On 11/09/2013 12:59 PM, M. Fioretti wrote: > Twelve (TWELVE!!!) years ago I asked OpenOffice users “Are you > advocating OO correctly".. > > Continues on my blog: > > http://stop.zona-m.net/2013/11/shall-we-waste-twelve-more-years-promoting-free-office-suites-instead-of-open-office-formats/ > > Feedback very welcome, of course! > > Marco >
There are two different "topics" here. 1 - Open File Formats - ODF 2 - Free and Open Source Software office suites - LO and OOo/AOO Open File Formats Not having to deal with proprietary file formats for you office documents is a given. As long as you have such open formats, most office suites will be able to handle documents create by other office suites, and Window, MacOSX, or Linux. If you are a Linux user and you friend, or even a client or boss, sends you a document in one of the ODF formats - let us say .odt text document - then even though you have a different OS and maybe different office package, you still can read and edit the document and send it back to the sender. The key is you are not required to use the same OS or the same office package as the sender to be able to work with it. No need to hope your office package can open properly some complex MSO 2013 .docx that is sent to your system that has MSO 2010 or you are using MacOSX or Ubuntu. You hope for the best. I still have State "agency" people send out MSO 2010 or 2013 Word .docx files to other agency people who still have MSO 2007 and did not have the budget to buy 2010 or 2013. They still cannot understand that there is a limited backwards compatibility to the .docx formatted files between the newer to the older MSO packages. If, they were using a package that saved these documents in ODF [or even .doc for Word] then they would not have these troubles. FOSS - LO The first advantage to using a FOSS office suite - LO as the example - is to the budget when you add another computer to your home or business environment. Sure there may be business costs to get the documents saved in a common file format - i.e. ODF - but after than the costs are much less than needing to buy, or even rent, a copy of MSO. For limited budget households, buying the hardware is costly enough, so adding the costs of all that "paid software" can really add up. If they substitute all of the packages they need with FOSS, when available, then you cut down on the total cost of that computer[s] in your home and maybe work. For someone who uses both Linux and Windows, and some who add MacOSX, having one FOSS office package on every desktop/laptop they own helps the user, or family of users, be able to use the same package no matter which desktop/laptop they are currently using. One day they will have the same option on Android as well. This is just one set of examples why promoting Open Document Formats instead of promoting FOSS. They are two different "ideas" altogether. It is the classic Apples and Oranges. Both are fruit but they are totally different. They cannot really be compared like two different types of apples could be or two types of oranges. I think that is the problem with some people who look at the field of Open Document/Office Formats and Open Source Software [FOSS or not]. They are two different parts to the puzzle and need to be dealt with individually and not compared as if they were the same idea. You can have Open Source Software that can read proprietary files formats, and you can have paid software that can read ODF. We need both to make the whole work for businesses and for home. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted