Am 26.02.2014 22:48, schrieb Charles-H. Schulz:
... may be found here:
http://standards.data.gov.uk/comment/974#comment-974
Best,
Very good post!
Although I bet the CC on the users@global.libreoffice.org took the
server down last night. ;)
Unfortunately I waited with my post till the very end to become the last
post it unfortunately got lost.
Please allow me to sent my post here instead so the effort was not for
nothing and it still might help someone of your marketing:
*Rule Britannia!*
I would like to thank the Open Standards board for its courage to change
the road being taken for decades and aiming for innovation, giving
smaller companies an opportunity.
I really do hope that there will be no OOXML aside of ODF in the
proposal as there is no need for it and I fear it would weaken the
ecosystem of transparency.
But I have to wish you luck, as there is this saying, that it always seems easier for a company
to add
another software from Microsoft to its stack than a better alternative (the vicious circle) and
an
IT manager usually does not risk his job by choosing Microsoft. Not to
mention the powerful MS lobby.
Still I hope Britain is able to break free as the city of Munich did before.
Many good lessons can be learned from Munich, which has proven that even
with additional education the use of open-source is cheaper. Now even their
approaches and tools can be reused/shared.
Regarding innovation I would like to point out an upcoming technical
innovation of ODF starting with change-tracking
<https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office-collab>. Instead of saving
before/after states, changes/operation are being specified and can be
used as well for real-time collaboration.
Two implementations (WebODF <http://webodf.org/> and OX documents <https://www.ox.io/ox_text>)
both open-source <http://git.open-xchange.com/git/office> browser
based ODF editors have taken first steps of testing a joined
collaboration. Unthinkable that Office365 would do allow collaboration
with applications from vendors other than Microsoft.
Finally I would like to comment on the promise of Microsoft to the EU
<http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2009/dec09/12-16statement.aspx> to
support every ODF ISO standard 9 months after its publishing.
Although the Microsoft support of ODF 1.1 in MS Office 2010 was only
moderate, the support of ODF 1.2 in MS Office 2013 is indeed quite good.
Unfortunately they supporting only a single version of ODF in a major
office version, while with extensions OOXML is even working back to Office XP.
An interoperability nightmare.
Even worse, when opening a valid ODF 1.2 file in MS Office 2010, it
irritates the user by declaring the document of being corrupt (FUD
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt>?).
The reason is that a new version attribute had been added to the ODF spec.
Too expensive to be fixed, they say. Sad that we can not sent them (or a
public source repository) any patches, like we can do for all the ODF
open source. As Microsoft Office is closed source and has a
stronghold on the market. They are able to block the progress.
The problem of interoperability between versions might be fixed in
general by providing free available transitions between the standard
versions (better being part of the standard). It was once ignorant to state that a
format will never change, this is equal to stopping evolution. Instead a
transition must be provided to not break the chain of opening ancient
documents.
Aside of the above unfortunately still most/all standards lack of free
available test suits with a good coverage.
Even for ODF it is not able to determine what features are being
supported by an ODF application and if it covers the feature set of the
documents of the user.
But anyway, by adopting ODF the UK can finally start moving away from Microsoft's
strangling embrace. It is time for an Office Spring!
*Rule, Britannia!*
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