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Microsoft to Support ODF via Plug-In

Posted by timothy on Thu Jul 06, 2006 08:10 AM
from the that's-nice-news dept.
Microsoft IT
Apache4857 writes "It appears that Microsoft has finally caved. BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft is sponsoring an open source project to enable conversion between Open XML in Office 2007 and OpenDocument formats. The project, hosted on Sourceforge.net, made its initial release today. The Word 2007 conversion utility is expected to ship ship by the end of 2006, and similarly conversion utilities for Excel and PowerPoint are expected early next year." See the announcement in Brian Jones' blog (Jones is the Microsoft program manager responsible for Office file formats).
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Related Stories

[+] Microsoft's Open XML Project A Short-Term Fix 94 comments
TechPro writes "In an interview with eWeek the managing director of the ODF Alliance (Marino Marcich) was pretty dismissive of Microsoft's Open XML Translator project. While the move was a recognition of the ODF Format's acceptance by government's around the world, the installable software plug-ins that would be created under the project were really 'only a bridge, a stopgap measure that will probably not be acceptable to government's around the world over the long term. Plug-ins simply don't give the benefits of open file formats and standards,' he said."
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  • Embrace and Extend (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Vo0k (760020) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:12AM (#15666372) Journal
    I bet it will be just as useful as PNG alpha channel in MSIE.
    • Just out of off topic curiosity, do PNGs work in IE7?

    • Re:Embrace and Extend (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tribbin (565963) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:15AM (#15666395) Homepage
      Microsoft is _sponsoring_ the development in open source.

      Not exactly the same.

      I for once have faith in what they are gonna do.

      They might just hear people and governments saying 'we don't take it anymore'.

      • Re:Embrace and Extend (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Vo0k (760020) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:34AM (#15666507) Journal
        They can just create enough caveats and special properties in the -internal- Office document structure that export to ODF will simply break the documents, or require painstakingly cautious convertion to some primitives. PNG IS supported in MSIE 6.0 fully, including alpha channel, but the implementation is so much pain in the neck for developers to implement in webpages, that they simply don't bother. (you need to create a style sheet including MSIE's 'filter' CSS extensions, and apply an 'alpha' filter to the image.)

        Same can happen here - want to save ODF? Here's the microsoft way:

        Pick "plugins" menu.
        Open "plugin manager".
        Open "active plugins tab".
        Check checkbox by "ODF exporter plugin".
        Click OK.
        pick "export" menu.
        click "export to plugin".
        Are you sure you want to export the document to a plugin? Some document properties may be lost in the process." Click yes.
        "Plugin export wizard".
        "List of available plugins". Click ODF exporter.
        Click next.
        "What would you like to do with the file after export? Save to file, Send by Mail, Copy to Clipboard, Paste as new document" Pick "Save to file". Click Next.
        "Where would you like to have the file saved?" - file selector. Pick file destination.
        "Warning! Plugins contain 3rd party software which may append viruses and malware to your documents! Are you sure to proceed?" Click yes.
        "The chosen plugin is covered by the following license:" (textarea - GNU). Do you agree? Pick "yes", click Next.
        "MS Office is ready to export your document to a plugin. Click Finish to begin the export process." Click Finish.
        A progressbar appears while the open source plugin actually processes the file. A moment later a requester "You have successfuly exported the document to a plugin. Click OK to return to MS Office."

        Loading ODF document could look very similar.

        • Re:Embrace and Extend (Score:5, Informative)

          by Tribbin (565963) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:49AM (#15666589) Homepage
          Installation

          Double click the MSI file to install the Add-in for Word 2007.

          If installation is successful, you should see a new "ODF" entry in the "File" menu in Word 2007. It allows you to either import an ODF text file or export your current working document as an ODF text file (note that during development process, those functionalities might be temporary unavailable).

          Important note: The ODF file opened by the add-in is converted into Office OpenXML (Office 2007 new file format) and imported into Word as a read-only file. If you want to save it as ODF, you have to use the "Export as ODF" button and provide a new file name (that can be the same as the current file name).
        • It certainly sounds right - but I don't think that's the way it will pan out.

          The whole ODF pressure that MS is experiencing is coming from Government level initiatives to avoid proprietary formats. Your average Government worker will be trained in this and follow the procedure in a totally mindless fashion.

          However,
          (1) Public bodies will think nothing of spending millions to test the ODF plug-ins and if Microsoft's offering doesn't match precisely the requirements it will get the boot - Microsoft money or n

          • Your average Government worker will be trained in this and follow the procedure in a totally mindless fashion.

            Or it will be like the POSIX fiasco. At a certain point in history, government purchased opererating systems were required to support POSIX, which is an actual independent standard that various Unixes created after Unix fragmented. The theory was, you could write to POSIX, and your stuff would compile on any Unix, which generally works in practice. So MS tacked some POSIX support onto Windows NT.

            Of course, no one actually wrote any programs that used POSIX. The government would purchase NT boxes and write Win32 programs, not POSIX ones. They were just required to purchase POSIX operating systems, not actually use POSIX.

            Likewise, I'm imagine the government require programs that support ODF, but everyone uses the Word format to save and transport files, thus completely defeating the purpose.

        • NG IS supported in MSIE 6.0 fully, including alpha channel, but the implementation is so much pain in the neck for developers to implement in webpages, that they simply don't bother.

          That's a workaround for the fact that IE does *not* fully support PNG. Not to be confused with fully supporting PNG...

          • Try writing equations that take up half a page in MS Word. Example with a simple one: z=sqrt(x^2+y^2)/2

            Equations in MS Word: Click 'basic' tab. Click "=". Click box left from "=". Type "y". Click fraction icon. Click box above fraction line. Click root tab. Click root symbol. Click below the inserted root symbol. Click "basic" tab. Click "+". Click left to "+". Click "upper index". In respective boxes type "x" and "2". Click right to "+". Repeat with "y" and "2". Click below the fraction bar. Type "2".

            Same

            • Re:Embrace and Extend (Score:4, Insightful)

              by zootm (850416) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:10AM (#15666719)

              As much fun as comparing chalk to cheese is, some people prefer an equation editor where one does not have to learn a text syntax to use it, and some people prefer the efficiency of writing out in that text format. Parading one as "superior" to the other is an exercise in futility.

              If you can do both in OOo (although I have OOo, I've never used the equation editor, preferring LaTeX, so I've no idea), that's a pretty neat feature. It's not a particularly huge one though, and not one which is particularly good for comparing the packages in general.

              • A couple things: You can do both in OOo, but you can also do both in MS Office.

                The problem is that while they both have the functionality, the keyboard interface is better in OOo and the GUI interface is better in MS Office. Given the choice between the two, OOo is better if you're writing a paper with a lot of equations, and MS Office is better if you need the occasional math formatting.

                Of course, LaTeX is better for any real writing that has to be done, but everyone forgets about that :)

    • Use the Source (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:41AM (#15666541)
      This is bollocks. The translator is BSD licensed, you just go there and fix it if necessary.

    • ...but who is actually extending this time? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by plj (673710) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:28AM (#15666839)
      It is interesting that Jones accuses OO.o for extending the ODF spec. From his blog:

      “OpenOffice has actually made the decision to extend the spec in ways that don't actually appear to be allowed (like with numbering formats), and I'm not sure if that's the right way to go. I've seen a lot of problems when moving documents from OpenOffice to KOffice for example, and I'm sure these divergences from the spec don't help out. Is the right thing to extend in the same ways OpenOffice did, or is it best to wait for OASIS to release the next version of the spec and hope that it specifies some of those missing features? Nobody wants a format that's constantly changing, so if you do decide to extend the format like OpenOffice did, what happens when ODF 2.0 comes out and it specifies that feature differently from how OpenOffice did it? What about features that aren't in ODF or in OpenOffice? Should we create new extensions ourselves or just lose that information? It's going to be fun working with everyone to figure this stuff out.”


      I'm not capable to judge whether this is true or just FUD, but it is interesting nevertheless.

  • Corrected URL (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rosyna (80334) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:13AM (#15666380) Homepage
    The correct url is http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/07/ 05/657510.aspx [msdn.com] the link in the summary was missing the trailing x.

  • Excellent news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saunalainen (627977) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:14AM (#15666385)
    Now governments can mandate all documents be in ODF format without being accused of abandoning their disabled constituency, and Microsoft will have to compete on its features and performance rather than vendor lock-in.
    • Yeah, it's very hard avoiding such accusations when you got a company like Microsoft around.

      • Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CastrTroy (595695) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:09AM (#15666707) Homepage
        Another good question is will we have to buy Office-07 to support ODF? It seems to me like the plugin will only work with Office-07. What about all the users of Office 97 onwards? Will they be stuck with not being able to read ODF documents, or not being able to convert their .doc files to ODF?

        • Give them a break. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by orasio (188021) <orasio@internet.[ ].uy ['com' in gap]> on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:17AM (#15666767) Homepage
          MSOffice97 was good enough for you when you bought it.
          If your needs have changed it's only ok that you get a new version.

          Of course, you could use OpenOffice 2.0, that works great indeed with MSOffice97 documents, and writes ODF natively.

            • You completely miss the point.
              Microsoft is providing OpenXML plugins for older versions of Office.
              The OSS community, via the MS-sponsered project, will provide ODFOpenXML converters, for any version of Office that supports OpenXML, be that OpenXML support native or via the MS OpenXML plugin. Therefore the OSS community will be able to, if it wishes, make ODFOpenXML plugins for older versions of Office, which will work in those versions as long as they have MS's OpenXML plugin installed.

  • Doing pretty good until the end. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:17AM (#15666403)
    Microsoft notes that OpenDocument still has gaps that are being worked out by OASIS, such as spreadsheet formulas, macro support and support for accessibility options. Citing Open XML's accessibility features for disabled workers, file performance and support for integrating external XML data, Microsoft says ODF "focuses on more limited requirements."
    "Accessibility options" and "disabled workers".

    That's not the responsibility of the file format.

    That's the responsibility of the app used to read/write that file format.

    And with an Open standard for file formats, there's no reason that anyone could not write an app that did direct file-to-speech with no need for a visual display (as is currently the case).

    • Re:Doing pretty good until the end. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cnettel (836611) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:40AM (#15666534)
      Not necessarily. For example, PostScript is a very bad format for distributing documents that are to be consumed in any other way than as a graphical document. A naively created PDF can be quite bad, a properly annotated one not so bad. HOW you represent the data is relevant. I would imagine that most formats that are suitable for further editing in a structured manner should be quite good from an accessibility standpoint as well, but you can certainly choose to code things like text flow in a manner that makes a good UI, but where the semantics are lost. The app can only present and persist what's allowed in the format.

      DISCLAIMER: This is general obvious facts. I don't recommend the current or future MS Office XML formats as any example of how things should be done.

      • This comment makes a good point about how data formats and editors manage semantics, presentation, and accessibility. As an earlier comment said, accessibility functions don't belong in the file format itself. However, the "openness" of a format has nothing to do with how easy it is to write accessible applications based on it. File formats (and editing techniques) that concentrate more on structure and semantics rather than only presentation are better suited to accessibility. But even if the format is wel

  • Or so they SAY it'll do that... some day. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moochfish (822730) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:17AM (#15666405)
    Well, at least the project is open source so other developers can take it and run with it. This version is not what the PR people would like you to believe. Check out this doozy of a quote from the sourceforge forum:

    "With the first release (0.1 - prototype), you can only convert documents from ODF to OpenXML. This can be done either with the Word Add-in (which requires both .NET Framewok 2.0 and Word 2007) or through the command line tool, which only requires .NET framework 2.0. "

    ( http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1 531122&forum_id=579283 [sourceforge.net] )

  • It was out love that did it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by elrous0 (869638) * on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:20AM (#15666420)
    A spokesperson for Microsoft was quoted as saying "Well...we weren't going to do it at first. But then the gang over at /. asked us too, and we just can't say no to those guys after all the love they've shown us in the past."

    -Eric

  • Just one day after... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Burz (138833) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:22AM (#15666438) Journal
    ...SoftMaker's Dr. Martin Sommer states [slashdot.org] that an ODF plugin for MS Office would hinder acceptance of alternative office suites. Then all of a sudden, MS is throwing in their support for an independant project that had started a few weeks earlier.
  • The mice will play. Mysteriously, the blog link is a 404. I'm sure it was just a typo :) Kind of interesting timing, as Bill goes off to spend billions of someone else's dollars and now has to deal with packing as much as possible into PC's that will ship to developing countries .. all of a sudden an about face.

    Not sure if this is him realizing just how difficult a lack of interoperability was making things in the real world, or his way of saying "Folks, I'm really (honestly) hands off now, see?"

    So ... on t

  • What about existing versions of Office? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DesertWolf0132 (718296) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:26AM (#15666464) Homepage
    So when does the conversion utility for versions of Office people actually have come out? I have yet to find anyone who already owns a version of Office that is looking to upgrade. There are no features in the newest versions worth the pricetag. They claim OpenXML is THE reason to upgrade but with Open Document being availible without the insane pricetag there has been no real reason to upgrade. I still run 2003 on my work systems (only because the retards here already had it when I was hired and no one wants to try OpenOffice.org) and I would LOVE to convert all of our documents so when I finally make the switch on everyone to OO it will be that much easier. Once more governments move to Open Document standards getting OO adopted here will be a snap.

  • This add-in is certainly a step in the right direction. But opening and saving files with this add-in is not as convenient as if the format was supported natively.

    Here is an example of the problems that the users will face when using it (from the project home page [sourceforge.net]):

    Important note: The ODF file opened by the add-in is converted into Office OpenXML (Office 2007 new file format) and imported into Word as a read-only file. If you want to save it as ODF, you have to use the "Export as ODF" button and provide a new file name (that can be the same as the current file name).

    Basically, this add-in will encourage you to convert your ODF documents to OpenXML, but if you really insist and if you really want to save (sorry, export) as ODF, then it will let you do that as well. You will just have to re-type or re-select the file name.

  • Caved? Hardly! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by andrewman327 (635952) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:28AM (#15666473) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft has not caved as TFA says. Now they can compete in new markets where they were being gradually squeezed out. Now organizations can say that they support open standards while still using Microsoft Office. I am sure that they will do a half-hearted job of supporting ODF, and people will grow frustrated with how "limited" it is compared to the native XML file type. They will not realize that only Microsoft's implementation is limited. As a result they might start using the latter for things that are saved locally, undermining ODF efforts.

  • Obligatory Russian Reverse (Score:4, Funny)

    by gnarlin (696263) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:32AM (#15666497) Homepage Journal
    In Soviet Russia Microsoft suppor.... Oh, wait!?

  • Taking bets... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dbarclay10 (70443) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:41AM (#15666538)
    Okay, I'm taking bets on them doing this as part of a typical "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, Extort" cycle. I give 2:1 odds on Microsoft producing ODF documents that just don't work right, or are horribly buggy. The import will lose all sorts of formatting and similar such things.

    Anybody? :)

    • Re:Taking bets... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by amliebsch (724858) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:03AM (#15666669) Journal
      Well, since the project is BSD licensed, what's to stop you from fixing it?
      • Well, since the project is BSD licensed, what's to stop you from fixing it?

        And what would be the purpose of doing that? You know darn well that ODF format/structures will not be translated to the same proprietary format/structures of MSopen XML.

        This 'plug-in' is only going go convert from ODF to MSopen XML initially and supposedly, it'll eventually go the other way. If you'd like to convert your existing proprietary formatted MS-word document formats then you'll have to move them to MSopen XML first

  • Why is this important? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Noryungi (70322) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:43AM (#15666555) Homepage Journal
    Several reasons:
    1. Microsoft has finally realized it cannot fight against the Linux trend. Even if Linux is not ready for the desktop -- which is debatable -- free [beer|speech] software is now good enough to replace at least part of Windows and/or Office on the desktop.
    2. Microsoft now openly acknowledges -- through this decision -- that they don't control the market, but that they are forced to bow to the pressure of their clients. This is pretty much unprecedented, as Microsoft, through FUD and VaporWare, used to control its clients, and not the other way around.

    All in all, this is very good news for Open Source, and a chink in the mighty Microsoft FUD machine...

  • Top Execs Leave? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by neonprimetime (528653) on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:43AM (#15666559)
    Is it just a coincidence that MSFT joins the Open Source community and adopts ODF after some of their top [slashdot.org] execs [slashdot.org] say they're leaving? Perhaps there was a movement within that these top execs didn't like?

  • Clarifications (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The MAZZTer (911996) <megazzt@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday July 06 2006, @08:44AM (#15666567) Homepage

    It's a plugin for Word, it's not a separate conversion utility as the article implies.

    It can't handle manual page breaks it seems. Once I get OpenOffice.org on here to verify, I'm submitting their first bug report. :)

    The default install directory seems to indicate this is a third-party tool, not an MS tool.

    It doesn't add file types to the default Open/Save dialogs (the ideal solution). Instead, you import and export the files with their own dialogs. This also means hitting File/Save when you have an ODF file open will open up a save as dialog fro DOCX only.

  • Too late! Support for older Office suites? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Werrismys (764601) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:05AM (#15666688)
    We need this plugin for Office 2000, XP etc too. No-one is going to upgrade to 2007's DRM hell to read ODF.

  • Everybody thinks it's so great.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by guruevi (827432) <evi.smokingcube@be> on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:16AM (#15666756) Homepage
    but what they are actually are going to do is create a broken implementation of ODF and then point and say: see see see, while some OSS developer is going to create another plugin that does it all perfectly but breaks with every Office update. They are going to be sued for some pennies for not opening up their documentation and maintaining their monopoly. We've seen it over and over again with HTML, Java, Novell and it's going to happen again.

    BTW: their current conversion tool doesn't work for certain features (manual page break) which is NOT a compatibility issue. It's obviously broken by design.

    I for one am not impressed and do NOT welcome our ODF-importing overlords.

  • BSD license = good! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by radarsat1 (786772) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:20AM (#15666785) Homepage
    Well I was amazed to see no one had commented on their choice of LICENSE yet. It's interesting to see what MS would choose as a license in their foray into the OSS world. I would have been really surprised if they'd chosen GPL, because of obvious ethical conflicts, but I don't think I quite expected them to choose BSD.

    This is significant, because it means developers are free to take the code and do what they want with it. For instance, how many people actually have Word 2007? With the BSD license someone could back-port it to previous versions...

    It also implies that MS can't get away with "embrace and extend", because whatever they choose to do, someone will come along and create a custom version with the cruft removed. Consequently, I expect they just won't bother to put any in the first place. (Well, maybe that's wishful thinking.)

    Additionally, if this plugin integrates badly with Word, making it difficult or non-obvious for people to use, or doesn't adequately convert certain features that it could probably handle better, someone is free to come along and improve it!

    Even if the MS project doesn't accept people's suggestions and changes, the BSD license ensures that anyone is free to fork it and release their own version.

    So: The fact that they chose the BSD license is a really important detail here.. very interesting move.

  • PR Stunt (Score:4, Informative)

    by a_karbon_devel_005 (733886) on Thursday July 06 2006, @09:25AM (#15666817)
    First off, plugins like this were going to arise anyway. Look at (http://sourceforge.net/projects/aodl). This is a conversion program started in 2005. MS has just decided it would like to be "officially, but not too officially" in charge of it.

    Interesting comments in the blog:

    While we still aren't seeing a strong demand for ODF support from our corporate or consumer customers, it's now a bit different with governments. We've had some governments request that we help build solutions so that can use ODF for certain situations...

    From my understanding this is more along the lines of "certain governments in all situations." But, hell, MS can probably win those markets back with an Open Office that supports ODF in some way, but as a plugin MS can blame the standard or the plugin writers (who are working on an Open project, remember, not a MS one!). Which brings us to:

    Nobody wants a format that's constantly changing, so if you do decide to extend the format like OpenOffice did, what happens when ODF 2.0 comes out and it specifies that feature differently from how OpenOffice did it?

    A little late to ask these questions isn't it? Why not just go to the OASIS site (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php? wg_abbrev=odf-adoption) become a member, and get the standards set for the stuff you need? Oh. Because you really don't care, you're just doing "lip DIS-service" to ODF by pointing out the problems that all standards run into.

    If Microsoft had gone to OASIS and said "Look we really love this ODF stuff, but to interoperate properly with Office, it would have to support feature X, Y and Z, at least in theory" it would have happened for SURE. However, they were betting that once MS said "hey we won't support ODF" then the "turncoat" governmental offices that had demanded ODF would say "oh... well... poo" and go back to Office.

  • "caved in"? yeah, right (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tom (822) on Thursday July 06 2006, @10:18AM (#15667218) Homepage Journal
    As if.

    MS has probably realized that the usual embrace, extend, extinguish will work better than flat out refusal. Let's see:

    Scenario A: MS refuses to do ODF
    Since ODF is making inroads in many places, and is being written into laws in others, flat out refusal will mean either someone else writes a plugin (oops, already happened) or people switch to OpenOffice. Also, it'll mean that Office XML is dead, dead, dead because everyone interested in XML office documents will use ODF while those interested in MS Office will stay with legacy formats.

    Scenario B: MS does an Office plugin
    If MS "supports" ODF, then everyone used to Word will stay with Word instead of switching to OpenOffice. Also, lots and lots of these people will use Office XML as their document format and only convert to ODF when necessary, a process MS can greatly enhance by making sure that their ODF implementation is just slightly less convenient than their Office XML implementation.
    Then, a couple years down the road, they'll add some killer feature that they only implement into Office XML and not their ODF version. Or they extend ODF the way they tried with Kerberos.

    "caved in". Pfft.

  • Covenant Not to Sue (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrCopilot (871878) on Thursday July 06 2006, @10:28AM (#15667286) Homepage Journal
    Open XML Formats Are for Everyone to Use We've made the Open XML file formats available for everyone to use. The file formats are simple standards-based XML text and are readable by a broad range of XML authoring and editing tools. We've applied a new intellectual property sharing approach to the file formats, which includes a Covenant Not To Sue (CNS) provision to assure software developers that they can use the file formats for free and without financial or intellectual property consideration toward Microsoft. We've also submitted the file formats along with other industry leaders for continued development and management by the Ecma International standards organization.

    We hope and expect that millions of third-party developers around the world will build solutions using the Open XML file formats. Already, hundreds of thousands of developers are working with the XML capabilities of Microsoft Office. Any developer may use or join the OpenXMLDeveloper.org community to receive the latest information and participate in active code-sharing and experience-sharing opportunities.

    Come join the covenant, Be one with the covenant. Or we Will Sue your ass.

  • Strategic move to prevent users from installing... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) on Thursday July 06 2006, @10:35AM (#15667328)
    Open office.

    If someone gives you an Open doc format, Microsoft doesnt want you installing the free competition to read it.

    They want to keep you in their Office suite. (which is very nice btw)

  • A token (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PhotoGuy (189467) on Thursday July 06 2006, @11:55AM (#15668003) Homepage
    By not including the support in the core product, this is effectively a token move. I have found that 99% of end users will not install additional components, even if it's a free download. Office is pre-installed on their computers (or installed by their IT people); but ODF will not gain obiquity if Office does not support it "out of the box." (Unless enough brave governments buck MS's strangehold.)
    • "There will be a menu item in the Office applications that will point people to the downloads for XPS, PDF, and now ODF" Looks like it won't be too hard to get if there is a menu item for it. People who want it can find it. And for the folks that are really asking for it (government, etc.) they can just put it in their image or their distribution of the Office install to make sure it is there.
      • A better way to do it would be if you try to open a file format that is "unknown" to the default Office, it would check the MS website for an appropriate plug-in, much the way Windows Media Player checks for new codecs when you try to open a media file it doesn't recognize.

        Better still would be to ask after it downloads the plug-in "Do you want to make ODF the default format for saving Office documents?". Fat chance of that happening though.

    • Re:Again, I don't see what all the fuss is about (Score:4, Informative)

      by AntiDragon (930097) on Thursday July 06 2006, @10:13AM (#15667192)
      OK, I'm gonna bite.

      Ah, but that's the point, see? This isn't about migrating to a single format or the like - it's about knowing that whatever changes happen to the software that you use, the format and rules for reading and writing data are *well known* - open, in fact.

      The commercial interoperation you speak of is something that has been painfully bought by those who worked for it. Even now, OpenOffice.org has problems opening Word documents because parts of the format are unknown. It had to be reverse engineered - there was no guide or manual about how to read or write it. Or (getting old now) Lotus Notes and Excel - they certainly didn't convert easily to each other. Both closed formats. I have clients who wanted to review some old financial spreadsheets. They were very old password protected Lotus 1-2-3 files. The client only had Excel. Guess the outcome there...

      But most of all, by relying on a closed format, by being tied to a single program to reliably read and write your data, you are effectively putting your work in a lockbox and handing someone else the key. You have to trust them not to lose that key, or decide that your model of lockbox is no longer supported. You also have to hope that the person who has your key never vanishes.

      Maybe a bad analogy, and certainly it's an argument with strong moralistic aspects, but there are sound, practical reasons for me to have my data in a format I can access easily and look up the specs for.

      On a more pragmatic level, an open format makes it extremely easy to write software that can use that format. I could write a web order system that update an ODF spreadsheet with data on each new order. Or create a custom mail merge program using a template ODF document to automate mail shots from a mailing list. Not the best examples but valid ones - *I know how to edit the contents of the document myself if I need to*.

      And just one final note - OfficeXML is NOT OPEN. The spec doesn't explain the parts that contain binary data - data that could include vital formating information for example.

      Personally, I feel the more open formats the better. The best will always win through. But if just one part of a file format spec is held back, it's not "Open". And that's where we stand with ODF vs DOC/DOCX. And since it *is* a battle, maybe falling in line behind one certain format is better than pushing several at the same time.

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