Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: The Document Foundation's response to Her Majesty's Government consultation on document formats

Hi :)
Wow, just found this link if the BoD are only just starting to get
involved with this
http://standards.data.gov.uk/how-you-can-get-involved-each-phase
Personally i suspect that they were the ones that originally made
several of us aware of this whole proposal so i suspect they ARE "on
the case".  In my previous post i let my own personal fears get the
better of me.  Sorry for that!

Also this link settled me down a bit
http://standards.data.gov.uk/phases-selection-approach
So normal users, like me, CAN be involved in some of the next stages.
It's not necessarily all going to be over-ruled by MS 'experts' who
are probably already carefully placed or by unwittingly dedicated or
committed MS people.


Ok, so it seems to have moved on quite a bit.  The next phase seems to
be closed already!  There seems to have been a next round of comments
or maybe summary points posted already;
http://standards.data.gov.uk/challenge/sharing-or-collaborating-government-documents
click on the "Responses" tab about half-way down the page. The only 3
that worry me so far are
1.  p1  Focus on "get the job done", not "how it's done".
2.  p3  Standardisation mandate
3.  p3  ODF

1.  as per the title.  I'm not sure exactly what is being said here.
Hopefully it's just saying that things in the future should not depend
on how things have been done in the past.
2.  is about macros, specifically demanding a standard be set for them
too (as well as for the document formats).  I think this needs to be
as a separate proposal because if they attempt to bolt-it-on to this
one then it could cause huge delays or even scuper the whole proposal.
 Also it looks like LO, AOO, etc can choose between different
languages for macros while certain other programs cannot.  At the
moment the viability of this whole proposal seems to depend on the
fact that MS Office has finally managed to implement ODF 1.2, just
like everyone else has managed for years.
3.  "Without greater public awareness though, it will be seen as
something that is inaccessible to many due the ubiquity of specific
proprietary products and devices."  I'm not sure about the devices
aspect.  It might be aimed at the CSV component of the proposal but i
worry that it might be turned into an excuse for "needing" to accept
xls or even xlsX from systems such as financial reports/forecasting
and/or weather prediction.

Anyway that is 3 dubious statements out of around 20 or so and even
then they seem mostly pro-ODF.



Another similar proposal seems to be going through at around the same time
http://standards.data.gov.uk/challenge/viewing-government-documents
This seems to focus more on online formats such as html 4.01 and 5 and
on 'the' uneditable format (Pdf) but comments have so far seemed to
focus on suggesting using OpenSource tools and 1 mentioned ODF for
off-line.

Regards from
Tom :)




On 4 March 2014 12:11, Tom Davies <tomcecf@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi :)
> What worries me now is that the next stage of the process appears to
> be that after seeking thoughts from the general populace they then put
> it through a panel of 'experts'.  Who chooses these experts and on
> what basis?  (that was a rhetorical question)  So, now i can see why
> MS made so little effort to post comments in this stage of the
> process.  From the Uk Gov's website
> http://standards.data.gov.uk/how-we-select-standards
>
> "
> How we select standards
> Through the Standards Hub anyone can get involved in the process of
> prioritising and helping us to select open standards for government
> IT.
> There are five groups of people involved in selecting and implementing
> open standards:
>
> Users
> Government technology officials
> Challenge owners
> Standards panels
> Open Standards Board
>
> There are also five phases in our approach:
> Suggest
> Challenge
> Propose
> Assess
> Implement
> "
>
> How likely is it that any of the "Government technology officials" are
> committed to MS?  Are any from Redhat, Canonical, FSF, TDF, openSuSE
> or anywhere else not completed committed to MS?  There doesn't seem to
> be a list of them anywhere nor a list of the criteria that got them
> selected in the first place.  Similarly with the "Challenge Owners",
> "Standards Panels" (are these selected from among people working on
> ISO standards?) and the "Open Standard Board".  For this last group we
> finally get a list of names and some minimal disclosure.
>
> "
> Open Standards Board - members and biographies
>
> The Board members are:
>
> Liam Maxwell, Government Digital Service (Chair)
> John Atherton, Surevine
> Alex Brown, Griffin Brown Digital Publishing Ltd
> Adam Cooper, Bolton University
> Matthew Dovey, Jisc
> Paul Downey, Government Digital Service
> Lee Edwards, London Borough of Redbridge
> Tim Kelsey, NHS England
> John Sheridan, The National Archives
> Jeni Tennison, Open Data Institute
> Chris Ulliott, CESG
> "
>
> Without even looking up any of these i can see some that raise alarm.
> NHS England is allegedly deeply committed to Microsoft, according to
> the comments, having just signed a huge contract with them
> (allegedly).  So this person could well even be an employee of MS.
> The "Open Data Institute" sounds good but could easily be like the
> sort of smoke-screen used in "office open XML".  Also i'm concerned
> that the final board there wont even see the original comments and
> press releases from the "Users".  If they do there have been 3 layers
> of 'experts' groups able to undermine or twist anything posted in this
> initial stage.
>
> I'm not sure who to write to about my concerns with the process.  Is
> the BoD "on the case" with any of this or does it just stop with the
> press release and just a vague hope that it will all magically work
> out well?
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
>
> On 4 March 2014 11:41, Tom Davies <tomcecf@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi :)
> > Thanks Dr Som :)   I wish i had realised i could edit my own posts
> > earlier so that when i cringed at some of my own grammar i could have
> > fixed it on the spot.  Also it might have been good to proof-read
> > others and maybe get others to proof-read mine.  My one that appeared
> > just after the official TDF one would have been better elsewhere.  As
> > it is it's probably going to suffer from "too long; didn't read" and
> > it repeats some of the things already said much better in the official
> > post.  On the other hand it does mean all the posts look quite fresh
> > and lively rather than over-worked.
> > Thanks and regards from
> > Tom :)
> >
> >
> >
> > On 3 March 2014 04:28, som <drsoumalya-libo@yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> > > > I can't believe i hadn't said that earlier!!  It was a great "press
> > > > release" :))
> > >
> > > totally agree
> > >
> > >
> > > > A few comments
> > > > pointed out that Google-docs doesn't use ODF.  However Google
> > > > themselves posted there own statement saying that they support this
> > > > proposal to use ODF.
> > >
> > > actually that is partial truth and not the whole truth. users were right, google does not 
> > > support ODF totally. gmail has a very nice feature - when an email has an attachment, you could 
> > > simply click on it and a preview will be open. you could go through the preview and decide if 
> > > you want to download it or not. this preview feature is supported for ".docx",".xlsx", .doc. 
> > > .pdf but not for ".odt,.ods". so from this you could come to a conclusion that google does not 
> > > support ODFs.
> > > however, if you save the file into google drive and then try to convert it, it is possible to 
> > > do so even with ODFs. so, google drive does support ODF.
> > >
> > > as i was saying, both were partially correct.
> > >
> > > > Hopefully other governments will be able to see that the attempt was
> > > > made and that through failure ensured that the Uk continues to pay far
> > > > more than any other European Government on IT and has the lowest
> > > > performance as a result.  Meanwhile other governments that HAVE
> > > > ALREADY broken free or that DO break freak free continue to find huge
> > > > cost-savings, plummeting costs and rapidly as a result.
> > >
> > > amen to that!
> > >
> > > regards,
> > >
> > > som
> > >
> > > --
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