[Libreoffice] about the removing of binfilter

Hi all,

I understand the rationale for removing binfilter. I think that
everybody agree with the decision to make the documents in old formats
read-only. In fact that should have been done several years ago.

But the removing of the import of old formats is another story. I am
already hearing end-users complaining against this decision. Indeed it
is not so evident that the users can convert their old files to
OpenDocument format. I see at least one argument against such
conversion: if you have old archived sdw files, you do not want
transform your archives in an unusable bazaar by renaming and changing
the date of all your files.

So I think we have some work to do to prepare the transition:
- have a very clear and strong communication about this decision in
order to allow the users to understand it and prepare themselves.
- it seems necessary to keep the last version of LibO which contains
binfilter available for download during a long time.
- communicate on the document converter: probably many users do not know it
- add to the converter the possibility to keep the date of the original
file when converted to ODF
- perhaps add to the converter the possibility to rename the files in a
more informative way than only change their extension, eg toto.sdw ->
toto_sdw.odt

Best regards
JBF
-- 
Seuls des formats ouverts peuvent assurer la pérennité de vos documents.