 or 2 companoes the size of IBM or Google (or RedHat or SUSE) were to > simply vanish overnight then there would still be a good product out > there. By sticking with MS people are risking everything they have by > being so heavily dependant on just 1 company and that company is losing > market share to mobile devices. Perhaps Win8 might help them recover the > OS battle but it might not. > >>> Regards from > >>> Tom :) > >> Greetings, > >> My primary goal is to reduce, or preferably eliminate, risk to my > data. I learned the hard way many years ago that depending on M$ and other > proprietary software suppliers was way too risky. I then decided to switch > to Open Source software and take back control of my computer. I have never > regretted that decision. Even if LO/AOO go away, there are still other > applications, such as Koffice, that will still allow me to read/maintain my > documents & data. And, if it comes down to it, I can always unzip my LO/OO > files and get the data from the file(s) inside. That allows me to sleep at > night. > >> Girvin Herr > >> > >> > >+1 > >I prefer the FOSS / open formats model better for the reasons you noted. > >> From a general user perspective; open formats are probably more > >important for long term accessibility. Most long term users can remember > proprietary formats for software that were very popular 15+ years ago that > are unreadable by any software in current release. To make matters worse > you may even have files you would like to read in these formats. You may > find a conversion software that claims to accurately convert the obsolete > format to a currently used format - I can not vouch for anyone's claims. > > > >The problem with any proprietary format is whether someone will continue > to provide software that can edit it in the future or will it eventually > become an orphan. Amipro and Wordstar come to mind and I am sure others can > be named. > > > >-- Jay Lozier > >jsloz...@gmail.com > > > > > >-- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: > users+h...@global.libreoffice.org > >Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > >Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > >List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > >All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > > > > > > > > -- > For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: users+h...@global.libreoffice.org > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > -- Steven C. (Steve) Bradley CA Dept of Real Estate, Lic. #00869762 619-316-8781 Direct 619-442-8833 XT 119 Office See my websites: Real Estate and Finance http://realestateandfinancialwisdom.blogspot.com Relationship with God: http://truevoiceofthefather.blogspot.com/ <http://realestateandfinancialwisdom.blogspot.com/> "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson -- Steven C. (Steve) Bradley CA Dept of Real Estate, Lic. #00869762 619-316-8781 Direct 619-442-8833 XT 119 Office See my websites: Real Estate and Finance http://realestateandfinancialwisdom.blogspot.com Relationship with God: http://truevoiceofthefather.blogspot.com/ <http://realestateandfinancialwisdom.blogspot.com/> "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: users+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
