[odf-discuss] strategy for ODF migration (was: A story of TIFF)

[Daniel Carrera]

On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 22:12 +0100, Thomas Zander wrote:
> Ehm, no. Thats _exactly_ the point.
> 
> Users expect that if his boss tells him to use the new app 
> that it can open his old files.
> That user really doesn't care what fileformat the new files 
> are. He just cares that he can read the file.

I don't think that's how a typical successful migration will work. If
his boss tells him to use the new app, and the user finds that the new
app can only read 65% of what's in his legacy files, the migration is
still dead. Reading .doc with 65% accuracy or reading .odf with 65%
accuracy are both equally bad for this case. Either way you are locked
in.

But it turns out that there is at least one ODF aware app that achieves
better than 65% interop with .doc. According to Gary it achieves 85%. It
seems to me that using a 65%-interop plugin only increases your lock-in,
which is an ironic result if you were moving to an "open standard". If
you had stayed with closed proprietary .doc you would have at least
_one_ application with 85% interop, but because you switched to ODF,
your interop with _all_ ODF apps is 65%. If this migration to odf takes
your list of alternative products from 1 entry to 0, over all you've had
a net loss.


> Then you 
> completely missed the point of how companies and individuals can move from 
> having been locked into MS products onto the freedom to choose his office 
> suite on merit.

65% interop will not give anyone any freedom to choose another office
suite on merit.

> The benefit of ODF is that someone that runs KWord can actually see something 
> he could not before. Which is the document that that other user wrote in 
> Word.

I'd be interested to know if KWord achieves less than 65% interop
with.doc.

> So, get off the high horse and stop preaching

Thomas, please relax. Thank you.

Best wishes,
Daniel.
-- 
May you live in interesting times.
May people in high places take notice of you.
May all your wishes come true.
  -- Chinese curse.