[tdf-discuss] Re: OpenOffice dead and burried?

On 05/19/2011 11:03 AM, Andras Timar wrote:
> 2011/5/19 plino <pedlino@gmail.com>:
> > Then I think it's time to create a proper C/C++ ODF importer for Word. If
> > this worked properly then this would be a further step in promoting ODF as a
> > "de facto" open format alternative.
>
> ODF support is present in MS Office 2007 SP2 and MS Office 2010 (it
> even can be selected as default file format) so what would be your
> target? MS Office 2003 and older? It does not look reasonable to me,
> because by the time we develop something useable, only a minority of
> users will use such old versions of MS Office.

I think you should keep in mind that many users of LO are folks that
simply can't, or won't spend the money to buy Office 2007 (and hence
also need to spend even more money to upgrade their systems in order to
use it).

There are *millions* of users that are still using WinXP and older
versions of MS Office (think schools, libraries, individuals, small
companies, government offices, etc). Granted the ideal situation would
be to have all of them install LO, but we know: 1) that just isn't going
to happen, 2) and even if they do install LO, they are not going to
purge their existing versions of MS Office... it just doesn't work that way.

An ODF plugin (like the Sun ODF Plugin) could go a long way in gaining
trust for existing MS Office users, particularly if it does an LO
splashscreen when starting as the Sun one does. However, I also imagine
that creating/converting/maintaining such a program would be a huge
amount of effort/work. So I doubt that it will happen on LO's watch &
think it possible only with the backing of a major ($$$) corporation
such as IBM or similar.




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