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170 Comments
- mossblaser, on 05/22/2008, -16/+145Wrong catagory: this is microsoft news and not Linux/Unix news
- ninja0, on 05/22/2008, -4/+126Finally!
- ptFoe, on 05/22/2008, -1/+73A lot of the credit has to go to British schools foundation (can't remember their name) that announced MS should support ODF.
- inactive, on 05/22/2008, -4/+71People should keep in mind that MS is doing this due to EU insistence rather then on their own accord. There is a high chance the implementation might be halfassed.
- vdog, on 05/22/2008, -12/+64. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _________
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: : : : : : : :¯’’~~~~~~’’’ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : | : : : : : : : : : - argylesocks, on 05/22/2008, -0/+47This is great news for me. I use OpenOffice, Lotus Symphony, Google Docs and Word between my workplaces and OOo/Word at home. Word is the weak link currently due to the lack of native ODF. I will feel a little better about using it now.
- GhostFreeman, on 05/22/2008, -6/+43Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. I'll enjoy it while I can.
- crapuccino, on 05/22/2008, -3/+39Wonder how many proprietary "improvements" they are going to make to the ODF standard?
- grumpyrain, on 05/22/2008, -0/+35I have no problem with Microsoft Office being the most popular office tool. I do have a problem with using proprietary formats like Doc and OOXML as a thinly guised excuse for vendor lockin. I use Office 2007 because it is the benchmark. Open Office is certainly a capable suite, but it is not an Office substitute any more than The GIMP is a Photoshop substitute.
But just because I like Office 2007 doesn't mean I want to buy Office 2010. In 2010 I want to buy (or use for free) the product that best meets my needs, and I do not accept incompatible file formats as an artificial barrier to this choice. - pHr34kY, on 05/22/2008, -1/+32Yes! The system works! I'm not fussed if it uses OOXML by default and OO uses ODF, as long as both platforms support both formats, nobody will have problems.
- jenshik, on 05/22/2008, -1/+27Linux/unix is just that. Linux/unix.
This story is most definitely about microsoft, so why are people digging mossblaser down? - mossblaser, on 05/22/2008, -0/+21And this is the Linux/Unix section, not the FOSS section.
- grumpyrain, on 05/22/2008, -0/+19Replying to myself:
"The 2007 Microsoft Office system already provides support for 20 different document formats within Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel and Office PowerPoint. With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1."
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may0 ...
/Lets out a large cheer. - possiblyneil, on 05/22/2008, -6/+23I bet it will not work well even though it should. Microsoft are bullies, they can support odf without much problem because it is a fully open standard. People from Sourceforge probably had problems getting a docx converter working because it is not fully open.
None of this is surprising MS have been pulling stunts like this for years. - Micktion, on 05/22/2008, -0/+17T'his isn't new. The plugin has been available from....
http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/
for quite some time...
Note the contributors...
http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/#contributors
Microsoft funded this project. - crapuccino, on 05/22/2008, -1/+18Just what I was thinking. Welcome to phase one.
- GMorgan, on 05/22/2008, -1/+17Well opening and saving to a format that looks a bit like ODF isn't a sufficient requirement for support. To support ODF MS must:
1. Produce an implementation as complete as Office will allow.
2. Utilise the standardisation process for extending ODF in areas where it is weak (this process is already well under way, most the obvious problems are fixed). No ad hoc proprietary extensions.
3. Provide high fidelity conversion between formats. It's possible to transfer between the formats with minimal document corruption.
If they follow all three points that would be sufficient and then MS can receive credit for supporting ODF. If they don't then they aren't really supporting ODF at all and it's merely a traditional EEE process. - bazzz, on 05/22/2008, -2/+17The technical basis for the ODF import/export in Office 2007 SP2 will probably be the ODF Converter (see sf.net) an open-source project funded by Microsoft, which uses XSLT to convert between the formats.
I analyzed the quality of this converter ODF -> OOXML (StarOffice -> Office 2007) for a customer just two weeks ago. The quality was good for simple & trivial documents, but overall bad for more complex documents (which the customer mainly had).
The ODF-Converter currently has a wide array of "known issues" and several hundred open bugs (see SF.net) and it seems that noone really cares about that product, some of these bugs are more than two years old and real show-stoppers.
Formulas (OpenOffice.org formel editor for Writer) were 100% broken in Office 2007, most graphics in spreadsheets and at least 50% of the complex formulas in spreadsheets too. Random page breaks in resulting word documents, converted documents 2 or 3 pages longer than the original, table formats broken, etc. etc.
Of those 100 documents only 10% were converted nicely, the rest required revision or the conversion was just unusable.
If THAT is the technical basis for ODF in Office 2007 than this Microsoft info is a plain joke, ladies and gentleman.
and NO I've not submitted any bugs&issues because it was just too much... - widgetmaker, on 05/22/2008, -0/+15Office is by far the best productivity suite around, Open office is ok but no where near as good (especially compared to excel)
However supporting open formats is extremely good news as it does alow greater competition. - silviumc, on 05/22/2008, -14/+28Very probably it will not support .odf properly. They will do a half-assed job, just to be able to say it does. Most likely documents from OpenOffice.org will not look the same in MS-Office, defeating the whole purpose of it.
They are evil. - ilikeeggs8877, on 05/22/2008, -3/+16they're legitimately doing something good (though probably somewhat unwillingly) and you still bitch about it... stfu and just give credit where its due sometimes...
- Commodus, on 05/22/2008, -17/+29I'd argue this belongs here because it shows Microsoft embracing Linux-friendly standards - you won't have to convert all your ODFs to DOCs or other formats!
- grumpyrain, on 05/22/2008, -0/+12The article doesn't quote sources. Is there any official announcement?
- GMorgan, on 05/22/2008, -0/+11Open Office is written in C++. The amount of Java in it is tiny and is getting smaller all the time.
- n0odles, on 05/22/2008, -4/+15http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_e ...
- Stonekeeper, on 05/22/2008, -0/+10I'm sorry, but i can't take anything Microsoft says on good faith.
- inactive, on 05/22/2008, -5/+14You would be the first one to bash MS if they said they wouldn't be supporting ODF.
- GMorgan, on 05/22/2008, -0/+9Yes but MS don't support OOXML. What Office 2007 produces bares no resemblance to that Frankenstein standard.
- n0odles, on 05/22/2008, -2/+11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_e ...
- BeefBaron, on 05/22/2008, -0/+8No doubt the default save type will still be OOXML so this wont help the adoption of truly open standards.
- Chalks777, on 05/22/2008, -1/+9I don't really think Word 2007 is "leaps and bounds above" OpenOffice. Granted '07 is slightly more intuitive, and it certainly looks prettier, but for my purposes it has almost exactly the same functionality. I use OO to write letters, personal projects, and a few school essays and whatnot. I don't need it to butter my toast for me.
- adila01, on 05/22/2008, -5/+13This announcement maybe a tipping point for Microsoft's control of the Office arena. Hopefully other office suits, especially Open Office, can now grab some more market share :D
- badassninja, on 05/22/2008, -8/+16Oh good, I won't have to save to .doc for people who won't better themselfs for free.
- JasonCox, on 05/22/2008, -9/+17Microsoft supports ODF and you guys bitch.
Microsoft doesn't support ODF and you guys bitch.
Either way it's some Microsoft conspiracy to take over the world, right? Well, at least BillG has his holo-projectors working. - wbgo, on 05/22/2008, -1/+9There are two separate things happening. On the one hand, the EU Competition Commission is after Microsoft for their anti-competitive practices and de-facto monopoly (they're after big EU companies, too, but MS, being a US company, doesn't have a government within the EU sticking up for it).
On the other hand, many government bodies, including other parts of the EU, are requiring that open formats be used for documents and, consequently, that these open formats must be supported by software paid for by the government. They aren't using it as a stick to beat MS—indeed many government bodies have been pleading with MS to adopt open formats—it's simply the fact that governments want to cut their costs by leveraging IT, but a government CANNOT require its citizens to use a proprietary format when a perfectly satisfactory open and free alternative exists, at least not in the EU. - oobuntu, on 05/22/2008, -0/+7but you'll be able to read the odf docs that your acquaintances send you.
- ElFredo, on 05/22/2008, -1/+8BREAKING - Duke Nukem Forever to get released Real Soon Now. Hell expected to freeze by tomorrow.
- dkitch, on 05/22/2008, -11/+18I'll always use the best tool for the job within my pricerange. Office 2007 is leaps and bounds above OpenOffice, Google Docs, and any other word processing program in terms of ease of use, user interface, functionality, etc. I just don't understand the "FOSS or die" folks. I can understand if the price is in the thousands of dollars (i.e. Photoshop, but Paint.NET beats GIMP anyday as an alternative), but $100 for a quality piece of software that blows the free alternative out of the water is nothing. If I was building a house, and I was offered a free community-built hacksaw as my only tool, I'd turn it down and buy a professionally-crafted $100 table saw instead. The amount of time and effort that it takes to do it the free way is worth more than $100 to me
- TheWindBlows, on 05/22/2008, -0/+6Thank goodness, though by Microsoft doing something like this means they may be planning on some serious innovation to blow everything else out of the water far futher than something like MS Office 2007/8 (they did a good job with that but products are starting to catch up in one way or another.).
- cthellis, on 05/22/2008, -1/+7*looks suspiciously into the sky for airborne swine*
- mvent2, on 05/22/2008, -0/+6Windows should be able to run all Linux apps without any special libraries either!
Your comment proves you obviously don't know what you're talking about. - duke, on 05/22/2008, -0/+6Yeah, that'll totally happen.
- Chewie67, on 05/22/2008, -1/+7In theory, Yes.
In practice, No. There is no IT Manager at a major company that's going to roll out Open Office. All it takes is one big-wig exec to have a problem opening a DOCX file from a major client, and that guy is fired.
Office may be far from perfect, but it's got the Microsoft name on it, and it has become the industry standard. If you veer away from it, you do so at risk.
May not be what the techie crowd wants, but it's what the business types want, so it's what gets bought. - s4g4n, on 05/22/2008, -0/+5When will MS Office have support for OGC :'-(
- init100, on 05/22/2008, -0/+5A name is just a name, it doesn't say anything about the product. That a product name includes the word "open" does not mean that the product is open, although the manufacturer surely would like people to think so.
In addition, Microsoft OOXML is far from equal to ISO OOXML. Microsoft said that support for ISO OOXML won't be in Office until Office 14. - Wakuko, on 05/22/2008, -1/+6Embrace, Extend, Extin...
IT'S A TRAP!!! - MikeCerm, on 05/22/2008, -0/+5It's not like it's entirely Microsoft's fault. Have you ever opened a webpage in Firefox, Opera, and Safari? Each will always look different (particularly fonts), and they will sometimes look drastically different (rendering errors).
I'm just staying that, even in a space where there are open standards, there is no consistency. Different entities make decisions on how closely they'll adhere, and things get screwed up. - inactive, on 08/26/2008, -0/+5He did?
- Makurosu, on 05/22/2008, -0/+5That's great news, I guess. I haven't used MSOffice in years. OpenOffice already supports .doc and .odf for free and it works on all the major OS's, so why pay hundreds of dollars for something that only does .doc and only works in Windows? Uh.. hooray?
- inactive, on 05/22/2008, -9/+13I am looking forward to how open source nut huggers will spin this into a anti-MS rant. MS can't win either way, they don't include ODF they get bashed. They include it and it is some kind of deliberate plan to take over the world.
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