[odf-discuss] Re: Interop between multiple standards and multiple applications [new thread]

[M. Fioretti]

On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 15:58:18 PM +0100, Peter Vandenabeele
(peter at vandenabeele.com) wrote:

> Having that knowledge, it is very realistic to define, here and now,
> for the currently available MS Office suites (2000, XP, 2003) a list
> of ODF features that could be left outside of an "ODF interop
> subset".
> What this will do is that for "regular users" (not ICT specialists),
> reading an incoming ODF document, from a MS Office (2000, XP, 2003)
> a much more pleasant experience.

maybe I missed it, sorry, but what about editing after that pleasant
experience? I mean, how are those regular MS users helped to edit and
save as "ODF interop subset", from MS Office, the file they got before
they send it back to the OO.o user? Because if you are talking of
read-only files, the solution today is send as PDF and be done with
it. "ODF interop" is (almost) only needed for files which are edited
every time they are exchanged.

> I would like to hear which are arguments against doing this ...
> 
> Maybe:
> 
> 1) it limits the feature set of ODF
>     (my reply: "who cares, I can live without frames-in-frames")

I agree, both ODF and OpenXML do more than almost everybody needs.

> 5) it will not help when _exporting_ ODF docs from MS Office

exactly, see above. This is a laudable initiative, but almost useless
if the reverse ("save as Open File /interop ODF" from MS Office)
doesn't happen at the same time.  Besides this, I believe this
analysis is not correct:

>      the dominant use case now is a non-ICT-specialist user, using
>      MS Office, receiving an ODF document, from a more advanced user
>      or department that switched to ODF already.

the dominant case I see, at least in relationships between citizens
and PAs, is a public employee, who cannot tell a file format from a
Martian ambassador, opening with MS Office (hey, the government paid
for it...) an ODF file sent by an equally ICT-challenged generic
citizen who installed OO.o because it's free as in free beer but has
no clue as to how save in "ODF interop subset" unless the software
really babysits him.

>      And if I as a specialist receive an ODF with some errors in it,
>      I am prepared to take the time to repair that.

only if you already cared about FOSS etc.. or know that you'll be
fired or fined if you don't process that file properly.

Of course, these two last comments of mine don't invalidate the
technical side of the analysis. Maybe I'm just trying to say that the
social/ educational/ regulatory part of the problem is the most
important one.

Ciao,
	Marco
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