Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
Hi, On 29.10.2013 20:05, Andrew Rist wrote: On 10/28/2013 12:38 PM, Jörg Schmidt wrote: Hello, From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pesce...@apache.org] That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. Excellent. A better Microsoft compatibility is what our users set as #1 priority in the user survey and improving OOXML import (and export!) is surely part of that. This is a pragmatic way, also a necessary way, but I fear it will be in the long run, even the death of the current ODF. No user of MS Office will move more of OOXML to ODF, if the compatibility of OOXML in AOO will be similar as well of *.doc. It is not wrong to improve compatibility with OOXML, but that will unfortunately be the side effect. I think that you should see clearly. We must also see that the need to improve the compatibility with OOXML, unfortunately, also an expression of the fact that market dominance continues to have MS Office . I look at what happens at the ISO, where they talked some time ago by the merging of the two standards ( ODF and OOXML), and take statements from experts seriously, it seems to me the path mapped out, there will be a new standard in the future, even if no one likes to hear. http://xkcd.com/927/ Nice. Unfortunately, I believe that this comic is not only fun, but also true. Best regards, Oliver. We should all prepare ourselves to it and work on it that it prevents the MS this standard does not dominate. That's what we should see as a long term goal. I am thinking there must be cooperation between _all_ the OSS projects will use the ODF. Greetings, Jörg - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Jürgen Schmidt jogischm...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, The OpenDocument format (ODF) which has it's roots in OpenOffice is a good thing and it helped a lot that office productivity becomes a little bit more transparent and a step forward to become vendor independent. Ideally one standard would have been used and would evolve over time to address new requirements, features etc. We all know that the reality is different and we have today 2 open standards for more or less the same thing, at least from my point of view. We have ODF which is an OASIS and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006), see [1] and [2]. And we have OOXML which is an Ecma and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008), see [3] and [4]. We can now argue why do we have 2 standards and can discuss the pros and cons. But does it help? I don't think so and I believe we have to live with the current situation. But this means that we have to take into account that OOXML is an important file format that becomes more and more important over time. And that we should think about a strategy to support this format better in AOO. We see growing demand for better interoperability with OOXML and I believe we can't ignore this anymore. We have OOXML import which have to be improved and we don't have an export yet. I think it was a strategic decision from Sun/Oracle to focus on an import only. I believe the goal was to push ODF and an ODF eco system which was not a bad idea. But again the reality seems to be different today and the demand for OOXML is growing. That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. We have already started to analyze what we have and how we can push things forward. One thing is of course the missing export and the other thing an improved import. For the import we are thinking about a bigger change to consolidate 3 different approaches in 3 applications that we have today and we plan to start a new framework. Something cleaner and better structured as what we have today and that will give us further opportunities to use it for analyzing of documents and used features, tracking of our coverage and in the end to become more efficient. An idea: Maybe we can start collecting links and resources related to OOXML support in AOO on this wiki page: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Xml ??? -Rob Of course this does not mean that we support ODF any less. We remain strong supporters of ODF and aim to be the reference implementation for the standard. AOO committers like Regina, Oliver and Rob work directly on the ODF standard in OASIS. And it is not really about choosing one standard over another. The point is to preserve the MS interop capabilities that OOo always had, and update it to work with the latest formats used by MSO. Anyway this will be a major task but I believe a necessary and important one for AOO to continue to be the best free open source office suite. Juergen [1] https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office [2] http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485 [3] http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm [4] http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=51463 - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Jürgen Schmidt jogischm...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, The OpenDocument format (ODF) which has it's roots in OpenOffice is a good thing and it helped a lot that office productivity becomes a little bit more transparent and a step forward to become vendor independent. Ideally one standard would have been used and would evolve over time to address new requirements, features etc. We all know that the reality is different and we have today 2 open standards for more or less the same thing, at least from my point of view. We always had to support at least two document formats: our native format for OpenOffice and the native format for Microsoft Office. This has been true from the start. Although many of us would have preferred to see a single widespread open standard in use, it is progress that we have detailed specifications for two formats now, along with patent assurances that came with the standardization process. This helps OpenOffice. As you know, when OpenOffice first started the Microsoft file format had to be reverse engineered. Now we have 7000+ pages of specification. We have ODF which is an OASIS and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006), see [1] and [2]. And we have OOXML which is an Ecma and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008), see [3] and [4]. We can now argue why do we have 2 standards and can discuss the pros and cons. But does it help? I don't think so and I believe we have to live with the current situation. As before, we always have had two formats to support. The main difference is now they are both standardized and have better documentation. But this means that we have to take into account that OOXML is an important file format that becomes more and more important over time. And that we should think about a strategy to support this format better in AOO. We see growing demand for better interoperability with OOXML and I believe we can't ignore this anymore. We have OOXML import which have to be improved and we don't have an export yet. I think it was a strategic decision from Sun/Oracle to focus on an import only. I believe the goal was to push ODF and an ODF eco system which was not a bad idea. But again the reality seems to be different today and the demand for OOXML is growing. That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. We have already started to analyze what we have and how we can push things forward. One thing is of course the missing export and the other thing an improved import. For the import we are thinking about a bigger change to consolidate 3 different approaches in 3 applications that we have today and we plan to start a new framework. Something cleaner and better structured as what we have today and that will give us further opportunities to use it for analyzing of documents and used features, tracking of our coverage and in the end to become more efficient. This sounds like a good approach. Of course this does not mean that we support ODF any less. We remain strong supporters of ODF and aim to be the reference implementation for the standard. AOO committers like Regina, Oliver and Rob work directly on the ODF standard in OASIS. And if we have any OOXML questions, I have some friendly contacts at Microsoft that might be able to answer questions. And it is not really about choosing one standard over another. The point is to preserve the MS interop capabilities that OOo always had, and update it to work with the latest formats used by MSO. Anyway this will be a major task but I believe a necessary and important one for AOO to continue to be the best free open source office suite. It is worth thinking as well as better support for non-WYSIWYG formats. For example, I get a lot of requests for a clean, structurally accurate unformatted (X)HTML output. So not trying to mimic the appearance of the document, but getting the structure right. If we can get good HTML output it is an attractive intermediate format for transforming to other similar XML-based formats like EPUB and DITA. Regards, -Rob Juergen [1] https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office [2] http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485 [3] http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm [4] http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=51463 - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
On 10/28/2013 12:38 PM, Jörg Schmidt wrote: Hello, From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pesce...@apache.org] That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. Excellent. A better Microsoft compatibility is what our users set as #1 priority in the user survey and improving OOXML import (and export!) is surely part of that. This is a pragmatic way, also a necessary way, but I fear it will be in the long run, even the death of the current ODF. No user of MS Office will move more of OOXML to ODF, if the compatibility of OOXML in AOO will be similar as well of *.doc. It is not wrong to improve compatibility with OOXML, but that will unfortunately be the side effect. I think that you should see clearly. We must also see that the need to improve the compatibility with OOXML, unfortunately, also an expression of the fact that market dominance continues to have MS Office . I look at what happens at the ISO, where they talked some time ago by the merging of the two standards ( ODF and OOXML), and take statements from experts seriously, it seems to me the path mapped out, there will be a new standard in the future, even if no one likes to hear. http://xkcd.com/927/ We should all prepare ourselves to it and work on it that it prevents the MS this standard does not dominate. That's what we should see as a long term goal. I am thinking there must be cooperation between _all_ the OSS projects will use the ODF. Greetings, Jörg - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 12:05 PM, Andrew Rist andrew.r...@oracle.comwrote: On 10/28/2013 12:38 PM, Jörg Schmidt wrote: Hello, From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pesce...@apache.org] That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. Excellent. A better Microsoft compatibility is what our users set as #1 priority in the user survey and improving OOXML import (and export!) is surely part of that. This is a pragmatic way, also a necessary way, but I fear it will be in the long run, even the death of the current ODF. No user of MS Office will move more of OOXML to ODF, if the compatibility of OOXML in AOO will be similar as well of *.doc. It is not wrong to improve compatibility with OOXML, but that will unfortunately be the side effect. I think that you should see clearly. We must also see that the need to improve the compatibility with OOXML, unfortunately, also an expression of the fact that market dominance continues to have MS Office . I look at what happens at the ISO, where they talked some time ago by the merging of the two standards ( ODF and OOXML), and take statements from experts seriously, it seems to me the path mapped out, there will be a new standard in the future, even if no one likes to hear. http://xkcd.com/927/ LOL! yep! :) We should all prepare ourselves to it and work on it that it prevents the MS this standard does not dominate. That's what we should see as a long term goal. I am thinking there must be cooperation between _all_ the OSS projects will use the ODF. Greetings, Jörg --**--**- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@openoffice.**apache.orgdev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org --**--**- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@openoffice.**apache.orgdev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org -- - MzK “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” -- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
Hi, The OpenDocument format (ODF) which has it's roots in OpenOffice is a good thing and it helped a lot that office productivity becomes a little bit more transparent and a step forward to become vendor independent. Ideally one standard would have been used and would evolve over time to address new requirements, features etc. We all know that the reality is different and we have today 2 open standards for more or less the same thing, at least from my point of view. We have ODF which is an OASIS and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006), see [1] and [2]. And we have OOXML which is an Ecma and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008), see [3] and [4]. We can now argue why do we have 2 standards and can discuss the pros and cons. But does it help? I don't think so and I believe we have to live with the current situation. But this means that we have to take into account that OOXML is an important file format that becomes more and more important over time. And that we should think about a strategy to support this format better in AOO. We see growing demand for better interoperability with OOXML and I believe we can't ignore this anymore. We have OOXML import which have to be improved and we don't have an export yet. I think it was a strategic decision from Sun/Oracle to focus on an import only. I believe the goal was to push ODF and an ODF eco system which was not a bad idea. But again the reality seems to be different today and the demand for OOXML is growing. That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. We have already started to analyze what we have and how we can push things forward. One thing is of course the missing export and the other thing an improved import. For the import we are thinking about a bigger change to consolidate 3 different approaches in 3 applications that we have today and we plan to start a new framework. Something cleaner and better structured as what we have today and that will give us further opportunities to use it for analyzing of documents and used features, tracking of our coverage and in the end to become more efficient. Of course this does not mean that we support ODF any less. We remain strong supporters of ODF and aim to be the reference implementation for the standard. AOO committers like Regina, Oliver and Rob work directly on the ODF standard in OASIS. And it is not really about choosing one standard over another. The point is to preserve the MS interop capabilities that OOo always had, and update it to work with the latest formats used by MSO. Anyway this will be a major task but I believe a necessary and important one for AOO to continue to be the best free open source office suite. Juergen [1] https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office [2] http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485 [3] http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm [4] http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=51463 - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
Jürgen Schmidt wrote: We can now argue why do we have 2 standards and can discuss the pros and cons. But does it help? I don't think so and I believe we have to live with the current situation. Sure. And we are quite used to useless duplication anyway... That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. Excellent. A better Microsoft compatibility is what our users set as #1 priority in the user survey and improving OOXML import (and export!) is surely part of that. For the import we are thinking about a bigger change to consolidate 3 different approaches in 3 applications that we have today and we plan to start a new framework. Not entering in the merit of technical decisions, of course you know that Apache POI exists and has read/write support for OOXML files via API. Their expertise, or even their code, might be useful. http://poi.apache.org Regards, Andrea. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
Hello, From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pesce...@apache.org] That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. Excellent. A better Microsoft compatibility is what our users set as #1 priority in the user survey and improving OOXML import (and export!) is surely part of that. This is a pragmatic way, also a necessary way, but I fear it will be in the long run, even the death of the current ODF. No user of MS Office will move more of OOXML to ODF, if the compatibility of OOXML in AOO will be similar as well of *.doc. It is not wrong to improve compatibility with OOXML, but that will unfortunately be the side effect. I think that you should see clearly. We must also see that the need to improve the compatibility with OOXML, unfortunately, also an expression of the fact that market dominance continues to have MS Office . I look at what happens at the ISO, where they talked some time ago by the merging of the two standards ( ODF and OOXML), and take statements from experts seriously, it seems to me the path mapped out, there will be a new standard in the future, even if no one likes to hear. We should all prepare ourselves to it and work on it that it prevents the MS this standard does not dominate. That's what we should see as a long term goal. I am thinking there must be cooperation between _all_ the OSS projects will use the ODF. Greetings, Jörg - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
Le 28/10/2013 20:38, Jörg Schmidt a écrit : Hello, From: Andrea Pescetti [mailto:pesce...@apache.org] That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. Excellent. A better Microsoft compatibility is what our users set as #1 priority in the user survey and improving OOXML import (and export!) is surely part of that. This is a pragmatic way, also a necessary way, but I fear it will be in the long run, even the death of the current ODF. +1. No user of MS Office will move more of OOXML to ODF, if the compatibility of OOXML in AOO will be similar as well of *.doc. +1. Why should they bother if it works? They just want to have a free alternative to MS Office. It is not wrong to improve compatibility with OOXML, but that will unfortunately be the side effect. I think that you should see clearly. We must also see that the need to improve the compatibility with OOXML, unfortunately, also an expression of the fact that market dominance continues to have MS Office . I look at what happens at the ISO, where they talked some time ago by the merging of the two standards ( ODF and OOXML), and take statements from experts seriously, it seems to me the path mapped out, there will be a new standard in the future, even if no one likes to hear. We should all prepare ourselves to it and work on it that it prevents the MS this standard does not dominate. That's what we should see as a long term goal. I am thinking there must be cooperation between _all_ the OSS projects will use the ODF. I still believe that MS will *never* agree with a real standard. That would be the end of their lock-in policy and the loss of their market shares. BTW, there are 2 flavors of OOXML. Which one should be considered? The one ISO certified and hardly supported by MS Office (IIRC) or the flavor implemented by MS? But the latter is the one that uses all the MSO features so there will never be a complete interoperability. Users will then always complain that it's not compatible... Hagar - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
From: Hagar Delest [mailto:hagar.del...@laposte.net] I still believe that MS will *never* agree with a real standard. That would be the end of their lock-in policy and the loss of their market shares. Yes, that's a problem, and it is a primarily a 'political' problem. But there are also some objective technical problems that prevent a completely neutral standard. e.g. the document: http://publica.fraunhofer.de/documents/N-104763.html this gives some insights. (for the experts among us: yes, I know about the conditions under which the document originated) BTW, there are 2 flavors of OOXML. Which one should be considered? I think in what Jürgen appeals is about the standard that was based on that of the OSBA project, see: http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/projekte/ooxml-filter/projektergebnisse- ooxml-filter/ Greetings, Jörg - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: The crux with 2 open standards for more or less the same thing
On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 8:57 AM, Jürgen Schmidt jogischm...@gmail.comwrote: Hi, The OpenDocument format (ODF) which has it's roots in OpenOffice is a good thing and it helped a lot that office productivity becomes a little bit more transparent and a step forward to become vendor independent. Ideally one standard would have been used and would evolve over time to address new requirements, features etc. We all know that the reality is different and we have today 2 open standards for more or less the same thing, at least from my point of view. We have ODF which is an OASIS and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 26300:2006), see [1] and [2]. And we have OOXML which is an Ecma and ISO standard (ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008), see [3] and [4]. We can now argue why do we have 2 standards and can discuss the pros and cons. But does it help? I don't think so and I believe we have to live with the current situation. yes we do... But this means that we have to take into account that OOXML is an important file format that becomes more and more important over time. And that we should think about a strategy to support this format better in AOO. We see growing demand for better interoperability with OOXML and I believe we can't ignore this anymore. We have OOXML import which have to be improved and we don't have an export yet. I think it was a strategic decision from Sun/Oracle to focus on an import only. I believe the goal was to push ODF and an ODF eco system which was not a bad idea. But again the reality seems to be different today and the demand for OOXML is growing. That is the reason why we will start to investigate in a better OOXML support for AOO and you will probably notice some more activity in the future going in this direction. We have already started to analyze what we have and how we can push things forward. One thing is of course the missing export and the other thing an improved import. For the import we are thinking about a bigger change to consolidate 3 different approaches in 3 applications that we have today and we plan to start a new framework. Something cleaner and better structured as what we have today and that will give us further opportunities to use it for analyzing of documents and used features, tracking of our coverage and in the end to become more efficient. This sounds incredibly daunting to me, but, of course, since you are an original StarOffice member, I trust fully in your analysis. Of course this does not mean that we support ODF any less. We remain strong supporters of ODF and aim to be the reference implementation for the standard. AOO committers like Regina, Oliver and Rob work directly on the ODF standard in OASIS. And it is not really about choosing one standard over another. The point is to preserve the MS interop capabilities that OOo always had, and update it to work with the latest formats used by MSO. Well, as you've stated -- we need to deal with the world as it stands now. Supporting the ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008 better is probably a good move not only for communication with MS users but with current Google-centric services as well. Anyway this will be a major task but I believe a necessary and important one for AOO to continue to be the best free open source office suite. Juergen [1] https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office [2] http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=43485 [3] http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm [4] http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail?csnumber=51463 - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.apache.org -- - MzK “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” -- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
