ODF Alliance, Who, What, Where (and Why?) 92
Andy Updegrove writes "On Friday, the new ODF Alliance was launched with much fanfare to 'educate government' about the OpenDocument Format. A flurry of brief news articles appeared the same day, based on pre-launch interviews (as well as an Op/Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal by Sun's Scott McNealy), but they didn't include much information. So what's it all about, why was it formed, and will it be likely to succeed? Given that the 36 members include only one government unit (the ICT department for Vienna), the answer is clearly to establish a beachhead in the government market as a target of opportunity, and then to expand from there to meet the real goals of the members."
What McNealy had to say (Score:5, Interesting)
COMMENTARY
DOW JONES REPRINTS
Software Hardball
By SCOTT MCNEALY
March 3, 2006; Page A10
In principle at least, there is no controversy. No one would argue that content you create belongs to anyone but you. But, in fact, it doesn't.
That's the dirty little secret behind much of the software people use today. In business, in government, in schools and in homes all around the world, we entrust our work to software applications: word processors, spreadsheets, presentation programs and all the rest. And, too often, that's where we lose control of our own words and thoughts -- simply on account of the way we save our documents. Because we tend to store information in formats that are owned and managed by a single dominant company, in a few short years we may no longer be able to access our files if the format is "upgraded." Or we may be required to buy a new expensive version of the software just to access our own thoughts. We do it without giving it a second thought. After all, what's the alternative? A typewriter? An adding machine? A quill?
Think about it: If the Constitution were being drafted today, we would likely lose free, or low cost, or even any kind of access to much of the vital background in the Framers' correspondence to one another -- all because the file format will no longer be supported sometime in the future. A letter is more or less permanent, and easily transferable to different environments. An email is not.
Software appears to give us all the control we need over our documents -- until it doesn't. The problem shows up when we decide to try something different. A new way of doing things or a different software application. Something better. Something cheaper, more reliable, easier. But we're stuck with all these files in a format that's exclusive to the company from which we bought the first software application. In business, that's called a barrier to exit. Companies that create barriers to exit figure we won't notice until it's too late when the cost of switching is too high.
In the larger scheme of things, barriers to exit are bad for the consumer. It means that in the long term we often end up paying more than we should and getting less innovation than we would on a level playing field. Companies should compete on the value their products provide, not on their ability to lock customers into a proprietary "standard." At this point, some people throw up their hands and say that's just the way of the world. Nothing we can do about it.
Not so. There is now an open, international standard for common personal productivity applications -- spreadsheet, presentation and word-processing programs -- called the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Approved by an independent standards body, ODF has the backing of a broad community of supporters including consumer groups, academic institutions, a collection of library associations including the American Library Association, and many leading high-tech companies, but no single company owns it or controls it. (A "standard" created and controlled by a single company is not a true standard.) Any company can incorporate the OpenDocument Format into its products, free of charge, and tear down the barriers to exit.
Imagine being able to open any email attachment, read it and make changes, even if you don't have the exact program it was created in. That's the kind of interoperability the OpenDocument Format is designed to foster.
If this standard is to become a reality, we must insist on it. In the U.S., Massachusetts has been leading the way with a mandate that all software purchased by the commonwealth comply with ODF. Globally, 13 nations are considering adopting it. The reason is simple. The data belongs to the people, not to the software vendor that created the file format.
If you don't think this is an issue, take a look at what happened after Hurricane Katrina. People needing emergency services information found that some government Web sites could only be accessed from a singl
Office XML open enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
"new Office XML specifications are freely available for anyone to download and Microsoft offers perpetual, royalty-free licenses to use them"
If the format is efficient and simple enough to handle, this seems good enough for me. ofcourse Microsoft is hardly an independend organisation, and i think these kinds of standards should be from such a organisation. Is the ODF more independend?
Re:More standard formats (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Office XML open enough? (Score:2, Interesting)
And it has no promise of future extendability that will be as "open" as the current MS proposal. It is Microsoft's usual tactic. People want an open compatible file format an Microsoft doesn't want to support it. What does that say: Microsoft doesn't listen to its customers and they put their intrested ahead of their customer. *sigh* What kind of business gets away with that.
Enterprise Computing (Score:4, Interesting)
Education is definitely the key to success (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the key reasons that alternatives to Microsoft Office haven't made substantial headway in government and educational institutions is because many users aren't aware of the alternatives available. Or if they are, they are unable to distinguish the advantages and disadvantages between the alternatives and Microsoft Office, and haven't received any substantial training using such alternatives.
As an educator, I began using OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice/J in the classes I taught or coordinated, along with Microsoft Office, to teach the fundamental concepts of preparing documents with office suite applications. Upon completion of the training, my students had a much better grasp of the differences between office productivity suites, their advantages and disadvantages, and which application performed better at preparing certain tasks based upon features. Moreover, those students could make better educated decisions of which office productivity suite to choose based upon their needs, not based upon which application has a greater marketshare or saves files in a specific format. Because of the benefits I witnessed from the instruction provided to these students, I ended up writing the book "A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 2.0" (www.conciseconceptsinc.com [conciseconceptsinc.com]) that is based upon the handouts I prepared for those classes.
My hope is that the adoption of open source formats become a success. Users shouldn't have to choose to use a software package based upon the use of a closed source format tied to a specific application. Every application has its advantages and disadvantages, and every user needs specific features from an application when creating documents. Having applications standardize on open source formats, and have them compete on features/interface/ease-of-use/ etc., is much better for users in terms of choice and the assurance that documents created today are assessable by everyone for many years into the future.
Re:The real goals of the members (Score:5, Interesting)
I only work in OD files now, and I have Portable OOo on my USB drive so I can work anywhere. I'll save to word compatibility when I know that I need to send it to people/places that aren't going to adapt, but I'd almost rather just send them PDFs because they always seem to work perfectly every single time (save the stupidly long Adobe Reader startup time).
Re:Education is definitely the key to success (Score:3, Interesting)
You can not hide the format that an open source application writtes to. The subset of .doc that OOo writes now is de facto open. But, of course, better documentation and being sure that the implementation is right can make a lot of difference.
Re:Get a grip. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah yes, and every other software house produces top quality shit, and all OSS is the peak of perfection! Really!
Presentation Graphics (Score:3, Interesting)
PDF would have been one way to go, but only for stuff that you won't re-edit or re-use. My solution was to go full W3C-compliant HTML + CSS for most text documents and presentations. OpenDocument is an extension of that concept.
People laughed at the web a bit too before it caught on. And some hadn't even caught on to the Internet by that time, such as our esteemed Chairman Gates who in 1995 even went as far as to call the Internet a "passing fad [redmondmag.com]" and "unimportant." I recall many people wanting to prioritize Gopher since it was already more established. However, when it came down to it, so many people found the usefulness of a format that anyone can implment, distribute or read/write. From there it took off like wildfire.
Ignoring the time wasted in the 'browser wars', the complaint about HTML was that it was not advanced enough for more complex documents. OpenDocument scratches that itch. And, being XML, browsers could even be made to render it. There's money in reducing work (and data) lost to format incompatibilities.