To be honest, MSO is not going to go away. So the question would be if
you want LO to be able to be used in the modern office environment? I
remember when OOo did not read .doc files. No one wanted to use it
[among my group of people] if it could not read/write MSO files. When
OOo was able to read MSO files, then people were willing to try it.
So now with the modern office, the ability to read/write any files your
people are using with MSO with your open source office package gives
that package an edge. I use LO by default, since MSO does not work on
Ubuntu. Also, the newest version of MSO I have used/owned was 2003.
The next thing is that I never really thought that MSO's "x" formats
were something they really needed. I tell people not to use those
formats that came out with MSO 2007.
Now that LO reads and writes most of the MSO file formats, people can
use it instead of MSO in their offices and still will be able to deal
with these type of files from their workers and the people who send them
these office files.
IF LO, OOo, or any other FOSS office package, did not read/write MSO
formats, then people would never want to use it in the office or at home
if they ever would need to read/write these formats.
SO FOSS office packages must read/write MSO files. Without it, the
market for LO [and OOo] would go down to almost ZERO.
On 09/10/2011 04:51 PM, Anthony Papillion wrote:
Hi Dennis,
While I haven't looked at the list, I'd have to guess that the entirety of the
MSO file formats probably isn't documented since we don't have 100% MSO
compatibility in any open source office suite. Microsoft has done a good job of
opening up a lot of their specifications, but there is still more work to be
done.
Anthony
----------------------------------------
From: dennis.hamil...@acm.org
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Subject: RE: [libreoffice-users] Should LibreOffice even support Microsoft
secret formats?
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 13:14:57 -0700
Which formats to you consider to still be secret? Microsoft has provided
free-to-the-public, downloadable specifications for a great number of formats
and protocols.
Have you checked the lists of those?
[I am not objecting to the plug-in strategy either way, just wondering whether
secrecy of formats applies these days.]
- Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: anth...@cryptofreaks.tk [mailto:anth...@cryptofreaks.tk] On Behalf Of
Anthony Papillion
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 12:28
To: LibreOffice Mailing List
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Should LibreOffice even support Microsoft secret
formats?
I've been thinking a lot about this lately as many of my clients are coming to
LibreOffice from Microsoft Office and I deal with both packages quite a bit.
Many times, one of the first things I do once LibreOffice is set up is to show
clients how to save in Microsoft format as opposed to .odf. It's actually one
of the first questions they ask. Lately, I've been wondering about the wisdom
of an open source package actively supporting a secret format like the Office
ones.
Would it not be preferable to support *only* saving in the open document format
and then providing a plugin for Microsoft Office users who needed it? IMHO,
allowing users to save in secret formats just continues the problem. They're
still using proprietary software, just packaged a different way.
Thoughts?
Cheers,
Anthony
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