[discuss] Re: [Marketing] Google backs OpenDocument format
On Wed, 2006-12-07 at 19:49 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do? command=viewArticleBasicarticleId=9001713 FWIW, OOo is represented on the ODF Alliance by me. And I contacted Google a while ago on this issue though I cannot claim credit for persuading them. FWIW OD Fellowship is also in the ODF Alliance. We've talked to some of the people at Google, but of course we also cannot claim credit. Cheers, Daniel. -- http://opendocumentfellowship.org The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on unreasonable men. -- George Bernard Shaw signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
[discuss] Two instances of OpenOffice on thin clients.
Hello, I'm having a problem with OpenOffice on thin clients. These are thin clients for a primary school. There are only 6 user accounts, one for each year. The head teacher really likes this idea because it is very simple (we are talking about 3 and 5 year olds here) and still gives the pupils a UI customized for their year group. The PROBLEM with this is that we have 16 users using the same account at the same time. Most programs work fine in this setup, but not OpenOffice: 1. Student 1 goes to a thin client and starts OpenOffice - no problem. 2. Student 2 goes to another thin client and starts OpenOffice. 3. Instead of student 2 seeing an OOo window, the window appears in student 1's account. I need to find a way to have OpenOffice appear on the terminal where it was called. Does anyone have any ideas? Yes, I realize that this is not the expected setup. But this setup is very darn useful for a primary school, and here we have a real life primary school head teacher asking for this setup. Cheers, Daniel. -- It's like a rainbow. Without an observer at a 23 degree angle to the light reflected a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a 23 degree to the universe. -- Zoya Boone, Red Mars - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Surprised this hasn't been on here already but.... SUN HAS OPEN SOURCED JAVA
Nicolas Mailhot wrote: Now Chad, I don't know how much efforts you've invested in OO.o in the past years, but if MS corrected today one of the small things that make you look at OO.o in the first place, would you declare Office was the best thing since sliced bread ? Knowing Chad, he probably would :) Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ ...and starting today, all passwords must contain \/_/letters, numbers, doodles, sign language and / squirrel noises. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Linux has *fewer* vulnerabilities than before.
Hello, A common argument from MS and others is that Linux only has fewer vulnerabilities because it's less popular. They argue that as Linux gets more popular, more vulnerabilities appear. The Honeynet Project (Bruce Schneier is a director) has been looking at vunerabilities in software for some time. They have found that the life expectancy of an unpatched Linux box has *increased* over time, while the Windows one has continued to decrease. http://www.honeynet.org/papers/trends/life-linux.pdf This punches a hole through the MS argument. Although there are more Linux systems today than there were before, the risk has still dropped. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ ...and starting today, all passwords must \/_/contain letters, numbers, doodles, sign / language and squirrel noises. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Who would have thought... MS doesn't want you to buy a PC without an OS.
Cor Nouws wrote: You bet .. What I wonder more: why do (nearly) all computer vendors advertise We advice Windows XP Professional Free will? Or obliged when they want to sell MsWindows on the box?? How about Designed for Microsoft Windows? Since when do you design hardware to match the software? he he. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Anyone running OOo 2.0.2 on Gnome?
I used alien to convert the .rpm packages to *tgz* not Deb. I extracted them and put the result in the /opt/ directory. I prefer this because I don't want to mix my Debian system with external RPMs. I prefer to keep my base system following the Debian release and put anything from outside in the /opt/ directory. So I have a clean separation between what comes with my distribution and what I added separately. Cheers, Daniel. Phillip Pare wrote: Hi Did you manage to get .deb packages for OOo 2.0.2. If so where? If not, what was the alien command that you used to convert the rpm packages to .deb? Phillip -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: OPENOFFICE CALC
Henrik Sundberg wrote: I think it is strange to be this pedantic about 0^0, and not care about math at all when it comes to normal cases like this. Are we looking for compatibility with Microsoft or math? I am a mathematecian, and not exactly a Microsoft fan. So I'll vote for math of course (and I can get very pedantic about this). Though, in the case of 0^0 math doesn't provide an unambiguous answer because in the strictest sense 0^0 doesn't make sense. In some (not all) instances it is convenient (not required) to define it (notice, a definition) as 1. I think that defining it as 1 for Calc will hurt more people than defining it as an error. One alternative is: If a cell ever gets 0^0 Calc makes it 1 the way you want, but the user gets a pop-up warning him of this fact. And possibly giving him the option of changing that behaviour, or not show the warning again (like Firefox does with encrypted sites). Best, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] OPENOFFICE CALC
Simon Hogg wrote: Actually this is not a bug, any number[1] raised to the power zero is 1. Simon [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponentiation#Exponents_one_and_zero Wikipedia is not an authority on mathematics :) I think that 0^0 should be an error. You won't reach a conclusion using single-variable calculus because: a^0 = 1 for all a 0 but 0^x = 0 for all x 0 So look at it from a vector calculus POV. Define the bi-variate function: f(x,y) = y^x You want to find the limit of f(x,y) as the point (x,y) approaches the origin. This limit does not exist because the limit along the x axis (y = 0) does not equal the limit along the y axis (x = 0). 0^0 should give an error. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] OPENOFFICE CALC
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Daniel, actually you're right, zero to the power of zero may not be one, but IT IS DEFINED to be one, so the calculation is correct. This definition was made to circumvent a singularity problem. It might be. Mathemtecians do make weird definitions some times. But doyou have a reference for that definition? (one that can be considered somewhat authoritative). I don't see how one can justify removing a singularity when the limits point in different directions. It's not like when you define 0! to be one. In the case of 0!, one is the only number that would make the formula for combinations work, so the definition is sensible. But with x^y both 0 and 1 are equally valid definitions. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] OPENOFFICE CALC
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This definition is not weired at all! if you calculate lim x^x x- 0 you get 1 try to calculate by hand (or use calc) 0.1^0.1 0.01^0.01 0.001^0.001 see? converging to one! That's a very limited case. It is true that f(x)^g(x) converges to 1 if f and g are analytic and they converge to 0. But why do you assume that we are talking aobut a single variable case when you have two components? The bi-variate function f(x,y) = x^y does *NOT* converge to 1 as (x,y) goes to (0,0). Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Tutorial for kids?
Hello Jost, Take a look at this site: http://theingots.org/www/content.php?page=resources Disclaimer: I work for this company. Scroll down a bit and download Bronze INGOT Lessons. Notice, this document is not intended for the kid but rather the teacher instructing the kid (ie. it's for you). If your child can complete this level of competence, he can be rewarded with a Bronze INGOT certifice that he can hang on his wall. The Bronze INGOT is designed so that anyone can achieve it if they just put a little bit of effort (~10 hours max). It's great for introducing kids (or adults) to computers. They receive a reward relatively early, so they can be encouraged to keep learning. Cheers, Daniel. Jost Ammon wrote: My oldest is now starting to explore the more useful features of the computer and took an interest in writing and calculating. I can coach a bit here and there but would like the idea of having a sort of tutorial in which kids can explore the software and train a bit the way it behaves. Is there anything out there? Thanks, Jost - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Tutorial for kids?
Alexandro wrote: There was this tutorial for kids: http://so4k.kippdata.de/ What tutorial? This is an application that runs on top of StarOffice. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Google to buy Sun
Chad Smith wrote: I would think that Google would have some interest in ODF taking off simply because it would be easier to parse and index than doc. That maybe true - but I doubt it's easier to parse than MSO 2003 XML or the next version. I mean, XML is XML. Saying XML is XML is stupid. There are VAST differences between XHTML, DocBook, OpenDocument and SVG, although all are XML. Of those, OpenDocument is vastly more useful for a search engine. As for MS XML vs OpenDocument, I think OpenDocument is much easier to parse. The MS XML format is quite convoluted, and OpenDocument is quite straight forward. I think it would be because success for ODF means failure for MSO. Last year you said that OpenDocument was irrelevant to MSO :) Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Google to buy Sun
Chad Smith wrote: The point is - I doubt the difference will matter to Google's search. They can already search docs - so I doubt searching has much to do with it. The advantage of OpenDocument from a search engine's point of view is that it allows more scemantics. You can search for documents titled Finnance with the text Travel written by Daniel with at least one edit by Chad that hasn't been updated since January. Okay, that specific example is not interesting, but I'm sure Google can think of a way to put those scemantics to good use. And future versions of OpenDocument will allow arbitrary scemantics (using RDF). There's not much of a point in discussing this anyway. Google hasn't said they prefer ODF to DOC or MSOXML - we're just assuming they do. Google has shown at least some interest in OpenDocument (e.g. they went to the ODF meeting from IBM, they contribute at OOo, etc). Plus, they are Microsoft's competitor. What I mean is ODF is a bad thing for MSO - not the total death of. I think that ODF will break Microsoft's monopoly and create a more level playing field. Think of dominos. Think of the first crack in a damm. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Google Acquires Writerly
Chad Smith wrote: Coolness. Writely is neat. I wonder if they'll buy iRows next? http://www.irows.com/ I'd rather they buy WikiCalc. The guy guy who is making WikiCalc (Dan Bricklin of VisiCalc fame) is in the OASIS OpenDocument committee, working on the formula specification. So you can bet that VisiCalc will support OpenDocument. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Google Acquires Writerly
Chad Smith wrote: Is there a link to this WikiCalc? Wikipedia knows all things :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiCalc And so does Google :) http://www.google.ca/search?hl=enq=wikiCalcbtnG=Google+Searchmeta= The current home page is Dan's blog: http://www.softwaregarden.com/wkcalpha Newsforge has a review http://internet.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/03/02/1931216tid=13 Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Google Acquires Writerly
Chad Smith wrote: WikiCalc is not very pretty looking. I like the way it looks :) And it's still in alpha. There's no live online version from any of your links. One possible drawback of WikiCalc is that it's open source. Anyone can download it and setup their own. Maybe Google could contribute to WikiCalc and then use it to setup their own system. Whether Google prefers WikiCalc or iRows depends on whether Google prefers to promote OpenDocument or get a userbase. I suspect the latter. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Google Acquires Writerly
Chad Smith wrote: As do I. OpenDocument has little to do with Google's business plan. OpenDocument is bad for Microsoft. Anything that is bad for Microsoft is good for Google. But yes, a customer base is probably more important to Google than OpenDocument support. Especially since it's probably easier to get OpenDocument support later than it is to get customers later. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Digg Story: More Evidence That Google Is Buying Sun?
Neither Sun nor Google have enough money to buy the other. The two companies have similar revenue ($11b for Sun, $6b for Google). If Google *did* have enough revenue, it doesn't seem right to buy a company with decreasing revenue. Also, Sun's business model is diametrically opposite to Google's. Cheers, Daniel. Chad Smith wrote: Google might be buying Sun. http://digg.com/links/More_Evidence_That_Google_Is_Buying_Sun_ --- More Evidence That Google Is Buying Sun? A recent e-mail from a Sun exec states Possibly True over Google buyout of Sun. What do you all think of this? What would this mean for OpenOffice.org? -- - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ http://www.whatisopenoffice.org/ Because everyone loves free software! http://www.chadwsmith.com/ Because, admit it, you've got nothing better to do right now... -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Digg Story: More Evidence That Google Is Buying Sun?
Chad Smith wrote: Did you read the article - or just reply based on the title? Why I just replied to your email of course. Is it a humour article? Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Digg Story: More Evidence That Google Is Buying Sun?
Rod Engelsman wrote: Also, Sun's business model is diametrically opposite to Google's. I'm not sure what you mean here. I mean that they are at opposite ends of the IT spectrum. Google makes money by providing free web services and selling advertising space. Sun makes money by selling SPARC hardware and invests in software only incidentally to help it sell more SPARC. It seems to me that Sun's main business is providing the kind of equipment that is central to Google's business model. Maybe they see a possible synergy. Actually no, Google doesn't run on SPARC hardware, it uses x86. It also doesn't run on Solaris, it runs on Linux. And not even the same Linux distro that Sun likes. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Digg Story: More Evidence That Google Is Buying Sun?
Chad Smith wrote: No - it's not a humor article - it's a serious article. There is reason to believe that Google wants to buy Sun. There are ways that Sun would add to Google's Business plan. Both are already working together. Both are competitors of Microsoft. Both are working with OpenOffice.org. And many other reasons outlined in the article. When I email a short post with a link - the link is there for a reason. The link didn't have an article that I could see. On a second look, that page has a link to another article. Ok, I just read that other article. I don't really see anything in it besides gossip. It says that judging from an email that might have come from (perhaps) a Sun employee, it is possible that at least one employee is Sun has especulated that Google might be thinking of buying Sun. Phaw! Obviously I don't know if Google wants to buy Sun, but either way, I still say that this article is very lacking. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Google Acquires Writerly
Chad Smith wrote: Wikicalc is vaporware. There's nowhere I can go signup and log in. I can download an alpha-prerelease WikiCalc is not a service, it's a product that runs on a server. I could setup WikiCalc on the OpenDocument Fellowship website for example. If Google wanted a downloadable office suite - they'd use OpenOffice.org. Surely you are not that daft Chad. WikiCalc is a product that runs on a server and serves web pages. OOo doesn't do that. Anyone with the skill can use WikiCalc to setup a web-based spreadsheet. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Microsoft WORKS compatibility or plugin
Hello Fred, No sorry, we can't open MS works files. The files are completely different and as usual, Microsoft won't tell us how the files work. Note: Even Microsoft Office doesn't support MS works files. It's bad when a company is not compatible with its own products. Your best bet is probably to save the files as RTF (Rich Text Format) and open the RTF file in OpenOffice. Cheers, Daniel. Fred McCoy wrote: Hi, and thanks for the open office program! A friend of mine and I are hoping the open office program is compatible with ms works files. if not, could a plugin be created? Just asking. Thanks. Fred McCoy. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ A life? Sounds great! \/_/Do you know where I could download one? / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] What if Microsoft went out and bought OpenOffice.org ...
Robert Derman wrote: As I understand it, the way that OOo is licensed, if Sun were to be bought out or driven out of business, OOo would simply end up being forked and would continue on without Sun. It would probably end up becoming a foundation with independent developers continuing its development. OOo has grown and developed to the point where I don't think that there is anything that M$ could do to stop it short of open sourcing M$ Office. If MS bought Sun they could tell 80% of OOo volunteers to work on something else. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itself? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] What if Microsoft went out and bought OpenOffice.org ...
Daniel Carrera wrote: If MS bought Sun they could tell 80% of OOo volunteers to work on something else. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I meant to say developers. That's why I shouldn't do 5 things at once. If MS bought Sun they could tell 80% of OOo developers to work on something else. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itself? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Web Office Suite: best of breed products
Alexandro Colorado wrote: Thin Clients will greatly welcome an office suite. Thin clients can already use office suites. We setup a set of thin clients at a primary school a while ago and they're running OOo. Also a web-centric office suite put much more push towards intgretation, Why? And why is that desirable? live content, webservices, accesibility on different platforms, and well all the things that so far blogs have done to on-line content. Blogs are cool, but no company uses them for mission-critical content. Google Office would be cool. But I doubt any company would accept the risks associated with having your documents and software off the premises (e.g. if the internet goes down your company is paralized). Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itself? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Web Office Suite: best of breed products
Ian Lynch wrote: Like any disruptive technology, to start with most people won't but some people will put up with any inconvenience for the lower cost. As the technology improves more people will migrate (see Christensen et al for the evidence in the past). In larger companies Google could provide a cache on their LAN to get rid of any such connection problems. I can see it as a disruptive technology. Today, most businesses wouldn't accept the risk of losing their internet connection. But some day internet connections will be solid and reliable (I hope!). So Google Office may start with customers for whom losing temporary access to their documents is just an inconvenience, and then move up the ladder as internet conectivity improves. As for connection reliability, we can't work if there is a power failure but we don't use this as a reason not to become networked for power. But power fails a lot less often than the internet :) Hence, my comment above. We could have lots of batteries or a generator just in case but most people don't bother. Places where power is critical do have lots of batteries and generators though (like hospitals). Back to the example above, the reliability of electricity supply has improved to the point where it's good enough for most people, but still not for all. The same will likely happen with internet connections. Today, internet reliability is very poor. Even simple users like my mom would not find the risk acceptable. I think that, for now, OOo would likely out-compete Google Office as a primary office suite. This is not to say that a business might not buy a subscription to Google Office for some other reasons (e.g. backup). Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itself? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Web Office Suite: best of breed products
Ian Lynch wrote: You need to look for customers who won't mind not being able to access their files for one day. Why if you provide them with a backup connection? Its about £25 a month for our 2 meg ADSL connection so doubling that cost is not prohibitive. ...or go to a market where people can get a backup connection at a reasonable price. You can't guarantee kids have a computer or Internet connection at home. I was thinking of school, not home. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itself? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Web Office Suite: best of breed products
Alexandro Colorado wrote: Thin clients can already use office suites. We setup a set of thin clients at a primary school a while ago and they're running OOo. Yes and is a pain to set-up, I didn't think it was. The thin client itself might have been. But I didn't have to do any extra work to get OOo working on it. Also a web-centric office suite put much more push towards intgretation, Why? And why is that desirable? Document automatization, That sounds very buzz word compliant, but I don't know what it means. centralized storage, But I listed this as a drawback. You lose your internet connection and you lose your documents. better control of autentication, Why does a remote server give you better authentication? better collaborative scheme. Buzz word compliant, but I don't know what you mean. An example is when you switch computers to edit a document on the LAN you asume other peoples identity since authentication is installation base. Why? That's not how thin clients work. A log-in method assume authentication when you access let say, the intranet. That makes it easier to track. Also a web based intranet-extranet is more secure and mobile. Why is it more secure? It seems less secure to me. A lot less. If your laptop gets stolen you can loose all that data. I have lost internet connections many times. Some times for an extended period of time. In contrast, my laptop has never been stolen. I think that the risk of losing internet access is greater than the risk of losing your laptop. Furthermore, I can have a redundant backup on a USB key. However many people struggle mantaining their office suites lack of flexibility, they can't get any authomatization but through local scripts (macros), the management of those macros is also a pain since you need to verify which macros are secure. If someone wants to use my computer they need my login and password. What more authentication do I need? I think you are thinking on a service like Writely, while I am talking about a web app like EyeOS or PHP-Nuke where you can install on your intranet and provide it for your company from your local server. Ok. If it's installed in the local intranet, then it's not all that mobile and not any different from using thin clients. So what's the advantage then? Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itself? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Web Office Suite: best of breed products
Mathias Bauer wrote: How many people would like to do serious Office work in a browser despite all the possible problems (privacy, security, user interface deficiencies, stability, performance, latency etc.)? And reliability. What if your internet connection goes down? A Google Office would be very cool, but perhaps it wouldn't sell so well. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ /\/_/ I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for \/_/ stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels / off of everything and let the problem solve itslef? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] .wdb files
If I'm not mistaken, even Microsoft Office doesn't support Microsoft Works files. It might be quicker and easier to give your customers free copies of OpenOffice. It sure is superior to MS Works. Cheers, Daniel. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We have customers that use .wdb (Microsoft Works spreadsheet) files and it doesn't appear that Open Office can open these. Would be nice to have a translator for it. Thanks- Eric Byers AVP Specialty Lines Flying J Insurance Services Inc. 4185 Harrison Blvd Ste 201 Ogden, UT 84403 PH 800-605-1550 ext 4709 Fx 801-624-4712 [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: ODT Diff application ?
Anton Erasmus wrote: I think it is the client side that need to support it. The big thing is that with odt file support, one can generate the differences between different versions of the same document. *SIGH* No one as still answer the basic question of what exactly do you expect SVN to do that it doesn't do already. It should already version .odt files just the same way that it versions PNG and WAV files. That is, as binaries using binary diff. TortoiseSVN (a Windows subversion client) supports MS Office file quite well. One can very easily generate a file which show all the differences between the documents. i.e. where text had been deleted or inserted. How is this different from OOo's compare document feature? Grab the current file, grab the previous version, and tell OOo to compare them. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: ODT Diff application ?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Unfortunately when subversion considers a file to be a binary file, it does not seem to support a diff visible to the user. Nor would I expect it to. It /is/ after all, a binary diff. If you want to compare the files you'd use OpenOffice. A proper .odt diff should generate a diff file that shows the difference in context. What would the the advantage of getting *Subversion* to do that? The context is inside a zipped XML file that relies on other XML files in the ZIP archive to be properly interpreted. Consider a simple diff: - text:p style-name=P3This is a paragraph... + text:p style-name=P5This is a text:span style-name=C2paragraph... This is about as simple as the diff could get. And it doesn't tell you much that is useful. And what if P3 and P5 are the exact same style, and it just changed because in OOo every time you hit save it generates the styles again? Then subversion is showing you a change that is no change at all. If you want to compare ODT files you should use a different tool. I believe such a diff application for ODF documents would be quite usefull in many environments. In all honesty, I think it would not be useful at all. It'd just make the commit slower. What you want is OOo's compare documents feature. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODT Diff application ?
I don't understand this deal about Subversion supporting or not supporting .odt files. What support does it provide? Wouldn't it just treat them like general binary files? I certainly don't expect any SCM to keep patches of the XML inside the file. That would be rather difficult. Cheers, Daniel. Paul wrote: An alternative would be to request that subversion supports .odt files... /paul On 2/2/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I have just started to play with subversion and TortoiseSVN. TortoiseSVN supports diff for .DOC (MS Office) and .sxw (OOo 1) files, but not yet for .odt files. TortoiseSVN can use an external diff application. So can anyone point me to such an application. I want to put my Openoffice documents in a Subversion repository, and being able to get a diff between two versions of a document makes things much easier. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODT Diff application ?
Paul wrote: If they stored them as binary, then wouldn't be a little tricky to do a diff on the document contents. There is such thing as a binary diff. It may not be as good as a plain text diff, but what else are you going to do when you are dealing with images and sound files? I'd expect that ZIP files like .odt would be treated the same. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] import flash
Hello Pablo, No, we're not working on flash import. Your best bet is to try to open the PowerPoint file directly. Cheers, Daniel. Pablo Cerdá wrote: I’m very interested in Openoffice because I think it can be the solution to give most of my clients to the open software… I have a problem with flash. I need to import a .swf file into a slide of impress. It is a function that I have in PowerPoint and I need to use it and some of my clients too. Have impress this function?? Is possible that in the next release will be incorporated?? Thank you for your attention. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Open Office being sold on Ebay!
Hi Sarah, Actually, selling OpenOffice is not illegal. I do hope that the eBay seller makes it clear that the program can be downloaded for free. But selling it is not illegal, and not necessarily wrong. Cheers, Daniel. Sarah Barkway wrote: I wasn't sure which email address to send this to, but I hope you will be able to pass it on to whoever should be alerted. I have found your software for sale on ebay for £2.99! I'm not sure if this breaks any laws, but I thought you should be made aware of this. I have reported it to ebay and hope that they will do something about it! Kind Regards, Sarah. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] XML spreadsheets
Hello Erin, I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean... Let's see... your company is moving to a new XML file format and you would like to open those XML files in OOo. Is that what you mean? Yes, OOo 2.0 uses the OpenDocument format. That is the international open standard for office documents. It should be possible to make a filter to transform your company's XML format into OpenDocument, which OOo can read. This may be easy or hard depending on how complex your company's XML format is. I would be happy to take a look at a sample file from your company (pick something that is not confidential, or has fake data) and give you an estimate of how difficult this would be. If your company's format is not too complicated, I and others might be able to develop this filter for you. I can't promise anything because I am already occupied making a filter to turn DocBook files into OpenDocument. (DocBook is another XML format). I work at the OpenDocument Fellowship. That's a volunteer project trying to promote the OpenDocument format. We have a good team of developers, and helping a company use OpenDocument clearly fits our mandate :) http://opendocumentfellowship.org Your email also says Another feature is the ability to update the tabel with a few clicks. I don't know what you mean here. Cheers, Daniel. Erin McLaughlin wrote: Years ago I was introduced to Open Office through my company using the program for a project render files to PDF. Since then, I have used Open Office to accomplish work that MS Office could not do easily. My company has a new program that manages work and stores that information in XML data files. I am able to view data in those files in a table format using MS Excel. Looking through all the information regarding OOo 2.0, I see the files are stored in OOo as XML, but I have not found a way read it in a table format. Another feature of the XML is the ability to update the table with a few clicks. If there is something I am missing, please let me know. I can also be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you, Erin McLaughlin -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODT becomes ZIP on download in Windows XP Pro SP2
Jean Hollis Weber wrote: http://opendocumentfellowship.org/Resources/ForWebmasters I guess I'd better get to work and fix that on the Friends of OpenDocument Inc's website. :-) I must say that if it's that easy to fix a server to deal with ODT files correctly, the one website that should get it right is the OpenOffice.org website itself. Someone should put the boot up Sun to fix this! Or is there some other problem with Collabnet that makes it too hard? No, the fix is trivial (like the link above shows). They just haven't taken the time to do it. Maybe they just haven't thought about it. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODT becomes ZIP on download in Windows XP Pro SP2
Jean Hollis Weber wrote: I just fixed three websites using the .htaccess file method given on the ODFellowship's page that Daniel mentioned in an earlier note: http://opendocumentfellowship.org/Resources/ForWebmasters This took about 2 minutes by FTP. Of course it can only be done by someone with the permissions to FTP a file to the right place on a server. I just updated that page, thanks to some feedback from Jean. Hopefully the process is now clear for people who don't know Apache. My next move is to write to my webhosting company and suggest that they add the rules to their global Apache config file so that all their customers' websites would work properly with OpenDocument... part of the campaign for removing obstacles. Hmmm... we could do a campaign targeting the largest hosting services. We could also target FOSS, since those would be easier to convince. SourceForge alone would cover most FOSS project sites. FSF/GNU, Gnome, KDE and OpenOffice.org would be good too. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODT becomes ZIP on download in Windows XP Pro SP2
Jean Hollis Weber wrote: I'm running WinXP Pro SP2. I don't normally use IE but I fired it up to test this, and I do not see this behaviour. When I download a .odt file using IE6, it comes down with the correct extension. You downloaded it from the OpenDocument Fellowship website, which is not a typical website when it comes to OpenDocument support. I added an Apache rule to make it send the correct mime type. I suspect that if you use a different website (e.g. OOoAuthors, FoOD) you might reproduce the problem. Don't try on the INGOTs website. I set the same Apache rule there. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODT becomes ZIP on download in Windows XP Pro SP2
Jean Hollis Weber wrote: You're right. I'm always right :) j From the FoOD website, or indeed the OpenOffice.org website, the file extension gets changed to .zip by IE. It's a combination of lack of support at the server and the client. Apache doesn't know what an ODF file is so it calls it binary. IE looks at it and decides it's a ZIP file, so it changes the extension. Okay, I guess I have confirmed the problem, but I have no idea what to do about it. Sorry I can't help, folks! Two solutions: 1. Fix the client (e.g. install Firefox). 2. Fix the server (i.e. update the Apache rules). The OpenDocument Fellowship has the Apache rules you need to support ODF at your server, along with instructions: http://opendocumentfellowship.org/Resources/ForWebmasters Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Advice
Hello, I once wrote a macro to provide readability statistics. But honestly, those things are not reliable and you should only take them with a grain of sand. They are even worse than a grammar check. Readability statistics only measure if the length of words and sentences. They can't possibly know if your argument is convoluted, or unclear. Cheers, Daniel. Marius Popa wrote: Hello! My name is Marius Popa, I am from Romania, and I want to give you an advice, namely to add Readability statistics as in Microsoft Office. It will help you make the program better. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Short list with Pro's Cons
Mathias Bauer wrote: (2) The completeness of the API doesn't depend on the programmming language. I think you wanted to express something different. Could you please elaborate? No, what I meant is that, last time I checked, PyUNO didn't implement the entire API. Or at least, that's what I heard. If you compare OOo to MSO: I doubt that the OOo API is much harder to learn, maybe harder to start diving in. I don't know MSO, so I can't say. But I thought other people had said that the OOo API was much more difficult because it was more granular. So, on the one hand it gives you more power, but on the other, it's a lot harder to learn and use. Like I said, this is just what I've heard. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/Intolerant people should be shot on the spot / :) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] contributing to ODF (WAS Re: [discuss] Re: discuss Digest 22 Jan 2006 12:57:35 -0000 Issue 2025)
Charles-H.Schulz wrote: Of course I think it is. Why shouldn't I ? The fact that the ultimate interests of OpenOffice.org as a project and a community do not match the one of the fellowship and even the one of the ODF community itself are not that much of a problem. At some point we're all in the same ship, and we could assume we're somewhere near Norway. The next stop is Rio de Janeiro. Others will get off the ship at Cape Town, and other stops are scheduled. We can certainly agree to work and live together at least for the Norway - Rio part of the trip... :-) Anyone is free to join [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ditto for any other project list (though 'devel' is the one with most activity). Yes, but you need to be subscribed in one way or another to read the archives. I'm not comfortable with this but that is a personal opinion. Actually, that's not true. The problem is simply that our mailing list software sucks (ezmlm) and we just don't have browsable archives at all. There /are/ archives, but you have to send a strange email to ezmlm, something like: [EMAIL PROTECTED] And that sends you a package with emails 100 to 200 as one file :( This is not restricted in any way. It sucks for everyone. The solution is to switch to another list manager, and we're planing to do that. We have a new server, and we're planing to use GNU Mailman in the future. And you cannot become member of that community without being somewhat coopted too, judging by what the site states. I'm not sure what you mean by coopted. And it depends on what you mean by member. If you mean, being an active participant, there is no requirement. Just join the list. We do have a type of voting membership (we have votes in rare occassions). For this, we copied the rules of the Debian project, and simplified them. You need a nominator and a seconder, and the ODF committee then votes. Quite similar to Debian, except it's faster and easier (Debian calls it advocate, and the nominee has to pass a series of tests before joining). The main benefit of voting membership is the ability to vote on the semi-annual election of the ODF committee. The ODF committee is composed of 6 members, with 1-year positions. Every 6 months we elect half of the committee. The ODF committee only has a very few powers, nothing like the OOo council. Almost every decision at ODF is made informally on list. There was only one time the ODF committee had to convene, and that was to decide some organizational rules, and discuss the (then) upcoming ODF Summit. ODF committee meetings are open to all voting members to attend. That one meeting included two regular members as observers. Thanks for the invitation. No problem :) Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/Intolerant people should be shot on the spot / :) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: discuss Digest 22 Jan 2006 12:57:35 -0000 Issue 2025
Charles-H.Schulz wrote: The so-called ODF fellowship is an interesting place, but is one part of the the OpenDocument Format community. I'm glad you think our work is interesting. The OpenDocument community (interesting term) is vast. It includes several large companies, several open source projects, etc. And besides, their lists are not publicly readable. Anyone is free to join [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ditto for any other project list (though 'devel' is the one with most activity). Please feel free to join. Are you interested in contributing? We're working on XSLT transformations, a Firefox plugin, a library and other things. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] ODF question
Hey, None of those things are strictly necessary. You just won't be able to know for certain that the file you're receiving is a valid .odt file. I'm not 100% sure about the character entities, but I don't think you need those either. If you want to develop for ODF, I suggest you come to the OpenDocument Fellowship developers list. We have a very strong team of experts (6 OASIS TC members and about another 5 active experts). I can't think of a better place to get ODF questions answered. To subscribe, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cheers, Daniel. Wesley Parish wrote: A few days ago I muttered something about writing a miniature office suite - provisionally labelled Office Miniatures, so now you know! ;) - suitable for handhelds, etc, and using the ODF file format. I've got a question about the ODF format resulting from that - I was wondering if anyone knows enough to give me some help. The XML library that is built small enough for my intentions happens to be LlamaXML and to quote: http://www.llamagraphics.com/LlamaXML/ In order to keep the library small enough for handheld applications, LlamaXML does not provide XML validation, XML Schemas, Document Type Definitions (DTD), and MoveToAttribute methods (Use GetAttribute instead). There is also no support for external entities. LlamaXML only supports the basic four named character entities, which are quot;, lt;, gt;, and amp;. Now, are those details - XML validation, Document Type Definitions, etc - necessary for ODF? I know XML Schemas are, so I expect I'll be working out how to get that supported. But the rest? Thanks Wesley Parish -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Mathias Bauer wrote: The dependency on an X-Server is indeed annoying and we hope that in a not so far future we can drop it at least for parts of the API (others then will refuse to work). But this is not an official goal that is worked on permanently, just something we keep in mind when we are changing something in the architecture for other reasons. Certainly. After all, OpenOffice.org is supposed to be an office suite, not a server back-end. So you expect OOo to require X. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Chuck wrote: Following are in order of most to least significant. Pros . Free . Reads and writes MS Office file formats . Short learning curve for those coming from MS Office That's very sad. It makes it sound like a free MS Office rip-off. No wonder people see OOo just like that. How about this: * Cross platform. Run it on Windows or Linux. * Uses OpenDocument natively, so your data is secure. * Higher reliability. You're less likely to lose a document. * Features that work. Consider styles, master documents and templates. * Includes a vector graphics application (MS Office does not). * Superior integration. Open a WP file from your spread sheet. Draw an image on Draw and paste it on Writer. The last two things you said are not features. They are counter arguments for people who might be afraid of using OOo. Selling them as features makes OOo look bad (because both are things that MS Office obviously does better). If you want to make it a feature, say this: * Opens your old MS Office files *better* than MS Office. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Chad Smith wrote: I wouldn't say those pros make it sound like a cheap MS rip-off, those are the 3 most important reasons most people use OOo. Take away any one of those, and you'll lose a large part of our user-base. They are important, but if that's your list, it really does make it sound like a cheap MS rip-off. * Uses OpenDocument natively, so your data is secure. Very few people care about this (as has been discussed at great length) and is hardly a selling point for OOo. It depends on who you are. Some large customers care a lot. If you don't have any document older than a week old and none of your documents is critical, then I guess this isn't an issue for you. * Higher reliability. You're less likely to lose a document. Explain what you mean by that - not just for me, but for the OP and other readers. An zip compressed XML file (like ODF) is significantly less prone to failure than a binary dump (like .doc). First, XML files are well structured with defined schemas. One upshot of that is that you can lose a fair bit of structural data and still rebuild the entire document without loss. For example, take this document: addressbook contact firstJoe/first lastSmith/last phone123-456-7890/phone ... /contact ... /addressbook Now, let's introduce a file corruption: addressbook [EMAIL PROTECTED] firstJoe/first lastSmith/last pho--34123-456-7890/ ... /contact ... /addebk This is a fairly severe data corruption. A lot of bytes have been lost. Yet, you can use the XML schema to reconstruct all the lost data. If an equivalent corruption had occurred on a binary dump, the entire document would be lost because you would have lost the top-level pointer (addressbook) that leads you to the rest of the document. Compressing the XML into a ZIP file does negate some of the advantage, but not very much. ZIP compression is designed to be resilient. A corrupt ZIP file can usually be reconstructed automatically with little or no loss of data. And when you apply the XML schema to whatever you get back, you can usually correct whatever the ZIP algorithm couldn't. * Features that work. Consider styles, master documents and templates. Templates? Um, if you're comparing OOo to MSO (as I believe this thread is meant to do) templates would be a pro for MSO and a con for OOo - there are thousands, There are very few OOo templates, and that's a con for OOo, no doubt. But here I was talking about reliability. For example, no one uses MS Office master documents because the damm things just don't work. Someone (I forget who) one said a master document can only be in two states: corrupt, and about to be corrupt. OOo master documents are significantly more reliable. OOoAuthors uses master documents on every book we produce and they work. * Includes a vector graphics application (MS Office does not). Visio does that, but it doesn't come with MSO proper. Correct, it's not part of MSO. We're comparing with MSO. You can copy and paste from one MSO app to the next. You can open Word Docs as objects in Excel, or Excel spreadsheets in PowerPoint. I'd say OOo and MSO tie there. Not really. OOo is a single app with a common format. You might think that .odt, .ods, etc are different formats, but they really are just one. The extension is really for your benefit, nothing more. This same property holds for OOo internally. Included one-button PDFs from any file Easy task switching Flash Export of presentations Can be used along side of existing software No registration or activitation required (no legal issues, can be put on any number of machines) Included Vector graphics program Resistant to macro-based viruses Those are good additions. I removed things that, though important, are not what I'd call features in the sense of OOo has this and MSO does not. I don't know what you mean by easy task switching. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Jeff Causey wrote: All that is true and sways the technical folks and power users, but I rather suspect for your typical business person (who is the target of Cor's project), you probably lost them after An zip compressed XML file... I don't expect a typical business person to understand the technical details. But it is still true that OpenDocument files are much more reliable and that's something most business people care about. If higher reliability can be articulated in terms of a sentence/bullet point, you might have something useful to add to the list. Sigh... the *first* email I wrote had a single, short bullet point. I only added a technical explanation when someone asked me for one. Hmm, I've used MSO's master documents successfully for several years. So making a statement like that has the potential to destroy credibility if presented to someone who uses MSO's master documents. The question in my mind is, how are OO's master documents more reliable? Is there something about the app that makes them work better/easier to work with? MSO master documents get corrupted very easily. They break easily. OOo's don't as much.f I'll reiterate my point about styles in OO as well - MSO has the same capability. The one selling point about styles I think OO can make is page styles. Page styles matter. Does MSO have a Navigator and Stylist? Does it use styles natively? (styles are so central to OOo you cannot avoid using them - even when you think you're not using styles, OOo is making styles dynamically for you) OK, but this still does not change the point that you can copy and paste between the apps in MSO and OO. e.g. There is a Window menu that lists all your OOo windows regardless of whether they are a WP, spread sheet, etc. I'd ask as well what easy task switching refers to? Ask Chad. Please don't quote Chad's list as if it were mine. That's rude. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Chad Smith wrote: Easy task switching refers to the ability to open Calc from within Writer, or to open Draw from within Impress. The drop-down menu in the top left corner of the toolbars of each component of OOo lets the user open whatever program he needs at the time. I don't think Word can open Excel or PowerPoint - at least not nearly as easily. It goes back to them all really being different modes of the same program. But it's really convenient. Much more convenient than the old [MS] Office Task Bar or whatever that thing was called. Ah. Yes. I think this is a good feature. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Jeff Causey wrote: The problem I am trying to anticipate is the business person who responds, Doesn't MSO use XML files now? What about their new Office XML formats? 1) Doesn't MSO use XML files now? No, not yet. But next version will. 2) What about their new Office XML formats. They have the same resistance to corruption that I described for ODF files. That's not surprising since the Office XML format is obviously Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, this comes from Microsoft and can be found here: No reason we can't edit that list a little to make it fit OOo. We can match and improve all of those points. MSO master documents get corrupted very easily. They break easily. OOo's don't as much. Do you have any data to back up your opinion that MSO master documents get corrupted or break easily? Expert opinion from a technical editor of 30 years. IIRC, MSO does not have the equivalent of the Navigator. But then, I don't use it in OO either. It doesn't I'm sure. As for the Stylist, I think the equivalent would be the task pane showing styles in MS Word. That doesn't show you character, frame, page and list styles. From my understanding of what a task pane is, I'm not sure it has all the other features that the Stylist has. e.g. There is a Window menu that lists all your OOo windows regardless of whether they are a WP, spread sheet, etc. I'm sorry Daniel, but you've lost me. Look at your OOo window. Look at the menu bar at the top. There is a menu called Window. Click on it and see what's in it. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Chuck wrote: In all seriousness, when was the last time you experienced corruption in a compressed document? About 3 times in the last 2 years. One of those times was when I rescued a year's work for an Italian author. He was writing a book. I've seen it happen more than 3 times with MS Office, and in those cases the file was just lost. Whether this is an issue depends on the user. If you have complex documents you have a higher risk. If your documents must be around for a long time (e.g. contracts, or say you're a lawyer, archivist or government body) or your files are very critical, this issue matters. This is part of why Boeing was active in developing the OpenDocument format. They have a lot of complex documents that must retain full precision for a long time (the specs for a 747 would not fit on seven 747s). Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Chad Smith wrote: Microsoft Office 2003 has an XML format, (and has for 3 years). It's a different format than the one they are planning to use in the next version of MSO, but it is XML. It's not the default though. And that format is dead. It won't be supported in future versions. It wasn't really more than an experiment. Is obviously what? I don't see the rest of that sentence. Did it get cut off somehow? Oops. I began writing something, then started deletting, and forgot to finish composing that sentence. The MS Office format is largely derivative of OpenDocument. I probably shouldn't say obviously because that's only obvious to someone familiar with the format. If you were going to say obviously a copycat of OpenOffice.org I'd find that ironic when you say in the same email... No reason we can't edit that list a little to make it fit OOo. We can It's not always wrong to be a copycat. The fact that MS Office's format is a copycat of OpenDocument is not wrong. Using compressed XML files is a good design decision and you shouldn't do something else just to be different (the NIH syndrome). The MS Office format would be even better if it copied more from OpenDocument. It should be a JAR archive (like ODF) and it should reuse existing standards (like ODF). In fact... I wish MS Office would copy *everything* from ODF :) I think learning from your competition is an excellent way to grow. I mean, look at the success MS has had copying Apple. /daniel can't believe he agreed with Chad on something Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Jeff Causey wrote: I think that could be persuasive if they are willing to put their name to that and they have sufficient name recognition. Jean Hollis weber. Yes, in tech writer circles her has good recognition. Her most recent book got the highest awards in the Australia Tech Writers competition (distinction and best of show). Bruce's email should convince you. It doesn't I'm sure. According to the article I referenced by Bruce Byfield, the Navigator equivalent in Writer is the Outline View. He seemed to think Word's implementation was superior. My understanding is that they are different things. I'll let Bruce comment though. OK, I see what you are saying now. I'd probably classify that as a benefit like easier navigation between documents That benefit is a by-product of integration. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Short list with Pro's Cons
Daniel Kasak wrote: Also, the basic editor / debugger leaves a lot to be desired. There's no code-completion support, for example, which makes learning the language and objects quite an uphill battle. In fact, you'd have to be pretty keen to stick with it long enough to learn. I've done some small OOBasic scripts, and I don't look forward to the next one I have to do ... I know what you mean. I've written a few OOo macros but didn't get very far. The OOo API is complex and the documentation for it is very hard to read. I was about to say that things would be better if OOo used a known language like Ruby or Python, but on a second thought, that wouldn't help so much. The biggest problem is a complex API. It'd be better if someone wrote a library to simplify common tasks. Ian Laurenson has a wiki with such functions. Those would be a good start. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Enrique Castro wrote: What about the -headless mode? It still requires X. By invoking OOo from commandline with -headless will be possible to run a macro _without_ X being up and running? (but perhaps installed) It certainly has to be installed. And there's no good reason why a server should have X installed. Arend Beelen (ODF) tried that approach. Here's a bit of his email: quote First of all, there's no way to get OpenOffice.org to run on a Linux server without having X installed. So, I started by loading a huge load of crap on my server, just to satisfy OpenOffice.org. When I had done that I tried using the command line interface of OOo which wouldn't work because it couldn't connect to the X screen (why it really wants to connect to X when running on the command-line, even with the headless option, is beyond me). I read somewhere this could be solved by running a VNC X server and let OOo connect to that, but that was basically the point where I thought getting it to work would be more trouble than it was worth. /quote Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Enrique Castro wrote: HTMLDoc? It is included in several linux distributions Homepage is http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/ There is a GPL license option Thanks. We've been discussing this on the ODF developers list. And although it would be easier to convert HTML-PDF, we decided it wouldn't be worth doing because you lose too much information when you convert to HTML. We're now exploring other ways to convert ODF to PDF. Every method has disadvantages, but it looks like we're leaning towards using XSLT to make an XSL-FO and then use Apache's FOP to make the PDF. An advantage of this approach is that we'd also get an ODF viewer for free. The final package would be about 5.6MB which, though not fantastic, is a lot better than 300MB for OOo2. If you're interested in the discuss, please join the ODF-devel list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Daniel Carrera wrote: 1. Even when run headless, OOo needs X to install. Yes, even if you use API calls. This is an *installation* requirement. 2. Even when run headless, OOo needs X to run. Even if it doesn't actually display a GUI. 3. Even if the above changed, OOo alone is still a huge dependency. For further clarification: The project in question is the Aukyla document management system. * Aukyla is 430KB installed. * OOo2 is 200-300MB installed. * X is 40MB installed. Making OOo2 and X a dependency for Aukyla just so Aukyla can manipulate OpenDocument files is not reasonable. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Enrique Castro wrote: I understand your point. Ok. If using OOo headless is *possible* just now on a server without X running, then this opens a possibility to set up a document converter server just now. Yes. I thought the topic was whether or not Aukyla should use OOo to manage ODF files. So that's what I was responding to. Más vale pájaro en mano... , que cliente en otra consultoría Heh :) Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Hello Markus, Thus my question: Is there a tool or a method which allows me to render ODT on the commandline? The tool should not require graphical output since it is meant to run on a system without an X-server (graphical engine) OOo is not working on such a tool, but the OpenDocument Fellowship is doing something that *might* lead to such a tool. The missing component would be an HTML-PDF convertor. One of our members has been working on an XSLT transformation to turn ODT files into HTML. It's already well advanced. So, if we can find a tool that converts HTML to PDF, we could combine them. Do you know of any program to convert HTML to PDF? Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Henrik Sundberg wrote: Perhaps I misunderstand the question completely. I expect it to be easy to create a macro that exports a document in PDF format. I don't know how easy it is. The OOo API is not exactly straight forward. But even if it's not hard, it would make OOo a dependency. Would you want a command-line tool to have a 300MB dependency? (all this assuming that OOo doesn't require an X server if you provide the -invisible option). Command-line programs are expected to be small, light, and usually pipelinable. All of these would be hard to accomplish using OOo marcos. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] commandline tool: render ODT into PS or PDF
Daniel Carrera wrote: I don't know how easy it is. The OOo API is not exactly straight forward. But even if it's not hard, it would make OOo a dependency. Would you want a command-line tool to have a 300MB dependency? (all this assuming that OOo doesn't require an X server if you provide the -invisible option). One of the ODF developers has just confirmed that you can't run OOo without X. He tried the approach of using OOo2 as a back-end and failed. Because OOo requires a lot of things that have no place on a server (like X). Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Cert report on operating system vulenablities...
John Thompson wrote: Sure. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the *nix vulnerability total includes entries for all flavors of *nix, and dozens of linux distributions. May are seen to be duplicates -- i.e. a specific vulnerability will be listed and counted separately for Solaris, AIX, *BSD, and all the various linux distributions even though it is the same vulnerability and fixed by the same source patch. And the number of critical vulnerabilities in *nix is still lower than for Win. In addition, vulnerabilities in Firefox, Apache, PHP and other cross-platform software is counted as *nix vulnerabilities but not a Windows vulnerability. So, if Firefox has one vulnerability, it counts as 10 vulnerabilities for *nix and and 0 for Windows. Kind of unfair, don't you think? Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Review of OOo in redOrbit
Lars D. Noodén wrote: To put a different spin on it, one we could promote, is that OpenDocument is probably as widely supported, if not more so, if one counts the different applications supporting it. OpenDocument also has a larger market share tan MOOX. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Norwegian article on school software licensing
Chad Smith wrote: 2a) MS Office can run on a Mac You miss the point. You have to pay for the software regardless of whether you have it on your computer or not. You have to pay for machines that have *no* MS software on them. This has a huge lock-in effect. 3) These type of agreements can, and usually do, in fact, save the schools money. I see you're good and copying and pasting from Microsoft's website. This agreement only saves you money if you use 100% Microsoft software, which takes us back to the lock-in factor. It makes it *VERY* difficult to switch to something else. Second, this agreement is *ILLEGAL*. Do you condone breaking the law? What's your experience in the education sector? Here we have other people who have been managing or auditing schools for living about as long as you've been around. Consider their experience. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Norwegian article on school software licensing
Chad Smith wrote: I never denied the lock-in factor. Okay, I'm glad you see that. The point I was trying to make, though, is the school has a legal right to install MSO on all their computers. But that's not the point of discussion. This is not what makes the agreement illegal or wrong. Second, this agreement is *ILLEGAL*. Do you condone breaking the law? #1 - no one has proved its illegal in Norway yet. There is good reason to think that it is, because Norway is an affiliate of the EU and the agreement is known to be illegal in the EU. Indeed, the agreement is probably illegal in most countries that have a notion of an Office of Fair Trade. #2 - there are plenty of laws that I don't agree with - just because something is illegal in one country doesn't mean it's morally wrong. I've seen you argue that if something doesn't break the law it's ok. What's your experience in the education sector? Here we have other people who have been managing or auditing schools for living about as long as you've been around. Consider their experience. Consider their bias. They have spent their time trying to sell service agreements for their company I'm not aware of Ian losing money due to the school's agreement. Most of Ian's income is through consulting contracts. So I don't think Ian is biased in this regard. If they buy computers from the auditor/computer dealer, which have a free copy of OOo on there, the auditor/computer dealer gets money. Ian doesn't make money from OpenOffice installations. I, on the other hand, who do not work for Microsoft, own stock in Microsoft - OR - sell computers to schools - have nothing to gain either way. Ian has more experience than you, he doesn't own stock on MS, nor does he make money competting with MS. He makes money through consulting contracts, mostly in the UK Specialist Schools program. He does have a computer company but they focus on support contracts AFAIK. They certainly don't make money competting with MS. The other line of business is INGOTs, which again, doesn't compete with MS at all. Also I believe that computer education should be more well rounded, instead of teaching Microsoft Excel - schools should teach How to use a Spreadsheet. I feel the same way against teaching OOo Calc, btw - it should be more general, not as application-version-software specific. Please look into the INGOTs programme. It does exactly that, with good pedagogy thrown in. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Norwegian article on school software licensing
Randomthots wrote: In engineering school we were presented once with this scenario. A couple decides to build a house. So they hire an architect who draws up plans which cost them $1000. They also buy a book of house plans for $100. Finally, they sit down with pencil and paper and draw their own set of plans. The question is, Which set of plans should they use? The answer is whichever plan best fits their needs. The money has already been spent, so the cost of the plans is irrelevant at that point. But that's not the scenario schools are in. * They have already paid for MS software. * Adding FOSS software would be an additional expense, and it would have no cost savings. So they decide to go for MS. In addition, they decide to upgrade regularly. 3 years later FOSS softare has improved a lot and it is a very compelling proposition. They consider migration and find that to get out of the school agreement they are required to pay the full price for every MS product they have, including upgrades. Conclusion: lock-in factor. If the discount is 50% from street price then you could run Linux on half the machines and be no worse off. It's only when people start thinking Since they paid for it, I have to use it. that you get any lock-in effect. It's totally psychological. No it's not. If you later want to get out of the agreement you are hit with fees that are larger than the IT budget. Second, the reasoning you applied would only work if Linux was 100% free (ie. no training, no hardware, no setup). Anything that Linux costs becomes an additional cost. Compare: * You can have 100 computers with Windows for $100 * You can have 80 computers with Windows for $100 and 20 with Linux for $10. The price per computer is better for Linux (less than half) but it is still economically disadvantageous to you to use Linux. Lock-in. So if an organization is intending to use proprietary software a volume seat license makes sense, A volume seat license is not what schools agreement is. You pay per CPU regardless of what it's running. Second, this agreement is *ILLEGAL*. Do you condone breaking the law? I'm interested -- intellectually -- in what sense the agreement is illegal. In the sense that it was taken to the office of fair trade and the office of fair traide decided it was illegal. Who's breaking the law? Microsoft. An agreement is just that -- an agreement, Would you say the same about an agreement with the mafia? How about an agreement where Microsoft tells computer sellers you can only sell Windows if you don't sell any other operating system? You don't think that should be illegal? Well, it is, and Microsoft was found guilty of doing that as well. Welcome to anti-trust law. which is theoretically entered into voluntarily by both parties. In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice they are not. This is illegal because a monopoly is using its position to lock in customers and prevent competition. This behaviour is illegal. Charging people for a computer that has none of your products is also illegal. Best, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Norwegian article on school software licensing
Detlef Grittner wrote: Am Freitag, den 16.12.2005, 13:14 + schrieb Ian Lynch: In principle I beleive that Microsoft schools Agreement is illegal under uropean Law and certainly the OFT has not said otherwise. It might be worth someone in Norway starting a similar action with the Norwegian OFT if there is such a thing. Microsoft submitted 30,000 pages of evidence in the UK case so if nothing else it causes them some inconvenience. You mean European Law as in the European Union? I'm convinced the European Union wouldn't tolerate Microsoft's behavior, but Norway is not a member of the European Union. I read Ian's email as saying this is illegal under EU law, so there's a fair chance it's illegal under Noregian law. Do you really expect that Norway doesn't have an equivalent of an Office of Fair Trade? Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Joerg Barfurth wrote: Take a look at Tools-Options-Load/Save-General. There is an option 'optimize XML for size'. This option defaults to 'optimize' and iirc it was introduced in an early effort to make the file load process faster. I know about that option. I always turn it off because I like being able to read the XML. And it doesn't seem to significantly affect the file size or application speed for the documents I use (50-pages at most). Incidentally, the test I ran had this option off (I kept the white space). I'd assume that the effect of this on compressed size is limited, but certainly does affect uncompressed size. This suggests that uncompressed XML size does have a measurable effect. It'd be interesting to find out why they added that option. Whether it speeds parsing, or to improve the file size on-disk, or if (as you suggest) is to reduce the size on memmory. And that also suggests a more relvant experiment than stopping at byte counts and speculating whether or not they have a significant effect: Take the same (big) document saved with and without pretty-printing, compare their sizes and measuring the load times. Assuming that removing the white space does not provide speed gains that are unrelated to the file size. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Joerg Barfurth wrote: It'd be interesting to find out why they added that option. Whether it speeds parsing, or to improve the file size on-disk, or if (as you suggest) is to reduce the size on memmory. Huh? What do you think I suggest? I think that you suggest that the reduction in uncompressed size speeds file loading enough to be the primary reason why the Optimize XML option was added. Am I wrong? Assuming that removing the white space does not provide speed gains that are unrelated to the file size. What gains could that be? I don't know. I'll try not to hypothesize here. Nothing inmediately crosses my mind. I just said that it'd be good to find out why they added that option. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Randomthots wrote: I was speaking in general terms. Get away from ods and xml for a second and consider two files, jpegs, for example. The bigger file will take longer to process simply because it will take more cycles to work your way through it. In other words, since you can't accept that you were wrong, you are changing the question. Very much like a table structure in html. I was sort of surprised that there wasn't any indication of row or cell addresses. Add a few blank rows at the top and a few blank columns at the bottom and you will see how ODF handles that. And other than the style information, which just took on the defaults anyway, it was hard to see where the xml added much information. Again you are confusing data with data strucctures. Do you know how to program at all? Consider a two dimmensinal array versus a linked tree where each node points to a struct with several entries. Even if you store the same data in the two structures that doesn't change the nature of the structure, or the fact that parsing and navigating a tree is slower. I understand that it can have more information, but the overall architecture will be the same for any spreadsheet. It can do a lot of things CSV can't. It has types, paragraphs, styles, writing mode (e.g. left to right, top to bottom), etc. It can't delve off into 16 dimensions for example, It sort of can, actually. It can nest tables inside tables, which is equivalent to adding dimensions. Just that in one case you start with a 2 or 3 MB data file and in the other you start with a 45 MB xml, but you end up with precisely the same information content to manipulate. Now after I add a couple of formulas, pretty it up, draw a graph or two, then csv doesn't work anymore; obviously odf is capable of representing much more than csv. This still looks irrelevant to me. You don't seem to have a point. It has to if you don't write the unzipped file to disc first. Where else is it going to go? So your problem is that the file *loads* slower? Then the disk access is the bottleneck. This is what I said in one of the first emails I wrote. You didn't accept that, then. I know what n-ary trees and arrays are. I was working with them (arrays anyway) Arrays are not n-ary trees. In theory it's not necessary, but in practice most content is in the same place (content.xml) which puts a bit of a limit on how you can optimize the parsing. For example, if all you wanted was to extract the author of the document, I could write a program that could get that information lighting fast, regardless of the size of your document. But most of the time that's not what you want, you want to actually load the document contents into the application. So you finally admit that the raw XML (content.xml, which is like 99% of this file) file has to reside in memory while you build the internal data structure that the program actually uses? Please learn how to read. I talked about optimizing the parsing, not disk swapping because the tags are too big. I then talked about loading the content of the document, not the XML tags that go around it. I assure you that making XML tags smaller is a very silly optimization. What year are you in? Depends on how you count, I suppose. End of the second year of classes. I attended during the summer of '04 and I'll be done with classes in May. In the end I'll have a Master's in Telecommunications and Information Networking plus Cisco Network Professional, Wireless, and Network Security certs. Bring it on Verizon! :) Second year? Masters? I guess you mean that you finished your first degree and you are in the second year of your Masters. I never said you're stupid. I said you said some very silly things. Still unnecessary and not very nice. My goal in life is not to be nice to you. I have been more patient than I have to be answering your questions and explaining stuff you should already know. For example, Ian made a comment the other day that calendars and email don't have much to do with each other. I could have said that was silly given that Sunbird, Evolution, and Outlook all have a button or menu item that says Send Invitation by Email. You know, for people that aren't on you Ical server. But I resisted. Ooops... sorry, I guess I just did it, huh? I'm sure Ian could out-debate you on this topic :-) Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
John W. Kennedy wrote: 12/05/2005 10:49 PM69,999,781 test1.xml 12/05/2005 10:53 PM26,167,179 test1.zip 12/05/2005 11:05 PM 167,999,781 test2.xml 12/05/2005 11:09 PM28,641,918 test2.zip Clearly, the size of the tagname is fairly unimportant. Bingo. The tag names are easily-removed redundancy and are compressed away both on disk (by ZIP) and on memory (by pointers). Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Andrew Brown wrote: The website one is, I agree, difficult even to imagine, let alone to prove. As for the other crimes, they are, as you say, anti-trust violations. They were crimes, that should have been punished. But they are not the methods of organised crime, which involve violence, usually or often against family members as well as the perpetrator. Not all organized crime is violent. Anti-trust violations /are/ a crime and they are also organized. Same for money-laundry and selling drugs. So comparing Microsoft to oraganized crime seems apt. Yes, they are not violent, but they are criminals, and they are organized. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Andrew Brown wrote: Rubbish. Microsoft is on top because Bill Gates was a trust fund baby, and because he and his gang use the methods of organized crime. Nice website you got here. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. ON a mailing list filled with silly exaggerations, this is, I think, the single most ridiculous remark I have ever read. I understand that Microsoft /has/ used those methods. Though I've never heard of the website one (I can't see how that one would work). But for example, threatening to not advertise on magazines that had reviews of Netscape (cutting off a significant source of revenue) or threatening not to sell Windows to suppliers that sold competting OS's for the PC platform. These are anti-trust violations, and they were found guilty. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Randomthots wrote: I repeat, I am *not* making any ing assertion! I asked a question; a not unreasonable question. If the size of the file is 11 times bigger doesn't it make some sense that that would take longer to wade through? You see, you just made an assertion :-) As for your question, it only makes sense if you don't have a technical background. Just like someone who has never programmed before might thing that using short variable names might be a good optimization. It really is very silly. Now considering that whichever file is loaded, you end up with the same data structures in working memory, Bz wrong. An OpenDocument spreadsheet has more and more complex data structures than a CSV file. This is where you show ignorance and lose the argument. And it's not unreasonable to speculate that having a 45 MB file loaded into memory, when you don't have a lot of headroom to start with -- that's why I bought more RAM recently -- could knock you over the edge into vm swap. It's a speculation, not an assertion. But when someone with more technical background than you tells you that this is unlikely to be a significant factor you resist their input with all your might. This thread would have been a lot shorter if Daniel had said, That might be an issue in marginal cases where you run short of RAM, In other words, you'll only be satisfied if I tell you that you're right even though I'm confident you are not. Look, when you parse an XML tree and put it into RAM, you don't put the XML tags in plain text and re-copy them every time the tag appears. You use pointers to form a data structure that represents the information in the file. Constructing this data structure may be a complex operation (this is called parsing XML) depending on the complexity of the document, but it is not dependent on the size of the XML tag. Note that I haven't gotten enough information to actually make that statement and it may be completely wrong; But you'd still like me to say it... I give up; I guess I'll never find out. You might try reading a book on XML and another on compexity theory. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Randomthots wrote: That's the part where you turn into an ass. If you call me silly, I will call you an ass... Calling you silly is mild, calling me an ass is rude. That's okay though, I don't mind :) But you didn't explain anything at all. You didn't explain anything at all, I explained some. I have neither the time nor the inclination to teach you programming. I provided a computation which was sufficient to prove that the size of the XML tag coud not be the bottleneck. I don't know what the bottleneck is. But *why* is XML slow to parse? Instead of slow, let's say slower than a CSV file, since that's the test case you provided. XML has a more complex structure than a CSV file (e.g. tree structure, transversaility). OpenDocument in particular has more information than a CSV file. XML is more generic (I encourage you to learn XML and XSLT). The generality of XML, and its maleability have a performance price. I suspect that, if nothing else, the sheer size of XML files has an impact with regards to memory usage. But you present no evidence to support your claim. My evidence was all the disc thrashing I observed while FC3 choked on the problem. BTW, Windows thrashed the disc as well, but at least it didn't become completely useless in the meantime. Which is hardly an idication that the size of the tag is the culpit. You have identified that there is a problem. You have provided zero evidence to support your claim that the culpit is the size of the tag. You produced a calculation based on assumptions that may or may not hold true or even be relevant. I never claimed that the speed problem was related to the transfer of the file from the disc. I certainly hope you weren't thinking of memory. Memory is magnitudes faster than the disk. Fact is, I don't know why parsing that file is so slow, but I don't get the impression that you do either. I don't know why that file loads slow. But I'll bet you anything that making the XML tags smaller will not help. At least, your explanation didn't clear the matter up for me. It really should show that were blaming the speed problem on the wrong thing. It should make it fairly clear that the size of the XML tag is probably not the bottleneck. You insulted my intelligence and got my back up for absolutely no reason. Same to you. :-) I'm neither insulted nor put aback. I don't think you insulted my intelligence. I think you just have a hard time accepting that picking on the size of the XML tag really was a very silly thing to do. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. / - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Article: OpenDocument vs MS XML
Wesley Parish wrote: I suspect Microsoft dragged over some of their programming gurus from arcane C/C++-using projects to draft this standard, because it's got the feeling of the Microsoft Standard variable-naming procedures that I've seen discussed in various programming magazines here and there. A lot of people suspect that they just made an XML dump of their DOM objects. That would be a very lazy way to make an XML format. Of course it misses the whole point of XML, but why should they care? Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ No trees were harmed in the creation of this email. \/_/ However, a significant number of electrons were / were severely inconvenienced. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Article: OpenDocument vs MS XML
Henrik Sundberg wrote: I'd say that smaller files are faster than bigger. The slow down due to the size increase is infinitesimal. See below for an example. It's like arguing that you should use small variables in your python program because that will make the file faster. Anyone who knows how to program knows that that's a stupid idea. Memory is slow. No, memmory is fast. Transfer rates of 1,000-2,000 MB/sec means that for a 50-page document (details below) you can expect to save at most 0.00014 seconds by using smaller tags. Disks are slow. The transfer rate of an IDE disk is in the order of 100MBits/second. The INGOTs handbook is a 50-page document with lots of tables. It is 192Kb. So the disk access part of the process contributes 0.015 seconds to the loading speed. I just wrote a perl program to remove all the paragraph and table tags (this is unreasonable of course, since you still have to have some tag). The result was 48kb. This means that, for this document, using small tags would save you *less* than 0.011 seconds in loading time. And in exchange for that you would get a more buggy program. Hashing long strings is slower than hashing short ones (for symbol table look up). No, symbol look up for a longer symbol is *not* slower. Parsing shorter files takes less time than parsing longer ones. False. Using a tag-with-a-long-name is not slower than t. It takes longer time to start large programs as well. Irrelevant comparison. Document files are not programs. OOo is a 60 MB program, not a 192kb document. OOo does rendering, memmory allocation, loads external libraries, runs threads, and does a zillion other things that documents don't do. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ No trees were harmed in the creation of this email. \/_/ However, a significant number of electrons were / were severely inconvenienced. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Article: OpenDocument vs MS XML
Randomthots wrote: 1. Does Microsoft's XML standard now encompass all document types? Last I knew they only had an XML format for Word. Microsoft's FAQ says: Currently, only Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint will use Office XML Formats In particular, it doesn't cover InfoPath, Visio, Publisher, etc. 2. If the answer to 1 is yes, then how does their format for spreadsheets compare to OD for verbosity? I haven't yet seen any examples of the new Excel format. But verbosity isn't really an issue. I probably don't understand this all well enough, but the sheer size of OD spreadsheet files (before compression) bothers me. It seems like there is an incredible number of characters required to describe each cell, which can't help the processing speed any. The number of characters has no effect on speed. There is no reason why w:r is faster to parse than text:span text:style-name=T1. To someone who actually works in XML, the verbosity of OpenDocument is welcome because it makes the file format a lot more transparent. I notice that in the examples cited in the article that MS tends to use very short tags like w:r, whereas the OD tags are full words like text:p text:style-name=Standard. I realize this aids in human readability but most of the time... who cares? I'm not going to be reading the raw file anyway. Please read the top of the article. It explains why you should care about which format is understandable. Because the developer who is writing the application you want to use needs to understand it and know how to use it. And the more understandable the format is, the better the support, and the better the compatibility. Understandability/simplicity/etc has a DIRECT effect on things you do care about like how many applictions support it, and whether you can reasonably expect a file produced by one to be read by another (ie. interoperability). And interoperability is the whole point of using XML. If you don't care about a developer understanding the format, you might as well be using Microsofot's .doc. Using obscure tags like w:rPr is gratuitous obscurity. It makes it harder for competitors to understand the format and support it for no benefit. Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ No trees were harmed in the creation of this email. \/_/ However, a significant number of electrons were / were severely inconvenienced. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Online only apps
Roger Markus wrote: but don't attempt a Bang! one day swtich-over, it's not realistic. I did it :-) I had only used Windows for years (at home). When I got my first computer (486) I put Slackware on it, no Windows. Never looked back. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ No trees were harmed in the creation of this email. \/_/ However, a significant number of electrons were / were severely inconvenienced. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: a more complete office suite
Randomthots wrote: Would you be willing to spend $0.01 per email? My idea behind the fee-bate was two-fold: make spam a lot more expensive to send out and reimburse recipients and ISPs for the A simpler way to achieve the same result without actually spending money (in any way you'd recognize as such) is Hashcash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash The idea is beautifully simple. Require the sender to solve a simple math problem, that takes about 1 second of CPU time. For a regular emailer this is a very minor inconvenience, but for a spammer it is magnitudes more expensive. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ No trees were harmed in the creation of this email. \/_/ However, a significant number of electrons were / were severely inconvenienced. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: RE:[discuss] Re: a more complete office suite
Mel Haun Sr wrote: The only problem I see that makes this a bad move are the Thousands of legitimate clubs and e-mail groups. This would hurt tham as much or more than the spammaers. With little or no real gain. We would lose a wondeful aspect of the Net by the thousands ( like this present list ), to get rid of a nuisance. Bad move all around I disagree. Legitimate mailing lists could find other ways to not get filtered out. For example, users could just set their filters to not require hashes from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Using Hashcash doesn't mean that you'd stop using other anti-spam tools like whitelists, blacklists, SpamAssassin, etc. Hashcash would be a great move. It'd be a powerful new tool for stopping spam. And when properly combined with the other tools we have today, it would have minimal drawbacks. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ No trees were harmed in the creation of this email. \/_/ However, a significant number of electrons were / were severely inconvenienced. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Battle Over Future of Open Document
Chad Smith wrote: According to Wyne, possible costs from the transition to the open document format included: No one doubts that there are costs involved. Indeed, Eric Kriss and Peter Quinn estimated it'd cost $5M, so it's not cheap. But any decision you make (whether OpenDocument, MSXML, or status quo) has costs. So you have to pick which option gives you the best bang for your buck. They decided early on that status quo should change, because there are significant interoperability costs that would be addressed by moving to a XML-based technology. Also, XML is crucial for SOA, which is where the state's infrastructure is going. So this leaves OpenDocument or MSXML. The estimated cost for OpenDocument was $5M and the estimated cost for MSXML was $50M. The estimated benefit for OpenDocument was greater (e.g. it gives the state more control over its SOA infrastructure). So, in brief, no one doubts that a trasition to ODF would cost a lot. But the state's research shows that it would cost less than the alternatives and provide greater benefit than the alternatives. The OpenDocument Fellowship sent a letter to Senator Pacheco. I copy it here in full: To Senator Pacheco, We would first like to thank you for your involvement in the discussions about the adoption of the Open Document Format, hereafter called OpenDocument. We at the OpenDocument Fellowship believe that adopting open standards not only increases competition, but allows for easier document preservation and interoperability. Unfortunately, we were not able to be at the hearing so we would like to address some of your concerns and some places where we feel you may have been misinformed. We understand that you were more concerned about the process that took place, but it would be unfortunate to see the possible shortcomings of the process keep you and your citizens from utilizing the benefits of OpenDocument. Concern - OpenOffice is GPL and as such any application that uses OpenDocument must release their code. Response - OpenDocument is not a software program -- it is a standard for storing information. No one needs to release any code to use OpenDocument. One of the many products implementing OpenDocument is called OpenOffice.org, but this program is licensed under the LPGL (not the GPL), so developers may use OpenOffice.org code in both open and closed applications. Concern - OpenDocument is inaccessible to people with disabilities. Response - OpenDocument as a format has no technical problems that would make it ineffective for disabled people. In fact, only a truly open standard should be acceptable for those with disabilities; Microsoft's new format inhibits use by the accessibility community via nonstandard licensing requirements. That said, the applications that currently support OpenDocument may need to be improved; Sun and IBM are already working on improving their current support. It is also worth noting that Microsoft could easily support OpenDocument, rendering this question moot as the support situation in that case would not change with the new standard. Alternatively, users could use Microsoft Office, saving and loading OpenDocument through third party components. We suggest that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ask Microsoft to support OpenDocument for the benefit of all its citizens. Concern - Moving to the OpenDocument Format will limit competition. Response - Perhaps it would be appropriate for some of our membership to give the Senate further information about the value of Open Standards. When you read Open Standard, say in your mind Open Competition; while there are legal issues that limit competition when using Microsoft's XML file format, no such issues exist for OpenDocument. This means that anyone can fairly compete using OpenDocument by designing their software to use the standard. Concern - There aren't very many applications supporting OpenDocument. Response - We understand this concern, but it is really just a lack of information. We would like to direct you to our applications listing at http://opendocumentfellowship.org/Applications/HomePage Concern - OpenSource = OpenDocument Response - The fact is that both Open Source software and proprietary software can implement OpenDocument and still keep whatever licensing they choose. On the contrary, Microsoft's XML formats have legal and technical limitations that make them difficult to implement in a competing program. About Us: We are a group made up of volunteers from all over the world including Massachusetts. Many of our members are renowned in the XML field. We do not currently receive funding from any companies, and all of our members are individual volunteers with a common goal of advancing OpenDocument as a benefit to society and industry. Contact: Adam Moore Founding Member OpenDocument Fellowship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Resources for more
Re: [discuss] Battle Over Future of Open Document
Chad Smith wrote: According to Wyne, possible costs from the transition to the open document format included: You may be interested to know that Wyne is speaking as a representative of Initiative for Software Choice, which is a Microsoft front. ISC was created and funds this entity. Cheers, Daniel. -- It's like a rainbow. Without an observer at a 23 degree angle to the light reflecting off a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a 23 degree angle to the universe. There is some new thing created at the contact of photon and retina, some space between rock and mind. - Zoya Boone, Red Mars - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] OOo Foundation : Building the future ?
Just my 2 cents... Laurent Godard wrote: How can we build something that provides a neutral place that allow funders but also major contributors (yes, and smaller ones too) that are usually competitors to come and work together on their common goal : OOo I think there should be a notion of member (instead of just being subscribed to the list). To make an analogy with OOo, people with the observer status in some project could be members. I think it should be democratic. The Board of Directors (or whatever you call it) should be elected directly by the membership. In a way similar to how the CCR is elected today, except that the BoD should not be able to remove nominated members from the election (I think this is a problem with the current CCR election model). Likewise, the Board of Directors (BoD) should not have company representatives unless of course, they are elected directly by the membership. In other words, if the membership votes someone into the BoD and that someone happens to be in a company, that's cool. But no company should be able to put someone in the BoD directly. I think that this model would be a good and healthy change for OOo. It would make it more grass roots, and more community-based than it is today. And this is where OOo should be going. Towards independence and community-drive. Of course, you can argue that companies that put resources should have a say. But remember that they already have 100% control over what *their* contribution is going to be. If Google adds 5 developers to OOo, those developers will work on what Google tells them to. We don't need to give Google a spot on the BoD to make that happen. You might consider having a Company Advisory Board (CAB) that makes recommendations to the BoD. And the BoD can decide whether to listen to the CAB or not, and it understands the consequences of each action. If they never listen to the CAB, they risk losing company support. If they do nothing but what the CAB tells them, they risk losing community support and they get replaced when the next set of elections comes in. So you can have a nice balance here, and listen to big companies, without losing the community. Every idea, suggestion is welcommed. Btw, please remain positive and constructive as we all have so few time to spend I hope the above qualifies :-) Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Gates memo warns of 'disruptive' changes
Chad Smith wrote: It seems MS is more worried about Writely - http://www.writely.com/ - than it is about OpenOffice.org. That's not a slam against OOo, merely a suggestion that a online version of OOo (like, perhaps, the one Google is developing) would be a good idea right about now. Indeed, an on-line office suite that supports both MS formats and OpenDocument would be significantly mroe disruptive than OOo itself. I do hope that Google is working on that. No one could do that as well as Google. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: Re: Re: The .odt file format
Chad Smith wrote: I read it years ago, and it seems to me wrong about almost everything. Oh no, Andrew! You are in for it now! You might as well have called Tux the devil! *runs and hides before the Petition to Remove Andrew flames get started* I'd like to thank Andrew for his insight on the Cathedral and the Bazaar. Personally, I thought it was an excellent book, so naturally I disagree with Andrew very strongly. But I'm glad to see a different POV on this list that comes from an intelligent and compelling individual. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Logotron School Office
Alan Harris wrote: Logotron School Office http://www.logo.com/cat/view/logotron-school-office.html Is this officially part of Open Office? Looks like a £29 rip off of Open Office, Logotron say that they are only charging for the resources that they've created and that they've added a more friendly front end to this Open Office Looks like a rip-off. They didn't change the interface at all. It is true that the OOo interface is not kid-friendly. This is a problem that the company I work for has to face often. We supply schools with IT services and try to get them using OOo, but OOo's interface and network setup don't help at all (e.g. each kid has to go through the initial setup every time they use OOo on a new computer - think about it, 400 kids times 100 computers). Some schools have tried it and just gave up and asked us to switch them back to MS Office. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: The .odt file format
Randomthots wrote: On the one hand it's not set in stone in the sense that there's room for maneuver, but within reason. Customer demand is only one factor. We also have to consider the reality of limited resources and technological trade-offs (e.g. bloat). No different than any proprietary app in that respect. Not terribly no. Most of the difference is that the resources available are different (e.g. volunteers will work on what they're interested in, not what you tell them) and the concept of customer is fuzzier. Myth: OpenOffice.org is the product of an army of volunteer hackers working in their basements in their spare time, I didn't say that. Yet another example of your taking something simple and reasonable and making it mean something it was never intended to. Saying that you can't tell volunteers what to do doesn't mean that OOo is 100% comprised or volunteers, or even mostly comprised of volunteers. When dealing with a volunteer force, the concept of customer is a bit blurry. Not in this case. I is, because they're not paying for it either. I make something and you get it for free, it's very odd for you to call yourself my customer, and to argue that because you're my customer I should listen to you. This is true whether I am an individual hacker or a big company. You are not a customer, you are a user. You become a customer when you start sending me money. StarOffice does have customers for example. So I think that the customers of StarOffice are a lot more likely to drive the features implemented than the customers of OOo. As was pointed out in another thread, increasing the user base is critical to the success of OOo overall. True, and that does mean that there's a sense in listening to the users of OOo instead of just the customers of StarOffice. You took a statement that OOo should only cover xyz to mean OpenDocument should only cover xyz. You took a division of applications intended for OOo (office vs communiction) and applied it to the file format. No, I didn't. I never even mentioned OOo except by implication with regards to your stance against including those components. But that's the point. You took something that was said about OOo and applied it to ODF. My main point is and has always been that this division between productivity and communication is arbitrary and mostly in your own head. Not quite arbitrary. Perhaps a little fuzzy, but that's not the same thing. For example, a word processing document needs to be able to have vector graphics in it (e.g. for the sciences). So you need to make a vector graphics engine anyways. So making a vector graphics application to go with it seems reasonable, since most of the work is stuff you have to do anyways. On the other hand, a calendar server doesn't offer much opportunity for code re-use. It is a very extraneous thing. Therefore, looking at limited resources, it seems reasonable to say that a vector drawing application is a good idea and a calendar server is not. Same argument for other things that you'd expect to see in an office document. A spread sheet needs charts, so that goes back to vector graphics. In some areas it's common to embed a spread sheet into a word processing document. So word processing+spread sheet+vectors go fairly well together. Also, once you have a vector program, making a presentations package is not such a huge step. Impress and Draw are 99% the same thing. So, what I'm calling office is a reasonably self-contained set of functionality. And it's reasonable for OOo to say that that's what it's going to do, and not calendars or PIM. You act like this judgment is the output of a mathematical equation. My position is reasoned, and not merely a preference. I say that OOo should have vector graphics and not a calendar because one offers more opportunity for code reuse. To say that this is just an opinion and a preference is silly. You seem to say that anything that is not an absolute certainty is an opinion, and imply that all opinions are equal and equate opinions with preference. I think this is ridiculous. Saying that OOo should have xyz but not abc because xyz permits code reuse and abc doesn't is not on the same ball park as a user who knows nothing about coding saying that OOo should have a calendar because MS Office has one. Around this time last year, I recall some fairly vigorous -- sometimes even heated -- discussions regarding the development of the Base component to more directly compete against Access. I don't recall which side you came down on, but the arguments against it were remarkably similar to the one's you make now. You may need to back that up. I think the arguments put forth were very different. A lot of people didn't like the fact that HSQLDB used Java. I don't recall a single person saying that it shouldn't happen because it wasn't part of office productivity. My main point of
Re: [discuss] Re: The .odt file format
Randomthots wrote: This is why I question the philosophy of keeping the wall of separation between office productivity apps and communication tools, like browsers and e-mail clients that some on this list seem so adamant about. It would be stupid for OOo to try to do everything. It has to make a decision about what it's trying to be, and stick to that. And this has NOTHING TO DO with the FORMAT. The OpenDocument format is suitable for CAD systems, the web browsers of tomorrow, and many other things that don't exist in OOo. This doesn't mean that OOo should now add a CAD system and a web browser to the suite. That's a ridiculous argument. Why do people insist on confusing the format with one application that happens to support the format? It's bewildering. I'd expect people on OOo lists to know better. The argument over what OOo should do has absolutely nothing to do with what the OpenDoument Format should cover and be able to do. Do you also expect every single OpenDocument implementation to d oevery single thing OpenDocument is able to represent? Think about that. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: The .odt file format
Randomthots wrote: It would be stupid for OOo to try to do everything. It has to make a decision about what it's trying to be, and stick to that. Sure. But is that decision carved in stone? Regardless of customer demand or desire? BTW, what exactly is the it making this decision? it == OOo as in the project On the one hand it's not set in stone in the sense that there's room for maneuver, but within reason. Customer demand is only one factor. We also have to consider the reality of limited resources and technological trade-offs (e.g. bloat). And customers very rarely consider these things. It's very easy to ask for the sun the moon and the stars, but we have to make decisions about where we can and should spend our time. Also consider the fact that in the case of volunteers, you (the customer), have no right to tell them where to spend their spare time. When dealing with a volunteer force, the concept of customer is a bit blurry. I wasn't really trying to say that OOo *should* be everything to everybody. I wasn't even particularly talking about OOo, but rather ODF/XML and how it relates to HTML. You took a statement that OOo should only cover xyz to mean OpenDocument should only cover xyz. You took a division of applications intended for OOo (office vs communiction) and applied it to the file format. Saying that OOo should stick to being an office suite has nothing to do with whether the OpenDocument file format should be able to cover things that aren't part of office productivity. Daniel, you implied about 5 times more than what I actually said. In the process you almost completely missed my point. I was bewildered that someone here would take the statement that OOo should stick to being an office suite to mean that the OpenDocument format shouldn't support other features. You grabbed that statement and made it into something completely different. Consider the evolution of html and what is being touted as the next step in that process -- XHTML. Which is what? A flavor of XML. What's ODF? A different flavor of XML. Common denominator? XML. Will there be a convergence? None of which has anything to do with your reference to whether OOo should have communication tools or not. it seems inevitable to me that html as we know it today will eventually be deprecated and subsumed into a future iteration of ODF. The W3C is currently considering this. It would be trivial then to include browser capabilities in OOo and arguably stupid not to do so. OOo could act as a web browser today, as it can display HTML today. That has nothing to do with the separation of office vs communication tools you referred to. You keep using the word should in these discussions. This word denotes either a moral statement or an expression of preference, an opinion. What the heck? Should doesn't imply either preference or moral obligation. It can perfectly well be (as in the example of where OOo should allocate resources) purely a result of balancing what users want with technical merit and the realities of our resources. You're making a ridiculous assertion out one word. Geez! Saying it's just an opinion is ridiculous. Some things are actually not just opinions. You can't say that the earth is flat and that my position that it's round is just an opinion. Here I am talking about allocation of resources. We should (yes, should) try to get the most bang for the resources we have. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] The .odt file format
Hello Jeffrey, OpenDocument is supported by OpenOffice, StarOffice, IBM Workplace, KOffice, Abiword and we know that Corel (Word Perfect) and Gnumeric are working towards supporting it. There are also projects to add a plugin for MS Office to read and write OpenDocument files. In addition, because the format is open, well documented, and actually quite understandable (for someone who knows XML), you are guaranteed to never lose your data. Try this experiment: 1. Change the file extension to .zip 2. Unzip the file (yes, OpenDocument files are just zip files). 3. Grab Notepad and open the file called 'content.xml' 4. Scroll some ways down and you'll see all the document content. There. As long as we still have text editors around, it will always be possible to extract the content of the file :-) Cheers, Daniel. Jeffrey W. Jensen wrote: I really love the idea of OpenOffice and so far I love using the software. Here is one thing that concerns me: In order to use certain features, such as hyperlinks to other documents on my hard disk (which I use extensively with my client files) I must save in .odt. I notice that Microsoft Office cannot open .odt files. I do not plan on going back but what happens in the future if the OpenOffice project fizzles out for some reason. This is supposed to be a cross platform and universal file format but, so far, the only program I have found that opens it is OpenOffice. Please advise. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] thanks, quick question
Henrik Sundberg wrote: Yes, I think I understand this. But I don't understand why the doc-formats are of no concern. Can doc-filters be GPL:ed? Why? Are they licensed with more freedom? Microsoft is not claiming patents on any processes necessary to read or write .doc files. They just keep the format closed, change it on every release, and leave you to guess how it works. If reversed engineering is allowed in this case, how could any format license be legally valid? I don't understand what you are trying to say. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Excellent Article!
Hey, I just finished reading David A. Wheeler's article. Yes, it's that long :) And it's the best article on OpenDocument I've seen, by far. It's well worth the read. Guys, you MUST READ THIS ARTICLE. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051029212458555 All I can say is wow. It is exceptionally thorough, exceptionally well researched, exceptionally clear. And the last part, about the prospects of the future, was inspiring. I was bouncing on my chair while I read it :-) I really want to congratulate David for doing such an awesome job. Everyone else, you really really do want to read this article. Please read it. Drop what you're doing and click on the above link. And I also want to say thanks to PJ for putting it on one of the most popular blogs on the internet. That was a great gift to OpenDocument. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: re: Massachussetts registered voters
Shawn K. Quinn wrote: And, as far as Andrew's statement being absurd, OOo *DOES* open MSO stuff- and so do hundreds of other non-MS programs. If every piece of MSO Software on earth disappeared, through some sort of mega-virus, or miracle, the *DATA* of the files said in their ultra-secret, evil, litttle propriatary software will be completely intact. Today, it does. There's nothing saying tomorrow's MSO won't save in formats designed to be read by other programs. What's worse, we *know* that MS is moving to a new file format with patent restrictions that explicitly prevent OOo or any GPL-compatible software from implementing it. The fact we can read a MSO doucment anywhere else is fortunate, And not thanks to anything Microsoft did, but inspite their efforts to lock competitors out. and I would go as far as to say Microsoft considers this to be a problem they are in the process of fixing (read: breaking utterly for anyone but users of their products). Oh, we know they are. They are now using the courts and the legal system to prevent their main competitors from reading their formats. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Re: re: Massachussetts registered voters
cono wrote: Is there a short reference (which of course means reliable as well) on this? Perhaps not short but certainly reliable and well worth the read. Primary sources: * Peter Galli's eWeek article: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1829728,00.asp * Legal analysis by Marbux (retired lawyer working with Groklaw): http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20050331183622861#A4 * Brian Jones from Microsoft admits that it's GPL-incompatible. http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/09/22/472826.aspx Good secondary sources: (these contain good summaries with references to primary sources) * Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument#Licensing (skip one paragraph) * David Wheeler. http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/why-opendocument-won.html (search for GPL) Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Re: Request to unsusbscribe (or at least ignore) Chad
Andrew Brown wrote: Secondly, and selfishly, if he goes someone else will have to take up the position of microsoft realist, and I fear it will be me. I don't see what's wrong with that. It's good to have a Microsoft realist. But that's not what Chad is. I would be happy for you to replace Chad, since your criticism is likely to be more polite, better thought out, and make a more compelling case for Microsoft's strengths. Thirdly -- let's keep a sense of proportion. This is a mailing list. It achieves nothing. A lot of mailing lists achieve a lot. The OpenDocument Fellowship's mailing lists are packed with useful discussion and planning so we get a lot done very quickly. Cheers, Daniel. -- DEMAND __ __ __ http://opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ | ||__)|__|\ | - Tell Microsoft to support it |__|| |__| \|DOCUMENT - Sign the petition - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
