Ok, there’s a lot of news and articles about ODF and the ODF vs OXML saga today…so here’s a resumed list:
“Europe can’t wait for Microsoft to play ODF catch up“, is a ZDNet opinion piece about how the EU can’t wait for MS to give them the ok in adopting ODF as the primary format for government documentation. It can be done now, either with open tools or commercial tools, and even, in the near future, with MSOffice by using the OpenDocument Foundation’s plugin.
And talking about the plugin, David A. Utter wrote an article called “Massachusetts, Microsoft Could Fight Again”, where he quotes from the latest FUD spout by The Initiative for Software Choice (sponsored by CompTIA, a MS astroturf effort), in which they say:
Regardless, the Massachusetts ODF policy - not ODF, the format - is a biased, open source only preference policy. We believe such preference policies exclude choice, needlessly marginalize successful marketplace options, and curtail merit-based selections for state procurements.
“Open source only preference policy”?!? Come on! There’s commercial programs that support ODF, as pointed above, and there’s new ones on the way. Did they really think we’d buy that FUD? And if the four I’ve linked to so far are not enough for you to think there’s choice, then you may want to take a look at Wikipedia’s list of applications supporting ODF, which includes both FLOSS and proprietary applications that implement the ISO/IEC 26300 standard data format, AKA, OpenDocument Format.
Bob Sutor (from whom I got a lot of the links in this post), Andy Updegrove, David Berlind and Tim Bray have been writing about the ODF vs OXML “war of words” (as Berlind calls it), and all of them are worth a read.
Then Sutor posted a press release from OASIS about ODF and ISO/IEC, which among other things says:
“ISO/IEC 26300 is a shining example of what partnership in standardization can achieve for the business community. Its publication underscores the importance of partnership among ISO and IEC and standards developing organizations such as OASIS to craft a common set of standards, and reflects the international community’s recognition of the importance of open formats in enabling business interoperability,” said Alan Bryden, ISO Secretary-General.
eWeek, on the other hand, shows us Microsoft’s views about standards and interoperability, which sounds about as cynical as you expect from a convicted monopolist:
“You can achieve interoperability in a number of ways,” said Robertson. Among them: joint collaboration agreements, technology licensing and interoperability pacts.“Standards are not always appropriate,” Robertson said. And in the cases in which they are, “you should standardize only what is necessary.”
Of course, standards are not always appropriate…they could debilitate your monopoly and force you to compete in an even market, right?
Then Bob posts a nice list of people and organizations to thank for having obtained the ISO/IEC 26300 approval, and I have to add my own thanks to his.
Matt Asay’s entry called “The World Is Clamoring for ODF! (Not)” gets particular attention from Bob today, in which he disagrees both with the way Matt presents his evidence and with the conclusions drawn from said evidence. Both articles make for interesting reads, one to understand the misinformation out there, and the other to gather some of the facts that ODF supporters can/should/do use to dispell that misinformation.
On another post, Bob puts out a long list of articles about the Lotus Notes announcement about ODF support. He does point out a couple of nit picks that are important.
And there’s a new Gartner report (well, from 4 days ago) about what the ISO/IEC approval of ODF means to MS…I think you can guess what they think, just by looking at the name of the report: “ISO Approval of OASIS OpenDocument Is a Blow to Microsoft“…I like them :) One of the (many) interesting thoughts in the article is this:
The future of Microsoft’s proposed Open XML format is unclear. Microsoft only submitted this format for the European Computer Manufacturers Association’s (Ecma’s) approval in late 2005, after Massachusetts mandated that agencies use ODF for office productivity documents. Until Massachusetts’ decision, Microsoft seemed to ignore growing support for ODF. Microsoft plans to submit its XML format to ISO after Ecma approval. But ISO will not approve multiple XML document formats (0.7 probability).
And the recommendations are even more telling:
- Users: Recognize that you eventually will be saving your
office product data in an XML-based format. Users that need ODF support
today or need to comply with ISO standards should
explore applications that support ODF. These applications may be
cheaper to acquire, and enable different functionality, but the
migration will not be inexpensive and will involve compatibility issues
when exchanging documents with Microsoft Office users. If you need
compatibility with Microsoft Office formats or cannot cost justify a
migration, lobby Microsoft to support ODF and look for plug-ins that
allow you to open and save ODF files from within Microsoft
applications.- Vendors supporting any application using document formats that deliver content to people: Seek opportunities to leverage ODF, particularly “mash-up” approaches to content creation and sharing.
And with this post, I’m starting to think it’s time for me to create another category in my blog, just so I can keep the ODF stuff grouped together.
Technorati Tags: ODF, opendocument format, standards, ISO/IEC 26300 standard, bob sutor
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