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

Maybe saving in ...x formats should be disabled by default so that the 
user must make a conscious decision to allow them.

But to some extent this discussion misses two key points:

1) Application quality
The default de-facto format will inevitably follow the dominant 
application. It's probably impossible to be a frequent OOO/LibO user 
without meeting serious bugs and having ones own list of things that 
need to be fixed. I certainly have mine. My professional experience with 
MSO was quite different, ie almost no troubling bugs. Apart from any 
other consideration, for pretty well any commercial organisation, the 
resulting support/user hassle cost of adopting OOO/LibO far exceeds the 
cost of adopting MSO, even from scratch for a new organisation. To 
illustrate the problem, you just need to inspect the OOO P2 issues which 
are regularly postponed release after release. Regretfully, for this 
reason it is very difficult to claim that OOO/LibO is a professional 
level application. When it is, many more users will flock to it and the 
format battle is much more likely to resolve itself in favour of ODF.

2) Chrome OS
In 2011 people will be buying notebooks without hard disks running 
Chrome OS, certainly cheaper including much lower support costs, 
probably faster too, and these users will be able to work cooperatively 
with their data entirely in the cloud. Perhaps >90% of users will 
potentially no longer need MSO, OOO, LibO or any of the associated 
formats. It's hard to say whether this will be game changing or just 
very important, it will depend on how well it works in practice, but 
given the self-evident quality and astonishing rate of development of 
Google's applications, my money is on game changing.

Mike Hall

On 31/12/2010 05:21, Carl Symons wrote:
> Thank you Olivier for jumping in on this as one of the TDF founders.
> And thank you for helping to make LibreOffice happen.
>
> More below...
>
> On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Olivier Hallot
> <olivier.hallot@documentfoundation.org>  wrote:
> > HI
> >
> > Em 30-12-2010 18:41, Larry Gusaas escreveu:
> > > On 2010/12/30 2:19 PM Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
> > > > OOXML will spread anyway because MS Office 2007 and 2010 use this
> > > > format by default. Nothing you can do about it I'm afraid....
> > > Yes you can do something about it. Don't enable writing in that format.
> > > Use PDF's for communicating. If a MS user needs to be able to modify a
> > > document, use .doc format. There is no need to use .docx format. MS
> > > Office 2008 and 2011 can still read .doc files.
> > The thing is, *you can* prevent LibreOffice/OOo from writing in proprietary
> > format. This requires a configuration in one of the xcu/xcs config files.
> >
> > Happy new year
> > --
> > Olivier Hallot
> If it is this easy to disable selected formats, I ask that the TDF
> Steering Committee take the suggestions in this conversation thread
> into consideration. Larry Gusaas has cited some sources (in the thread
> starter) that suggest that Microsoft is again (ab)using their
> near-monopoly market position to subvert openness. While there's no
> need for the TDF to police or punish Microsoft's behavior, there are
> strong reasons for the LibreOffice community to stand for and protect
> the open nature of LibO applications and their file formats. There is
> no reason to support writing/saving as docx/OOXML except to go along
> with Microsoft's anti-open fraud and deception.
>
> Carl Symons


--
Mike Hall
www.onepoyle.net



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