Michael Meeks On ODF and OOXML 184
biscuitfever11 writes "ZDNet has up a great interview with Michael Meeks, the distinguished Novell engineer, who's currently deeply involved in open document format and OpenOffice.org. In the interview, Meeks takes Microsoft to task on its alternative format OOXML and argues that Microsoft should adopt ODF — but says that realistically they never will. He also mentions his favorite example to explain the benefits of open source software to a nontechnical person: the flexibility of open source would have allowed us to free ourselves from Clippy, the world's most despised paperclip, by changing a single line of code."
No way, given half a chance (Score:3, Funny)
' remove MS cruft:
' AssistantLoad "clippy.acs"
AssistantLoad "Tux.acs"
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Yet everytime somebody talks about thebenefits of OS everubody uses the woruls *COULD*. Yes, you *could* do that, but you knoe any normal persson/busnes with the right knowlege/time/money in their hands to make such a hugh and potentially dangerous customization? Hell, I'll better pay for a closed source solution in that case. The quest
Re:No way, given half a chance (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, years ago when I worked for Best Buy, the techs used a fairly standard trouble ticket and inventory app (I'll be damned if I can remember the name), but it was rebranded as "STAR" by best buy and integrated with the POS software to a certain extent. I later worked at Capital One where they used the exact same application by it's normal name, but highly modified the interface to their needs (which Best Buy also almost surely did). We had a scripted tool built around some user migration tools MS provides to move user data from one computer to another. At the place I work now we use a modified Bugzilla and we're far from a large company. And as already mentioned, pretty much every large company has their own custom images for computers with software packages and versions that have been tested and verified to work together.
Re:No way, given half a chance (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole kernel hacking grandma is a misnomer when it comes to company's, even small ones, mainly because they either have access to technical experience, or they aren't getting even close to the most out of their IT systems (FOSS or Proprietary).
You have small organisations that tend to use stuff "out of the box", which basically means they don't. nor have the expertise to, use the more useful features within the software they already own. Things like Windows Update Server, Remote Installation Services, Active Directory, Print Servers, IIS, it all gets ignored, at best you might have a file server and a load of desktops. So in that instance they would benefit from some IT expertise regardless of whether they are using FOSS or not *and* if they need to grab someone with IT experience anyway then they could replace windows with an open OS and see many benefits, without modifying a single piece of code.
These small organisations wouldn't even consider looking at bespoke proprietary software, and the normal COTS products wont be perfect for them, so its not like they lose anything moving to OSS, and they can gain rather a huge amount, not to mention the fact that many small (as in cheap enough for SME's) software packages from less well known vendors are not exactly very good to begin with, all those crappy PHP CMS's et al you see in the OSS world also exist in proprietary land, except there you need to pay for them, and you cant fix them yourself.
So how do you get the benefits of a working complete, comprehensive secure and stable system, whilst still having a large amount of choice *and* the ability to get modifications made if you wish (and at a more reasonable price than having something custom made/faster than having a vendor provide a patch)? Easy use OSS software. It gives choice, doesn't stop you using proprietary software where it is best, doesn't lock you in and best of all doesn't inhibit growth due to licensing costs, and scalability issues.
If you do switch, don't do it everywhere at once if you don't want to (don't do some bits at all if you prefer), a gradual transition is possible, and probably easier. That leaves you with a choice. Oh and get someone to do it for you or with you, (that goes for an OSS or a MS based system, IT systems can make such a huge difference to a company that it is worthwhile contacting your local IT people, or even better a local college and trying to get someone to help you out. Any small business that goes down the 100% MS route will find itself without any *viable* options at all a short way down the road.
Having said all the above I should point out that I would find it extremely difficult to put myself into a non IT literate company owners shoes and figure out what I would see as best, I would guess choice stability, reliability, scalability, security etc.. would be good, but sometimes you just want to be able to point out you spent X thousands on a new IT system over lunch, and make your friends jealous.
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The good thing about this is, if enough people express/think it's usefull, someone will do it for you.
Have you seen Linux XP [linux-xp.com] ?
Yes, if you know how to do it yourself, you are more empowered. But that's the same for a lot things.
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Perhaps you should try [frozentech.com] it before discussing it...
Installing software on Linux is easier [cutlersoftware.com] than with Windows, and an admin could change your permissions to allow software installs without the security risk of giving you administrator privileges.
...And they wouldn't even have to leave their desk to do it [wikipedia.org].
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If I wanted to install new software on my work computer, I'd have to have the software approved by the IT department who would check for possible security flaws, system requirements, maintenance requirements, etc. Unless it was open source, I'd also have to submit a request to our purchasing department stating the type of licence, why I required the software, etc.
We needed a particular piece of modelling software in our department (for abou
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You're right. Most companies require their employess to already know how to use Windows and Office and may test that knowledge before hiring them.
Well (Score:2, Insightful)
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If, say, WordPerfect were open source I could very likely be using it today on OS X... instead, it's dead on the Mac, and so I have a painful time whenever I need to open one of my old WordPerfect files. Microsoft Office and Wind
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I think you missed the point.
I turned off the office assistant numerous times.
It always managed to pop back up eventually.
If someone could have changed a couple of lines of code and compiled it for me so the assistant would stay off, I would have appreciated it.
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you see, software can be copied indefinitely for zero cost. only one single person in the whole world would have to make the change you want and then you can benefit from it.
see how that's different from the proprietary world, where everybody has to individually buy and own the product and is forbidden from sharing it with others?
Clippy is not a very compelling argument (Score:5, Insightful)
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The worlds most despised minimize animation... (Score:3, Insightful)
No patch needed (Score:2, Informative)
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Most people would clean up their own shit, and those who didnt would end up being cast out.
I used to live in a house with no sewer system, everything went into a cesspool in the back garden, a good distance away from the house. Every few months a truck came along to remove the solid waste that remained in there, as liquid had mostly evaporated or drained away.
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So how often do you reckon that truck would have come along if the driver hadn't been getting paid? People working together because it is fun is only efficient in a very narrow subset of work, for a very narrow subset of people. In general, it just doesn't work. People don't pump sewerage for fun, but they will do it for money.
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It also wasn't essential, we could have shoveled the sewerage onto the bottom of the garden, where the waste water drained.. There were plenty of apple trees down there, and it did them good, especially during dry spells (when theres a shortage of water its illegal to pump clean water onto your garden, but waste water is another matter).
Retraining compared to the ribbon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the file formats. (Score:2, Insightful)
#1. MSOffice 2007 for each person.
#2. MSOffice 2007 training for each person.
#3. MSOffice 2007 deployment to each person.
OpenOffice.org costs:
#1. OOo deployment to each person.
With MSOffice 2007, due to the default file format issue, EVERYONE has to get it AT THE SAME TIME. Or they won't be able to open the documents that other people are creating. And they all have to be trained to use it. And it has to be rolled out to all of them.
And all that within the same short time frame.
With Open
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Are you on version 2.3? (Score:2)
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With MSOffice 2007, due to the default file format issue, EVERYONE has to get it AT THE SAME TIME. Or they won't be able to open the documents that other people are creating
don't forget the 2003 compatibility pack, or even the office viewers...
As for the retraining part of moving to office 2007, I completely agree. My university has recently shifted onto office2007 and most of the lecturers took a few minutes just to figure out where the 'open slideshow' button disappeared to in powerpoint. Most of them complained about it while trying to find what they wanted, and some of these are UI and computer experts.
Set the initial file format with Group Policy? (Score:2)
With MSOffice 2007, due to the default file format issue
Use of the word "default" is deprecated [kde.org]. That said, can't a Group Policy change the initial file format that Microsoft Office 2007 applications suggest?
As long as you don't have macros [...] Or ..... Access databases.
You've just found the show-stopper [stoneedge.com].
Clippy (Score:5, Insightful)
Not being anti-OOS in any way, and there are many instances when editing a few lines WOULD make a difference in the usefulness of software (Windows Firewall sure comes to mind), but this is not one of them. Sorry.
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Young padawan, this is an option that has been added after several *years* of impossible to disable clippy.
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I am sure this is due to popular demand.
Here is a 100% true story about Clippy: I was installing Windows for my girlfriend and I came to the point of installing Office. She saw me marking Office assistant
Re:Clippy (Score:4, Funny)
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Or just close him several times and he offers to get rid of himself.
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Clippy! (Score:5, Funny)
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summing up OSS (Score:4, Insightful)
This is also a prime example of where OSS fails too. How many basic users would be able to even compile a version with the altered code, let alone alter the codes themselves? Heck even finding a specific "no clippy" version among a variety of differently configured distributions could prove too taxing. Microsoft's approach to clippy is that if you hide it 3 times in general usage it'll present a user with an option to turn it off and it'll never appear again (provided you've a well configured server). An "if you don't like it, change it" approach simply isn't as effective as good interface usability testing when you're dealing with a userbase comprised of vastly different skill levels.
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A better question would be "how many linux distribution would ship a version with the altered code". It is the job of the distribution to fix minor annoyances like this depending on what its users want.
summing up people who don't understand OSS (Score:3, Informative)
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Then this guy just releases a binary package with the fix. The other 999 guys use it. Congratulations!
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I also don't believe OSS listens to their users more than proprietary software either. Key programs, most notably GIMP and Open Office have been slow to implement things users were crying out for, in the case of OO, Mail merge was a vital component for b
I'm not Capt. MS Office (Score:2)
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It always managed to eventually pop back up.
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I wouldn't doubt that there was another way to permanently disable it that I wasn't able to find, but I both followed directions and experimented myself, and it kept happening.
As far as deselecting components during installation, I don't have that option at work, and I haven't used MS Office at home in years.
Microsoft and killing their main revenue source (Score:3, Informative)
So, "Microsoft adopting ODF"? Or even "Microsoft not sabotaging ODF plugins"? No freaking way.
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It doesn't matter ... we are screwed either way. (Score:4, Interesting)
By the way, what do you think the result will be in a year when we start seeing Samba 4 AD? MS will attack again with even harsher resolve/.
Re:It doesn't matter ... we are screwed either way (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't matter ... we are screwed either way (Score:3, Insightful)
When you get a .docx file you can't read, you say the same thing Office 2003 users say... "I can't open DOCX files, send it in DOC". The only difference is that Office 2k3 has Office 2k7 format plugins, but really, only the people who already know about them are probably going to be finding and using them.
Furthermore, considering that OOXML is basically Office 2k3 formats converted to plaintext and zipped up, I'd have thought there would ALREADY be support in OO.org by now... at least, soon. OOXML was m
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Re:It doesn't matter ... we are screwed either way (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is a port of the Novell plugin for Ubuntu Feisty at Getdeb:
http://www.getdeb.net/app.php?name=OpenOffice.org+OpenXML+Translator [getdeb.net]
I have installed it and tried it out on various random .docx files I
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If my wife received a .docx file from a colleague she would email back and say "that file didn't seem to work and it had a funny x on the end, are you sure there isn't a problem with your email?". And that will be exactly my approach if I receive one. (Except, I suppose, if it's a client who knows I ought
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That's the missing feature...
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Also, when the ODF format was being created, Microsoft were invited to join the committee and would have been able to address any missing features at that stage, they refused repeatedly.
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Any proposed changes would have been evaluated, and if the different vendors reached a consensus that the changes provided a valid benefit, then they would have been accepted.
Many of the garbage that microsoft put into ooxml would probably have been rejected, because it provides no benefit to end users or any vendor except microsoft. Similarly, any requirements without full implementation details would have been rejected.
Re:It doesn't matter ... we are screwed either way (Score:2)
You're not correct. This is temporary situation. As writers of other OSS Office alternatives have said, it's relatively easy to write a *X (DOCX, XLSX etc) wrapper around their existing * (DOC, XLS) importer, since they're basically the same thing, e
Isn't clippy also in OpenOffice? (Score:2, Informative)
Well, at least the OpenOffice clippy hasn't told me anything so far. It's just there, on the bottom of my screen smiling and cheerfully eating up a little bit of the mem
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And another thing... When I was in business college our marketing teacher said that never, ever mention your rival at commercial or in fact try to avoid metioning at all! There's always the risk that audience remembers your competitor's name and not yours. For example:
We had this car commercial in TV here in Finland. It was supposed to Chrysler commercial I think. In the middle of the commercial the guy was having a birthday
Not a great example (Score:3, Insightful)
Or.... like every other user in the world - just turn, clippy, off.
Code changes are not always a solution.
Partners (Score:2)
hmmmm not a good example (Score:2)
Knowing next to nothing on the subject... (Score:2)
Microsoft will never support ODF (Score:2)
The
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So why don't he get rid of (Score:2)
The real advantage of open standards (Score:2)
He's missing the point. The advantage of using an open, published standard with multiple implementations is that, twenty years from now when you really need to read the documents about the Jones contract, you'll be able to do so.
If you're a big company in business for a while, you probably have some documents in Word Perfect, some in WordStar, many in PDF, and maybe some on 8" floppies from a Wang word processor. There's no uniform way to archive all this stuff. And, because there isn't, it's not in a
Patch Options (Score:2)
So much open source SW could benefit from this. But instead we look for the topheavy "plugin" architectu
Re:Okay... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.odfalliance.org/members.php#viewall [odfalliance.org]
Now perhaps you would care to answer the original question: why are two standards better than one ?
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If you've been employed in a position to make buying decisions and you don't understand why open formats are valuable, your HR department should be sacked.
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Now if there was an office suite that had 100% of the market, that would be prone to collapsing due to internal quibbling. However the beauty of open standards is that anyone, open and closed, can produce an office suite that utilizes the standard.
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Look at Acrimonymous' post history (Score:2, Insightful)
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These sock-puppet accounts routinely appear when issues important to Microsoft are being discussed - ODF, GPL3 etc etc. There's always some aggressive shill poster who'll try to hijack the discussion.
Several other Slashdotters, including myself, have taken issue with the veracity Acrimonymous' posts, so even if you disagree with Christian, he's clearly sincerely
Slashdot's moderation system is working. (Score:2)
Thanks for point out that I was not trolling. I really am not looking for a fight. I merely would like to know if Acrinonymous is being paid to write his / her opinions in this thread. I believe that it is an abuse of the anonymity of
IMHO, it is perfectly fine
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If your boss will fire you because a network card failed the business is doomed.
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, $60,000. For 164 person company.
We're a little over a 100 people and we spend over $500,000 a year on a single contract.
Why would Apache "fail"?
And why would anyone not directly involved in it even know what you're running?
But you said, and I quote "I make buying decisions".
Noooooo...... What is "holding OSS back" is the fact that all those companies have LARGE investments in their current systems.
It takes a LONG time for companies to migrate from something that is working TODAY that they know how to support TODAY and that has been paid for TODAY.
That depends upon what you mean by "established".
Microsoft has a MONOPOLY. Therefore, they are going to be around for a LONG time.
People will continue to buy from Microsoft because it is what they know and what they use and what works.
Free software (as in speech) will be taken up by non-US governments and such. It's easier to pitch a change there when you can show $X (or whatever the local medium of exchange is) being sent to Redmond, Washington, USofA instead of into the local economy.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a rolling budget that I have access to without having to submit pre-approved expenditures for. It's primarily used for replacing user PCs, phones, etc, which is why I mentioned it here. I can request as much as I want, I just don't always get it. For example, we moved to SAM-FS last year for recovery and it cost us a pretty penny thanks to a subsidiary that has an assload of data, but I had to request pre-approval for the expenditure.
Ah, yes, the hubris of the OSS community... forgot to mention that.
Apache can "fail" for many reasons. Your excessively technical question suggests to me that you're not very involved in the business. Regardless of why apache "fails" - be it because of some flaw in the program or because of a simple hardware failure - if apache is new apache is blamed. This is just how it is, unfair as it may be. I inherited IIS from my predecesor (who was, admittedly, clueless) and I won't risk my job switching to apache. The simple fact is that 99% of the failures in IIS can be patched or solved with a reboot and I come out the other side looking better for "fixing" the problem.
Perverse? You betcha. But I'm not a big enough man to risk my career for a technological principle, is what it all comes down to.
Again: when I'm the guy who's hiring for the position I'm in, we'll make some changes. Until then?
Not a bloody chance.
You'd be surprised. We deal one-on-one with a lot of businesses and I can't see too many of them running their own vertical apps. That being the case, most of them could switch to OSS/ODF with minimal effort and a moderate investment in training, they just choose not to for the same reasons I won't switch my people: if it goes wrong, I take the blame from higher-ups and I'm the one who's out of a job.
Huh? x2 (Score:4, Insightful)
You cannot forecast when to replace PC's? And you have 160+ users?
Huh?
Huh?
Even at 100+ users, we lease our workstations and replace them every 3 years. It's a known cycle and they're under warranty. Not to mention that there aren't any surprises for Accounting for the next 3 years.
Yeah, maybe you could just answer the question, okay?
Yeah, maybe you could just answer the question, okay?
Yeah, the question, care to answer it?
How would they KNOW it was Apache? You haven't answered that question, either.
I didn't ask if it was "unfair".
I asked how Apache would "fail" and how they'd even know that it was Apache.
You have not answered either of those questions.
Seeing as how you cannot answer either of those questions and you think $60,000 is a lot of money for a business and you cannot even forecast workstation purchases
I've been deploying Linux throughout the company I work at. And no one can tell the difference. As long as the service is available, they're happy.
Here's a free clue. Hardware fails. Real professions know this and have already taken steps to mitigate such failures. If a drive dies on your Apache server, the end users should not ever know about it.
If you're claiming that they'll be complaining about running Apache when that happens
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I don't think you know what you're talking about.
We have a LINE OF CREDIT with certain companies that we use to REPLACE or UPGRADE phones and PCs. Beyond that, I have to submit a budget and it has to be approved. I've done this in three different companies, so I'm thinking this is perfectly normal.
You're just being a dickhead for the sake of it. It doesn't matter why apache "fails". If the
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If you're not competent to set up fallover support on a webserver so it'll cope with a dying hardware component, it is your fault, and you should be blamed if it's not "accesible"[sic].
The picture I'm getting here is that incompetent admins LIKE
I'm going to agree with you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Any competent admin can keep IIS running. Any competent admin can keep Apache running.
And NONE of the users would even KNOW what webserver was running. My users don't know that I'm running Exim4. They don't know that ClamAV blocks the viruses. They only care about the SERVICE. And they're very happy with the service.
If you have to reboot IIS to get "kudos", then you're incompetent. That is all.
Competent admins get "kudos" for helping the end users perform their jobs faster and/or easier and for fixing the "I accidentally deleted an important document" problems.
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Also.. chroot'ing anything just gives you a false sense of security... see "When not to use a chroot" [slashdot.org] for details
I agree with you in principle - anything can be secure or insecure depending on the admin.. but 600 days? You're asking to get rooted just because of that outdated kernel...
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It's totally ridiculous to assert that you job would be on the line because you were running open source software on a box that had a HARDWARE failure and went down. It's perfectly reasonable to claim that you should have had redundancy for a critical box.
Instead of responding to the valid comment you quoted, you instead make a personal attack.
All those "fears" (which you spew) about open source stability have failed to come to fruition. Open source has already
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Lemme just step in right here. I don't think he's being a dickhead for the sake of being a dickhead. You're talking about two systems that purportedly do the same thing, but one of them is ridiculously flexible where the other one will only work on certain hardware, one is free whereas the other costs money, one is maintained by a vigilant community that fixes bugs quickly most of the time and the other one is maintained by an entrenched monopoly with no reason to improve itself. Also, in my own experience
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Here's your chance: CNNNN [youtube.com]
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ODF cannot possibly support all the specialised functionality in current office or future features Microsoft may want to add. If they started using ODF they would HAVE to IMMEDIATELY start extending it.
Now even though this is PERMITTED it doesn't matter, if it's Microsoft doing the extending there will be a NEVER ENDING hew and cry from the Open community about it.
Let Microsoft have their own formant and KEEP ODF "clean".