Office + OpenDocument, Never Say Never 261
barryfreed writes "There's a blog entry by Andy Updegrove at ConsortiumInfo.org that says Microsoft has officially stated to him that support of OpenDocument in MS Office could happen. Microsoft sent the statement in a response to an article Updegrove wrote called Massachusetts and OpenDocument: A Brave New World?"
OpenDoc? (Score:4, Interesting)
In any case, blah blah open standards good blah blah down with proprietary crap.
I know why (Score:2)
Completely different. (Score:2)
Re:Completely different. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:OpenDoc? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OpenDoc? (Score:3, Informative)
Sometimes, people mistakenly refer to OpenDocument (short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications) as OpenDoc.
OpenDoc (Score:5, Informative)
sigh...
Re:OpenDoc (Score:2)
OpenDoc.org (Score:2)
It will happen! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It will happen! (Score:2, Funny)
How dare they! Those evil corporations.
Re:It will happen! (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't be hard with the new tools their lawyers have.
If they encrypt the resulting documents using some lame encryption like ROT13 it would be against the law to Open them in anything but MS Office.
I'm sceptical (Score:3, Insightful)
What about browser standards? (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be very beneficial since every web page would look the *same* and act the same regardless of the browser use to view it.
What about that?
Support will be useless for the most part (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Support will be useless for the most part (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Support will be useless for the most part (Score:2)
I can serialize an object in a program to a file. I can then encrypt that file and stick it in an XML-wrapper. Does that make it open? Nope. Sure, the plain text in an Office 12 doc will be viewable, however the objects will be what are in a proprietary format (and probably patent encumbere
Re:Support will be useless for the most part (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft Office Word "12" will write
Please read this blog, by a real Microsoft software engineer [msdn.com] who actually accepts and responds to questions from concerned citizens like yourself.
Save, by default, in the OpenDocument format. (Score:2)
They've already thought
Re:Save, by default, in the OpenDocument format. (Score:2)
Re:Support will be useless for the most part (Score:2)
There are a lot of Office users and I doubt that trend will change any time soon. Supporting OpenDocument is a good thing for those users. It's also good for MS being part of the procurement process for any company, state, or government choosing that format.
Re:Support will be useless for the most part (Score:2)
Right now, most people in business require a
Big deal (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if MS decided to realize what interoperability actually is, the only reason they would add OpenDoc support to Office is to grab back the millions of dollars they'd lose on MA not buying Office licenses. This is precisely why MA is switching, and whether or not MS can FUD them into going back to Office remains to be seen. I predict promises that will ultimately go unfulfilled.
offically could == (Score:4, Funny)
Could? (Score:3, Insightful)
It will be good to see the bull with a ring in its nose for a change, so to speak, but the more relevant down line consequences don't seem to be jumping out at me. If MS goes with ODF, then we are all back in the same mess, more or less, aren't we?
I have faith in people, open-minded people, to see a product, and when the value of the product is comparable to any other product of similar purpose, then choose the cheapest one, or the one with the most compatibility with present relevant investments.
The trouble is, so far as I have seen or understood (I could be wrong), when the products are equal or close, MS uses those 'politicians' they paid for to ensure that only MS products get sold to all but the very edgy techno-geeks. That would leave us right where we started (more or less) in respect of MS's domination of the OS and software world.... that means very little competitive product in circulation by comparison.
So, what would make this more of a move to open and competitive markets?
I don't see the bright future in this.
Re:Could? (Score:2)
Read between the lines very carefully. What Nick Tsilas says is:
Yep. OpenDocument is not even on their radar screens [oasis-open.org]. Nope. Never heard of it before the Commonwealth of Massachusetts wanted it.
Puh-lease. Does he think we'
In fairness... (Score:2)
I don't think he's saying that it wasn't on their radar screens, as in, "We've never heard of Open Document". Instead, he's saying, "It wasn't on our radar as a feature to implement right now." And, pre-Massachusetts, it probably wasn't.
Re:Could? (Score:2)
Jeremy
Re:Could? (Score:2)
Hopefully (Score:3, Interesting)
However, given the corrupt and incompetent nature of governments, I'm very much not counting on it.
Re:Hopefully (Score:2)
ActiveOpenDocument-X! (Score:5, Funny)
*New features require Microsoft Office Vista XP 2008 Professional and
Oh, They'll Support It... (Score:4, Interesting)
Retardedness (Score:4, Funny)
"and also to lessen the likelihood that public information will not become inaccessible in the future"
lessen the likelihood..... that public information... *will not become inaccessible*
-- 2010 --
User : "I can't access Files on the Server"
Admin: "Yeah thats just part of the IT Policy"
User : "WTF?!?"
Admin: "Yeah I know, it's fucked up but I didn't write it..."
Wow, someone should have proofread the abstract (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the abstract from the featured article [consortiuminfo.org]: Maybe they meant: "and also to lessen the likelihood that public information will (remove: "not") become inaccessible in the future due to changes in proprietary software."
Maybe they need to worry less about the format being open and more about the text making sense
Sharing is Caring, and makes you friggin rich! (Score:2, Insightful)
If M$ wants to continue to make money, what with torrents, napster, E-mule (however it's spelled nowadays) burning, ripping, mashing, and overall passing the info to and from one another, they're going to have to adopt open source policies soon and they know it.
Simply put, people aren't going to tolerate closed EULA's much longer. Average Joe's can't afford 500 bucks every two years to upgrade an OS, relearn, understand, then do it again. That's why people are pooling cash, buying one copy, waiting for s
No brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No brainer (Score:2)
It's already too late. Parts of Massachusetts (including perhaps most notably Saugus [saugus.net]) have already switched. See the announcement on Saugus.net [saugus.net]
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anwyay, HTML is a markup language - just as OpenDocument. The difference is that HTML was meant to be read by web browsers. Printing and formatting is out of its scope.
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2)
Check this out, as an example.
Warning: Will not render in Firefox.
Traincraft.in [traincraft.in]Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) It quickly becomes a collection of files (figures, pictures, diagrams, charts, formulas, etc) which are inconvenient to manage. You have to attach say six different files to your email, or mess around with zipping it up, likewise at the recipient end.
2) Printing
As for (1), there's Microsoft's Compiled HTML which forms the basis of their help file format, not sure why that isn't an option in FLOSS (maybe it is, I haven't researched).
For (2), people want to control how the formatting looks on the printed page. You don't get that in HTML. And most word-processing, let's face it, is meant to be printed on paper. Depressing that computers have yet to provide a solution to the paperless office... but that's the way things are.
In my opinion, documents > 5 pages or so should be written in LaTeX but that's just me
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2)
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/page.html [w3.org]
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2)
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2)
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2)
1) Word Processing/Page Layout formats such as Open Document, MS Word, Word Perfect, and PDF.
2) Hyper text formats such as HTML, XML, and SGML.
The first family contains the exact specific information required to render (display, print) the document. In theory, I can open a Word Document or a PDF file on any computer in the universe and it will print exactly the same. It also MAY contain SOME semantic, contextual, "hypertext" information.
Th
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:2)
It could easily replace rtf, but a full featured word processor, like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.Org Writer, demands more. There are formatting features, revsion controls, and all manner of underlying tech that html simply doesn't suport.
That said, I totally agree that html should be the default for text documents that are more complex than raw ascii and less complex than a 500 page technical manual with macros and embedded revison histo
Because HTML != HTFL (Score:2)
Re:Why not use HTML? (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me old-fashioned, but I still think the best format for text is
IMO the best format is always the simplest.
FOr all you Office users... (Score:5, Informative)
Use it, and I bet most, if not all of you, will find yourself not needing MS Office.
Oh, and try that Save to PDF button. Yum.
Good night, and good luck!
Re:FOr all you Office users... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FOr all you Office users... (Score:2)
Re:FOr all you Office users... (Score:2)
What he is saying is that when you go to Openoffice.org there should be a link on the home page that says "WINDOWS USERS- CLICK HERE TO INSTALL OPENOFFICE!"
I agree- it is a bit too many steps to locate and install openoffice. I would never ask my mom to try to install it.
Many windows users need hand-holding. Microsoft gives them hand holding. Opensource doesn't even teach them to fish- it just puts a fishingline, pole and bait on the boat and expects them to go from th
Come on folks (Score:3, Insightful)
Did anybody think it wouldn't happen? Really?? And you just arrived from what planet again???
Of course it will happen. It will happen the moment MS needs it to happen. They've successfully resisted as long as they can, and when it starts costing them sales rather than creating sales for them they flip a compiler option switch and it's included. Don't think for a moment that they haven't had this running in their development labs for years. They would have been fools not to have.
Doesn't mean the battle is over. MS will certainly try to find some essential feature that OD doesn't support to keep people on their own proprietary format. Fight this by using OD regardless. The only thing I don't understand is why RTF was never an acceptable open format. I know it was supported by other platforms, and appears to be all ascii tags and data.
Kudos to Massachusetts to standing up to the MS BS. It took someone big enough and brave enough to get their attention. Apparently even a small state is big enough to really scare them.
Let's just ditch Word. (Score:5, Funny)
As such, any product organization should begin to switch to a system such as LaTeX for their document formatting needs. And for those who suggest that it is too complex for memos and other smaller documents, the perfect answer to that is to just stick with plain text files.
While the learning curve of something like LaTeX is a bit more than that of Word, it is far more powerful. Using a system such as LaTeX you can easily produce some very complex documents, and they look great. You don't have to worry about proprietary binary or XML formats, because LaTeX source files are plain text files. You can easily transmit them in source form, or you can create PDF documents when you need the presentation to be exact.
Re:Let's just ditch Word. (Score:2, Insightful)
Tom
I Smell a Rat (Score:2)
Re:I Smell a Rat (Score:3, Insightful)
"Users complain about this extra step, and their IT department installs OpenOffice on their PC. Presto, no more extra step"
An official statement of my own (Score:2)
Furthermore, it is my official position that it is possible that we will have a global renewal of peace and brotherhood, starting in the middle east; that demands on oil will suddenly drop out to nothing due to the invention of cheap, clean cold fusion; that Santa
That sure sounds definite! Not. (Score:2)
Boy, that's as much a sure thing as when Owl says to Pooh, floating in the floody 100 Acre Wood, "A rescue is being thought of"
More than likely, it will be provided as an import/export format. I haven't viewed either schema, but seeing as Microsoft typically releases next-version converters (including the next XML format) for current version software, another format should be easily done.
After all, wouldn't they rather have
Why this will happen (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a win for MS to do this. They've done this with Java in the past and it proved damaging to the Java world.
CSV (Score:5, Insightful)
I then get a dialog box saying something like "This file may contain features that cannot be saved if you continue to save in this format. Are you sure you want to save in this format?" Well, yes. I scrolled through the list and picked that format.
This behavior occurs even if you open a
OOo does the same thing! (Score:3, Informative)
Whooosh (Score:2)
What was that?
Blinking 'eck, it was flock of flying pigs.
MS may well embrace OpenDocument (Score:2, Interesting)
I think people should be paying more attention to where MS has been heading lately. They are aggresively pu
Right... (Score:2)
I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise, we're all just Rooney's in training.
Officially stating that MS support could happen... (Score:2)
For those who like text only format, you can go to the Oxford Text Archive for all of your ASCII & html fun...
http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/ [ahds.ac.uk] (browse by title)
Re:Never happen (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has to know by now that basic word processing functionality is far too common and easy to copy to make it a cornerstone of your product line. Word itself is an important part of Office, but most of the "innovation" in Office in recent years has not been in the Word component, but rather in the other pieces, and more importantly in how the different pieces interoperate.
Re:Never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Basically, how you put it. They would only support it enough so that it would be that extra bullet point at the bottom of the feature list "(blah blah, marketing drivel)...now with OpenDocument support!"
2. (Please don't correct me with a torch, I'm not an expert on this topic) but I don't doubt that MS would find some tiny loophole to sneak their own proprietary crap into OpenDocument formatted Office files which would have an adverse effect upon openning in any non-office program. I just wouldn't be surprised when I've seen two identical machines with identical software on the same network transfer a Word file from one computer to come out garbled on the other end.
Re:Never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
All they have to do is put the little balloon that says that "saving to OpenDocument may cause loss of formatting", which will cause 95% of the people out there to save to the proprietary file type.
Re:Never happen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Never happen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Never happen (Score:2)
Animated text? Inline URLs? Inserted images? Revision tracking?
I think they've pretty much hit the limit for "innovation" in a document format. All they can do now is change the format periodically to break compatibility with competing office suites.
Re:Never happen (Score:2)
Or worse... (Score:2)
Re:Or worse... (Score:2)
qualify if it:
a) does not completely and correctly implement OpenDoc
b) extends OpenDoc
If MS were to add proprietary stuff, they would be
disqualifying themselves.
Re:Never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft can stammer about all it wants with respect to OpenDocument, but what's interesting is that new features WON'T MATTER, if they can't be translated from/to the open format. One thing I think Bill & Co. tend to forget, which is something that Massachusetts insightfully realized, is that a government record should be no LESS open than the openness provided by traditional media - typically paper. Once you start using proprietary formats, you've closed pretty much imposed restricted access.
perfect read (Score:4, Insightful)
Support for reading, but only incomplete support for writing seems the most probable action for two reasons. First, it resembles how Microsoft beat other word processing competitors, Wordperfect in particular. Second, because there is no real competitor for MS Office, and Microsoft adds features based on customer demand. Supporting OpenDocument as an external, but less featured, format would be consistent with adding it as a customer demanded feature, but not letting the OpenDocument format guide the other features of MS Office.
Re:Never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
We expect the change; and there has been change.
First, the MS true type core fonts (that some think they later regretted)
the the WTL (template library) on source forge and their command line tools.
There may be something else.
MS are finding a new strategy that ensures financial success; Bill Gates is a businessman first.
This may be the next change coming up; finding that locked in=>locked out; and freedom=friends.
Sure MS office is good, but if its that good, why are they trying to MAKE you use it.
I understand your point but I think they will change and are changing.
Re:Never happen (Score:2)
This will more than likely become another (quarter-heartedly) Embrace and Extend instance.
S
Re:Never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
1: there are "good enough" alternatives
2: the existence of "good enough" alternatives destroys MS Office
I assert: MS Office is still the king of the hill. Unless you want to say that something like OpenOffice has even noticeable market-share, at least one of your premises are wrong.
MS Office has been making a bit less money than usual lately. Not because of competitors, but because fewer people see the need to upgrade to the newer version every 2 years.
Now, on the Mac side, yes, MS is losing marketshare... but not to OpenOffice...
Re:Three Assertions (Score:3, Insightful)
I assert: MS Office is still the king of the hill.
Your assertion that Office currently remains King of the Hill does not refute mine that "good enough" alternatives will chip away at Office's marketshare if more of the compatibility issues become non-issues (e.g. via a complete implementation of OpenDocument by MicroSoft).
The second part of your assertion contains faulty logic:
I assert: ... Unless you want to say that something like OpenOffice has even noticeable market-share, at least
Re:Never happen (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason they try to "make" you use it is not because it sucks (although that could be argued), it's because it costs over $400 a license and new, virtually featureless versions come out every two years or less. It's a major cash cow and they're going to milk it for all its worth.
Personally I don't feel that any "standard" software package should cost half of what you paid for your
COULD EASILY HAPPEN (Score:2)
Problem solved.
Oh... Really?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Never happen (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft will support OpenDocument to the extent that they have to to get whatever wonk working for the government to rubber stamp the official document certifying that it is suppor
Re:Never happen (Score:2)
This is what got them into trouble in the first place. Is there really anyone other than script kiddies who write macroviruses that use this "feature"? Give me a break. Hell, in one of their Office updates the default is OFF for macros...
B.
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, they are likely to make it difficult to use and screw up the rendering and printing to make it less desirable than their proprietary formats.
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the lack of that feature would lock THEM out (this reminds me of the scooby-doo scene where Scooby and Shaggy lock the door to keep the monster out, but the monster was already behind them).
In other words: If Massachussets decides not to use Microsoft products, other states would follow. Microsoft CANNOT afford that, they could lose their entire govt market. So they have to adopt the OpenDocument format, and face the competition.
Now the stability, experience and ease-of-use of their software is what they'll begin promoting to stay ahead the competition.
From my point of view, Microsoft was cornered into giving up the crown. They tried to delay the unavoidable, but there's nothing they can do about it. We already won!
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:2)
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:2)
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:2)
So, if Office supports a open document format (new office format) why on earth wouldn't they add support to ANOTHER open format like opendocument? Why wouldn't they, in fact, add support for PDF (as they've say they will do)? They're all open, microsoft is trying to "lock-in" customer with other things, the time for closed
Re:bait and switch tactic (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is because like OpenDocument, support for != Default. I suspect that they will support it but prevent you from using it as the default. People are lazy when they make documents and as long as they can open them the rest be damned. So unless the default is mandated as OpenDocument expect it to die a silent death.
B.
Re:Post is a honeypot for M$ hating crackpots (Score:2)
Re:Post is a honeypot for M$ hating crackpots (Score:2)
Parent is not flamebait... (Score:2)
From the Slashdot cookie-cutter: Some blog says Microsoft might plan to support X
Along with: Google have registered the domain gX.com
And: AJAX is teh l337
And: Which is the best programming language?
Re:Post is a honeypot for M$ hating crackpots (Score:2)
Re:Post is a honeypot for M$ hating crackpots (Score:2)
Name one technology they didn't "embrace and extend" when dealing with software?
Just one.