date:20110102


Hi,

...

But ultimately someone or some group has to make the final decision
about what is and is not going to be included.  In the case of TDF, it
is the ESC.  The people in that group have the authority to make a
final decision.

...
OK for that. Where can I find the criteria for this decisions?
What I mean:
The german website says: TDF is founded to get a greater indipendence 
from commercial influence.

The TDF-site adds on: ... and will deliver the best software for users ...
But how will anyone find out what the best software is? Is it from the 
number of downloads? Is it a very good review from IT-experts?
What's the background (for ESC) to decide what leads to the best 
software for users?
If one says: It's the experience of ESC - OK, what experience does that 
mean? I don't know it.

Don't get me wrong but I feel like in front of a black box.
Or is it just a lack of communication?

Greetings,
Johannes


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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 2011/01/02 4:15 PM  Italo Vignoli wrote:
Emails where people say that LibreOffice should not support a document format because it is 
backed by Microsoft or because is a Go-OO heritage are not a positive contribution. 


So pointing out the Novell/Microsoft marketing agreement that led to the inclusion of writing 
to OOXML would not be a positive contribution?


Which version of OOXML does LibreOffice write to? The official standard approved version? Or 
one of the proprietary Microsoft versions? Which one? Or are these not positive inquiries

?

How about commenting on the articles criticizing OOXML? Oh right, that is not positive either. 
Besides it contravenes the Novell/Microsoft agreement.


Any comment on the Novell/Microsoft marketing agreement and how it affects the development of 
LibreOffice? Or would that not be positive either?


Larry
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


Hi Italo,


On 1/2/11 9:36 PM, Johannes A. Bodwing wrote:


What's the basis for the developers to make decisions? Where can I find
that information?


Developers will base their decisions on several information, and also 
on positive contribution by the community. Emails where people say 
that LibreOffice should not support a document format because it is 
backed by Microsoft or because is a Go-OO heritage are not a positive 
contribution.


In addition, there is a group of long time community members who have 
a clear idea about the future of the office suite. We have also issued 
a press release where we have disclosed the development path that 
makes very clear LibreOffice future directions.


Where can I read it? Is it in the next decade manifesto?



It should be very clear that software related requests coming from the 
community will be taken into consideration if they are positive and 
not against Microsoft or Oracle or any other corporation or entity. I 
think that this is quite a clear statement.



The other point is:
TDF "... is an independent self-governing meritocratic Foundation, ..."
(TDF-Homesite)
and on the "Next Decade Manifesto: "... the home for our activities
should be an independent self-governing democratic foundation ..."
How have I to understand that? Or where can I find answers about it?


Democratic and meritocratic are not opposite.


And they are not equal. That's my problem with it at the moment.
I don't really understand how this democratic-meritocratic principle 
works. And what you explain below with Microsoft, for me it is not 
meritocratic or democratic that's an ethical aspect.
But I shift this point to the time after the release of 3.3 to discuss 
it with more time in our hands.


TDF is a democracy based on merit, and merit is based on positive 
contributions. Shouting inside a mailing list is not a positive 
contribution, by any mean. TDF was not born to fight Microsoft, but to 
serve the user.


I think this is quite easy to understand, and I am really amazed by 
the number of people that still believe that promoting free software 
means bashing Microsoft. This shows a total lack of maturity.


Thanks for your answers.
I'll save it till after the release of 3.3,
Johannes


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread jake


On 3/1/2011 11:10, Larry Gusaas wrote:

...
 Ask that question of any user of older versions of Word after they 
receive a .docx document and are unable to open it.

...
Larry
The older versions of MSO can open and write docx by downloading a 
compatibility pack from MS.  This pack has been continuously updated by MS.
Users of old MSO are more likely to consider it before any third-party 
alternative.



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[tdf-discuss] Re: Test documents to compare interoperability [was: Do not support writing to OOXML format]

2011-01-02 Thread Marc Paré


Le 2011-01-02 21:53, Andy Brown a écrit :

On Sun Jan 02 2011 18:43:41 GMT-0800 (PST) Andy Brown wrote:

On Sun Jan 02 2011 18:31:07 GMT-0800 (PST) todd rme wrote:


Koffice (I guess Calligra now) already has a set of ms office test
documents. See here:

http://158.36.191.251:8080/viewLog.html?buildId=1745&buildTypeId=bt7&tab=testsInfo


Rather than getting your own set of test documents, I think it would
be better to share a document set with the Callgira developers.
First, this saves resources for both groups, since documents added by
one will be available to the other. Second, it helps guarantee
interoperability between the two suites.



Good idea but site requires an account, also not sure it is the same
site.




Sorry, I jumped the gun there. It seems to be the correct site with
guest access.

Andy



Someone should also ask on the dev list if they use test documents (I 
think they do) and use these as well.


Marc


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Co-working with Moz, etc

Are you talking about in addition to having an installable version of LO?

On 1/3/11 1:26 AM, Jaime R. Garza wrote:

Hello Jonathan,

Google only converts to ODF, they use their own proprietary file format
natively, they don't use ODF natively and they don't have as much
functionality as LO. You can use Google Docs with a Google account as you
can use MS Docs with a Facebook account.

Problems:
- None of them use ODF natively, they just export to ODF.
- None of them you can install locally.
- None of them are Open Source.

It's like if we asked: Why do we make Libre Office if MS is already giving
MS Office for free?

Think about is, it would be much simple to develop a HTML5 Libre Office,
because it is by nature platform independent and you can install it locally.

Cheers!

Jaime R. Garza

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 01:03, Jonathan Aquilinawrote:

Jaime I believe on previous posts on this thread or another one that TDF is
working on getting Google to support the ODF format. why create something
that has already been done by Google?

On 1/3/11 12:54 AM, Jaime R. Garza wrote:

As I said before, Cloud based Office Suites are becoming more mature, I
think LO should start developing an HTML5 browser based office and ideally
integrate it with Zimbra!

It would be great to install LO locally and be able to share it through
the
web to others from your computer without any further installation
necessary.

Enterprises could make only one installation on a huge server and anyone
could use it directly from the browser, and Cloud companies like Amazon
could just upload an image and make it available for all their customers.

Cheers!

Jaime R. Garza

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 00:33, Jonathan Aquilina
wrote:

Zimbra is exactly what would push LO to be a serious threat to Microsoft

Office. Isn't that what the goal is of this project to slowly eat away at
Microsoft's majority market share?

On 1/2/11 10:00 PM, NoOp wrote:

On 01/02/2011 10:49 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:

On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:

Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an

equivalent
program such as outlook.

Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right,

so...

There are one of three ways it can be done.

1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate
it
into the LO suite

Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even

on
*nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
the stablest of systems (otherwise)...

2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.
Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
moment, at least that I am aware of...

the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size,

which
would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...

Might be worth considering collaborating with Zimbra:

http://www.zimbra.com/
I found this interesting:
<

http://www.zimbra.com/forums/developers/37811-openoffice-org-integration-google-docs-zoho.html
The guy was using "SuSE build of OOo 3.2".

I generally use SeaMonkey, but I've been experimenting with Zimbra
Desktop lately&it seems to be an interesting alternative w/calendar,
Document, Briefcase, etc. And it's open source:
http://www.zimbra.com/about/
albeit with their own ZPL:
http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html

A tie-in with LibO&Zimbra would be about as close as MS
Outlook/Office
(I'm not referring to Outlook Express) with a multiplatform environment.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 03/01/11 04:10, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> Yes it is a statement of fact. A perfect example of the condescension
> shown towards anyone who is not a programmer.

I see from this statement that I'm not going to be able reason with you,
but I'll give it a go anyway. ;)

On 03/01/11 04:10, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> So giving user support and reporting bugs is not contributing since it
> is not providing code.

On the contrary, providing support and reporting bugs is a worthy
contribution and I thank you for your efforts. However such support
doesn't lend *qualified authority* to your voice on matters of coding,
design and project policy. If you want your voice to carry weight in
those arenas you are, I'm afraid, going to have to prove yourself.

Otherwise you'll have to put forward your opinions in a reasoned tone,
providing evidence where appropriate and politely debating with those
oppose your views. You'll also have to learn when your side has lost
that debate!

On the other hand, your experience in providing user support and
reporting bugs (assuming it is extensive) could prove useful issues of
website design (with respect to support forums and bug reporting) and
documentation. That is an arena in which your voice may well hold
*authority* and in which you could make a *qualified* contribution if
you choose to.

On 03/01/11 04:10, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> Including the ability to write OOXML format is a political decision
> driven by the Novell and Microsoft marketing agreement. User experience?
> Ask that question of any user of older versions of Word after they
> receive a .docx document and are unable to open it.

Indeed, I have experienced this myself when trying to send documents.
However a blanket ban on OOXML would, in the long run, be a disadvantage
to *LibreOffice*. Whether you appreciate it or not the older document
formats (.doc .xls .ppt) are going to fade away as Microsoft pushes its
considerable weight behind newer versions of Microsoft Office and with
them its own interpretation of OOXML. That means that at some point
these new formats (.docx .xlsx .pptx) will one day be viewed as the
standard (unless TDF pulls off a coup that is) and waiting until that
day to support these formats would put *LibreOffice* on the back foot.

In any case, nobody is suggesting that MSOOXML become the default format
for *LibreOffice*, or that the older Microsoft formats (.doc .xls .ppt)
be abandoned. I don't see a downside myself, other than of course
wounding *your* principles.

On 03/01/11 04:10, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> I will stand by principle (not principal) over politics any and every day.

Well good for you (and I apologise for the typo), but such decisions
would more than likely lead to *failure*. The majority of users don't
care about your *principles*; they do care about *document fidelity* and
*interoperability*.

Kind Regards,

Lee Hyde.

-- 
"Thousands of years ago, tribes of human beings suffered great
privations in the struggle to survive. In this struggle it was important
not only to be able to handle a club, but also to possess the ability to
think reasonably, to take care of the knowledge and experience garnered
by the tribe, and to develop the links that would provide cooperation
with other tribes. Today the entire human race is faced with a similar
test. In infinite space many civilizations are bound to exist, among
them civilizations that are also wiser and more "successful" than ours.
I support the cosmological hypothesis which states that the development
of the universe is repeated in its basic features an infinite number of
times. In accordance with this, other civilizations, including more
"successful" ones, should exist an infinite number of times on the
"preceding" and the "following" pages of the Book of the Universe. Yet
this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours,
where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a
moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material
existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a life
worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive."

-- Andrei Sakharov, Excerpt from his 1975 Nobel Lecture (1975)

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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 2011/01/02 9:42 PM Lee Hyde wrote:

On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote:

That is pure condescension. He is saying that because I do not write
code my opinion is worthless and nobody will listen to me.

That is hardly condescension, merely a statement of fact.

Yes it is a statement of fact. A perfect example of the condescension shown towards anyone who
is not a programmer.

The reality
is, that if you or I want a greater say on matters such as these, the
best way is to become a contributor proper. To do so merely demonstrates
our qualifications to speak *authoritatively* on such matters.

So giving user support and reporting bugs is not contributing since it is not
providing code.

In the context of this thread, two arguments have been made. One that
favours interoperability for the sake of pragmatism and user experience,
and one that favours crippling *LibreOffice* for the sake of politics
and principals. In my humble opinion, the steering committee made the
correct decision; *The Document Foundation* should not be bogged down by
politics, else it'll run itself into the ground.

Including the ability to write OOXML format is a political decision driven by the Novell and
Microsoft marketing agreement. User experience? Ask that question of any user of older versions
of Word after they receive a .docx document and are unable to open it.

I will stand by principle (not principal) over politics any and every day.

Larry
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Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
"An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs." -
Edgard Varese

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> That is pure condescension. He is saying that because I do not write
> code my opinion is worthless and nobody will listen to me.

That is hardly condescension, merely a statement of fact. The reality
is, that if you or I want a greater say on matters such as these, the
best way is to become a contributor proper. To do so merely demonstrates
our qualifications to speak *authoritatively* on such matters.

Furthermore, what you're arguing for is the intentional crippling of
*LibreOffice* on political grounds! I suspect that such a view, were it
expressed by God himself, would be ignored by any rational developer!

On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> Then why is this list called "Discuss"? Isn't this the place for
> discussions? Or should we quit wasting our time giving our opinions on
> the project? After all, if we do not write code we are not contributers
> to the community and have no say in the community.

You have wholly misconstrued the meaning of my last e-mail. Yes, there
is a *core community* of contributors whose opinions, backed by the
verasity of their qualifications (as people who contribute code, GUI
designs, etc...), are given greater weight and are perhaps more likely
to reach the ears of the steering committee members. However, that
should not preclude the contributions of we layman. It simply means that
we have to *debate* our point in a well reasoned manor. Doing so
increases the probability that our ideas will *inspire* or *chime with*
those of one or more core contributors, and thus work their way up the
greasy pole to one of the committee members. Also, I suspect that many
if not all of the committee members frequent these mailing list, so if
you can argue your case well you may well influence the project albeit
in unseen ways.

However, you do need to recognise that your opinions and ideas aren't
necessarily going to chime with those of the developers. In such cases
you'll either have to *put up* (learn to code or create some mock-ups to
better illustrate your points) or *shut up*, because the reality is, no
developer is going to work on an idea if (s)he doesn't agree with it
and/or if there's no chance the steering committee is going to include
it. This is *not* condescension in any sense, it is a recognition of the
reality that not every opinion and idea can be implemented.

In the context of this thread, two arguments have been made. One that
favours interoperability for the sake of pragmatism and user experience,
and one that favours crippling *LibreOffice* for the sake of politics
and principals. In my humble opinion, the steering committee made the
correct decision; *The Document Foundation* should not be bogged down by
politics, else it'll run itself into the ground.

Kind Regards,

Lee Hyde.

On 03/01/11 03:17, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> I guess I will quit wasting my time here and go back to just giving
> support to OpenOffice.org users.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread todd rme

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 10:17 PM, Larry Gusaas  wrote:
>
> On 2011/01/02 8:51 PM  Lee Hyde wrote:
>>
>> I haven't
>> read anything from Italo that could be construed as condescension.
>
> Italo wrote:
>
>   "If you want to have a say in software development you are welcome to
> contribute to the
>   code and you will soon be able to talk to the ESC, or maybe become a
> member of the ESC. "
>
> That is pure condescension. He is saying that because I do not write code my
> opinion is worthless and nobody will listen to me.

No, that is not what he is saying.  You are free to have any opinion
you want, and you are free to back up that opinion with arguments and
evidence.  If your arguments and evidence are good, you may very well
convince others to go along with your ideas.

But ultimately someone or some group has to make the final decision
about what is and is not going to be included.  In the case of TDF, it
is the ESC.  The people in that group have the authority to make a
final decision.

What Italo is saying (from my reading) is that authority has to be
earned, you have to convince others that you deserve that sort of
authority.  Anyone can have an opinion, and anyone can argue that
opinion, but not everyone can make a final decision.  That is what
Italo was saying, and it isn't the least bit condescending.

In short, anyone can have an opinion, but votes are restricted to only
those who have earned it.  You haven't, so your opinion has no more
inherent value than any other random user's opinion.  You have no more
authority to dictate what LibreOffice will and will not do than me.

>> As I recall, someone earlier defined the term*community*  in the context
>> of*The Document Foundation*  to include all*contributors*  and
>> explicitly excluded those who 'contribute' to mailing list discussions
>> from this broad group.
>
> Then why is this list called "Discuss"? Isn't this the place for
> discussions? Or should we quit wasting our time giving our opinions on the
> project? After all, if we do not write code we are not contributers to the
> community and have no say in the community.

You are free to discuss, you are free to make your case, but you are
not free to force your opinion on everyone else.

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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 2011/01/02 8:51 PM Lee Hyde wrote:

I haven't
read anything from Italo that could be construed as condescension.

Italo wrote:

"If you want to have a say in software development you are welcome to
contribute to the
code and you will soon be able to talk to the ESC, or maybe become a member of
the ESC. "

That is pure condescension. He is saying that because I do not write code my opinion is
worthless and nobody will listen to me.

Looking at all the responses to my original post, I'd say a lot of people have
listened to me.

As I recall, someone earlier defined the term*community* in the context
of*The Document Foundation* to include all*contributors* and
explicitly excluded those who 'contribute' to mailing list discussions
from this broad group.

Then why is this list called "Discuss"? Isn't this the place for discussions? Or should we quit
wasting our time giving our opinions on the project? After all, if we do not write code we are
not contributers to the community and have no say in the community.

I guess I will quit wasting my time here and go back to just giving support to OpenOffice.org
users.

Larry
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Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Test documents to compare interoperability [was: Do not support writing to OOXML format]

2011-01-02 Thread Andy Brown


On Sun Jan 02 2011 18:43:41 GMT-0800 (PST)  Andy Brown wrote:

On Sun Jan 02 2011 18:31:07 GMT-0800 (PST)  todd rme wrote:


Koffice (I guess Calligra now) already has a set of ms office test
documents.  See here:

http://158.36.191.251:8080/viewLog.html?buildId=1745&buildTypeId=bt7&tab=testsInfo 



Rather than getting your own set of test documents, I think it would
be better to share a document set with the Callgira developers.
First, this saves resources for both groups, since documents added by
one will be available to the other.  Second, it helps guarantee
interoperability between the two suites.



Good idea but site requires an account, also not sure it is the same site.




Sorry, I jumped the gun there.  It seems to be the correct site with 
guest access.


Andy

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 03/01/11 02:00, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> And the condescending comment that led to my response sure wasn't very
> positive. I have no patience with people who say you have to "contribute
> to the code" in order to have a say in the project. Or that you should
> "contribute code yourself" if you want a product improved, modified,
> fixed etc. I have seen this attitude far too often in open source projects

I feel compelled to come to the defence of Italo and Berhard. I haven't
read anything from Italo that could be construed as condescension. Italo
was simply highlighting the absurdity of *dictating* from the sidelines.

(Note: there is a difference between *contribution* and *dictation*;
your attitude, so far as I can see, is symptomatic of the latter)

I have little doubt that were you to put forward constructive ideas,
they would be taken on-board. However, in reality, even a
community-driven project such as this will place more weight behind the
opinions of its chief architects (developers, designers and other
contributes) than it will those of unknown elements such as you and I.
All of which means that whilst the final decision lays with the various
steering committees, a well reasoned argument backed up by facts and
figures could well sway the steering committees decisions. Unfortunately
your arguments regarding OOXML aren't motivated by reason, but rather by
politics and so I suspect they're unlikely to sway anyone belonging to
one of the steering committees.

As I recall, someone earlier defined the term *community* in the context
of *The Document Foundation* to include all *contributors* and
explicitly excluded those who 'contribute' to mailing list discussions
from this broad group. This is absolutely correct in my humble opinion.
But that shouldn't preclude contributions (in the form of different
perspectives and ideas) from mailing list discussions. It's just that if
we, as an unknown quantity, have to back up such ideas with reasoned
debate. Such a mixture of meritocracy and consensus democracy is the
only viable means of managing this kind of project. Anything else would
risk allowing unqualified individuals to drive the project (into the
ground) and also risk excluding intelligent ideas from the wider
community (of end-users) simply because they lack proven qualifications.

Kind Regards,

Lee Hyde.

-- 
"The division of mankind threatens it with destruction. Only universal
cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral
ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of
dogmatism and pressure of the concealed interests of ruling classes,
will preserve civilization."

-- Andrei Sakharov, The New York Times (July 22nd, 1968)

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Test documents to compare interoperability [was: Do not support writing to OOXML format]

2011-01-02 Thread Andy Brown


On Sun Jan 02 2011 18:31:07 GMT-0800 (PST)  todd rme wrote:


Koffice (I guess Calligra now) already has a set of ms office test
documents.  See here:

http://158.36.191.251:8080/viewLog.html?buildId=1745&buildTypeId=bt7&tab=testsInfo

Rather than getting your own set of test documents, I think it would
be better to share a document set with the Callgira developers.
First, this saves resources for both groups, since documents added by
one will be available to the other.  Second, it helps guarantee
interoperability between the two suites.



Good idea but site requires an account, also not sure it is the same site.


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[tdf-discuss] [Fwd: [libreoffice-documentation] Printed copy of Getting Started with LibreOffice 3.3]

2011-01-02 Thread Andy Brown

Forwarded at Jean's request.

 Original Message 
Subject: [libreoffice-documentation] Printed copy of Getting Started 
with LibreOffice 3.3

Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:45:34 +1000
From: Jean Hollis Weber 
Reply-To: documentat...@libreoffice.org
To: documentat...@libreoffice.org

Friends of OpenDocument, Inc is delighted to announce the publication of
the printed edition of "Getting Started with LibreOffice 3.3", which is
now available from Lulu.com through this link:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/getting-started-with-libreoffice-33/14423050

All profits from the sale of this book will go to The Document
Foundation.

Huge thanks to Hal Parker for doing the work of compiling the book ready
for publication.

The interior PDF of this book can be replaced with a new one whenever
the book itself is revised. Similarly, the cover artwork can be replaced
if/when someone creates a better design.

David or someone who is on one of the other lists (Marketing, perhaps?)
might like to pass this info on.

--Jean

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Test documents to compare interoperability [was: Do not support writing to OOXML format]

2011-01-02 Thread todd rme

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 7:26 PM, Bernhard Dippold
 wrote:
> Hi Barbara, all,
>
> Barbara Duprey schrieb:
>>
>> On 1/2/2011 2:29 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:
>>>
>>> On 1/2/11 8:15 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:
>>>
 Italo, one of the things that would make me (and maybe others here) feel
 better about OOXML support is if writing to the XP formats causes LibO
 to make compromises that do not have to be made going to OOXML. That is,
 if documents developed under an ODF application can be converted to a
 higher-quality product, in terms of compatibility of features and
 formatting, when going to OOXML (even in the Transitional formats) than
 they can when going to XP. Is that the case?
>>>
>>> [...] I do not know if writing OOXML has a higher
>>> level of compromises than writing in the old MS proprietary formats,
>>> because I am not a technical expert and I trust on developers and
>>> engineers for these issues. I suppose that there are different
>>> compromises.
>
>> [...] So I'd like to know what that is -- and there still
>>
>> seems to be a possibility that for new documents constructed in LibO,
>> writing the XP formats provides better interoperability than writing the
>> OOXML ones. That's not a FOR or AGAINST issue, it's a matter of product
>> quality.
>
> It would be good to have some test documents, to convert them from one of
> the formats to the others and find out the best interoperability solution
> for the present versions of the different software packages.
>
> This is a task for community members owning the MSO packages as well as
> LibO. They don't need any programming skills, they don't need to be experts
> in marketing, QA, UX or any other part of the community, but they will
> probably support the work of all these groups with the result of their work.
>
> So, if anybody wants to provide a "substantial contribution" as mentioned in
> the Community Bylaws, this might be a topic to work on.
>
> But as this mail is buried under a huge discussion, she/he should start a
> new thread, ask for co-workers, define the test documents and help us all
> with the results.
>
> Best regards
>
> Bernhard


Koffice (I guess Calligra now) already has a set of ms office test
documents.  See here:

http://158.36.191.251:8080/viewLog.html?buildId=1745&buildTypeId=bt7&tab=testsInfo

Rather than getting your own set of test documents, I think it would
be better to share a document set with the Callgira developers.
First, this saves resources for both groups, since documents added by
one will be available to the other.  Second, it helps guarantee
interoperability between the two suites.

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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 2011/01/02 7:35 PM  Bernhard Dippold wrote:

You can take your elitist developer attitude and stuff it.


Pleas stop such comments, they don't lead to any positive result. 


And the condescending comment that led to my response sure wasn't very positive. I have no 
patience with people who say you have to "contribute to the code" in order to have a say in the 
project. Or that you should "contribute code yourself" if you want a product improved, 
modified, fixed etc. I have seen this attitude far too often in open source projects


When someone make a condescending reply to me, I will call them on it. If you do not like it, 
tough.


Larry
--
_
Larry I. Gusaas
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
"An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs." - 
Edgard Varese



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Bernhard Dippold


Hi Larry, all,

Larry Gusaas schrieb:

On 2011/01/02 12:47 PM  Italo Vignoli wrote:

If you want to have a say in software development you are welcome to
contribute to the code


As I know Italo (not being a programmer himself) quite well, I know that 
his reply could have been easier for you to understand, if he added more 
information:


Our community consists of several groups with several tasks. Every group 
has it's own expertize and inside these groups people know each other 
and know about their expertize and position in our community.


Software development is done by code contributors. They can write the 
code they want, but only the code bringing more positive aspects than 
negative ones will be included in the package.


If other groups see problems in some code contributions, they start to 
discuss this topic with the coders, providing them with the expertize on 
the specific context (User Experience is a good example, the topic here 
might belong to Marketing) and trying to convince them, that the 
negative aspects are more valid than the positive ones.


If they don't get to a common conclusion, the last decision will be 
taken by the Board of Directors, at the moment by the Steering Committee 
until the BoD will have been elected.


So only people who write code have a say in the development of
LibreOffice? What about people who do the QA? Or the people providing
support? (I mainly provide support for OOo, mainly for Mac users)


I hope you understand the basis of meritocracy - so all the contributors 
are relevant in *their specific area of expertize*


This thread shows several thoughts and positions towards the OOXML write 
support in LibO.


Some people want to get rid of it, some want to have it moved to a 
different place in the program (export, extension), some want to provide 
a clearer description of the negative aspects of the format.


Others want to keep it as it is and evolve it towards better quality.

So how can we find out, which way is the right one to go?

Surely not by following the loudest or most active posters in this thread.

I don't know if you are involved deeply enough in our community to know 
about the position of one of another contributor to this thread.


I'm quite sure that I miss some of the relevant people, but please have 
a look at the postings by the Steering Committee members:


Thorsten Behrens (code developer), who mentioned that it is necessary to 
work on the OOXML filters now, because this is the only way to provide 
high quality at the time MS drops their .doc support.


Italo Vignoli (marketing expert and official marketing contact for TDF) 
pointing several times to the necessity to provide the best solution for 
our (present and future) users, proposing to avoid any marketing 
strategy against Microsoft and to leave education about "more open 
standard" in ODF to our marketing group instead of removing existing 
code from the sources.


I could mention Charles-H. Schulz, Sophie Gautier, Cor Nouws and others, 
but the main fact is:


All the points mentioned in this thread have been taken into 
consideration by the Steering Committee and the developers.


Thus it was really important to raise such kind of questions.

We are a community where concerns are heard. But repeating them don't 
impose a higher relevance to them.


So despite good reasons to abandon the write support for OOXML from our 
standard save-as dialog, the reasons to keep it are more important.


It might be quite easy to change the wording of the warning text when 
saving in non-ODF document formats (different texts for MS proprietary 
and "quasi-open" formats might need more programming skills), so if 
someone provides an improved text as patch - or finds a programmer 
willing to build a patch from such wording - I'm quite sure that this 
will find positive consideration.


In my eyes this thread has been reached a size that covers most of the 
aspects of the subject, so I'd like to see it ending soon.


If someone is interested in collecting all the opinions mentioned here 
in a wiki page, it would be easier to point there, when someone (without 
knowledge of all the mails here) restarts a similar topic again.




You can take your elitist developer attitude and stuff it.


Pleas stop such comments, they don't lead to any positive result.

Thanks in advance!

Bernhard

PS: And to come back on your very first statement, the agreement between 
Microsoft and Novell: Even if some Novell employees work on our code, 
even if they contributed Go-oo code - this doesn't mean that they have 
to follow their employers opinion in their spare time. TDF is open to 
contributors from more than one company, so dependency is much less 
relevant than at OOo. And if you have a look at the Credits page in your 
LibO version, you can compare the contributor's names with Go-oo 
contributors (or a list of Novell employees, if you have one): Only a 
minority of our contributors are paid by Novell. T

Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/3/11 12:48 AM, Carl Symons wrote:


Italo's statement of a philosophy of FOR is exactly right IMHO.


Thanks, this philosophy is the guiding principle of our marketing 
strategy. In Italy (I apologize for mentioning often what we have done 
here) we have got to the point of issuing a press release to 
congratulate Microsoft for the support of ODF. It has been one of the 
most successful press releases, and it has been instrumental in making 
the project more credible in the market.


Today, Italian media consider Associazione PLIO the real Microsoft 
competitor. If there is a face to face between Microsoft and OOo, we are 
invited to talk and Sun/Oracle is completely ignored. We have been 
featured on the largest Italian dailies with dedicated articles.



The fact that this email thread exists, that it allows for all manner
and strength of opinion, is testimony to the strength of open source
software. It also illustrates a guiding principle of TDF.


Yes, although I would say that it has started in the wrong way, i.e. 
against Microsoft. The original idea was that we support Microsoft if we 
write OOXML, which is not only wrong but exactly the opposite of what 
happens in the reality.


Supporting OOXML makes LibreOffice stronger and TDF more credible, 
because we are not scared by interoperability (while Microsoft is and 
will always be scared by interoperability).


This is all I can say, and is already way too much for our beloved 
Microsoft lurkers.


--
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E-mail: italo.vign...@documentfoundation.org
Mobile +39.348.5653829 - VoIP: +39.02.320621813
Skype: italovignoli - GTalk: italo.vign...@gmail.com

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Test documents to compare interoperability [was: Do not support writing to OOXML format]

2011-01-02 Thread Bernhard Dippold


Hi Barbara, all,

Barbara Duprey schrieb:

On 1/2/2011 2:29 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 8:15 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:


Italo, one of the things that would make me (and maybe others here) feel
better about OOXML support is if writing to the XP formats causes LibO
to make compromises that do not have to be made going to OOXML. That is,
if documents developed under an ODF application can be converted to a
higher-quality product, in terms of compatibility of features and
formatting, when going to OOXML (even in the Transitional formats) than
they can when going to XP. Is that the case?


[...] I do not know if writing OOXML has a higher
level of compromises than writing in the old MS proprietary formats,
because I am not a technical expert and I trust on developers and
engineers for these issues. I suppose that there are different
compromises.

> [...] So I'd like to know what that is -- and there still

seems to be a possibility that for new documents constructed in LibO,
writing the XP formats provides better interoperability than writing the
OOXML ones. That's not a FOR or AGAINST issue, it's a matter of product
quality.


It would be good to have some test documents, to convert them from one 
of the formats to the others and find out the best interoperability 
solution for the present versions of the different software packages.


This is a task for community members owning the MSO packages as well as 
LibO. They don't need any programming skills, they don't need to be 
experts in marketing, QA, UX or any other part of the community, but 
they will probably support the work of all these groups with the result 
of their work.


So, if anybody wants to provide a "substantial contribution" as 
mentioned in the Community Bylaws, this might be a topic to work on.


But as this mail is buried under a huge discussion, she/he should start 
a new thread, ask for co-workers, define the test documents and help us 
all with the results.


Best regards

Bernhard

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/3/11 1:12 AM, Barbara Duprey wrote:


I was under the impression that the vanilla versions of Office since
2007 SP2 could read and write ODF formats, with no need to install any
plugins (but with their own special twist on ODF). From what you say
here, that is not true; I haven't installed Office in a long time, and
don't intend to, so I didn't know that ODF support was not automatic.


ODF support is built in since MS Office 2007 SP2 for Windows. MS Office 
for MacOS does not support ODF, and there is not a plugin availble. The 
older version of MS Office do not support ODF, but there is a plugin 
available.


We all know that Microsoft is trying to slow down ANY standard format, 
because format lock in is a long time strategy.


I do not know if you are familiar with Gandhi statement: "First they 
ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win".


This is exactly what is happening for office suites.

Gandhi won over the British empire being respectful of law and being an 
advocate of freedom. I do not have his moral strength, but I do follow 
his lesson.


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E-mail: italo.vign...@documentfoundation.org
Mobile +39.348.5653829 - VoIP: +39.02.320621813
Skype: italovignoli - GTalk: italo.vign...@gmail.com

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Co-working with Moz, etc

2011-01-02 Thread Jaime R. Garza

Hello Jonathan,

Google only converts to ODF, they use their own proprietary file format
natively, they don't use ODF natively and they don't have as much
functionality as LO. You can use Google Docs with a Google account as you
can use MS Docs with a Facebook account.

Problems:
- None of them use ODF natively, they just export to ODF.
- None of them you can install locally.
- None of them are Open Source.

It's like if we asked: Why do we make Libre Office if MS is already giving
MS Office for free?

Think about is, it would be much simple to develop a HTML5 Libre Office,
because it is by nature platform independent and you can install it locally.

Cheers!

Jaime R. Garza

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 01:03, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:

> Jaime I believe on previous posts on this thread or another one that TDF is
> working on getting Google to support the ODF format. why create something
> that has already been done by Google?
>
>
> On 1/3/11 12:54 AM, Jaime R. Garza wrote:
>
>> As I said before, Cloud based Office Suites are becoming more mature, I
>> think LO should start developing an HTML5 browser based office and ideally
>> integrate it with Zimbra!
>>
>> It would be great to install LO locally and be able to share it through
>> the
>> web to others from your computer without any further installation
>> necessary.
>>
>> Enterprises could make only one installation on a huge server and anyone
>> could use it directly from the browser, and Cloud companies like Amazon
>> could just upload an image and make it available for all their customers.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> Jaime R. Garza
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 00:33, Jonathan Aquilina> >wrote:
>>
>>  Zimbra is exactly what would push LO to be a serious threat to Microsoft
>>> Office. Isn't that what the goal is of this project to slowly eat away at
>>> Microsoft's majority market share?
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1/2/11 10:00 PM, NoOp wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 01/02/2011 10:49 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:

  On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
>
>  Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an
>> equivalent
>> program such as outlook.
>>
>>  Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right,
> so...
>
>  There are one of three ways it can be done.
>
>> 1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate
>> it
>> into the LO suite
>>
>>  Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even
> on
> *nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
> there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
> the stablest of systems (otherwise)...
>
>  2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.
> Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
> by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
> moment, at least that I am aware of...
>
>  the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size,
>
>> which
>> would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.
>>
>>  Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...
>
>  Might be worth considering collaborating with Zimbra:
>
 http://www.zimbra.com/
 I found this interesting:
 <

 http://www.zimbra.com/forums/developers/37811-openoffice-org-integration-google-docs-zoho.html
 The guy was using "SuSE build of OOo 3.2".

 I generally use SeaMonkey, but I've been experimenting with Zimbra
 Desktop lately&   it seems to be an interesting alternative w/calendar,
 Document, Briefcase, etc. And it's open source:
 http://www.zimbra.com/about/
 albeit with their own ZPL:
 http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html

 A tie-in with LibO&   Zimbra would be about as close as MS
 Outlook/Office
 (I'm not referring to Outlook Express) with a multiplatform environment.






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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/2/2011 4:56 PM, Bruno Girin wrote:

On 2 January 2011 17:19, Barbara Duprey wrote:

On 1/2/2011 2:29 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 8:15 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:

[snip]

It would be good to know which works better for interoperability when sent
to an MS-only shop -- ODF or the current OOXML. In other words, is the LibO
version of OOXML a better product than the MS version of ODF? Very
interesting, if so. I'd like to know which to recommend. And of course the
Sun(free)/Oracle(not free) plugin for MS Office is a player in this
question, too. I know it's better than the MS ODF, but how does it compare
to the LibO OOXML?

OOXML wins hands down in this use case. Not because the LibO/OOo OOXML
is better than the Microsoft ODF or Sun/Oracle plugin for MS Office
but because the vast majority of MS-only shops don't bother installing
support for ODF in the first place. I went through this with a
customer recently: it ended up being a lot easier for me to output
OOXML or good old DOC than for them to install the right plugins to
read ODF. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of MS-only shops
are large companies that still use Windows XP with an old version of
Office.

Bruno

I was under the impression that the vanilla versions of Office since 2007 SP2 could read and write
ODF formats, with no need to install any plugins (but with their own special twist on ODF). From
what you say here, that is not true; I haven't installed Office in a long time, and don't intend to,
so I didn't know that ODF support was not automatic. (Actually, I'm glad it isn't! There's less
chance of the MS version co-opting the market.) Obviously those shops using the old versions of
Office need the corresponding version-specific formats, not OOXML in any form, and hopefully they'll
tell their correspondents which one. For the case where the version is unknown, the XP format is the
still the safest if you are originating a new document to send them that they'll need to be able to
edit. And maybe it is the best even if you know they have a recent version -- that's still not clear.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Co-working with Moz, etc

Jaime I believe on previous posts on this thread or another one that TDF
is working on getting Google to support the ODF format. why create
something that has already been done by Google?

On 1/3/11 12:54 AM, Jaime R. Garza wrote:

As I said before, Cloud based Office Suites are becoming more mature, I
think LO should start developing an HTML5 browser based office and ideally
integrate it with Zimbra!

It would be great to install LO locally and be able to share it through the
web to others from your computer without any further installation necessary.

Cheers!

Jaime R. Garza

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 00:33, Jonathan Aquilinawrote:

Zimbra is exactly what would push LO to be a serious threat to Microsoft
Office. Isn't that what the goal is of this project to slowly eat away at
Microsoft's majority market share?

On 1/2/11 10:00 PM, NoOp wrote:

On 01/02/2011 10:49 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:

On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:

Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
program such as outlook.

Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right, so...

There are one of three ways it can be done.

1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate
it
into the LO suite

Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even on
*nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
the stablest of systems (otherwise)...

the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size,

which
would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...

Might be worth considering collaborating with Zimbra:

http://www.zimbra.com/
I found this interesting:
<
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/developers/37811-openoffice-org-integration-google-docs-zoho.html
The guy was using "SuSE build of OOo 3.2".

I generally use SeaMonkey, but I've been experimenting with Zimbra
Desktop lately& it seems to be an interesting alternative w/calendar,
Document, Briefcase, etc. And it's open source:
http://www.zimbra.com/about/
albeit with their own ZPL:
http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html

A tie-in with LibO& Zimbra would be about as close as MS Outlook/Office
(I'm not referring to Outlook Express) with a multiplatform environment.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Co-working with Moz, etc

2011-01-02 Thread Jaime R. Garza

As I said before, Cloud based Office Suites are becoming more mature, I
think LO should start developing an HTML5 browser based office and ideally
integrate it with Zimbra!

It would be great to install LO locally and be able to share it through the
web to others from your computer without any further installation necessary.

Enterprises could make only one installation on a huge server and anyone
could use it directly from the browser, and Cloud companies like Amazon
could just upload an image and make it available for all their customers.

Cheers!

Jaime R. Garza


On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 00:33, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:

> Zimbra is exactly what would push LO to be a serious threat to Microsoft
> Office. Isn't that what the goal is of this project to slowly eat away at
> Microsoft's majority market share?
>
>
> On 1/2/11 10:00 PM, NoOp wrote:
>
>> On 01/02/2011 10:49 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:
>>
>>> On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
>>>
 Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
 program such as outlook.

>>> Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right, so...
>>>
>>>  There are one of three ways it can be done.

 1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate
 it
 into the LO suite

>>> Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even on
>>> *nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
>>> there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
>>> the stablest of systems (otherwise)...
>>>
>>>  2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.

>>> Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
>>> by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
>>> moment, at least that I am aware of...
>>>
>>>  the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size,
 which
 would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

>>> Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...
>>>
>>>  Might be worth considering collaborating with Zimbra:
>> http://www.zimbra.com/
>> I found this interesting:
>> <
>> http://www.zimbra.com/forums/developers/37811-openoffice-org-integration-google-docs-zoho.html
>> >
>> The guy was using "SuSE build of OOo 3.2".
>>
>> I generally use SeaMonkey, but I've been experimenting with Zimbra
>> Desktop lately&  it seems to be an interesting alternative w/calendar,
>> Document, Briefcase, etc. And it's open source:
>> http://www.zimbra.com/about/
>> albeit with their own ZPL:
>> http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html
>>
>> A tie-in with LibO&  Zimbra would be about as close as MS Outlook/Office
>> (I'm not referring to Outlook Express) with a multiplatform environment.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Carl Symons

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 2:07 PM, Jason Corfman  wrote:
> I've been reading through this discussion (as much as possible), and there
> is one thing that that I don't understand.
>
> Why do we have so many people complaining about LO writing in the .docx
> format but nobody (that I've seen) is complaining about the .doc format?
> Both are Microsoft formats, but the docx format is a lot closer to being an
> open standard. (Notice, I said it was closer, not that it was, an open
> standard). At least the docx format has some released specifications (as
> inaccurate as they may be), the last I checked, .doc doesn't even have that.

The docx format is a scam in my view (read some of the links in the
original message of this thread for background on that opinion). Until
MS complies fully with the open standards, the only value of docx is
to subvert truly open software. This is a pattern in MS' behavior over
time. I don't like that in the US, computer science in high school
consists of Word and Excel training. But that's the way it is.

That said, I trust in the open community environment of LibreOffice.
The comments and clarifications from Italo Vignoli, Olivier Hallot,
Charles-H. Schulz (apologies if I missed anyone) from The Document
Foundation demonstrate a willingness to listen and guide LibO
development in a reasoned fashion. Even though I don't appreciate the
steps Microsoft took to get their file format approved by the
standards body, the fact is that it is approved (I realize that there
are nuances to that.) The Document Foundation faces a difficult task
bringing an open office suite into being. I was overjoyed to hear
about LibreOffice. It is a bold, risky adventure. It faces major
challenges.

Consequently, I defer to TDF's sensibility about this situation; I'll
support whatever they decide on this issue. The final chapters on
docx/OOXML have not been written. Italo's statement of a philosophy of
FOR is exactly right IMHO.

The fact that this email thread exists, that it allows for all manner
and strength of opinion, is testimony to the strength of open source
software. It also illustrates a guiding principle of TDF.

To The Document Foundation, thank you. Thank you for starting this
project, for listening, for creating LibO in a meritocracy.

Carl Symons

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Co-working with Moz, etc

Zimbra is exactly what would push LO to be a serious threat to Microsoft 
Office. Isn't that what the goal is of this project to slowly eat away 
at Microsoft's majority market share?


On 1/2/11 10:00 PM, NoOp wrote:

On 01/02/2011 10:49 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:

On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:

Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
program such as outlook.

Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right, so...


There are one of three ways it can be done.

1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate it
into the LO suite

Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even on
*nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
the stablest of systems (otherwise)...


2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.

Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
moment, at least that I am aware of...


the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size, which
would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...


Might be worth considering collaborating with Zimbra:
http://www.zimbra.com/
I found this interesting:

The guy was using "SuSE build of OOo 3.2".

I generally use SeaMonkey, but I've been experimenting with Zimbra
Desktop lately&  it seems to be an interesting alternative w/calendar,
Document, Briefcase, etc. And it's open source:
http://www.zimbra.com/about/
albeit with their own ZPL:
http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html

A tie-in with LibO&  Zimbra would be about as close as MS Outlook/Office
(I'm not referring to Outlook Express) with a multiplatform environment.








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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

What do other devs think about including something as mentioned below 
somehow in regards to a mail client alternative to MS outlook?


On 1/2/11 7:49 PM, Charles Marcus wrote:

On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:

Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
program such as outlook.

Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right, so...


There are one of three ways it can be done.

1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate it
into the LO suite

Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even on
*nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
the stablest of systems (otherwise)...


2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.

Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
moment, at least that I am aware of...


the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size, which
would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...




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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Bruno Girin

On 2 January 2011 17:19, Barbara Duprey  wrote:
> On 1/2/2011 2:29 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:
>>
>> On 1/2/11 8:15 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:
>>
[snip]
>
> It would be good to know which works better for interoperability when sent
> to an MS-only shop -- ODF or the current OOXML. In other words, is the LibO
> version of OOXML a better product than the MS version of ODF? Very
> interesting, if so. I'd like to know which to recommend. And of course the
> Sun(free)/Oracle(not free) plugin for MS Office is a player in this
> question, too. I know it's better than the MS ODF, but how does it compare
> to the LibO OOXML?

OOXML wins hands down in this use case. Not because the LibO/OOo OOXML
is better than the Microsoft ODF or Sun/Oracle plugin for MS Office
but because the vast majority of MS-only shops don't bother installing
support for ODF in the first place. I went through this with a
customer recently: it ended up being a lot easier for me to output
OOXML or good old DOC than for them to install the right plugins to
read ODF. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of MS-only shops
are large companies that still use Windows XP with an old version of
Office.

Bruno

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Mike Hall


On 02/01/2011 19:09, Larry Gusaas wrote:

On 2011/01/02 12:47 PM  Italo Vignoli wrote:
If you want to have a say in software development you are welcome to 
contribute to the code


So only people who write code have a say in the development of 
LibreOffice? What about people who do the QA? Or the people providing 
support? (I mainly provide support for OOo, mainly for Mac users)


You can take your elitist developer attitude and stuff it.

Larry

Larry,
There is more heat than light now.

I haven't counted, but my clear sense is that considerably more 
contributors to this thread have, however reluctantly, come down on the 
side of retaining the functionality of writing OOXML. In that sense, a 
'decision' is made, even though it's the ESC who ultimately decide.


Nevertheless, as you seem to imply, the OOO/LibO development process has 
always been broken.


In an effective development process (eg Firefox), the contents of the 
next release, including a positive decision on those bugs to be 
resolved, are decided by a steering committee. Work continues until all 
of that activity is complete and the release is ready. It is common for 
releases to be delayed because things are not ready. With this process, 
releases have very few bugs.


In an ineffective development process (eg OOO), the contents of the next 
release are set in large part by developers setting release targets for 
the bits of work they choose to focus on. If I understand correctly, the 
steering committee influences new functionality content, but not 
substantially the bug fix content of a release. Thus the content of the 
work, particularly bug fixes, is in large measure determined by 
developer interest rather than priority or end user wishes. A deadline 
for release contents is fixed and anything not ready at this date is put 
back to a later release, even P2 bug issues. Very serious issues are 
fixed after the chosen date, but nothing else. With this process, 
releases inevitably have an increasing number of bugs.


This is a cultural and organisational issue, not a result of an Open 
Source project. I hope TDF will recognise this and address it.


--
Mike Hall
www.onepoyle.net



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/2/2011 2:29 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 8:15 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:

Italo, one of the things that would make me (and maybe others here) feel
better about OOXML support is if writing to the XP formats causes LibO
to make compromises that do not have to be made going to OOXML. That is,
if documents developed under an ODF application can be converted to a
higher-quality product, in terms of compatibility of features and
formatting, when going to OOXML (even in the Transitional formats) than
they can when going to XP. Is that the case?

Writing in a different format from the native one is always a problem, and causes a number of
compromises. The advantage of OOXML over the old MS proprietary formats is that is based on XML
and therefore is similar to ODF in the sense that is a "container" of the document components
(once you have unzipped the file, you get a number of folders and files with all the contents).
The better choice is always the native format, though, and we will always promote this choice.

It would be good to know which works better for interoperability when sent to an MS-only shop -- ODF
or the current OOXML. In other words, is the LibO version of OOXML a better product than the MS
version of ODF? Very interesting, if so. I'd like to know which to recommend. And of course the
Sun(free)/Oracle(not free) plugin for MS Office is a player in this question, too. I know it's
better than the MS ODF, but how does it compare to the LibO OOXML?

Writing support of OOXML is important for interoperability, which is a key user requirement. I do
not know if writing OOXML has a higher level of compromises than writing in the old MS proprietary
formats, because I am not a technical expert and I trust on developers and engineers for these
issues. I suppose that there are different compromises.

I guess the key issue is whether this writing should essentially be given LibO's official sanction
(that is, by being included without reservation in the SaveAs dialogs, and in the Tools > Options
settings for defaults), or simply available as a deprecated format when forced into it. I agree that
sending back an XP format given an OOXML one is likely to cause problems for LibO (that seems to be
what OOo does, opening them as Read-Only with an XP extension and a constructed name that has no
relation to the original). I would definitely be against removing the capability to write those
formats altogether; but the official sanction of them does not seem necessary.

I know that OOXML is a Microsoft format with many problems. I have been involved in the entire
standardization process, and I was against the standardization of OOXML.

But once the standard has been approved, I have stopped fighting the document format, because I
think is more important to direct my efforts towards user requirements. Please remember that TDF
will strive FOR and not AGAINST, and this is a typical situation where if you are FOR user
requirements you have to forget that you are AGAINST OOXML.

In my view, the user requirement is for the best possible interoperability. So I'd like to know what
that is -- and there still seems to be a possibility that for new documents constructed in LibO,
writing the XP formats provides better interoperability than writing the OOXML ones. That's not a
FOR or AGAINST issue, it's a matter of product quality. Giving a SaveAs choice for the OOXML format,
indicating that it is for recent Office versions, definitely leads people in the OOXML direction
whether that has better interoperability or not. If it does, so be it -- though I'd still like to
see a warning that it's not really an open standard. If people are in an environment that encourages
or mandates use of open standards, this isn't one!

FOR is always stronger than AGAINST.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/2/11 11:07 PM, Jason Corfman wrote:


Why do we have so many people complaining about LO writing in the .docx
format but nobody (that I've seen) is complaining about the .doc format?
Both are Microsoft formats, but the docx format is a lot closer to being an
open standard. (Notice, I said it was closer, not that it was, an open
standard). At least the docx format has some released specifications (as
inaccurate as they may be), the last I checked, .doc doesn't even have that.


Because common sense is definitely not common.


Personally, I'd like to see LibreOffice read and write as many file formats
as possible, but that is just me.


No, it's me as well and many others who use common sense.

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E-mail: italo.vign...@documentfoundation.org
Mobile +39.348.5653829 - VoIP: +39.02.320621813
Skype: italovignoli - GTalk: italo.vign...@gmail.com

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Jaime R. Garza

As many already said, OOXML r/w support is already there,  if you don't like
it, then develop a way to disable it. Someone already developed it, and
that's why it is there already.

Why can anyone think that they can remove any functionality that is already
there?

It is a pain in th a... to do the OOXML r/w support, but someone already did
it!!!

Why in God's name would is so bad on having it if it's already there?

I believe that any extra functionality that some one develops and actually
works, should be added to OSS, any OSS, and nothing should be banned just
because some religious extremists don't want to have it.

What you are proposing is like banning support for Fat32 or NTFS from
Linux!! Do you understand how crazy that would be

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/2/11 9:36 PM, Johannes A. Bodwing wrote:


What's the basis for the developers to make decisions? Where can I find
that information?


Developers will base their decisions on several information, and also on 
positive contribution by the community. Emails where people say that 
LibreOffice should not support a document format because it is backed by 
Microsoft or because is a Go-OO heritage are not a positive contribution.


In addition, there is a group of long time community members who have a 
clear idea about the future of the office suite. We have also issued a 
press release where we have disclosed the development path that makes 
very clear LibreOffice future directions.


It should be very clear that software related requests coming from the 
community will be taken into consideration if they are positive and not 
against Microsoft or Oracle or any other corporation or entity. I think 
that this is quite a clear statement.



The other point is:
TDF "... is an independent self-governing meritocratic Foundation, ..."
(TDF-Homesite)
and on the "Next Decade Manifesto: "... the home for our activities
should be an independent self-governing democratic foundation ..."
How have I to understand that? Or where can I find answers about it?


Democratic and meritocratic are not opposite. TDF is a democracy based 
on merit, and merit is based on positive contributions. Shouting inside 
a mailing list is not a positive contribution, by any mean. TDF was not 
born to fight Microsoft, but to serve the user.


I think this is quite easy to understand, and I am really amazed by the 
number of people that still believe that promoting free software means 
bashing Microsoft. This shows a total lack of maturity.


--
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E-mail: italo.vign...@documentfoundation.org
Mobile +39.348.5653829 - VoIP: +39.02.320621813
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Jason Corfman

I've been reading through this discussion (as much as possible), and there
is one thing that that I don't understand.

Why do we have so many people complaining about LO writing in the .docx
format but nobody (that I've seen) is complaining about the .doc format?
Both are Microsoft formats, but the docx format is a lot closer to being an
open standard. (Notice, I said it was closer, not that it was, an open
standard). At least the docx format has some released specifications (as
inaccurate as they may be), the last I checked, .doc doesn't even have that.

Personally, I'd like to see LibreOffice read and write as many file formats
as possible, but that is just me.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Olivier Hallot


HI

Em 02-01-2011 15:48, Larry Gusaas escreveu:


On 2011/01/02 11:24 AM Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 6:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:


(snip)



LibreOffice should not write OOXML. That is under discussion in this
thread.

Who gave you the right to say it is not under discussion? Isn't this a
community project? When did the community decide that writing OOXML has
to be included in LibreOffice?


Larry


Allow me to jump in: If TDF and its developers decide not to implement 
OOXML, then someone, somewhere, someday, with or without TDF or 
community blessing, will implement it, as a fork or as an extension.


That is why free software is for.
--
Olivier Hallot
Founder, Steering Commitee Member - The Document Foundation
Voicing the enterprise
Translation Leader for Brazilian Portuguese

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


Hi Andreas,

... Hi Johannes, *,

Am Sonntag, 2. Januar 2011, 21:36:20 schrieb Johannes A. Bodwing:

Hi Andreas,


Hi Johannes, *,

(...)

But you yourself had to decide first, what you want to contribute to
which community (OOo or LO). We need people who are doing the daily
work. We need not another mega- thread on this list.

That's right. But TDF fell from heaven in September 2010, and till now I
am looking for answers to important questions about both, OOo and LO.
And some is confusing.


not from heaven, but from the community or her long term contributors.


For me and many others from heaven.


In this Mail for LO: If I understand you correctly, decisions about
programming are the task of the developers. Is this "The mission of the
ESC is to provide technical guidance and to settle technical disputes."
under the bylaws of TDF?
What's the basis for the developers to make decisions? Where can I find
that information?


Read the other mails from the members of the TDF and LibreOffice. I have not 
the time
to repeat anything.


But I have? How many hundreds of mails are this to find the right?
Sorry, that covers one of the problems. I've wrote it before: Some 
important information is not available in short time. The same as OOo ;-)



I'll contribute in my sparetime, not only write mails and steal
the time of other members of the community.


Thanks for the clearness ;-)
That means, you don't know it. Why don't you say that clearly, instead 
of such sideblows?



So if you want to be a member of LibreOffice also go ahead and decide, what you 
can
do for the community and contribute.


I do what I can do in a situation with open important questions.
Look at my mails, I have not the time to repeat anything. Everything clear?

Greetings,
Johannes


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[tdf-discuss] Re: Co-working with Moz, etc

2011-01-02 Thread NoOp

On 01/02/2011 10:49 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:
> On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
>> Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
>> program such as outlook.
> 
> Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right, so...
> 
>> There are one of three ways it can be done.
>> 
>> 1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate it
>> into the LO suite
> 
> Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even on
> *nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
> there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
> the stablest of systems (otherwise)...
> 
>> 2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.
> 
> Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
> by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
> moment, at least that I am aware of...
> 
>> the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size, which
>> would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.
> 
> Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...
> 

Might be worth considering collaborating with Zimbra:
http://www.zimbra.com/
I found this interesting:

The guy was using "SuSE build of OOo 3.2".

I generally use SeaMonkey, but I've been experimenting with Zimbra
Desktop lately & it seems to be an interesting alternative w/calendar,
Document, Briefcase, etc. And it's open source:
http://www.zimbra.com/about/
albeit with their own ZPL:
http://www.zimbra.com/downloads/os-downloads.html

A tie-in with LibO & Zimbra would be about as close as MS Outlook/Office
(I'm not referring to Outlook Express) with a multiplatform environment.





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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Andreas Mantke

Hi Johannes, *,

Am Sonntag, 2. Januar 2011, 21:36:20 schrieb Johannes A. Bodwing:
> Hi Andreas,
> 
> > Hi Johannes, *,
(...)
> > But you yourself had to decide first, what you want to contribute to
> > which community (OOo or LO). We need people who are doing the daily
> > work. We need not another mega- thread on this list.
> 
> That's right. But TDF fell from heaven in September 2010, and till now I
> am looking for answers to important questions about both, OOo and LO.
> And some is confusing.
> 

not from heaven, but from the community or her long term contributors.

> In this Mail for LO: If I understand you correctly, decisions about
> programming are the task of the developers. Is this "The mission of the
> ESC is to provide technical guidance and to settle technical disputes."
> under the bylaws of TDF?
> What's the basis for the developers to make decisions? Where can I find
> that information?
> 

Read the other mails from the members of the TDF and LibreOffice. I have not 
the time 
to repeat anything. I'll contribute in my sparetime, not only write mails and 
steal 
the time of other members of the community.

So if you want to be a member of LibreOffice also go ahead and decide, what you 
can 
do for the community and contribute.

Regards,
Andreas
-- 
## Developer LibreOffice
## Freie Office-Suite für Linux, Mac, Windows
## http://LibreOffice.org
## Support the Document Foundation (http://documentfoundation.org)
## Meine Seite: http://www.amantke.de 

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


Hi Andreas,

Hi Johannes, *,

Am Sonntag, 2. Januar 2011, 19:30:31 schrieb Johannes A. Bodwing:

Hi Leif,


Dear Larry,
...

I disagree with you of two reasons:
1) LibreOffice is free software. If any developer wants to improve the
code - he or she has the freedom to do so. I think this is one very
important stand. We have seen other products in the marked licensed as
open source but that are not free software. Who should decide what what
is 'good' and what is 'bad' code?

Nobody. Because !

We are not building a cathedral are we? Not because the bazaar works
fine for us.

I agree too in one point: LibreOffice is free software as a software.
But we speak about LO as the substantial product of TDF. And TDF wants
to evolve the community of OOo eg. With that LO is part of the community.
Why can than one group or one person decide about important things?

this is because LibreOffice and the TDF are build on the contribution of the 
members.
The people, which are doing the work, decide about the things they are doing 
for LO
and the TDF.

But you yourself had to decide first, what you want to contribute to which 
community
(OOo or LO). We need people who are doing the daily work. We need not another 
mega-
thread on this list.


That's right. But TDF fell from heaven in September 2010, and till now I 
am looking for answers to important questions about both, OOo and LO. 
And some is confusing.


In this Mail for LO: If I understand you correctly, decisions about 
programming are the task of the developers. Is this "The mission of the 
ESC is to provide technical guidance and to settle technical disputes." 
under the bylaws of TDF?
What's the basis for the developers to make decisions? Where can I find 
that information?


The other point is:
TDF "... is an independent self-governing meritocratic Foundation, ..." 
(TDF-Homesite)
and on the "Next Decade Manifesto: "... the home for our activities 
should be an independent self-governing democratic foundation ..."

How have I to understand that? Or where can I find answers about it?

Thanks,
Johannes


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/2/11 8:15 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:


Italo, one of the things that would make me (and maybe others here) feel
better about OOXML support is if writing to the XP formats causes LibO
to make compromises that do not have to be made going to OOXML. That is,
if documents developed under an ODF application can be converted to a
higher-quality product, in terms of compatibility of features and
formatting, when going to OOXML (even in the Transitional formats) than
they can when going to XP. Is that the case?


Writing in a different format from the native one is always a problem, 
and causes a number of compromises. The advantage of OOXML over the old 
MS proprietary formats is that is based on XML and therefore is similar 
to ODF in the sense that is a "container" of the document components 
(once you have unzipped the file, you get a number of folders and files 
with all the contents). The better choice is always the native format, 
though, and we will always promote this choice.


Writing support of OOXML is important for interoperability, which is a 
key user requirement. I do not know if writing OOXML has a higher level 
of compromises than writing in the old MS proprietary formats, because I 
am not a technical expert and I trust on developers and engineers for 
these issues. I suppose that there are different compromises.


I know that OOXML is a Microsoft format with many problems. I have been 
involved in the entire standardization process, and I was against the 
standardization of OOXML.


But once the standard has been approved, I have stopped fighting the 
document format, because I think is more important to direct my efforts 
towards user requirements. Please remember that TDF will strive FOR and 
not AGAINST, and this is a typical situation where if you are FOR user 
requirements you have to forget that you are AGAINST OOXML.


FOR is always stronger than AGAINST.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Cor Nouws


Larry Gusaas wrote (02-01-11 20:09)

On 2011/01/02 12:47 PM Italo Vignoli wrote:

If you want to have a say in software development you are welcome to
contribute to the code


So only people who write code have a say in the development of
LibreOffice? What about people who do the QA? Or the people providing
support? (I mainly provide support for OOo, mainly for Mac users)


Hmm, of course not. Luckily there is cooperation between people doing 
(all sorts of) QA, helping with user experience (design) topics and the 
developers. So that all helps and leads to choices being made.


Regards,
Cor

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Charles-H. Schulz

Hello everyone,


2011/1/2 M. Fioretti 

> On Sun, Jan 02, 2011 19:58:41 PM +0100, Italo Vignoli
> (italo.vign...@gmail.com) wrote:
>
> > OOXML has been cleared from copyright and patent issues by Microsoft
> > itself before entering into the standardization process, as this is
> > a pre-condition of ISO standards. In addition, all Microsoft
> > document formats and related technologies are now fully documented
> > (also those totally proprietary). It looks like many people have not
> > followed the OOXML standardization process.
>
> Italo,
>
> I HAVE tried to follow that process as much as I could through the
> years, and my understanding, from the links below and many others, is
> that, in practice, even today things aren't really so easy, 100% clear
> and risk-free with OOXML.
>
> http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/03/what-should-happen-with-ooxmlo.html
> http://techrights.org/2010/01/11/ooxml-depending-on-country/
> http://techrights.org/2010/10/03/amicus-briefs-in-i4i-vs-microsoft/
> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/02/by-metes-and-bounds.html
> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/09/recipe-for-open-standards.html






I would like, if possible, to appease everyone here by clarifying two
questions.
- to my knowledge most of the OOXML "intellectual property" has been indeed
cleared from most issues, although Marco rightly pointed to some existing
inconsistencies. However, it's fortunately or unfortunately, should not be a
problem: OOo & LibO implement the existing and used version of MS
*proprietary formats* used in MS Office 2007 and 2010 that are called OOXML.
They're not exactly the ISO standard, far from that; feel free to call them
transitional if you wish, but it's very much of a grey area and I just call
them MS propietary formats. So what LibO does is to offer convenience to its
users: if it weren't I would suggest not to import/export in the old .doc
format as well, as it would follow the same pattern of thoughts.

- I would like to clarify that when we talk about a community, we do talk
about a community of contributors. I hope everyone has read our bylaws. It's
not just developers who contribute (yes, also QA testers among others) but
it's not anyone posting on a mailing list. In fact, posting on a mailing
list is not exactly a contribution. LibO is a meritocracy, not a shoutocracy
or a democracy. What Italo was explaining was that the choice to offer save
as OOXML (again, the format you find MS Office 2007 and 2010) has been made
by the people who contribute code at this stage. As the bylaws will
progressively become effective, we will gain more and more contributors and
perhaps this choice, through contributions, will change. But at this stage
it's unnecessary to argue over that on mailing lists.

Thank you.

Charles-H. Schulz
Co-Founder, The Document Foundation
& sometimes Member of the OASIS Consortium BoD.

>
>
> Marco F.
>
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[tdf-discuss] Re: Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Michelle Konzack

Hello Ian Lynch,

Am 2010-12-31 12:13:56, hacktest Du folgendes herunter:
> It's more likely just that the replier didn't think it was a big deal ;-)

Most users in the Windows World have not to think,
because Microsoft do it already for them.
Sad but true

> I don't think that most people that send me .docs are arrogant. Ignorant
> perhaps. Personally I don't see why there is such a big hang up about HTML
> in e-mails since web based mail is now very common and it is an open
> standard.

Since HTML mails looks very crappy in  Mutt  and  if  I  do  not  get  a
properly build alternative text/plain I hit the big "D".

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day/Evening
Michelle Konzack

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread M. Fioretti

On Sun, Jan 02, 2011 19:58:41 PM +0100, Italo Vignoli
(italo.vign...@gmail.com) wrote:

> OOXML has been cleared from copyright and patent issues by Microsoft
> itself before entering into the standardization process, as this is
> a pre-condition of ISO standards. In addition, all Microsoft
> document formats and related technologies are now fully documented
> (also those totally proprietary). It looks like many people have not
> followed the OOXML standardization process.

Italo,

I HAVE tried to follow that process as much as I could through the
years, and my understanding, from the links below and many others, is
that, in practice, even today things aren't really so easy, 100% clear
and risk-free with OOXML. 

http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/03/what-should-happen-with-ooxmlo.html
http://techrights.org/2010/01/11/ooxml-depending-on-country/
http://techrights.org/2010/10/03/amicus-briefs-in-i4i-vs-microsoft/
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/02/by-metes-and-bounds.html
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/09/recipe-for-open-standards.html

Marco F.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 02/01/11 19:01, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> No. What is included is a community decision, not just the developers.

My interpretation is that *The Document Foundation* and *LibreOffice*
projects are driven more by informal consensus rather than democracy per
se. That is to say that the various steering committees make their final
decisions based upon a mixture of community opinion, technical and
pragmatic considerations. An efficient community driven project has to
give greater weight to the latter of these three (technical and
pragmatic considerations) whilst also taking on board *valid* community
discussion.

It would seem, thus, that the engineering steering committee have
decided that the arguments against implementing OOXML are outweighed by
the technical and pragmatic benefits of full interoperability with the
world leading office suite (which perhaps lamentably is Microsoft
Office). The politics of this decision may be contentious to the
community (or rather this mailing list) but basing decisions on a
political platform such as this will only lead to LibO falling into
obscurity because it doesn't *just work*.

Regards,

Lee Hyde.


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cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral
ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of
dogmatism and pressure of the concealed interests of ruling classes,
will preserve civilization."

-- Andrei Sakharov, The New York Times (July 22nd, 1968)


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/2/2011 12:47 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 7:15 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote:

No, that was not the point. Italo Vignoli wrote: "LibreOffice writes
OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is
not under discussion." That is the point I objected to.

I might have been too harsh, but I reiterate the fact that this is not under discussion. TDF is a
community based project, but decisions have to be taken by people in charge of taking them, and in
this case these people are in the ESC (Engineering Steering Committee).

The se are the bylaws of TDF (you are free to check).

I am a member of the Steering Committee, and I totally second this decision just because it makes
sense for the users (as I have tried to explain in another message). LibreOffice is the office
suite with the widest document format support, and this is a plus.

As long as OOXML is a standard recognized by ISO, it makes sense to support it
completely.

This is different from the fact that we are trying to make ODF the only winning standard, and that
we are telling people that they should not use OOXML.

It should be a community decision, not one made by the developers. Or
based on LibreOffice being based on Go-OO code which already had OOXML
write support because of the Novell agreement with Microsoft.

I think that your problem is the Microsoft/Novell agreement, as you have mentioned it several
times. This belongs to the AGAINST saga that we do not want to pursue. Writing OOXML is FOR
interoperability, and so it is better than not writing OOXML because is AGAINST Microsoft.

In addition, TDF is a software project, and therefore some decisions have to be taken by people
professional at developing software. If you want to have a say in software development you are
welcome to contribute to the code and you will soon be able to talk to the ESC, or maybe become a
member of the ESC.

TDF is a community driven project, not a mailing list driven project. Community is not just
writing in a mailing list, is a lot different and a lot more than that. I do not think that we
ever gave the perception that this is a mailing list driven project.

Italo, one of the things that would make me (and maybe others here) feel better about OOXML support
is if writing to the XP formats causes LibO to make compromises that do not have to be made going to
OOXML. That is, if documents developed under an ODF application can be converted to a higher-quality
product, in terms of compatibility of features and formatting, when going to OOXML (even in the
Transitional formats) than they can when going to XP. Is that the case?

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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 2011/01/02 12:49 PM  Charles Marcus wrote:

No, the discussion is long over because the decision was made long ago.


Where? When? Who made it? By Go-OO and Novell?


Obviously, some people think it should, others think it shouldn't, and
there is nothing wrong with that. Thankfully, just because LibO is a
FLOSS project does not mean it is a democracy (mob rule) - decisions
like this simply can not be subject to the democratic process or nothing
would ever get decided.


And decisions can't be changed because they are set in stone. Right. No accountability to the 
community by the decision makers. Sounds no different than Oracle.


Larry
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Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 2011/01/02 12:47 PM  Italo Vignoli wrote:

If you want to have a say in software development you are welcome to contribute 
to the code


So only people who write code have a say in the development of LibreOffice? What about people 
who do the QA? Or the people providing support? (I mainly provide support for OOo, mainly for 
Mac users)


You can take your elitist developer attitude and stuff it.

Larry
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Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
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Edgard Varese



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Andreas Mantke

Hi Johannes, *,

Am Sonntag, 2. Januar 2011, 19:30:31 schrieb Johannes A. Bodwing:
> Hi Leif,
> 
> > Dear Larry,
> > ...
> > 
> > I disagree with you of two reasons:
> > 1) LibreOffice is free software. If any developer wants to improve the
> > code - he or she has the freedom to do so. I think this is one very
> > important stand. We have seen other products in the marked licensed as
> > open source but that are not free software. Who should decide what what
> > is 'good' and what is 'bad' code?
> > 
> > Nobody. Because !
> > 
> > We are not building a cathedral are we? Not because the bazaar works
> > fine for us.
> 
> I agree too in one point: LibreOffice is free software as a software.
> But we speak about LO as the substantial product of TDF. And TDF wants
> to evolve the community of OOo eg. With that LO is part of the community.
> Why can than one group or one person decide about important things?

this is because LibreOffice and the TDF are build on the contribution of the 
members. 
The people, which are doing the work, decide about the things they are doing 
for LO 
and the TDF.

But you yourself had to decide first, what you want to contribute to which 
community 
(OOo or LO). We need people who are doing the daily work. We need not another 
mega-
thread on this list.

Regards,
Andreas
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 02/01/11 18:49, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
> I'm trying to get you to understand that there are copyright and patent
> issues here that could embroil LO in legal battles that it really
> doesn't need.

Just out of curiosity, were Microsoft to enforce their copyright over
their version of OOXML, is it not proper legal etiquette to request
removal of the offending code *before* taking the issue to court? If
that is the case, LibO could simply remove the offending code in an
update and publicise this new-found lack of interoperability with
Microsoft Office is a direct result Microsoft’s litigious behaviour.
Such would be a public relations nightmare for Microsoft would it not,
and against its own best interests.

Also, are there any previous cases where a proprietary standard has been
withdrawn or locked down via legal action such as this?

Lee Hyde.

-- 
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are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the
possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon
helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone,
who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon
that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the
thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and
that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other
nations. Such is the logic of patriotism."

-- Emma Goldman, What is Patriotism? (1908)

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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 2011/01/02 12:29 PM  Robert Parker wrote:

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 1:15 AM, Larry Gusaas  wrote:


It is a community decision, not a developer decision.

The developers, that is the people doing the work, will decide what LO
does and does not do. I'm sure those good hard working folk will take
into account discussions here and no doubt elsewhere. But the decision
rests with them.


No. What is included is a community decision, not just the developers.


What will you do if they decide other than what you want. Buy Microsoft instead?


No, I do not use Microsoft products. I will continue to use OpenOffice.org, or switch 
completely to iWorks. I already use Keynote full time.


Larry
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/2/2011 12:01 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:

On 01/02/2011 10:46 AM, Lee Hyde wrote:
SNIP

My understanding is that Microsoft intends to implement strict OOXML
gradually, with each successive release of Microsoft Office using an
increasingly 'strict' form of transitional OOXML. Assuming that I am
correct in this assumption, does it not make sense that Microsoft will
make each successive version of their transitional OOXML backwards
compatible with their last and that they will release updates or add-ons
to ensure forward compatibility for older products (Office 2007 and 2010).

I, personally, cannot make that presumption, based on previous
experience with Microsoft. There is a dichotomy between what MS says
and what it does. And an even wider one between what one might presume
and what MS does.
SNIP

Now
I assume nobody has an issue with strict OOXML (which is, as I
understand it, an open standard) so why would you have an issue with
implementing by graduations (in line with Microsoft) strict OOXML via a
series of transitional specifications?

I'm concerned by what you mean by an open standard. To me, open means
free to use and free to see. From what I understand of the OOXML ISO as
it was passed there are a lot of MS add-ons that are proprietary, as
well as a lot of binary blobs that are proprietary. Also a number of
definitions that are so vague that they are, for all intents and
purposed, unable to be implemented as written. Therefore, I can not
look at OOXML as being and OPEN standard. Yes, it is a standard (to
Microsoft's eternal shame). But OPEN it is NOT.

Are those faults true of the Strict version (at least, after incorporation of comments), or only of
the Transitional version? My understanding was that the Strict form can become truly open.

Kind Regards,

Lee Hyde.

SNIP

Craig
Tyche

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/2/11 7:49 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:


Does it?  And to what degree of compatibility?  Also, this was code that
was brought in from GO-OO which, as you may be aware, was developed by
Novell UNDER CONTRACT TO MS.  No, I'm not hollering FLOSS, here.  I'm
trying to get you to understand that there are copyright and patent
issues here that could embroil LO in legal battles that it really
doesn't need.


OOXML has been cleared from copyright and patent issues by Microsoft 
itself before entering into the standardization process, as this is a 
pre-condition of ISO standards. In addition, all Microsoft document 
formats and related technologies are now fully documented (also those 
totally proprietary). It looks like many people have not followed the 
OOXML standardization process.


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Bruno Girin

On 2 January 2011 10:50, James Wilde  wrote:
> Is anyone else getting the impression that this thread is polarising into US 
> v rest of world?
>
> We've seen several people say that they have to accept what their customers 
> provide and can't go back to the customer and say "can you provide this in 
> another format?".  To me that's an attitude which I, rightly or wrongly, 
> associate with the US.  In Europe we just fire away an email and get the file 
> back again in another format.

I beg to differ. I have worked in France, Luxembourg and now the UK
and in every single case MS Office is the "standard" that everybody
uses, both at work and at home. Most of them are not even aware that
alternatives exist and the first thing they ask when you suggest they
use open source is whether it is fully compatible with MS Office.

If I were to ask any of my European customers to provide documents in
another format, they would first have an issue finding a format that
they can write to (they don't have the ODF plugins, they can't produce
PDF and RTF tends to be too limited for their needs), then assuming
they can find a file format that we can both read and write, they
would do it once, maybe twice but the third time they would ask me to
stop being a pain in the backside and get myself a copy of MS Office.

>
> And the other side of the coin, as others have said, outside the US more and 
> more governments and non-US corporations are going over to FLOSS, whereas in 
> the US, Microsoft is dominant.

Some governments and organisations have allegedly moved to FLOSS but
I've not yet encountered one in real life. People are starting to take
notice of FLOSS but they only consider it if they have a smooth
migration path and that includes being able to interact seamlessly
with their existing software install base and with their customers and
suppliers. If you make the migration path difficult, they won't
migrate. And considering how ubiquitous office documents are in the
average enterprise, migrating means supporting the MS Office formats
along the ODF ones.

>
> If this is the case, we're never going to reach concensus on this topic.  
> Personally I've already signed up on Larry's side.  How about this for a 
> compromise:
>
> LibO comes with support to read docx (which it converts to ODT), but not to 
> write it.  When someone tries to write it, a notice comes up saying in effect 
> that docx is a broken format which even MS doesn't think much of, and that 
> LibO, in the interests of free standards does not support it in vanilla mode. 
>  However, click on this button and we'll save in doc format. One might even 
> provide two buttons (plus Cancel), Save as doc and Save as odt.

This argument has been tried before with web standards and other
document formats. Unfortunately, it's an argument that FLOSS cannot
win. Not because the FLOSS point of view is wrong but because the
argument goes well above the heads of the majority of users. From
their point of view, they use MS Office all the time, it produces the
types of documents they need. The way most non-technical users see it
(and a large number of technical users too), if LibreOffice can't read
and write MS Office documents then LibreOffice is broken.

Besides, saying that docx is broken and suggesting to save to doc
feels counter productive to me: even though docx is far from being
perfect, it's still a lot more open and free than doc.

>
> But for the Americans and others who might want it, a downloadable module is 
> provided which will write to docx format.  Then we turn the matter over to 
> the educators, communicators and marketers to educate, communicate with and 
> market to the North American continent.  Then those who want it can get docx 
> compatibility, but they have to make an active choice and they're told it's 
> risky and why.

Ubuntu tried exactly that for non-free codecs: install only free
codecs by default but give the users the possibility to add non-free
codecs through the extras package later on. In the latest release
(10.10 -- Maverick Meerkat), they actually made it easier for users to
install non-free codecs by making it an option in the installation
wizard. The reason for it was that the non-free codecs package was not
easily discoverable for new users and not installing them by default
generated a lot of queries in the forums.

So maybe it would be useful to learn from the Ubuntu experience,
provide a single version of LibreOffice and include an option in the
installation wizard to install support for OOXML or not, with an
explanation about what that choice means.

My £0.02

Bruno

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread M. Fioretti

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 13:39:19 PM +0100, yahoo-pier_andreit 
(pier_andr...@yahoo.it) wrote:
> Il 31/12/2010 11:32, M. Fioretti ha scritto:

> >> 1. It is arrogant to return a document in a format different to
> >> that which was sent to you.
> > 
> > arrogant my foot. If somebody smokes in my face it is not arrogant to
> > tell him/her to stop. It is my right, period.
> > 
> 
> yes it is your right, but to not be smoked on your face is seen as
> your right by others (even if "other" is your boss), but to send a
> document in another format (mainly if the receiver is your boss or
> customer) isn't seen as your right

But still is (not to mention that it's in their OWN interest to not
lock all their documents, not just those they exchange with others, in
proprietary formats). Just as it was already my right to not be smoked
in my face 20/15 years ago, when smoking inside crowded workplaces was
commonplace.

Besides, I had already explicitly acknowledged myself the need to
compromise:

> > Then of course, keep tolerating and using a proprietary format may
> > be still practically _unavoidable_ in many cases, no question
> > about it. I am in several of those cases myself.

So I honestly fail to see what was the point of your message.

Marco F.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 01/02/2011 11:35 AM, Charles Marcus wrote:
> On 2011-01-02 12:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
>> I don't think LO could implement the writing of OOXML in ANY format that
>> would be compatible to MS.  And to try to do so would simply imply that
>> LO was broken (in MS's words, anyway).
> 
> What are you talking about? As has been pointed out numerous times, LibO
> *already* *does* write OOXML.
> 
> I'm glad you're not the decision maker...
> 
Does it?  And to what degree of compatibility?  Also, this was code that
was brought in from GO-OO which, as you may be aware, was developed by
Novell UNDER CONTRACT TO MS.  No, I'm not hollering FLOSS, here.  I'm
trying to get you to understand that there are copyright and patent
issues here that could embroil LO in legal battles that it really
doesn't need.

Craig
Tyche

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

On 2011-01-01 1:43 PM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
> Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
> program such as outlook.

Well, I disagree, but there is no way to prove one of us is right, so...

> There are one of three ways it can be done.
> 
> 1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate it
> into the LO suite

Evolution is extremely buggy, *especially* on Windows, but yes, even on
*nix... Yes, there are many people who run it without problems, but
there are far more who complain of constant crashes and bugs, even on
the stablest of systems (otherwise)...

> 2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.

Thunderbird+Lightning would be the best other choice here...not perfect
by any stretch, but the only viable FLOSS alternative on Windows at the
moment, at least that I am aware of...

> the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size, which
> would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

Thunderbird+Lightning is not that big...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 2011-01-02 12:48 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote:
> On 2011/01/02 11:24 AM  Italo Vignoli wrote:
>> On 1/2/11 6:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
>>> Nope, writing back as doc is good enough at this point.

>> Definitely not. LibreOffice writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and
>> this is not under discussion. Our developers have the right skills to
>> decide about the quality and the features of the filter.

> LibreOffice should not write OOXML.

Thankfully, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and even more
thankfully, sometimes it doesn't matter, because sometimes your (or my)
opinion is irrelevant.

> That is under discussion in this thread.

No, the discussion is long over because the decision was made long ago.
Obviously, some people think it should, others think it shouldn't, and
there is nothing wrong with that. Thankfully, just because LibO is a
FLOSS project does not mean it is a democracy (mob rule) - decisions
like this simply can not be subject to the democratic process or nothing
would ever get decided.

> Who gave you the right to say it is not under discussion? Isn't this a
> community project? When did the community decide that writing OOXML has
> to be included in LibreOffice?

Just because LibO is a community project doesn't mean it is a pure
democracy, thank $deity...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/2/11 7:15 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote:


No, that was not the point. Italo Vignoli wrote: "LibreOffice writes
OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is
not under discussion." That is the point I objected to.


I might have been too harsh, but I reiterate the fact that this is not 
under discussion. TDF is a community based project, but decisions have 
to be taken by people in charge of taking them, and in this case these 
people are in the ESC (Engineering Steering Committee).


The se are the bylaws of TDF (you are free to check).

I am a member of the Steering Committee, and I totally second this 
decision just because it makes sense for the users (as I have tried to 
explain in another message). LibreOffice is the office suite with the 
widest document format support, and this is a plus.


As long as OOXML is a standard recognized by ISO, it makes sense to 
support it completely.


This is different from the fact that we are trying to make ODF the only 
winning standard, and that we are telling people that they should not 
use OOXML.



It should be a community decision, not one made by the developers. Or
based on LibreOffice being based on Go-OO code which already had OOXML
write support because of the Novell agreement with Microsoft.


I think that your problem is the Microsoft/Novell agreement, as you have 
mentioned it several times. This belongs to the AGAINST saga that we do 
not want to pursue. Writing OOXML is FOR interoperability, and so it is 
better than not writing OOXML because is AGAINST Microsoft.


In addition, TDF is a software project, and therefore some decisions 
have to be taken by people professional at developing software. If you 
want to have a say in software development you are welcome to contribute 
to the code and you will soon be able to talk to the ESC, or maybe 
become a member of the ESC.


TDF is a community driven project, not a mailing list driven project. 
Community is not just writing in a mailing list, is a lot different and 
a lot more than that. I do not think that we ever gave the perception 
that this is a mailing list driven project.


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread M. Fioretti

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 11:35:24 AM +, Gordon Burgess-Parker
(gbpli...@gmail.com) wrote:

> On 31/12/10 10:32, M. Fioretti wrote:
> >
> >wrong. Mine (mutt) doesn't for example,
> 
> Then I would plonk you immediately. How do you not see that that is
> TOTALLY ARROGANT?

Uh??? In that part of your message you had made a purely technical
assertion. You had said that email CLIENTS (i.e. not the actual people
sending email, but the software programs they use) "always reply in
the same format in which the original message was received".

I only noticed that this purely technical assertion of yours IS wrong
because it is an undeniable fact (for which I personally bear NO
responsibility...) that the sending format in most email clients is
only a *default* that users can change as they please, not to mention
that some email clients only send as plain text. You made a technical
assertion, I replied at the same level. If you think a technical
default setting of most email clients (i.e. not the way people use or
configure them) is totally arrogant, yell at their developers, not at
me.

> If I send you an email in plain text and you reply in HTML, because
> YOU want to, that is complete rudeness and intolerance.

Sure. But it's still wrong, as I already pointed out, to mix
txt-vs-html email with ODF-vs-OOXML, because HTML is really open and
not controlled by one company, OOXML is a totally different
situation. So if you really need to insist in this thread (and I take
the fact that you only replied at my last paragraph as a sign that you
agree with everything else I wrote), at least please drop email
examples entirely.

Marco F.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

2011-01-02 Thread Robert Derman


Ian Lynch wrote:

On 1 January 2011 18:43, Jonathan Aquilina  wrote:

  

Whats really held OOo and will hold LO back is the lack of an equivalent
program such as outlook.





Why waste time and effort on this when there are other perfectly valid
alternatives? Evolution, Thunderbird for open source and Gmail on the web.
Web based mail is now mature and much easier to manage for anyone that moves
about. Gmail on an Android phone seems to me a far better solution than
being tied to the desktop. Effort going into new apps like a mail client
(even modifying and maintaining existing code) would be much better placed
in getting a mobile version of LO for smarphones or a web version. If not
the whole project could eventually become irrelevant.

There are one of three ways it can be done.
  

1) fork something like evolution which has all that done and integrate it
into the LO suite

2) or install software that already exists in the open source arena.

the problem with 2 is that it will greatly increase the download size,
which
would pose issues for people with slow bandwidth.

It seems to me that the only people who are concerned with having an 
equivalent of Outlook in their office suite are businesses, and 
businesses as a rule DO NOT have slow bandwidth connections, because 
they simply could not function with them.   If you are concerned with 
download size as far as software packages aimed at businesses is 
concerned, then you are simply aiming at the WRONG audience. 


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 2011-01-02 12:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
> I don't think LO could implement the writing of OOXML in ANY format that
> would be compatible to MS.  And to try to do so would simply imply that
> LO was broken (in MS's words, anyway).

What are you talking about? As has been pointed out numerous times, LibO
*already* *does* write OOXML.

I'm glad you're not the decision maker...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Addons

On 2011-01-02 12:13 PM, Zaphod Feeblejocks wrote:
> I have a concern about the Addons.  In my 10+ years of using 
> OpenOffice/StarOffice, the 
> inclusion of addons was a great idea.  However, the marketing of addons was 
> not so good - 
> hidden away in a place that you can find once, but not so easily find again.
> 
> Could addons be clearly signposted on the main page?
> 
> Could first-time users be taken to the addons page, so they know 
> functionality can be 
> extended?
> 
> Could addons be clearly posted in the menus?
> 
> Could the frequency of downloading addons be counted and a pack of the most 
> popular 
> ones be compiled?  Could the most-frequent-addons pack even be an optional 
> extra 
> included with the download?
> 
> There could even be the 'vanilla' install and the 'bumper-pack' install.
> 
> Last summer, as part of the MSO to OOo migration, I hacked a batch file to 
> install OOo with 
> various settings and then various addons I had chosen (why was 'clipart' an 
> addon, I 
> wonder?).  Simplifying this for downloaders wil help - I know several people 
> who think OOo 
> is not very good, because it has no clipart.  Personally, I don't care about 
> clipart but it's all 
> down to user perceptions!

+5, all great points, but I'd also like to add that there should be some
well defined pathway for an add-on to be nominated, considered and
eventually incorporated (if deemed worthy) or not (if not) into the core
code...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format


Hi Leif,

Dear Larry,
...

I disagree with you of two reasons:
1) LibreOffice is free software. If any developer wants to improve the
code - he or she has the freedom to do so. I think this is one very
important stand. We have seen other products in the marked licensed as
open source but that are not free software. Who should decide what what
is 'good' and what is 'bad' code?

Nobody. Because !

We are not building a cathedral are we? Not because the bazaar works
fine for us.


I agree too in one point: LibreOffice is free software as a software.
But we speak about LO as the substantial product of TDF. And TDF wants 
to evolve the community of OOo eg. With that LO is part of the community.

Why can than one group or one person decide about important things?

Greetings,
Johannes


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Robert Parker

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 1:15 AM, Larry Gusaas  wrote:
>
>
> It is a community decision, not a developer decision.

The developers, that is the people doing the work, will decide what LO
does and does not do. I'm sure those good hard working folk will take
into account discussions here and no doubt elsewhere. But the decision
rests with them.

What will you do if they decide other than what you want. Buy Microsoft instead?

Bob

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 2011-01-02 12:07 PM, Mark Preston wrote:
> Please remember that both LibO and OpenO can already *read* the
> formats and the issue is whether or not it is practical or pragmatic
> to put effort into developing something to *write* the OOXML form.

Eh? It already can write them. Why go backwards? There definitely needs
to be a warning when doing the Save-As, but going backwards (ie,
removing the ability to write them) would be counter-productive at best.

FLOSS philosophical arguments have no place here. They are fine for a
philosophical debate, or even for some of our LibO Marketing efforts,
but pointless in interacting in the practical reality of a Microsoft
dominated Corporate software landscape.

One thing that could probably help a lot in this regard would be a page
or two with specific details on how to Save-As to the different formats
that LibO users could link to in emails they send to their
Clients/Customers/Vendors when requesting a document in a different
version. These pages could go to great care to be non-political, but
also provide links to other on-line resources that discussed the
philosophical differences, while refraining from engaging in any
negativity about Microsoft or any other commercial software vendors...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

2011-01-02 Thread Robert Derman


Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
besides email people want a calendar as well as a to do list as well 
functionality wise, which Thunderbird seems to lack.


On 1/1/11 8:36 PM, Lee Hyde wrote:

On 01/01/11 19:20, Craig A. Eddy wrote:

So, what am I saying?  You don't NEED to add something useless like
Outlook or Evolution to LO.  You just have to allow Thunderbird to
connect to it, and people can make their own choice as to whether they
want all the other bells and whistles.  Therefore, no increase in size
due to bundling but the advantage that those that WANT the extras can
have them without difficulty

I agree, an integration add-on for Thunderbird (and any other e-mail
clients or contact managers with an add-on architecture) would be a far
better use of resources. Simply making contacts available to LibreOffice
would do wonders for mail-merge luck functionality (for the life of me I
can't think of any other functionalities one would require of an outlook
clone).
On a related subject, I am using an older version of Tbird because I 
hate the new versions.  each time they have "improved" it lately they 
have actually made it worse as far as basic usability.  The problem I 
have with the newer versions is that they make it far to difficult to 
enlarge the text for readability.  WHY can't developers put more of a 
priority on really basic things like that? 


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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 2011/01/02 11:55 AM Robert Parker wrote:

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 12:48 AM, Larry Gusaas wrote:

On 2011/01/02 11:24 AM Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 6:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:

Nope, writing back as doc is good enough at this point.

Definitely not. LibreOffice writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is
not under discussion. Our developers have the right skills to decide about
the quality and the features of the filter.

LibreOffice should not write OOXML. That is under discussion in this thread.

Who gave you the right to say it is not under discussion? Isn't this a
community project? When did the community decide that writing OOXML has to
be included in LibreOffice?

I think the point was that the developers will decide whether to
support OOXML or not.

No, that was not the point. Italo Vignoli wrote: "LibreOffice writes OOXML and will write
OOXML, and this is

not under discussion." That is the point I objected to.

It should be a community decision, not one made by the developers. Or based on LibreOffice
being based on Go-OO code which already had OOXML write support because of the Novell agreement
with Microsoft.

It is up to them if they decide to take notice
of the conflicting opinions on this list.

It is a community decision, not a developer decision.

Larry
--
_
Larry I. Gusaas
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
"An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs." -
Edgard Varese

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread leif

Dear Larry,
First of all I want to apologize for my lack of English skills. I'm not
native English speaking so if the words are a little clumpsy, please
bear with me :-)

I disagree with you of two reasons:
1) LibreOffice is free software. If any developer wants to improve the
code - he or she has the freedom to do so. I think this is one very
important stand. We have seen other products in the marked licensed as
open source but that are not free software. Who should decide what what
is 'good' and what is 'bad' code?

Nobody. Because LibreOffice is free software!

We are not building a cathedral are we? Not because the bazaar works
fine for us.

2) No matter what we say or do, there are two document standards
approved by ISO. I guess (!) that most of us engaged in the Document
Foundation can agree that two standards are one two many. Never the
less: OOXML is a standard.

If we decide not to support it we will see status quo in marked
situation: MS having 95+ % of the marked share. MS will claim that they
support both standards and we are not in the loop able to claim otherwise.

If we support OOXML (I don't say that we should hurry) we will be able
to take marked shares from MS and more important: We are in the loop! We
can speak up and tell ISO what is wrong with OOXML. we will be able to
find all the faults and we will be heard. We can talk to politicians
about the core problems because we are implementing it.

I my self are doing that right now. I have spoken to politicians and the
are listening to me - because we are implementing it. Because we are
actually getting working with it.

I am living in a country that has chosen two standards. By working with
it we can help other regions not to make the same mistake. But if we say
"we wil not this" and "we will not that" our only achievement will be
that nobody will listen to what we are saying.

Supporting OOXML is not supporting MS. It is exposing their dirty laundry!

We don't need to hurry! Of cause we must economize our resources and
supporting OOXML will never become our main focus. We have an office
suite to create ;-)


Cheers,
Leif



Den 30-12-2010 18:27, Larry Gusaas skrev:
> I will not support or use LibreOffice
>  until it stops helping spread OOXML by enabling writing in this file
> format. There is absolutely no need to write in this proprietary
> format. To do so is contrary to the principle of using ODF and open
> source formats.
>
> See the following:
> http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=2493&p=169740#p169507
>
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101219121621828
>
> Unless this changes I will strongly advocate in the support groups I
> participate the people stay with OpenOffice.org and not switch to
> LibreOffice.
>
>


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 01/02/2011 10:46 AM, Lee Hyde wrote:
>
 SNIP 
> 
> My understanding is that Microsoft intends to implement strict OOXML
> gradually, with each successive release of Microsoft Office using an
> increasingly 'strict' form of transitional OOXML. Assuming that I am
> correct in this assumption, does it not make sense that Microsoft will
> make each successive version of their transitional OOXML backwards
> compatible with their last and that they will release updates or add-ons
> to ensure forward compatibility for older products (Office 2007 and 2010).
>
I, personally, cannot make that presumption, based on previous
experience with Microsoft.  There is a dichotomy between what MS says
and what it does.  And an even wider one between what one might presume
and what MS does.
>
 SNIP 
> Now
> I assume nobody has an issue with strict OOXML (which is, as I
> understand it, an open standard) so why would you have an issue with
> implementing by graduations (in line with Microsoft) strict OOXML via a
> series of transitional specifications?
>
I'm concerned by what you mean by an open standard.  To me, open means
free to use and free to see.  From what I understand of the OOXML ISO as
it was passed there are a lot of MS add-ons that are proprietary, as
well as a lot of binary blobs that are proprietary.  Also a number of
definitions that are so vague that they are, for all intents and
purposed, unable to be implemented as written.  Therefore, I can not
look at OOXML as being and OPEN standard.  Yes, it is a standard (to
Microsoft's eternal shame).  But OPEN it is NOT.
> 
> Kind Regards,
> 
> Lee Hyde.
> 
 SNIP 

Craig
Tyche

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

Please don't top-post in an in-lined thread. Thanks.

On 2011-01-02 1:18 AM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
> On 1/1/11 8:36 PM, Lee Hyde wrote:
>> On 01/01/11 19:20, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
>>> So, what am I saying? You don't NEED to add something useless
>>> like Outlook or Evolution to LO. You just have to allow
>>> Thunderbird to connect to it, and people can make their own
>>> choice as to whether they want all the other bells and whistles.
>>> Therefore, no increase in size due to bundling but the advantage
>>> that those that WANT the extras can have them without difficulty

>> I agree, an integration add-on for Thunderbird (and any other
>> e-mail clients or contact managers with an add-on architecture)
>> would be a far better use of resources. Simply making contacts
>> available to LibreOffice would do wonders for mail-merge luck
>> functionality (for the life of me I can't think of any other
>> functionalities one would require of an outlook clone).

> besides email people want a calendar as well as a to do list as well
> functionality wise, which Thunderbird seems to lack.

Only if you fail to discover the excellent
if-not-still-a-little-lacking-in-functionality Lightning extension...

Personally, I couldn't use Thunderbird (or Firefox) in its default naked
state. I currently have 35+ extensions in TBird, and 51 for Firefox. And
now there are 4 or 5 that I must have in LibO...

Extensibility is one of the hallmarks of FLOSS, and one of the main
reasons I love it...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

On 2011-01-01 9:54 PM, todd rme wrote:
> Isn't this what freedesktop.org standards are for? A standard for 
> spell checking libraries (I mean the library of words, not the 
> software library) shared across all open-source programs would be
> very useful. Such a thing has already been proposed:
> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-language-checking-spec
> 
> So rather than trying to get other groups to write wrappers to 
> integrate with libo's own spelling dictionary, I think it would be 
> much better if there was a single, standard dictionary format that
> all open-source programs shared. Any program that implements the
> standard will automatically get support for the same dictionaries.
> This avoids each program needing to write compatibility layers for
> every other program.
> 
> So I think putting some effort into getting this standard ironed out 
> would be very beneficial to a lot of projects.

+10

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Charles

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Robert Parker

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 12:48 AM, Larry Gusaas  wrote:
>
> On 2011/01/02 11:24 AM  Italo Vignoli wrote:
>>
>> On 1/2/11 6:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
>>
>>>  Nope, writing back as doc is good enough at this point.
>>
>> Definitely not. LibreOffice writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is
>> not under discussion. Our developers have the right skills to decide about
>> the quality and the features of the filter.
>
> LibreOffice should not write OOXML. That is under discussion in this thread.
>
> Who gave you the right to say it is not under discussion? Isn't this a
> community project? When did the community decide that writing OOXML has to
> be included in LibreOffice?

I think the point was that the developers will decide whether to
support OOXML or not. It is up to them if they decide to take notice
of the conflicting opinions on this list.

Bob

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[tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 2011/01/02 11:24 AM  Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 1/2/11 6:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:


  Nope, writing back as doc is good enough at this point.


Definitely not. LibreOffice writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and this is not under 
discussion. Our developers have the right skills to decide about the quality and the features 
of the filter.


LibreOffice should not write OOXML. That is under discussion in this thread.

Who gave you the right to say it is not under discussion? Isn't this a community project? When 
did the community decide that writing OOXML has to be included in LibreOffice?



Larry
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Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
"An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs." - 
Edgard Varese



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 02/01/11 17:07, Mark Preston wrote:
> Please remember that both LibO and OpenO can already *read* the
> formats and the issue is whether or not it is practical or pragmatic
> to put effort into developing something to *write* the OOXML form.

My understanding is that Microsoft intends to implement strict OOXML
gradually, with each successive release of Microsoft Office using an
increasingly 'strict' form of transitional OOXML. Assuming that I am
correct in this assumption, does it not make sense that Microsoft will
make each successive version of their transitional OOXML backwards
compatible with their last and that they will release updates or add-ons
to ensure forward compatibility for older products (Office 2007 and 2010).

Those are of course unfounded assumptions, but reasonable ones none the
less. Thus if this is the case, we're not talking about maintaining
support for 3+ different versions of OOXML but rather maintaining
support for the latest version of Microsoft's transitional OOXML (and
perhaps strict OOXML) which should (eventually) become strict OOXML. Now
I assume nobody has an issue with strict OOXML (which is, as I
understand it, an open standard) so why would you have an issue with
implementing by graduations (in line with Microsoft) strict OOXML via a
series of transitional specifications?

Kind Regards,

Lee Hyde.

-- 
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it, the government must first ensure that somebody else works for a
financial reward without getting it. There is no other way."

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Co-working with Moz, etc

Please don't top-post in an inline thread...

On 2011-01-01 2:42 PM, Jaime R. Garza wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 20:36, Lee Hyde  wrote:
>> I agree, an integration add-on for Thunderbird (and any other e-mail
>> clients or contact managers with an add-on architecture) would be a far
>> better use of resources. Simply making contacts available to LibreOffice
>> would do wonders for mail-merge luck functionality (for the life of me I
>> can't think of any other functionalities one would require of an outlook
>> clone).

> But why only for Thunderbird?
> 
> Why not make an open container (or just modularize the existing one 
> with a well defined interface) to will allow any application to use
> the resources (e.g. dictionaries) and have full integration with all
> LO resources?

I think that's what Lee meant by '(and any other e-mail clients or
contact managers with an add-on architecture)'...

I agree, choice is best, but there is also no reasonably mature
cross-platform alternative to Thunderbird+Lightning, so making it the
first fully supported mail client would be a great way to kick off a new
'Mail/Contacts Connector' plugin for LibO...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Just make the damn thing work! (was Re: Dictionary Syncing)

On 2011-01-01 1:50 PM, Michael Wheatland wrote:
> Zaphod,
> I totally agree with your assessment of the situation. The work
> required to implement such an integration would be much larger but the
> payoff would be worth it for coordination and integration of an open
> source language management system.

And I guess I should have clarified as well - I absolutely agreed with
the idea, I just disagreed with the apparent characterization (which I
see was just a misinterpretation on my part) of 'LibO vs MSO'...

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Addons

On 02/01/11 17:13, Zaphod Feeblejocks wrote:
> Could first-time users be taken to the addons page, so they know 
> functionality can be 
> extended?
> 
> Could addons be clearly posted in the menus?

I think LibO could learn a lot from Mozilla's add-ons interface. Their
revamped add-ons interface (for Firefox 4.0) places add-ons at the heart
of the interface and has the feeling of an app-store. Lib0 needs to
implement something like this to improve add-on discovery and simplify
installation.

As for implementing docx writing as an add-on and the wider question of
whether or not LibO should support docx at all. It was my understanding
that one of the primary aims of *The Document Foundation* and
*LibreOffice* projects, was to put the user first. The average end-user
doesn't care about the politics behind document formats. They simply
want an office suite that works and doesn't require endless tweaks to
allow interoperability with their colleagues, many of whom (perhaps
lamentably) will be using Microsoft Office. Dismissing Microsoft's
proprietary OOXML format and/or farming it out to an add-on amounts to
nothing more than petty politics; it will turn users off and hurt this
project immeasurably.

Also, if OOXML writing is to be farmed out to an add-on, would you have
it installed as a default add-on or would you have the user seek it out.
If the prior, why not implement it internally? If the latter, you'll
need to improve your add-ons interface for discovery and ease of
installation (see above).

Kind Regards,

Lee Hyde.

-- 
"The only demand that property recognizes, is its own gluttonous
appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to
subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade."

-- Emma Goldman, Anarchism & Other Essays (1910)

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format


On 1/2/11 6:20 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:


  Nope, writing back as doc is good enough at this point.


Definitely not. LibreOffice writes OOXML and will write OOXML, and this 
is not under discussion. Our developers have the right skills to decide 
about the quality and the features of the filter.


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format



On 01/02/2011 09:08 AM, Barbara Duprey wrote:
--- SNIP ---
> 

> Is that what you think it would be to implement the OOXML "Strict"
> formats? I sure don't see it that way -- we would simply be supporting
> an ISO standard, however it was arrived at. The fact that we could
> possibly do it before MS does is not "doing to others as they do to you"
> IMNSHO. I just think it would be great if LibO became the reference
> implementation!
> 
I don't think LO could implement the writing of OOXML in ANY format that
would be compatible to MS.  And to try to do so would simply imply that
LO was broken (in MS's words, anyway).
>
>> By being able to read .doc and .docx formats LO demonstrates it's
>> willingness to at least reach out to MS and its customers.  Therefore,
>> LO ends up being the good guy.
>>
>> Craig
>> Tyche
> 
> Right. That's why I think it's a good move to read them. The issue is
> about writing the Transitional formats. Do you think we have to do that
> to claim the moral high ground?
>
I don't feel that writing any of the OOXML formats would claim the moral
high ground.  I think writing OOXML would be like trying to hit a 10
inch randomly moving target from an aircraft at 10,000 feet moving in
the opposite direction.  First, you gotta get close and limit its
possible movements.  Right now, that's just not possible.  Look how long
it took to come up with a reasonably compatible version of doc to write.
 Nope, writing back as doc is good enough at this point.
> 
 SNIP 

Craig
Tyche

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[tdf-discuss] Addons (was: Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format)

2011-01-02 Thread Zaphod Feeblejocks

On 2 Jan 2011 at 9:59, Craig A. Eddy wrote:

> I also agree that ANY write-to docx should be an add-on, and not part of
> the vanilla release.

Hi Craig,

I have a concern about the Addons.  In my 10+ years of using 
OpenOffice/StarOffice, the 
inclusion of addons was a great idea.  However, the marketing of addons was not 
so good - 
hidden away in a place that you can find once, but not so easily find again.

Could addons be clearly signposted on the main page?

Could first-time users be taken to the addons page, so they know functionality 
can be 
extended?

Could addons be clearly posted in the menus?

Could the frequency of downloading addons be counted and a pack of the most 
popular 
ones be compiled?  Could the most-frequent-addons pack even be an optional 
extra 
included with the download?

There could even be the 'vanilla' install and the 'bumper-pack' install.

Last summer, as part of the MSO to OOo migration, I hacked a batch file to 
install OOo with 
various settings and then various addons I had chosen (why was 'clipart' an 
addon, I 
wonder?).  Simplifying this for downloaders wil help - I know several people 
who think OOo 
is not very good, because it has no clipart.  Personally, I don't care about 
clipart but it's all 
down to user perceptions!

zf

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread Mark Preston

Craig,

Please remember that both LibO and OpenO can already *read* the
formats and the issue is whether or not it is practical or pragmatic
to put effort into developing something to *write* the OOXML form.

On 02/01/2011 00:50, Craig A. Eddy wrote:
> Barbara,
> 
> First, ODF IS the ISO standard - honestly made so without the dirty
> tricks that MS used to stuff the committee and force it to approve
> something that wasn't ready to be used by anyone.
> 
> Second, MS refuses to support any ODF except the one that is actually an
> ISO standard.  That makes their version of ODF suspect as to its actual
> compatibility.
> 
> I don't suggest using the same tactics on MS as it is using on Open
> Source Software.  Doing to others as they do to you is NOT a recommended
> tactic for honest people or organizations (though it's too often been
> used, in my arrogant opinion [There AIN'T no such thing as a humble
> opinion]).
> 
> By being able to read .doc and .docx formats LO demonstrates it's
> willingness to at least reach out to MS and its customers.  Therefore,
> LO ends up being the good guy.
> 
> Craig
> Tyche

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

I agree with your premises.  Having been a CAD operator who, at times,
had to send drawing files to others, I felt it was MY responsibility to
find out what the other person could read, or at least provide him/her
with a way to contact me if there were problems opening the file.  This
carried over to text and spreadsheet files, too, since with both drawing
files and text - spreadsheet files even the version number could affect
the person's ability to open the file.

I also agree that ANY write-to docx should be an add-on, and not part of
the vanilla release.

Craig
Tyche

On 01/02/2011 08:50 AM, James Wilde wrote:
> Is anyone else getting the impression that this thread is polarising into US 
> v rest of world?  
> 
> We've seen several people say that they have to accept what their customers 
> provide and can't go back to the customer and say "can you provide this in 
> another format?".  To me that's an attitude which I, rightly or wrongly, 
> associate with the US.  In Europe we just fire away an email and get the file 
> back again in another format.
> 
> And the other side of the coin, as others have said, outside the US more and 
> more governments and non-US corporations are going over to FLOSS, whereas in 
> the US, Microsoft is dominant.
> 
> If this is the case, we're never going to reach concensus on this topic.  
> Personally I've already signed up on Larry's side.  How about this for a 
> compromise:
> 
> LibO comes with support to read docx (which it converts to ODT), but not to 
> write it.  When someone tries to write it, a notice comes up saying in effect 
> that docx is a broken format which even MS doesn't think much of, and that 
> LibO, in the interests of free standards does not support it in vanilla mode. 
>  However, click on this button and we'll save in doc format. One might even 
> provide two buttons (plus Cancel), Save as doc and Save as odt.
> 
> But for the Americans and others who might want it, a downloadable module is 
> provided which will write to docx format.  Then we turn the matter over to 
> the educators, communicators and marketers to educate, communicate with and 
> market to the North American continent.  Then those who want it can get docx 
> compatibility, but they have to make an active choice and they're told it's 
> risky and why.
> 
> //James

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/1/2011 7:53 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:

On 01/01/2011 11:29 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:

Several of the comments here suggest a middle road, allowing the save
but with a message clarifying the limitations of the format (and perhaps
recommending use of the XP formats if interoperating with an MS-only
shop; their ODF support is not truly interoperable at a reasonable
level, the older formats come closer). That seems reasonable, at least
for editing documents that are received in these formats -- I'm not
convinced it should be allowed for new work, though. At the least, the
SaveAs dialog should label the format using the word Transitional. It
probably makes sense to start working towards OOXML "Strict" export as
soon as that is a reasonably stationary target, though. Wouldn't it be
great if LibO were the first implementation compliant with the ISO
standard? And if the other FOSS implementations also headed there, we
could beat MS at their own game!

Standards support is a thorny field. The reality is that no one supports a standard by default,
but only with a specific choice in configuration (including LibreOffice with ODF, as 1.2 is not
yet the standard format and 1.2 Extended is not going to be a standard).

Supporting OOXML Strict today would make LO not compatible with MS Office, and users do want
interoperability and not just standard compliance.

Yes, that's why I think that it could make sense to write the Transitiional formats, with
appropriate warnings, at least for editing an existing document created in that form. But if we
offered both choices in the SaveAs, the way we support a number of different older MS formats with
appropriate version labeling, people could still choose the interoperable format. I'm not saying we
should go to Strict only. That would indeed be wrong, leading people to think that they could create
a .docx (for example) that would be interoperable when it is not. So I guess that's saying that a
new document could be created and saved as the Transitional format, at least as soon as we also
offered the Strict format. I just think we could avoid that situation until that point, though, as
long as the XP formats are reasonably interoperable. A new document created in LibO and saved in an
XP format should not violate interoperability, as long as MS continues to support that format. If
they dropped XP format support before we had a Strict version available, I agree we'd have to allow
writing new Transitional documents at that point. I'm just leery of doing it now.

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/1/2011 6:50 PM, Craig A. Eddy wrote:

Barbara,

First, ODF IS the ISO standard - honestly made so without the dirty
tricks that MS used to stuff the committee and force it to approve
something that wasn't ready to be used by anyone.

I recognize that, of course. But like it or not (and I'm definitely in the "not" camp), OOXML can
also claim to be a "standard" after the ISO shenanigans.

Second, MS refuses to support any ODF except the one that is actually an
ISO standard. That makes their version of ODF suspect as to its actual
compatibility.

Exactly. That's why I don't recommend sending OOo/LibO ODF to MS-only shops, the XP formats are more
interoperable. And the way MS chose to implement what is actually in the standard seems to have
taken advantage of the details that were left unspecified to force incompatibility with existing ODF
implementations, even if both adhered strictly to the existing ODF specification.

I don't suggest using the same tactics on MS as it is using on Open
Source Software. Doing to others as they do to you is NOT a recommended
tactic for honest people or organizations (though it's too often been
used, in my arrogant opinion [There AIN'T no such thing as a humble
opinion]).

Is that what you think it would be to implement the OOXML "Strict" formats? I sure don't see it that
way -- we would simply be supporting an ISO standard, however it was arrived at. The fact that we
could possibly do it before MS does is not "doing to others as they do to you" IMNSHO. I just think
it would be great if LibO became the reference implementation!

By being able to read .doc and .docx formats LO demonstrates it's
willingness to at least reach out to MS and its customers. Therefore,
LO ends up being the good guy.

Craig
Tyche

Right. That's why I think it's a good move to read them. The issue is about writing the Transitional
formats. Do you think we have to do that to claim the moral high ground?

On 01/01/2011 03:29 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:

On 1/1/2011 11:07 AM, Zaphod Feeblejocks wrote:

Hi Sveinn,

Sure, but how about conservation and readability by future generations
(when there's no more Microsoft knowledge around and nobody knows
anymore how to decrypt all the nuances of.doc + .docx files) ?

Fair point.

But: most users do not care. Not exporting to Word will make it look
like LibO is faulty.

I have to save in MSO formats to share work with others. At work, we
have an MSO policy.
While I can use whatever I like on my desktop, I have to save
spreadsheets in MSO formats
because Excel 07 kills ODS formulae. If I prepare a document as ODT,
the few Word 2003
dies-hards complain I am refusing to inter-operate. I do still assign
student work to be
submitted as either .doc or .odt and mark students down for using
.docx (they failed to read
the instructions). They are also marked down for not using proper
spacing and a serif font.

I don't want to see the .docx format spread any further and advocate
using ODT as the
default. However, not having the option to export as .doc and .docx
will cause users to
wonder if they want to promote LibO.

I don't think anybody is saying LibO should drop .doc export -- just not
try to export to the OOXML "Transitional" formats. In theory, MS will go
to OOXML "Strict" in the 2014 (or whenever) release, and that should by
then be a truly open format, if the comments submitted to the standards
committee are properly worked off. Meanwhile, exporting to the
"Transitional" form for new documents is specifically deprecated in the
ISO standard; doing that really plays into a possible MS strategy to
continue to ignore the "Strict" version forever, maintaining the
proprietary lock-in while claiming to be open.

It must be arrogant for them to send you a format you don't support.
Also, if the Win 7 users don't know what format the documents are in,
why does it matter if it's returned to them in a .doc format?

Think you hit the nail on the head, pal.
Those who ignore any notion of a file format, will do it both ways,
always, anyways...

Office on-the-web only saves in docx. Office

Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

2011-01-02 Thread RGB ES

IMO, to put the write part on an external extension is a good idea.
There are other extensions for import export (like
OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs that gives export capabilities to
GoogleDocs, Zoho and WebDAV)
I still think that there are too many thing on "save as" dialogue that
should go on "export" instead, but moving at least this conflictive
ooxml part to an extension could bring some peace

2011/1/2 James Wilde :
> Is anyone else getting the impression that this thread is polarising into US 
> v rest of world?
>
> We've seen several people say that they have to accept what their customers 
> provide and can't go back to the customer and say "can you provide this in 
> another format?".  To me that's an attitude which I, rightly or wrongly, 
> associate with the US.  In Europe we just fire away an email and get the file 
> back again in another format.
>
> And the other side of the coin, as others have said, outside the US more and 
> more governments and non-US corporations are going over to FLOSS, whereas in 
> the US, Microsoft is dominant.
>
> If this is the case, we're never going to reach concensus on this topic.  
> Personally I've already signed up on Larry's side.  How about this for a 
> compromise:
>
> LibO comes with support to read docx (which it converts to ODT), but not to 
> write it.  When someone tries to write it, a notice comes up saying in effect 
> that docx is a broken format which even MS doesn't think much of, and that 
> LibO, in the interests of free standards does not support it in vanilla mode. 
>  However, click on this button and we'll save in doc format. One might even 
> provide two buttons (plus Cancel), Save as doc and Save as odt.
>
> But for the Americans and others who might want it, a downloadable module is 
> provided which will write to docx format.  Then we turn the matter over to 
> the educators, communicators and marketers to educate, communicate with and 
> market to the North American continent.  Then those who want it can get docx 
> compatibility, but they have to make an active choice and they're told it's 
> risky and why.
>
> //James
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format