From jza at openoffice.org Sun Mar 1 00:42:43 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Sun Mar 1 01:05:21 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:36:32 -0600, Russell Ossendryver wrote: > The OpenDocument Format (ODF) has moved an important step closer to > widespread adoption by the UK government with the publication of an > internal > Cabinet Office report recommending its use. > http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=111516&pagtype=all Indeed I see that the ODF had recieved major mention on the tracking site of the plan. However they also include OOXML which I personally don't see since there is no OOXML ISO in the market. But most people don't know that and asume the current OOXML is compliant with ISO mentioned. http://www.netvibes.com/cabinetoffice#Open_Source -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org From jza at openoffice.org Sun Mar 1 01:41:51 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Sun Mar 1 01:41:59 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Venezuelan adopts ODF oficially Message-ID: This is not new news but I did a quick search and couldnt find much reference to the officialization of the ODF in the Venezuelan government. The officail documents can be seen here: http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-27.html http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html The document originally in spanish and in a scan that can't be translated through google translate I will paraphrase some of the most relevant paragraphs. ------- articulo 1 - all the entities and organizations from the National Public Administration from the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic that generate, process or store electronic ofimatics documents, on those which desire to preserve the modification capacity of the information, should apply and use the open document format (ODF) on their version 1.0.... article 2 - the version of the open document format (ODF) on their 1.0 version that should apply in the base and the resolution, it describe on the Norm ISO/IEC 26300:2006 IT - Opendocument format v1.0 dictated by the International stanadard organization (ISO). -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org From lars at umich.edu Sun Mar 1 02:47:57 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sun Mar 1 02:48:08 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49AA3DAD.3060506@umich.edu> Russell Ossendryver wrote: > ... > Cabinet Office report recommending its use. > http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=111516&pagtype=all There's a nice quote there: "Translating words into deeds is key." The article could have mentioned 1) that no one not even MS uses OOXML, 2) that the 'fast tracking' of OOXML has been one long ongoing scandal and even resulted in many world's data experts resigning in protest. -Lars From lars at umich.edu Sun Mar 1 02:59:39 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sun Mar 1 02:59:47 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49AA406B.2070009@umich.edu> Alexandro Colorado wrote: > Indeed I see that the ODF had recieved major mention on the tracking > site of the plan. However they also include OOXML which I personally > don't see since there is no OOXML ISO in the market. But most people > don't know that and asume the current OOXML is compliant with ISO > mentioned. > > http://www.netvibes.com/cabinetoffice#Open_Source Also, there are some that mistake the current default format for MSO 2007 for OOXML. A big concern I have is that the comments from M$ suggest that MSO 2007 breaks / corrupts ODF documents. That is a problem because (IIRC) MSO 2007 blocks the use of the ODF plugin *and* claims to have ODF support. So only those moving to non-MS suites or staying with older versions of MSO will have any real chance of using ODF. -Lars From jza at openoffice.org Sun Mar 1 03:12:14 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Sun Mar 1 03:12:22 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <49AA3DAD.3060506@umich.edu> References: <49AA3DAD.3060506@umich.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:47:57 -0600, Lars Nood?n wrote: > Russell Ossendryver wrote: >> ... >> Cabinet Office report recommending its use. >> http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=111516&pagtype=all > > There's a nice quote there: > "Translating words into deeds is key." > > The article could have mentioned 1) that no one not even MS uses OOXML, > 2) that the 'fast tracking' of OOXML has been one long ongoing scandal > and even resulted in many world's data experts resigning in protest. > > -Lars At least they let you comment ont he news. I would not mind comment and emailing the author. Is also important that is not just the open source advocates as he writes but also serious government rejections by Venezuela, Brazil, South africa and more. http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/09/ooxml-wont-be-a.html http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/images/2008/09/01/declaracin_ooxml.png -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org From marbux at gmail.com Sun Mar 1 03:50:39 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Sun Mar 1 03:58:16 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:36:32 -0600, Russell Ossendryver > wrote: > > Indeed I see that the ODF had recieved major mention on the tracking site of > the plan. However they also include OOXML which I personally don't see since > there is no OOXML ISO in the market. But most people don't know that and > asume the current OOXML is compliant with ISO mentioned. I think that a poor issue to raise because, unfortunately, both ISO/IEC:26300-2006 ODF and ISO/IEC:29500-2008 lack featureful implementations that are capable of writing to the formats specified by those standards. Therefore, raising that issue allows Microsoft to respond by pointing to the same problem in regard to ODF. StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service pack is released). The rest of the featureful ODF implementations are writing only to formats that are somewhere between ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2, which is not yet a stable and adopted standard. E.g., the conformity requirements are just now finally being worked on. (Note that StarOffice 9 offers users a choice between writing to ODF 1.1 and "ODF 1.2." The far stronger argument against ISO/IEC:29500 OOXML, IMHO, is the lack of authorization to implement in the Microsoft Open Specification Promise. Any competent lawyer who reviewed the document would advise the client not to proceed in reliance on it. It's a public smoke-screen for the real licensing, which is RAND-Z but without disclosed terms. The most authoritative dissection of the Open Specification Promise I am aware of is that published in the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series, . I raised the same major issues even earlier when I penned the section of the Groklaw EOOXML Objections document dealing with patent restrictions. So these criticisms have been out there for a long time without Microsoft ever responding to specific criticisms. The only Microsoft response I'm aware of is included in this article. . A Microsoft lawyer who helped draft the Open Specification Promise was asked to respond to the University of New South Wales publication but did not respond forthrightly to a single specific point in it. Instead, he presented a case study in evasion. My 2 cents, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From lars at umich.edu Sun Mar 1 04:23:52 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sun Mar 1 04:23:59 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49AA5428.9000308@umich.edu> marbux wrote: >...is included in this article. > . A Timely. I have recently been commenting that the software patent problem is often misrepresented in the media as being a problem for developers, specifically open source developers. This misrepresentation has gone on for so long and been commented upon and corrected so many times that one can only assume that it is intentional. For the obtuse: copyright governs distribution, not usage. Patents govern usage, not distribution. As such it is the *users*, be they individuals, businesses or developers, who are at risk from software patents in the specifications. To avoid such risks, we have ODF (editable) and PDF (EOL) for office documents. Regards -Lars FWIW : For audio and video we have Ogg Speex, Ogg Vorbis, and Ogg Theora. From rms at ansol.org Sun Mar 1 05:35:47 2009 From: rms at ansol.org (Rui Miguel Silva Seabra) Date: Sun Mar 1 06:03:23 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Venezuelan adopts ODF oficially In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090301103547.GG6828@roque.1407.org> On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 12:41:51AM -0600, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > This is not new news but I did a quick search and couldnt find much > reference to the officialization of the ODF in the Venezuelan government. > > The officail documents can be seen here: > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-27.html > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html > > The document originally in spanish and in a scan that can't be translated > through google translate I will paraphrase some of the most relevant > paragraphs. > > ------- > articulo 1 - all the entities and organizations from the National Public > Administration from the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic that generate, > process or store electronic ofimatics documents, on those which desire to > preserve the modification capacity of the information, should apply and > use the open document format (ODF) on their version 1.0.... > > article 2 - the version of the open document format (ODF) on their 1.0 > version that should apply in the base and the resolution, it describe on > the Norm ISO/IEC 26300:2006 IT - Opendocument format v1.0 dictated by > the International stanadard organization (ISO). Nice, so now all that remains is a simple preference in OpenOffice.org to save in ODF 1.0 :) Specifying versions in law has advantages and drawbacks. In terms of technology (which evolves much faster than legislative action), it's probably not the best idea :( Rui -- This statement is false. Today is Setting Orange, the 60th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3175 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? From jza at openoffice.org Sun Mar 1 05:15:17 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Sun Mar 1 06:18:45 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 2:50 AM, marbux wrote: > On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: >> On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:36:32 -0600, Russell Ossendryver >> wrote: >> >> Indeed I see that the ODF had recieved major mention on the tracking site of >> the plan. However they also include OOXML which I personally don't see since >> there is no OOXML ISO in the market. But most people don't know that and >> asume the current OOXML is compliant with ISO mentioned. > > I think that a poor issue to raise because, unfortunately, both > ISO/IEC:26300-2006 ODF and ISO/IEC:29500-2008 lack featureful > implementations that are capable of writing to the formats specified > by those standards. Therefore, raising that issue allows Microsoft to > respond by pointing to the same problem in regard to ODF. Well which version of ODF is the one that the UK is ratifying, and I say this because Venezuela at least specifically adopts ODF v1.0 http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html > StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the > ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS > Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service > pack is released). AFAIK OOo 3.0 supports ODF v1.1 based on what format project lead and ODFToolkit lead -- Svante once told me. > The rest of the featureful ODF implementations are writing only to > formats that are somewhere between ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2, which is not > yet a stable and adopted standard. E.g., the conformity requirements > are just now finally being worked on. (Note that StarOffice 9 offers > users a choice between writing to ODF 1.1 and "ODF 1.2." > > The far stronger argument against ISO/IEC:29500 OOXML, IMHO, is the > lack of authorization to implement in the Microsoft Open Specification > Promise. Any competent lawyer who reviewed the document would advise > the client not to proceed in reliance on it. It's a public > smoke-screen for the real licensing, which is RAND-Z but without > disclosed terms. Well this is not a jury, this is a respond to a columnist. And obviously the big struggle is the fast track backhistory. Even if ISO decided to not act upon big issues during the fastrack I think is important to keep this issues alive simply to stablish a presedent. One of the key of long lasting blogs is that invormation still accesible as opposed to newsflashes. For example the documents up on OpenMalaysia coming from the superiors of the author to stop acting against Microsoft. http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/08/microcars-malay.html > The most authoritative dissection of the Open Specification Promise I > am aware of is that published in the University of New South Wales > Faculty of Law Research Series, > . I raised the same major > issues even earlier when I penned the section of the Groklaw EOOXML > Objections document dealing with patent restrictions. So these > criticisms have been out there for a long time without Microsoft ever > responding to specific criticisms. > > The only Microsoft response I'm aware of is included in this article. > . A > Microsoft lawyer who helped draft the Open Specification Promise was > asked to respond to the University of New South Wales publication but > did not respond forthrightly to a single specific point in it. > Instead, he presented a case study in evasion. > > My 2 cents, > > Paul > > -- > Universal Interoperability Council > > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > > -- Alexandro Colorado OpenOffice.org Español IM: jza@jabber.org From marbux at gmail.com Sun Mar 1 07:14:01 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Sun Mar 1 07:14:05 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <49AA5428.9000308@umich.edu> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <49AA5428.9000308@umich.edu> Message-ID: <2c60d980903010414g7ed0428fn628fba36cd523758@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 1:23 AM, Lars Nood?n wrote: > For the obtuse: copyright governs distribution, not usage. Clarification, governs copying and distribution. >?Patents > govern usage, not distribution. ?As such it is the *users*, be they > individuals, businesses or developers, who are at risk from software > patents in the specifications. Yes, users are at risk. But patents bar the right to implement, distribute, and use the "invention" without a license. Companies routinely sue each other for distribution of an infringing product and obtain injunctions against further distribution as well as damage awards. Most open source products are somewhat immunized from patent infringement claims because they have no assets worth a lawsuit for damages. But a very popular open source project that threatens the market share of a relevant patent holder are at risk, as are projects that have deep pocket implementers. > To avoid such risks, we have ODF (editable) and PDF (EOL) for office > documents. ODF implementors are not categorically excluded from patent infringement claims, E.g., companies not participating in ODF development may hold relevant patents and to my knowledge only IBM and Sun have issued covenants not to sue in regard to ODF implementations, with Sun's covenant somewhat more liberal than IBM's. There have been and are many participants on the ODF TC who have issued no relevant licenses or covenants. The ODF TC operates under the OASIS RF (royalty free) on RAND policy, which includes the provisions of OASIS IPR Policy sections 10.2.1 and 10.2.2. . This requires only a promise to license patents royalty free and on Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms. Nothing requires those terms to be as liberal as Sun and IBM's covenants not to sue, to be as liberal as is required for compatibility with some open source licenses, e.g., the Gnu GPL and LGPL. RAND is a quite nebulous concept with scant guidance on what it means from the courts. This may become a public policy issue now that Microsoft has joined the ODF TC. I will not be at all surprised if Microsoft adds ODF to the list of standards covered by its Open Specification Promise. In fact I expect it. The bottom line here is that OASIS IPR Policy is no guarantee that patent rights to implement OASIS standards are or will remain compatible with FOSS licenses. OASIS has no Gnu-compatible licensing option in its IPR Policy and TC participants retain considerable power to impose licensing terms and conditions incompatible with open source licenses. Old-line standards development organizations really have not for the most part yet been tweaked to accommodate open source software. It's an issue that the FOSS community needs to address and is addressing through, e.g., efforts to categorically exclude software from patentability. There are also projects aimed at community-developed open standards that are more protective of the right to implement the standards. Personally, I believe that categorical exclusion of software from patentability is the easiest solution to the problem in the U.S. To plug into efforts in the U.S. to get rid of software patents, the End Software Patents web site is a good place to begin. . It's supported by FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center. There's been considerable sign of intent by the Supreme Court to abolish software patents. See . In my view, this is the real story behind the recent highly-publicized business process patent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in the Bilski case that severely undermined the basis for software patents. Best regards, Paul Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From ian.lynch at theingots.org Sun Mar 1 08:37:02 2009 From: ian.lynch at theingots.org (Ian Lynch) Date: Sun Mar 1 08:47:38 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903010414g7ed0428fn628fba36cd523758@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <49AA5428.9000308@umich.edu> <2c60d980903010414g7ed0428fn628fba36cd523758@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1235914623.7257.312.camel@Zaphod> > Personally, I believe that categorical exclusion of software from > patentability is the easiest solution to the problem in the U.S. To > plug into efforts in the U.S. to get rid of software patents, the End > Software Patents web site is a good place to begin. > . It's supported by FSF, the Public Patent > Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center. > > There's been considerable sign of intent by the Supreme Court to > abolish software patents. See > . In my view, this > is the real story behind the recent highly-publicized business process > patent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) > in the Bilski case that severely undermined the basis for software > patents. And of course there is massive resistance to software patents in Europe where there is a movement to establish them "in order to come into line with the USA". Just because the US patent system is broken is no reason to impose the same breakage on the EU system. http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/ -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. From lars at umich.edu Sun Mar 1 08:56:31 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sun Mar 1 08:56:43 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <1235914623.7257.312.camel@Zaphod> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <49AA5428.9000308@umich.edu> <2c60d980903010414g7ed0428fn628fba36cd523758@mail.gmail.com> <1235914623.7257.312.camel@Zaphod> Message-ID: <49AA940F.3030804@umich.edu> Ian Lynch wrote: > And of course there is massive resistance to software patents in Europe > where there is a movement to establish them "in order to come into line > with the USA". Just because the US patent system is broken is no reason > to impose the same breakage on the EU system. > > http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/ Fortunately there seems to be some recognition inside the US of the problem and initial moves to fix the problem. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 was at least a symbolic step in the right direction. So the 'harmonization' argument in the EU can no longer hold water. -Lars From lars at umich.edu Sun Mar 1 09:35:16 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sun Mar 1 09:35:43 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <200903011520.22892.abarrio@ffii.org> References: <1235914623.7257.312.camel@Zaphod> <49AA940F.3030804@umich.edu> <200903011520.22892.abarrio@ffii.org> Message-ID: <49AA9D24.8040908@umich.edu> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alberto Barrionuevo wrote: > On Sunday 01 March 2009 14:56:31 Lars Nood?n wrote: >> Ian Lynch wrote: >>> And of course there is massive resistance to software patents in Europe >>> where there is a movement to establish them "in order to come into line >>> with the USA". Just because the US patent system is broken is no reason >>> to impose the same breakage on the EU system. >>> >>> http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/ >> Fortunately there seems to be some recognition inside the US of the >> problem and initial moves to fix the problem. The Patent Reform Act of >> 2007 was at least a symbolic step in the right direction. So the >> 'harmonization' argument in the EU can no longer hold water. > > The movement to get software patents legalized in Europe continues being so > strong. Yes. Sorry for being unclear. Just because the have no logical backing does not mean that they don't have political backing. I expect that they are pushing hard just now (this time) while there is still a chance to use the 'harmonization' excuse. > Please, just check the agenda of the next PatInnnova 2009 organized by > the European Presidency, the European Commission and the European Patent Office > (this one, not from the UE, btw). In other words the main patent conference > organized in Europe for every EU presidency: > > http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/epf2009.html > > As you can check, most part of the agenda is about software patents... again. Yes. What specifically can be done by individuals and SMEs, in addition to the link Ian provided? http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/ Regards - -Lars -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFJqp0kfz2bZ9qH75oRAjypAJ9D/vsNwBwIkNaXnxDLqdbzfHpiXACdEioO kr+NUZJGPorkiF5QheivyLs= =vwUo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From abarrio at ffii.org Sun Mar 1 09:20:22 2009 From: abarrio at ffii.org (Alberto Barrionuevo) Date: Sun Mar 1 10:11:07 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up =?utf-8?q?for=09open_source_as_UK_backs?= ODF) In-Reply-To: <49AA940F.3030804@umich.edu> References: <1235914623.7257.312.camel@Zaphod> <49AA940F.3030804@umich.edu> Message-ID: <200903011520.22892.abarrio@ffii.org> On Sunday 01 March 2009 14:56:31 Lars Nood?n wrote: > Ian Lynch wrote: > > And of course there is massive resistance to software patents in Europe > > where there is a movement to establish them "in order to come into line > > with the USA". Just because the US patent system is broken is no reason > > to impose the same breakage on the EU system. > > > > http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/ > > Fortunately there seems to be some recognition inside the US of the > problem and initial moves to fix the problem. ?The Patent Reform Act of > 2007 was at least a symbolic step in the right direction. ?So the > 'harmonization' argument in the EU can no longer hold water. The movement to get software patents legalized in Europe continues being so strong. Please, just check the agenda of the next PatInnnova 2009 organized by the European Presidency, the European Commission and the European Patent Office (this one, not from the UE, btw). In other words the main patent conference organized in Europe for every EU presidency: http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/epf2009.html As you can check, most part of the agenda is about software patents... again. Saludos, -- Alberto Barrionuevo Ex President FFII www.ffii.org For FFII matters, please, contact to President Benjamin Henrion From abarrio at ffii.org Sun Mar 1 10:21:57 2009 From: abarrio at ffii.org (Alberto Barrionuevo) Date: Sun Mar 1 10:42:28 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <49AA9D24.8040908@umich.edu> References: <200903011520.22892.abarrio@ffii.org> <49AA9D24.8040908@umich.edu> Message-ID: <200903011621.57957.abarrio@ffii.org> [BCCed the board of the FFII] On Sunday 01 March 2009 15:35:16 Lars Nood?n wrote: > > http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/epf2009.html > > > > As you can check, most part of the agenda is about software patents... > > again. > > Yes. > > What specifically can be done by individuals and SMEs, in addition to > the link Ian provided? > ????????http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/ The main work that we are doing inside FFII currently is working at political level in as many countries as we are able to (we lack many in Europe still) and mainly in Brussels. Concretely, I would say that our main work currently is monitoring and analyzing, and depending on that, launching campaigns, writing, delivering and publishing where there exactly where we see is needed. This is a low profile action right now as you can see, because many times it is more important to table an amendment by the right member of a parliament in any parliamentary resolution than to launch a new noisy campaign or an acid PR worldwide (as we have done many times when was needed... ;-) So for us and the SwPats war still alive, it is important to collect as much information from everywhere, to get people helping to write and analyze documents (from the Commission for example), to get people speaking at events (I'm speaker at Patinnova for example), to get people maintaining alive in Interent the issue of software patents following our strategy (thanks MS for helping to that with the TomTom case... ;-) One of the main problems that we can find is that our community gets fed up of this long time war and stop pressing and generating opinion. Because our contraries won't stop. They just need to put money in their lobbying machine to continue feeding it up. A next important moment for us will be the new elections to the EP. We should be sure that as many as possible of the candidacies to MEPs declare publicly their position regarding software patents before they are voted. This will help in our work during the next 5 years of their mandate. At least will help us to locate our new potential friends and foes. Finally, we need money. Many of our activists are extremely exhausted because our lack of money. They cannot continue working for free after as many years. Hope clarified... (btw, you all can join FFII also and collaborate actively... ;-) -- Alberto Barrionuevo Ex President FFII www.ffii.org For FFII matters, please, contact to President Benjamin Henrion From eustaquiorangel at gmail.com Sun Mar 1 10:42:48 2009 From: eustaquiorangel at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eust=E1quio_Rangel?=) Date: Sun Mar 1 11:08:08 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Private/custom schema Message-ID: <4f4a0fba0903010742n5ba382cfged11426a998dd672@mail.gmail.com> Hey, did you guys saw this: http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-134250/microsoft-hijacking-odf:the-freedom-to-embrace-and-extend "It's worth noting that the ODF metadata mechanisms don't allow for the use of *a private/custom schema* to tag content within a document. And that use case has value to many users. So if we decide that ODF won't be able to support those types of scenarios, for whatever reason, we should not be surprised to find that users who need such capabilities will look elsewhere." A private/custom schema? They never learn? Regards, From jomar.silva at br.odfalliance.org Sun Mar 1 11:36:04 2009 From: jomar.silva at br.odfalliance.org (Jomar Silva) Date: Sun Mar 1 11:37:02 2009 Subject: Res: Re: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF Message-ID: <887408499-1235925399-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-435856360-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Are you aware about this: http://www.raffee.co.za/post/47974926/consegi-declaration ? Best, Jomar ------Mensagem original------ De: Alexandro Colorado Remetente:odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com Para:ODF Discussion List Responder a:jza@openoffice.org Responder a:ODF Discussion List Assunto: Re: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF Enviada em: Mar 1, 2009 05:12 On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:47:57 -0600, Lars Nood?n wrote: > Russell Ossendryver wrote: >> ... >> Cabinet Office report recommending its use. >> http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=111516&pagtype=all > > There's a nice quote there: > "Translating words into deeds is key." > > The article could have mentioned 1) that no one not even MS uses OOXML, > 2) that the 'fast tracking' of OOXML has been one long ongoing scandal > and even resulted in many world's data experts resigning in protest. > > -Lars At least they let you comment ont he news. I would not mind comment and emailing the author. Is also important that is not just the open source advocates as he writes but also serious government rejections by Venezuela, Brazil, South africa and more. http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/09/ooxml-wont-be-a.html http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/images/2008/09/01/declaracin_ooxml.png -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org _______________________________________________ odf-discuss mailing list odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss From jomar.silva at br.odfalliance.org Sun Mar 1 11:29:05 2009 From: jomar.silva at br.odfalliance.org (Jomar Silva) Date: Sun Mar 1 11:41:38 2009 Subject: Res: Re: [odf-discuss] Venezuelan adopts ODF oficially Message-ID: <1509723018-1235924980-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-328734595-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> On the first article of the decree, they state that "newest versions can also be used". By far, the Venezuelan decree is the best written one about ODF/PDF adoption. Best, Jomar ------Mensagem original------ De: Rui Miguel Silva Seabra Remetente: Para:odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com Responder a:ODF Discussion List Assunto: Re: [odf-discuss] Venezuelan adopts ODF oficially Enviada em: Mar 1, 2009 07:35 On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 12:41:51AM -0600, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > This is not new news but I did a quick search and couldnt find much > reference to the officialization of the ODF in the Venezuelan government. > > The officail documents can be seen here: > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-27.html > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html > > The document originally in spanish and in a scan that can't be translated > through google translate I will paraphrase some of the most relevant > paragraphs. > > ------- > articulo 1 - all the entities and organizations from the National Public > Administration from the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic that generate, > process or store electronic ofimatics documents, on those which desire to > preserve the modification capacity of the information, should apply and > use the open document format (ODF) on their version 1.0.... > > article 2 - the version of the open document format (ODF) on their 1.0 > version that should apply in the base and the resolution, it describe on > the Norm ISO/IEC 26300:2006 IT - Opendocument format v1.0 dictated by > the International stanadard organization (ISO). Nice, so now all that remains is a simple preference in OpenOffice.org to save in ODF 1.0 :) Specifying versions in law has advantages and drawbacks. In terms of technology (which evolves much faster than legislative action), it's probably not the best idea :( Rui -- This statement is false. Today is Setting Orange, the 60th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3175 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? _______________________________________________ odf-discuss mailing list odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss From jomar.silva at br.odfalliance.org Sun Mar 1 11:48:17 2009 From: jomar.silva at br.odfalliance.org (Jomar Silva) Date: Sun Mar 1 11:49:29 2009 Subject: Res: Re: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <61600397-1235926137-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-827750663-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> During the OpenXML discussions in Brazil, every time we raise IPR problems, Microsoft runs away stating "we're not lawyers and we can't debate that". Seeing that we had enough technical reasons to vote NO, we never needed to have that discussion (but it was really disgusting to see MS folks running "as devil from the cross" when that theme was placed during the meetings). A few months latter, I've try to get similar discussions with people from other NBs and it was very easy to identify the MS "undercover support guys", simply because the always answered with the same speech. We said in Brazil that one may explain everything in life. The only thing that a second person will really need to be very comprehensive about is the explanation about "a lipstick mark on your underwear". IPR issues on OpenXML are like this. One may only believe on their explanations about it if they really really want to. BTW, a year ago the BRM was ending, and it was a mess that IPR could not be discussed there. Anyway, anything could be really discussed inside that room, and Brazillian delegation was silenced when we would present an extreme important proposal (and related issue). Another "lipstick mark on underwear" :) Best, Jomar Best, Jomar -----Original Message----- From: marbux Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 00:50:39 To: ODF Discussion List Subject: Re: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:36:32 -0600, Russell Ossendryver > wrote: > > Indeed I see that the ODF had recieved major mention on the tracking site of > the plan. However they also include OOXML which I personally don't see since > there is no OOXML ISO in the market. But most people don't know that and > asume the current OOXML is compliant with ISO mentioned. I think that a poor issue to raise because, unfortunately, both ISO/IEC:26300-2006 ODF and ISO/IEC:29500-2008 lack featureful implementations that are capable of writing to the formats specified by those standards. Therefore, raising that issue allows Microsoft to respond by pointing to the same problem in regard to ODF. StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service pack is released). The rest of the featureful ODF implementations are writing only to formats that are somewhere between ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2, which is not yet a stable and adopted standard. E.g., the conformity requirements are just now finally being worked on. (Note that StarOffice 9 offers users a choice between writing to ODF 1.1 and "ODF 1.2." The far stronger argument against ISO/IEC:29500 OOXML, IMHO, is the lack of authorization to implement in the Microsoft Open Specification Promise. Any competent lawyer who reviewed the document would advise the client not to proceed in reliance on it. It's a public smoke-screen for the real licensing, which is RAND-Z but without disclosed terms. The most authoritative dissection of the Open Specification Promise I am aware of is that published in the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series, . I raised the same major issues even earlier when I penned the section of the Groklaw EOOXML Objections document dealing with patent restrictions. So these criticisms have been out there for a long time without Microsoft ever responding to specific criticisms. The only Microsoft response I'm aware of is included in this article. . A Microsoft lawyer who helped draft the Open Specification Promise was asked to respond to the University of New South Wales publication but did not respond forthrightly to a single specific point in it. Instead, he presented a case study in evasion. My 2 cents, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council _______________________________________________ odf-discuss mailing list odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss From rms at 1407.org Sun Mar 1 12:01:39 2009 From: rms at 1407.org (Rui Miguel Silva Seabra) Date: Sun Mar 1 12:01:44 2009 Subject: Res: Re: [odf-discuss] Venezuelan adopts ODF oficially In-Reply-To: <1509723018-1235924980-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-328734595-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> References: <1509723018-1235924980-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-328734595-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Message-ID: <20090301170139.GD11358@roque.1407.org> Oh that's good to know! In fact I couldn't take the time to read it. In that case it is really newsworthy! :) Rui On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 04:29:05PM +0000, Jomar Silva wrote: > On the first article of the decree, they state that "newest versions can also be used". > > By far, the Venezuelan decree is the best written one about ODF/PDF adoption. > > Best, > > Jomar > > ------Mensagem original------ > De: Rui Miguel Silva Seabra > Remetente: > Para:odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > Responder a:ODF Discussion List > Assunto: Re: [odf-discuss] Venezuelan adopts ODF oficially > Enviada em: Mar 1, 2009 07:35 > > On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 12:41:51AM -0600, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > > This is not new news but I did a quick search and couldnt find much > > reference to the officialization of the ODF in the Venezuelan government. > > > > The officail documents can be seen here: > > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-27.html > > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html > > > > The document originally in spanish and in a scan that can't be translated > > through google translate I will paraphrase some of the most relevant > > paragraphs. > > > > ------- > > articulo 1 - all the entities and organizations from the National Public > > Administration from the Venezuelan Bolivarian Republic that generate, > > process or store electronic ofimatics documents, on those which desire to > > preserve the modification capacity of the information, should apply and > > use the open document format (ODF) on their version 1.0.... > > > > article 2 - the version of the open document format (ODF) on their 1.0 > > version that should apply in the base and the resolution, it describe on > > the Norm ISO/IEC 26300:2006 IT - Opendocument format v1.0 dictated by > > the International stanadard organization (ISO). > > > Nice, so now all that remains is a simple preference in OpenOffice.org > to save in ODF 1.0 :) > > Specifying versions in law has advantages and drawbacks. In terms of > technology (which evolves much faster than legislative action), it's > probably not the best idea :( > > Rui > > -- > This statement is false. > Today is Setting Orange, the 60th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3175 > + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown > + Whatever you do will be insignificant, > | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi > + So let's do it...? > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > -- Today is Setting Orange, the 60th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3175 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? From jza at openoffice.org Sun Mar 1 16:38:38 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Sun Mar 1 16:45:58 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <61600397-1235926137-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-827750663-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <61600397-1235926137-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-827750663-@bxe1037.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Message-ID: <497b733b0903011338i60609b13u714d9413291df816@mail.gmail.com> IPR in my opinion still an issue and a risk on many government adoptions regardless of the ISO support or not. It is important to challenge the IPR issue that is on ISO OOXML. On 3/1/09, Jomar Silva wrote: > During the OpenXML discussions in Brazil, every time we raise IPR problems, Microsoft runs away stating "we're not lawyers and we can't debate that". Seeing that we had enough technical reasons to vote NO, we never needed to have that discussion (but it was really disgusting to see MS folks running "as devil from the cross" when that theme was placed during the meetings). > > A few months latter, I've try to get similar discussions with people from other NBs and it was very easy to identify the MS "undercover support guys", simply because the always answered with the same speech. > > We said in Brazil that one may explain everything in life. The only thing that a second person will really need to be very comprehensive about is the explanation about "a lipstick mark on your underwear". > > IPR issues on OpenXML are like this. One may only believe on their explanations about it if they really really want to. > > BTW, a year ago the BRM was ending, and it was a mess that IPR could not be discussed there. Anyway, anything could be really discussed inside that room, and Brazillian delegation was silenced when we would present an extreme important proposal (and related issue). Another "lipstick mark on underwear" :) > > Best, > > Jomar > > Best, > > > Jomar > > -----Original Message----- > From: marbux > > Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 00:50:39 > To: ODF Discussion List > Subject: Re: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF > > > On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > > On Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:36:32 -0600, Russell Ossendryver > > wrote: > > > > Indeed I see that the ODF had recieved major mention on the tracking site of > > the plan. However they also include OOXML which I personally don't see since > > there is no OOXML ISO in the market. But most people don't know that and > > asume the current OOXML is compliant with ISO mentioned. > > I think that a poor issue to raise because, unfortunately, both > ISO/IEC:26300-2006 ODF and ISO/IEC:29500-2008 lack featureful > implementations that are capable of writing to the formats specified > by those standards. Therefore, raising that issue allows Microsoft to > respond by pointing to the same problem in regard to ODF. > > StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the > ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS > Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service > pack is released). > > The rest of the featureful ODF implementations are writing only to > formats that are somewhere between ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2, which is not > yet a stable and adopted standard. E.g., the conformity requirements > are just now finally being worked on. (Note that StarOffice 9 offers > users a choice between writing to ODF 1.1 and "ODF 1.2." > > The far stronger argument against ISO/IEC:29500 OOXML, IMHO, is the > lack of authorization to implement in the Microsoft Open Specification > Promise. Any competent lawyer who reviewed the document would advise > the client not to proceed in reliance on it. It's a public > smoke-screen for the real licensing, which is RAND-Z but without > disclosed terms. > > The most authoritative dissection of the Open Specification Promise I > am aware of is that published in the University of New South Wales > Faculty of Law Research Series, > . I raised the same major > issues even earlier when I penned the section of the Groklaw EOOXML > Objections document dealing with patent restrictions. So these > criticisms have been out there for a long time without Microsoft ever > responding to specific criticisms. > > The only Microsoft response I'm aware of is included in this article. > . A > Microsoft lawyer who helped draft the Open Specification Promise was > asked to respond to the University of New South Wales publication but > did not respond forthrightly to a single specific point in it. > Instead, he presented a case study in evasion. > > My 2 cents, > > Paul > > -- > Universal Interoperability Council > > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > > > -- Alexandro Colorado OpenOffice.org Español IM: jza@jabber.org From marbux at gmail.com Wed Mar 4 21:36:52 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Wed Mar 4 21:36:56 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread. Some unexpected work came my way. On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > Well which version of ODF is the one that the UK is ratifying, and I > say this because Venezuela at least specifically adopts ODF v1.0 > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html > ISO/IEC:26300-2006 in the UK and in Venezuela too. There's some ODF version number madness you probably should be aware of. There are three ODF 1.0 versions. OASIS ODF 1.0 is the version that was sent to JTC 1 as a draft international standard. OASIS ODF 1.0 Second Edition is the OASIS version of what became ISO/IEC:26300-2006. ISO/IEC:26300-2006 is the same except that it has ISO/IEC introductory matter and omits the OASIS copyright statement. The document was retitled by JTC 1 as "Information technology ? Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0." So far as I know, the ISO/IEC:26300-2006 version is the only version that has been officially adopted as a standard by any government globally. That is why the lack of implementations able to write to that format is problematic and raises legal issues. I.e., governments are adopting the international standard as a procurement specification and technical regulation but accepting and using software unable to write to that standard's formats. Peeking under the covers, what seems to be going on is that governments are deciding to use OpenOffice.org or clones of its code base, not ISO/IEC:26300-2006 as officially announced. The sad part is that international standards for document formats have become irrelevant in the office productivity software market. It's the same old mess of non-interoperable apps we users have had to deal with since the CP/M days of microcomputing, actually even longer than that. >> StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the >> ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS >> Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service >> pack is released). > AFAIK OOo 3.0 supports ODF v1.1 based on what format project lead and > ODFToolkit lead -- Svante once told me. I've read unreferenced reports that one of the beta versions did support both read and write operations for ODF 1.1. But the write support wasn't in the public beta (I think it was the last but am not certain) I installed and it is not in OOo 3.0. The only ODF write option in OOo 3.0 is ODF 1.2. >> the client not to proceed in reliance on it. It's a public >> smoke-screen for the real licensing, which is RAND-Z but without >> disclosed terms. > > Well this is not a jury, this is a respond to a columnist. And > obviously the big struggle is the fast track backhistory. Even if ISO > decided to not act upon big issues during the fastrack I think is > important to keep this issues alive simply to stablish a presedent. > One of the key of long lasting blogs is that invormation still > accesible as opposed to newsflashes. I don't view the situation as one of the good guys fighting against the bad guys. Both ODF and OOXML are so grossly under-specified that different interoperable implementations cannot be created. E.g., ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives require that international standard "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability." But you won't find that information in either specification. Three days ago, I said this on the ODF TC's comments mailing list: "A parliamentary procedure suggestion: "If a formal proposal is made [on the ODF TC] to produce one core conformance class or profile in ODF 1.2 that fully complies with the JTC 1 Directives requirement of specifying "clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability" and there is an up or down vote on whether to do it, the naysayers will be fairly shrieking for pressure from customers and government competition regulators." "http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office-comment/200903/msg00025.html Rob Weir's response: "As a practical matter, if I phrased a question in that way, most members would likely abstain. Since JTC1 Directives are far from unambiguous in this and other areas, and the topic clearly has policy and legal implications that is out of depth for the average technical contributor to the TC, including myself, a large percentage of abstentions and a lack of decision would be the natural outcome. We need to break it down and swallow the elephant 'one bite at a time'." . Sure, Rob. An instruction to "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability" is truly ambiguous. Sure, the ODF TC members are too ignorant to understand those words. That's undoubtedly why JTC 1 put the instruction in the Directives, just to mystify TC members. JTC 1 was writing instructions for lawyers, not for those who prepare international standards, right? Not. The problem is that the ODF TC has been swallowing that interoperability elephant "one bite at a time" since the TC was formed in 2002. And the TC's Charter has said since back when that the phase 1 development work on OASIS ODF 1.0 would include "establishing a set of 'core' elements and attributes to be supported by all implementations," . Didn't happen in Phase 1. Didn't happen in Phase 2. Didn't happen in OASIS ODF 1.0. Didn't happen in OASIS ODF 1.0 Second Edition. Didn't happen in ISO/IEC:26300-2006. Didn't happen in OASIS ODF 1.1. Going on seven years and still no core profile of elements and attributes to be supported by all implementations. And the TC Co-Chair is unwilling to even call for an up or down vote on whether to make it happen in ODF 1.2. Instead he talks about eating the interoperability elephant one bite at a time. Per JTC 1 Directives, it was supposed to happen before either ODF or OOXML were adopted as international standards. But both so-called "standards" slipped through JTC 1 without any attempt being made at compliance. We can fairly blame Microsoft for OOXML not enabling interoperability. But it is not Microsoft's fault that ODF cannot support different interoperable implementations. And ODF should be better than OOXML in that regard; FOSS prides itself on use of open standards, but we've got this giant connectivity bug in the free software infrastructure called ODF. Its interop bugs are deep, serious, and in drastic need of repair. This situation where the only way to achieve interop is for everyone to use the same app has been going on for decades. Frequency of terms indicative of conformity requirements: OASIS ODF 1.0: 7,415 ISO/IEC:26300: 207 OASIS ODF 1.1: 224 OASIS ODF 1.2 Committee Draft 1: 272 Do I detect a pace here, an approximation of how many bites of that interoperability elephant are eaten during preparation of each published version of ODF? Hey, just a few hundred years and we'll be back to the number of conformity requirements that were in OASIS ODF 1.0. Won't that be neat! That big drop from OASIS ODF 1.0 to ISO/IEC:26300 is almost entirely due to mandatory interoperability requirements that were dropped by the flip of the set of requirements keyword definitions introduced at JTC 1 without any rewrite of the spec to repair the damage, as British Standards Institute had requested. Under the former definitions, each occurrence of the terms "may" or "optional" was bounded by two mandatory interoperability requirements. See RFC 2119. . But when the definitions incorporated by reference were switched to ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 Annex H definitions, "may" acquired its common and ordinary meaning of "permission." "Optional" is not even defined by those definitions, but the word stayed in the spec, 3,092 times. See . Only my opinion, but I believe that FOSS needs to worry less about OOXML and more about ODF. FOSS embraced ODF, not OOXML. But ODF is a holy mess. And a Connected World is only as good as the quality of its connections. It's easy to bad mouth Microsoft. It's much harder to build a free Connected World. ODF -- fix it or lose it. My 2 cents, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From blair3b at gmail.com Wed Mar 4 21:48:10 2009 From: blair3b at gmail.com (Blair Binney) Date: Wed Mar 4 21:56:36 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com><497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> Worthless discussion group. People practically were concerned with the odf viewer which works like shit - and you guys talk about nonsense. A view from a newbie... ----- Original Message ----- From: "marbux" To: "ODF Discussion List" Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 9:36 PM Subject: Re: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread. Some unexpected work came my way. On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > Well which version of ODF is the one that the UK is ratifying, and I > say this because Venezuela at least specifically adopts ODF v1.0 > http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html > ISO/IEC:26300-2006 in the UK and in Venezuela too. There's some ODF version number madness you probably should be aware of. There are three ODF 1.0 versions. OASIS ODF 1.0 is the version that was sent to JTC 1 as a draft international standard. OASIS ODF 1.0 Second Edition is the OASIS version of what became ISO/IEC:26300-2006. ISO/IEC:26300-2006 is the same except that it has ISO/IEC introductory matter and omits the OASIS copyright statement. The document was retitled by JTC 1 as "Information technology ? Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0." So far as I know, the ISO/IEC:26300-2006 version is the only version that has been officially adopted as a standard by any government globally. That is why the lack of implementations able to write to that format is problematic and raises legal issues. I.e., governments are adopting the international standard as a procurement specification and technical regulation but accepting and using software unable to write to that standard's formats. Peeking under the covers, what seems to be going on is that governments are deciding to use OpenOffice.org or clones of its code base, not ISO/IEC:26300-2006 as officially announced. The sad part is that international standards for document formats have become irrelevant in the office productivity software market. It's the same old mess of non-interoperable apps we users have had to deal with since the CP/M days of microcomputing, actually even longer than that. >> StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the >> ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS >> Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service >> pack is released). > AFAIK OOo 3.0 supports ODF v1.1 based on what format project lead and > ODFToolkit lead -- Svante once told me. I've read unreferenced reports that one of the beta versions did support both read and write operations for ODF 1.1. But the write support wasn't in the public beta (I think it was the last but am not certain) I installed and it is not in OOo 3.0. The only ODF write option in OOo 3.0 is ODF 1.2. >> the client not to proceed in reliance on it. It's a public >> smoke-screen for the real licensing, which is RAND-Z but without >> disclosed terms. > > Well this is not a jury, this is a respond to a columnist. And > obviously the big struggle is the fast track backhistory. Even if ISO > decided to not act upon big issues during the fastrack I think is > important to keep this issues alive simply to stablish a presedent. > One of the key of long lasting blogs is that invormation still > accesible as opposed to newsflashes. I don't view the situation as one of the good guys fighting against the bad guys. Both ODF and OOXML are so grossly under-specified that different interoperable implementations cannot be created. E.g., ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives require that international standard "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability." But you won't find that information in either specification. Three days ago, I said this on the ODF TC's comments mailing list: "A parliamentary procedure suggestion: "If a formal proposal is made [on the ODF TC] to produce one core conformance class or profile in ODF 1.2 that fully complies with the JTC 1 Directives requirement of specifying "clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability" and there is an up or down vote on whether to do it, the naysayers will be fairly shrieking for pressure from customers and government competition regulators." "http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office-comment/200903/msg00025.html Rob Weir's response: "As a practical matter, if I phrased a question in that way, most members would likely abstain. Since JTC1 Directives are far from unambiguous in this and other areas, and the topic clearly has policy and legal implications that is out of depth for the average technical contributor to the TC, including myself, a large percentage of abstentions and a lack of decision would be the natural outcome. We need to break it down and swallow the elephant 'one bite at a time'." . Sure, Rob. An instruction to "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability" is truly ambiguous. Sure, the ODF TC members are too ignorant to understand those words. That's undoubtedly why JTC 1 put the instruction in the Directives, just to mystify TC members. JTC 1 was writing instructions for lawyers, not for those who prepare international standards, right? Not. The problem is that the ODF TC has been swallowing that interoperability elephant "one bite at a time" since the TC was formed in 2002. And the TC's Charter has said since back when that the phase 1 development work on OASIS ODF 1.0 would include "establishing a set of 'core' elements and attributes to be supported by all implementations," . Didn't happen in Phase 1. Didn't happen in Phase 2. Didn't happen in OASIS ODF 1.0. Didn't happen in OASIS ODF 1.0 Second Edition. Didn't happen in ISO/IEC:26300-2006. Didn't happen in OASIS ODF 1.1. Going on seven years and still no core profile of elements and attributes to be supported by all implementations. And the TC Co-Chair is unwilling to even call for an up or down vote on whether to make it happen in ODF 1.2. Instead he talks about eating the interoperability elephant one bite at a time. Per JTC 1 Directives, it was supposed to happen before either ODF or OOXML were adopted as international standards. But both so-called "standards" slipped through JTC 1 without any attempt being made at compliance. We can fairly blame Microsoft for OOXML not enabling interoperability. But it is not Microsoft's fault that ODF cannot support different interoperable implementations. And ODF should be better than OOXML in that regard; FOSS prides itself on use of open standards, but we've got this giant connectivity bug in the free software infrastructure called ODF. Its interop bugs are deep, serious, and in drastic need of repair. This situation where the only way to achieve interop is for everyone to use the same app has been going on for decades. Frequency of terms indicative of conformity requirements: OASIS ODF 1.0: 7,415 ISO/IEC:26300: 207 OASIS ODF 1.1: 224 OASIS ODF 1.2 Committee Draft 1: 272 Do I detect a pace here, an approximation of how many bites of that interoperability elephant are eaten during preparation of each published version of ODF? Hey, just a few hundred years and we'll be back to the number of conformity requirements that were in OASIS ODF 1.0. Won't that be neat! That big drop from OASIS ODF 1.0 to ISO/IEC:26300 is almost entirely due to mandatory interoperability requirements that were dropped by the flip of the set of requirements keyword definitions introduced at JTC 1 without any rewrite of the spec to repair the damage, as British Standards Institute had requested. Under the former definitions, each occurrence of the terms "may" or "optional" was bounded by two mandatory interoperability requirements. See RFC 2119. . But when the definitions incorporated by reference were switched to ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 Annex H definitions, "may" acquired its common and ordinary meaning of "permission." "Optional" is not even defined by those definitions, but the word stayed in the spec, 3,092 times. See . Only my opinion, but I believe that FOSS needs to worry less about OOXML and more about ODF. FOSS embraced ODF, not OOXML. But ODF is a holy mess. And a Connected World is only as good as the quality of its connections. It's easy to bad mouth Microsoft. It's much harder to build a free Connected World. ODF -- fix it or lose it. My 2 cents, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council _______________________________________________ odf-discuss mailing list odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss From marbux at gmail.com Wed Mar 4 22:25:20 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Wed Mar 4 22:31:52 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> Message-ID: <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Blair Binney wrote: > Worthless discussion group. > > People practically were concerned with the odf viewer which works like shit Gee, I wonder if that problem might have something to do with the fact that ODF does not "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements essential to achieve the interoperability?" What do you expect of a viewer when every IT system that supports the "standard" supports a different set of elements and attributes and the "standard" has more than 10 times as many options as requirements? Perhaps a few parsing problems? > - and you guys talk about nonsense. Sorry you didn't understand what we were talking about or its importance. Some on this list do. The goal of the Fellowship is "to promote the use and *development* of the OpenDocument format." . Some like myself think development work on the standard matters, that the quality of the standard matters. Feel free to tune me out if it's a topic that doesn't interest you. Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From marbux at gmail.com Thu Mar 5 00:54:55 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Thu Mar 5 00:54:59 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Developers Redherring (was Re: Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF) In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903010414g7ed0428fn628fba36cd523758@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <49AA5428.9000308@umich.edu> <2c60d980903010414g7ed0428fn628fba36cd523758@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2c60d980903042154r437edc8fnddbd5fc049f08a1c@mail.gmail.com> This is to correct some errors I just noticed that in my earlier post. On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 4:14 AM, marbux wrote: The ODF TC operates under > the OASIS RF (royalty free) on RAND policy, which includes the > provisions of OASIS IPR Policy sections 10.2.1 and 10.2.2. > . > > This requires only a promise to license patents royalty free and on > Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) terms. Nothing > requires those terms to be as liberal as Sun and IBM's covenants not > to sue, to be as liberal as is required for compatibility with some > open source licenses, e.g., the Gnu GPL and LGPL. RAND is a quite > nebulous concept with scant guidance on what it means from the courts. I obviously had a memory lapse and failed to check *everything* I had written as quoted above. I apologize for that and the misinformation I broadcast. The ODF TC does NOT operate under the OASIS RF on RAND policy. Instead, it operates under the OASIS RF (royalty free) on Limited Terms policy. That policy is composed of the combination of OASIS IPR Policy sections 10.2.1 and 10.2.3. . I also erred in stating that section 10.2.2 was involved. The correct combination does not implicate RAND obligations, as I stated. Instead, section 10.2.3 in its entirety reads: "With TCs operating under the RF on Limited Terms IPR Mode, Obligated Parties may not impose any further conditions or restrictions beyond those specifically mentioned in Section 10.2.1 on the use of any technology or intellectual property rights, or other restrictions on behavior of the Licensee, but may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship, including the following: choice of law and dispute resolution." So in essence this section limits any further restrictions on implementation beyond what is stated in section 10.2.1. As to that section, it remains potentially problematic for developers because: [i] it does not obligate participating patent holders to grant the right to sublicense patent rights; and [ii] the "license need not extend to features of a Licensed Product that are not required to comply with the Normative Portions" of an OASIS standard. "Normative Portions" is a term defined under the OASIS IPR Policy as: "Normative Portion - a portion of an OASIS Final Deliverable that must be implemented to comply with such deliverable. If such deliverable defines optional parts, Normative Portions include those portions of the optional part that must be implemented if the implementation is to comply with such optional part. Examples and/or reference implementations and other specifications or standards that were developed outside the TC and which are referenced in the body of a particular OASIS Final Deliverable that may be included in such deliverable are not Normative Portions." . Thus, participating patent holders are not required to license rights to implement any portion of the standard that is not mandatory to be implemented. As I parse the language, this would allow a patent holder to refuse to license rights to implement recommendations (non-mandatory) or options, except to the extent that such portions might require that one of a set of options be implemented and all such options are covered by the same patent holder's patent claims. Given that ODF has more than ten times as many options as mandatory requirements, it appears that a patent holder such as Microsoft --- if it has any relevant patents --- would not be required to grant rights to implement a very substantial portion of the standard. Again, I apologize for my errors. I must have been moving a little too quickly. Best regards, Paul E. Merrell, J.D. (Marbux) -- Universal Interoperability Council From cputtick at gmail.com Thu Mar 5 02:05:00 2009 From: cputtick at gmail.com (Chris Puttick) Date: Thu Mar 5 03:09:49 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> 2009/3/5 marbux : > Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread. Some unexpected > work came my way. > > On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Alexandro Colorado wrote: > >> Well which version of ODF is the one that the UK is ratifying, and I >> say this because Venezuela at least specifically adopts ODF v1.0 >> http://www.tsj.gov.ve/gaceta/enero/290109/290109-39109-28.html >> > > ISO/IEC:26300-2006 in the UK and in Venezuela too. > > There's some ODF version number madness you probably should be aware > of. There are three ODF 1.0 versions. OASIS ODF 1.0 is the version > that was sent to JTC 1 as a draft international standard. OASIS ODF > 1.0 Second Edition is the OASIS version of what became > ISO/IEC:26300-2006. ISO/IEC:26300-2006 is the same except that it has > ISO/IEC introductory matter and omits the OASIS copyright statement. > The document was retitled by JTC 1 as "Information technology ? Open > Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0." > > So far as I know, the ISO/IEC:26300-2006 version is the only version > that has been officially adopted as a standard by any government > globally. That is why the lack of implementations able to write to > that format is problematic and raises legal issues. I.e., governments > are adopting the international standard as a procurement specification > and technical regulation but accepting and using software unable to > write to that standard's formats. > > Peeking under the covers, what seems to be going on is that > governments are deciding to use OpenOffice.org or clones of its code > base, not ISO/IEC:26300-2006 as officially announced. The sad part is > that international standards for document formats have become > irrelevant in the office productivity software market. It's the same > old mess of non-interoperable apps we users have had to deal with > since ?the CP/M days of microcomputing, actually even longer than > that. > >>> StarOffice 9 is to my knowledge the only major app that retains the >>> ability to write to the next version of ODF, version 1.1 (and MS >>> Office 2007 is supposed to also write to ODF 1.1 when the next service >>> pack is released). > >> AFAIK OOo 3.0 supports ODF v1.1 based on what format project lead and >> ODFToolkit lead -- Svante once told me. > > I've read unreferenced reports that one of the beta versions did > support both read and write operations for ODF 1.1. But the write > support wasn't in the public beta (I think it was the last but am not > certain) I installed and it is not in OOo 3.0. The only ODF write > option in OOo 3.0 is ODF 1.2. > Tools - options - Load/save - General. Is not a save as because those who need it, need it to be a default option. Chris From damon at corigo.com Thu Mar 5 03:22:52 2009 From: damon at corigo.com (Damon Anderson) Date: Thu Mar 5 04:20:55 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: This has nothing to do with ODF, but it is certainly one of my biggest complaints with OOo, which is that all of the defaults that OOo pre-installs are wrong! Inches instead of centimeters, Letter instead of A4, MM-DD-YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY, no default separator for thousands in calc, etc. It is like the entire suite is specifically designed against internationalized standards. If could do one thing to improve OOo it would be to have an initial setup wizard that lets me define how I want OOo to work, including default output to ODF 1.0. -Damon On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:05:00 +0700, Chris Puttick wrote: > Tools - options - Load/save - General. Is not a save as because those > who need it, need it to be a default option. > > Chris > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > -- Damon Anderson, Business Director Mobile: +84 90 834-2421 Email: damon@corigo.com Corigo Vietnam 391B Ly Thuong Kiet Street Ward 9, Tan Binh District Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam http://www.corigo.com From info at sept-solutions.de Thu Mar 5 04:25:28 2009 From: info at sept-solutions.de (Maximilian Odendahl) Date: Thu Mar 5 04:32:13 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49AF9A88.7050403@sept-solutions.de> just change your default document language from en_US to whatever language you need in "Tools-Options-Language Settings" and all should be switched automatically. Max Damon Anderson schrieb: > This has nothing to do with ODF, but it is certainly one of my biggest > complaints with OOo, which is that all of the defaults that OOo > pre-installs are wrong! Inches instead of centimeters, Letter instead of > A4, MM-DD-YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY, no default separator > for thousands in calc, etc. It is like the entire suite is specifically > designed against internationalized standards. If could do one thing to > improve OOo it would be to have an initial setup wizard that lets me > define how I want OOo to work, including default output to ODF 1.0. > > -Damon > > > On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:05:00 +0700, Chris Puttick > wrote: > >> Tools - options - Load/save - General. Is not a save as because those >> who need it, need it to be a default option. >> >> Chris >> _______________________________________________ >> odf-discuss mailing list >> odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com >> http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss >> > > > From daniel.carrera at theingots.org Thu Mar 5 04:56:18 2009 From: daniel.carrera at theingots.org (Daniel Carrera) Date: Thu Mar 5 05:45:08 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> marbux wrote: > On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Blair Binney wrote: >> Worthless discussion group. >> >> People practically were concerned with the odf viewer which works like shit > > Gee, I wonder if that problem might have something to do with the fact > that ODF does not "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity > requirements essential to achieve the interoperability?" It had nothing to do with the specification. Alex dropped out of the project and he was our main developer and I never managed to get stupid xulrunner to work on Mac without crashing. The ODF specification was actually pretty clear. Understanding the ODF spec was the easiest part of the project. >> - and you guys talk about nonsense. I agree with Blair. That's why I stopped participating in this group. When I and others started this group I expected that we would actually do stuff, and for a while we did do productive stuff. But then the group got side-tracked into witch hunting and arguments about nothing. Daniel. From lars at umich.edu Thu Mar 5 05:50:20 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Thu Mar 5 05:50:27 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> Message-ID: <49AFAE6C.8000707@umich.edu> Daniel Carrera wrote: > ... > When I and others started this group I expected that we would actually > do stuff, and for a while we did do productive stuff. ... Ok. What do you see as a useful project to focus on? You mentioned the viewer and there would be a lot of benefit to bringing that forward. I myself cannot (and perhaps ought not) code. However, I can test and do have the opportunity to get many others to be able to test between now and May. Regards, -Lars From mike.carden at gmail.com Thu Mar 5 06:07:51 2009 From: mike.carden at gmail.com (Mike Carden) Date: Thu Mar 5 06:29:18 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> Message-ID: <24dc89620903050307n1123c390lf47626382b4dc1c@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 8:56 PM, Daniel Carrera wrote: > That's why I stopped participating in this group. I also became very disillusioned a year or more ago by the erratic behaviour of certain individuals and the overt politicism of the discussion. My team and I have continued software development every day since then and we now have a very robust Digital Preservation Platform. It works and is currently used by the Australian Federal Government to preserve digital records for future access. In no small part because ODF exists and works well for our purposes. -- MC . From damon at corigo.com Thu Mar 5 06:50:04 2009 From: damon at corigo.com (Damon Anderson) Date: Thu Mar 5 06:50:13 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <49AF9A88.7050403@sept-solutions.de> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> <49AF9A88.7050403@sept-solutions.de> Message-ID: Max, I know how to use the software... and that's just the sort of response that I would expect to get on the OOo forums or if I submitted it as an issue. I am an American, and speak and write in U.S. English. My language has NOTHING to do with how I use OOo, and that is the whole problem in a nutshell. Let the User define how they use the software, not the software tell us how Americans should use it! -Damon (P.S. yes, even some Americans are multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and live in regions that use international standards. Some of us are almost intelligent too). On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:25:28 +0700, Maximilian Odendahl wrote: > just change your default document language from en_US to whatever > language you need in "Tools-Options-Language Settings" and all should be > switched automatically. > > Max > > Damon Anderson schrieb: >> This has nothing to do with ODF, but it is certainly one of my biggest >> complaints with OOo, which is that all of the defaults that OOo >> pre-installs are wrong! Inches instead of centimeters, Letter instead >> of A4, MM-DD-YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY, no default >> separator for thousands in calc, etc. It is like the entire suite is >> specifically designed against internationalized standards. If could do >> one thing to improve OOo it would be to have an initial setup wizard >> that lets me define how I want OOo to work, including default output >> to ODF 1.0. >> -Damon >> On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:05:00 +0700, Chris Puttick >> wrote: >> >>> Tools - options - Load/save - General. Is not a save as because those >>> who need it, need it to be a default option. >>> >>> Chris >>> _______________________________________________ >>> odf-discuss mailing list >>> odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com >>> http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss >>> >> > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > -- Damon Anderson, Business Director Corigo Vi?t Nam 391B L? Th??ng Ki?t P.9, Q. T?n B?nh H? Ch? Minh City, Vietnam Mobile: +84 90 834-2421 Email: damon@corigo.com http://www.corigo.com From marbux at gmail.com Thu Mar 5 11:21:27 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Thu Mar 5 11:21:33 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <388f7e1a0903042305m3324b3f8mb5e8a7326ea4d6ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2c60d980903050821m35004b43m9ecee09ca7c683d8@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:05 PM, Chris Puttick wrote: > 2009/3/5 marbux : > Tools - options - Load/save - General. Is not a save as because those > who need it, need it to be a default option. Thanks for correcting my error and enlightening me, Chris. My OOo 3.0 does indeed have the feature you directed me to. On it not being in Save As, I think some improvement in OO.o is needed there. E.g., an office may standardize on ODF 1.2, but still need to engage in round-trip processing of documents with those using implementations that trash ODF 1.2 markup. E.g., those using the forthcoming ODF 1.1-only read/write support in MS Office. The story is told by the warning in the relevant settings dialog, "[n]ot using ODF 1.2 may cause information to be lost." This could be a serious problem in collaborative document development and in business processes where there are streams of both formats that must be processed by the same app. At least in the last public beta of StarOffice 9, both formats appear in the Save dialog out of the box, which results in the option being where users expect it to be and allows writing to either format without reaching into application settings. Again, thank you for setting me straight. Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From marbux at gmail.com Thu Mar 5 12:32:03 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Thu Mar 5 12:32:06 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> Message-ID: <2c60d980903050932h584d37ffs15bcfbaf25b69836@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 1:56 AM, Daniel Carrera wrote: > It had nothing to do with the specification. That's difficult for me to accept, unless you're discussing only a single non ODF-related issue. Even with an extremely limited subset of ODT, the tests performed by Shaw, Kesan, and Kennis reportedly showed wide disparity in the fidelity of processing markup by several ODT implementations with differences in rendering one of the checkpoints. Shah, Rajiv C., Kesan, Jay P. and Kennis, Andrew C., Lessons for Open Standard Policies: A Case Study of the Massachusetts Experience. Illinois Public Law Research Paper No. 07-13 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1028133. This suggests that either people are not understanding the specification the same way or that their implementations are incompetent in that regard. I lean toward the former because the presentation layer of ODF is intentionally unspecified in detail for content repurposing and recycling reasons. Furthermore, there are more than 10 times as many options as requirements in all versions of ODF adopted after OASIS ODF 1.0, introducing a rather stunning degree of permissible variability in documents produced by different implementations. If you found a way past that complexity, I urge you to share the source of your wisdom with the ODF TC. > I agree with Blair. That's why I stopped participating in this group. > When I and others started this group I expected that we would > actually do stuff, and for a while we did do productive stuff. But > then the group got side-tracked into witch hunting and arguments > about nothing. You didn't seem to have any problem with the witch hunting when Microsoft was the only witch. :-) Some care about the quality of the ODF standard as to interoperability of implementations, some do not, and some would prefer to sacrifice interoperability on the altar of implementing developer freedom. Unfortunately the latter category have ruled the TC since its inception. Myself, I want to live long enough to see the ODF interoperability myth come true. Going on seven years down the ODF road, we still don't have that core set of elements and attributes mentioned in the TC's charter that all conforming implementations must support. And there is no agreement on the TC that this such a state is a goal for ODF 1.2. I don't think such issues are "nothing." Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From robert_weir at us.ibm.com Thu Mar 5 09:43:15 2009 From: robert_weir at us.ibm.com (robert_weir@us.ibm.com) Date: Sun Mar 8 10:53:03 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Thumbs up for open source as UK backs ODF In-Reply-To: <49AFAE6C.8000707@umich.edu> References: <2c60d980903010050n78d4789aqf4533686311f89a6@mail.gmail.com> <497b733b0903010215k3f0b9704x4c715676c8e83fe8@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903041836y11978b1al881efdd4faedb1c0@mail.gmail.com> <05af01c99d3c$d2c675b0$2d564c09@b255262a> <2c60d980903041925o45d1cbcdi546926424c3b6382@mail.gmail.com> <49AFA1C2.3010201@theingots.org> <49AFAE6C.8000707@umich.edu> Message-ID: odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com wrote on 03/05/2009 05:50:20 AM: > > odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com > > Daniel Carrera wrote: > > ... > > When I and others started this group I expected that we would actually > > do stuff, and for a while we did do productive stuff. ... > > Ok. What do you see as a useful project to focus on? > You mentioned the viewer and there would be a lot of benefit to bringing > that forward. > > I myself cannot (and perhaps ought not) code. However, I can test and > do have the opportunity to get many others to be able to test between > now and May. > Is there a report someplace telling what work remains to be done in the HTML viewer? Or an open bug list? This is the kind of useful tool that it doesn't make sense to write multiple times. We just need one good version. I just got a note last week from an admin at OASIS looking for such a tool. -Rob From marbux at gmail.com Sun Mar 15 06:38:27 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Sun Mar 15 06:38:32 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF 1.2cd01 --- AWOL interoperability conformity requirements Message-ID: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> How ODF lost circa 7,192 mandatory interoperability requirements by the change in a single sentence at JTC 1. . Best regards, Paul E. Merrell, J.D. (Marbux) -- Universal Interoperability Council From robert_weir at us.ibm.com Sun Mar 15 10:35:08 2009 From: robert_weir at us.ibm.com (robert_weir@us.ibm.com) Date: Sun Mar 15 10:33:57 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF 1.2cd01 --- AWOL interoperability conformity requirements In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com > > How ODF lost circa 7,192 mandatory interoperability requirements by > the change in a single sentence at JTC 1. > . > Paul, that is a rather naive approach, merely counting the number of occurrences of "shall" versus "should", etc. An XML standard need but use the word "shall" once, as in "Conforming instances shall be valid with respect to the attached schema definition file". Since the schema definition files are not written in prose, they do not use the words "shall" or "should" or "may", though they certainly express "mandatory interoperability requirements". So you need to get over your magic word fetish and start looking at what requirements are actually expressed, including those expressed by the schema. Also, you seem to put a lot of weight in your argument on the different between IETF control vocabulary in OASIS ODF 1.0 and ISO control vocabulary in ISO/IEC 26300. Are you aware of a single ODF implementation that changed even a single line of code in their products based on this difference? You claim that change was the source of interoperability woe. But I'm not aware that even a single line of code was changed to account for the change of control vocabulary. Are you asserting that any particular vendor actually made their code worse (less interoperable) because the ISO/IEC version of ODF had a different control vocabulary? That seems bizarre to me, and I'd love to hear the particulars you are alluding to. Of course, if no code whatsoever changed, then your entire argument is one big mental exercise with absolutely no relevance to interoperability in practice. -Rob From marbux at gmail.com Sun Mar 15 12:21:26 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Sun Mar 15 12:21:30 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF 1.2cd01 --- AWOL interoperability conformity requirements In-Reply-To: References: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2c60d980903150921t3b39ee1ch1d7fe7bb32e8b9af@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 7:35 AM, wrote: >> odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com >> >> How ODF lost circa 7,192 mandatory interoperability requirements by >> the change in a single sentence at JTC 1. >> . >> > > Paul, that is a rather naive approach, merely counting the number of > occurrences of "shall" versus "should", etc. > > An XML standard need but use the word "shall" once, as in "Conforming > instances shall be valid with respect to the attached schema definition > file". ?Since the schema definition files are not written in prose, they > do not use the words "shall" or "should" or "may", though they certainly > express "mandatory interoperability requirements". x--snipped personal advice--x You know better than that, Rob. If validation against a schema was all that was necessary for interoperability to happen, we'd have had multiple interoperable implementations of ODF since OASIS ODF v. 1.0. But we do not yet have any interoperable implementations whatsoever. Try this one on for size. Imagine we have two different editing implementations of ODF, say OOWriter and KWord. What does validation against the schema tell us about what markup must be preserved when editing at both ends for the return trip in a two-way conversation without data loss? Here is what KWord lead developer Thomas Zander had to say on the subject: "One thing I have always dreamed to be possible is that when I write a doc in KOffice I can then open it in OOo to use that one feature that's useful to me and then save it and continue in KOffice without loosing lots of data. "Its still a dream, of course. Most features are lost on opening and saving it in OOo, but its a nice goal :)" Thomas Zander, email to OASIS OpenDocument Adoption Technical Committee mailing list (September 27, 2007), http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/odf-adoption/200709/msg00032.html Kinda sounds like maybe validation against the schema doesn't cure all interoperability woes, doesn't it? > Also, you seem to put a lot of weight in your argument on the different > between IETF control vocabulary in OASIS ODF 1.0 and ISO control > vocabulary in ISO/IEC 26300. ?Are you aware of a single ODF implementation > that changed even a single line of code in their products based on this > difference? x---snipped irrelevancies ---x > Of course, if no code whatsoever changed, then your entire argument is one > big mental exercise with absolutely no relevance to interoperability in > practice. No, Rob. The problem is that no one did change their relevant code, in no small part because once the thousands of mandatory ODF interoperability requirements were dropped at JTC 1, vendors could claim conformance for non-interoperable ODF implementations. For example, OpenOffice.org's wholesale destruction of foreign elements and attributes other than its own rendered the app non-conformant under OASIS ODF 1.0 because that specification limited all options with two mandatory interoperability requirements, including the options applicable to foreign elements and attributes specified by the conformance section. In summary, mandatory schemas alone are insufficient to specify "clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the interoperability" as required by JTC 1 Directives. But you already knew that, didn't you, Rob? Else why did you propose having an ODF Interoperability and Conformance technical committee if a schema is all that is necessary to achieve interoperable implementations? Every adopted version of ODF has specified a schema and conditioned conformance on validation against the schema. If a schema and validation are all that is necessary to achieve interoperability, why then do we need a second TC chartered to advise the ODF TC "on changes to ODF that might improve interoperability?" . I'm all ears. Best regards, Paul E. Merrell, J.D. (Marbux) -- Universal Interoperability Council From robert_weir at us.ibm.com Sun Mar 15 12:49:23 2009 From: robert_weir at us.ibm.com (robert_weir@us.ibm.com) Date: Sun Mar 15 13:29:11 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF 1.2cd01 --- AWOL interoperability conformity requirements In-Reply-To: <2c60d980903150921t3b39ee1ch1d7fe7bb32e8b9af@mail.gmail.com> References: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903150921t3b39ee1ch1d7fe7bb32e8b9af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com wrote on 03/15/2009 12:21:26 PM: >Every adopted version of ODF has specified a schema and conditioned >conformance on validation against the schema. If a schema and >validation are all that is necessary to achieve interoperability, why >then do we need a second TC chartered to advise the ODF TC "on changes >to ODF that might improve interoperability?" Paul, that is a strawman of your own invention. Where did I say conformance to a schema was the only thing required for interoperability? All I said was that your naive approach of merely counting how many times the word "shall" occurs does not accurately reflect how many conformance requirements are defined by an XML-based standard because the majority of such requirements are expressed in the schema. Since you are unable to point to even a single line of code in a single ODF implementation that changed because of the difference in control vocabulary in OASIS ODF 1.0 versus ISO/IEC 26300, then I'll take that as acknowledgement that interoperability was not impacted in the slightest by that change. If uttering a few magical incantations was all that was required to have perfect interoperability, then it would have been done by now, right? You and two others could just join OASIS, form a new TC, put on your magic hats, utter the charms and mantras and publish your magic interoperability standard so the world would then be perfect. But here in the real world, on planet Earth, interoperability is not changed by magic words. It requires real code changes in real products, and this requires real work by real programmers. Making real change in real products requires more than some crank on the sidelines spouting off about how changing three magic words will suddenly make OpenOffice and Microsoft Office work better together. Save it for the Easter Bunny. If you have any novel and nonobvious observations on the topic, I'd love to hear them. But the same old tripe you've been serving up for the last 2 years is growing really old. Time to put something fresh on the table, don't you think? -Rob From marbux at gmail.com Sun Mar 15 19:33:14 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Sun Mar 15 19:33:19 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF 1.2cd01 --- AWOL interoperability conformity requirements In-Reply-To: References: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903150921t3b39ee1ch1d7fe7bb32e8b9af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2c60d980903151633l7775f86k1a1b13b7af8854e@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 9:49 AM, wrote: x--big snip--x >Making real change in real products requires more > than some *crank* on the sidelines spouting off about how changing three > magic words will suddenly make OpenOffice and Microsoft Office work better > together. Crank: "Noun "S: (n) grouch, grump, crank, churl, crosspatch (a bad-tempered person) "S: (n) crackpot, crank, nut, nut case, fruitcake, screwball (a whimsically eccentric person) "S: (n) methamphetamine, ... "S: (n) crank, starter (a hand tool consisting of a rotating shaft with parallel handle)" . Dear Rob, I'm not going to otherwise reply to your post today because of your personal attack that culminated in the above insult that also put words in my mouth that I never said. I may respond to some more substantive portions of your post tomorrow. I hope that by that time you will have cooled your jets somewhat. I still like you, but I hereby grant you the gift of a day off from dealing with me. Enjoy. :-) Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From worldlabel at gmail.com Fri Mar 20 13:32:09 2009 From: worldlabel at gmail.com (Russell Ossendryver) Date: Fri Mar 20 13:53:52 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Open Documents Standards Proposed in Texas Legislature Message-ID: Fort Worth State Representative *Mark Veasey* filed a bill this session that would require Texas State Agencies to create all of their documents in an open, freely-available file format standard. Complete story here: http://www.cowtownchronicles.com/2009/03/19/open-documents-standards-proposed-in-texas-legislature/ Link to Bill: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/pdf/HB00481I.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/pipermail/odf-discuss/attachments/20090320/8bd6da8c/attachment.html From jza at openoffice.org Fri Mar 20 14:24:38 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Fri Mar 20 14:29:57 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Open Documents Standards Proposed in Texas Legislature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <497b733b0903201124g4ba96562n283c858389212883@mail.gmail.com> this would be the second time that has happeneed I remember a bill in the state of Texas also requesting this. On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Russell Ossendryver wrote: > Fort Worth State Representative Mark Veasey filed a bill this session that > would require Texas State Agencies to create all of their documents in an > open, freely-available file format standard. > > Complete story here: > http://www.cowtownchronicles.com/2009/03/19/open-documents-standards-proposed-in-texas-legislature/ > > Link to Bill: > http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/pdf/HB00481I.pdf > > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > > > -- Alexandro Colorado OpenOffice.org Español IM: jza@jabber.org From robert_weir at us.ibm.com Fri Mar 20 16:26:34 2009 From: robert_weir at us.ibm.com (robert_weir@us.ibm.com) Date: Fri Mar 20 16:25:12 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Open Documents Standards Proposed in Texas Legislature In-Reply-To: <497b733b0903201124g4ba96562n283c858389212883@mail.gmail.com> References: <497b733b0903201124g4ba96562n283c858389212883@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com wrote on 03/20/2009 02:24:38 PM: > > this would be the second time that has happeneed I remember a bill in > the state of Texas also requesting this. > You may be thinking of the hearings last year: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080409110045256 These things typically go in phases: hearings, then bills. The Texas state legislature is only in session in odd-numbered years. So even-numbered years like 2008 are taken up with committee hearings and stuff like that. Now we're in 2009 so members can offer up bills. -Rob From ian.lynch at theingots.org Sat Mar 21 06:55:10 2009 From: ian.lynch at theingots.org (Ian Lynch) Date: Sat Mar 21 06:53:37 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools Message-ID: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> Maybe a little off topic but I thought it might be of interest. http://tinyurl.com/dyhopm First key finding In both phases, higher-attaining pupils and students were insufficiently challenged, often spending time consolidating what they could already do rather than acquiring higher-level skills, particularly in some vocational courses at Key Stage 4. Over- reliance on a standard ?office? application and operating system restricted their opportunities to develop generic and transferable skills. Para 103 For instance, open source operating systems and software are now a reliable and cost-effective solution, enabling the few schools that choose this route to achieve excellent value for money. A few schools have used open source software for establishing a virtual learning environment, enabling them to obtain several years? worth of development with no licensing costs. NAACE (National Association of Advisors for Computer Education) is compiling opinions on the report. Would the fellowship would like to make an official contribution? I'm a member of NAACE so I can put something forward if its the general will of the people :-) Something on the lines of "The ODF fellowship welcomes the recognition of the importance of generic and transferable skills and believes this should be taken further to include an understanding of why interoperability between applications, supported by fully and clearly transparent open standards is important." -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. From cputtick at gmail.com Sat Mar 21 07:18:27 2009 From: cputtick at gmail.com (Chris Puttick) Date: Sat Mar 21 07:18:32 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools In-Reply-To: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> References: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> Message-ID: <388f7e1a0903210418y4cdd0952o97cf114323cfc496@mail.gmail.com> Sounds good to me :) 2009/3/21 Ian Lynch : > Maybe a little off topic but I thought it might be of interest. > > http://tinyurl.com/dyhopm > > First key finding > > In both phases, higher-attaining pupils and students were insufficiently > challenged, often spending time consolidating what they could already do > rather than acquiring higher-level skills, particularly in some > vocational courses at Key Stage 4. > > Over- reliance on a standard ?office? application and operating system > restricted their opportunities to develop generic and transferable > skills. > > Para 103 > For instance, open source operating systems and software are now a > reliable and cost-effective solution, enabling the few schools that > choose this route to achieve excellent value for money. > > A few schools have used open source software for establishing a virtual > learning environment, enabling them to obtain several years? worth of > development with no licensing costs. > > NAACE (National Association of Advisors for Computer Education) is > compiling opinions on the report. Would the fellowship would like to > make an official contribution? I'm a member of NAACE so I can put > something forward if its the general will of the people :-) > > Something on the lines of "The ODF fellowship welcomes the recognition > of the importance of generic and transferable skills and believes this > should be taken further to include an understanding of why > interoperability between applications, supported by fully and clearly > transparent open standards is important." > > -- > Ian > Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications > A new approach to assessment for learning > www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 > > You have received this email from the following company: The Learning > Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 > 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. > > > > _______________________________________________ > odf-discuss mailing list > odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com > http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss > > -- My employers website: http://thehumanjourney.net - opinions in this email are however very much my own and may not reflect that of my current employer, past employers, associates, friends, family, pets etc.. Documents attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format: http://iso26300.info From jeanweber at gmail.com Sat Mar 21 07:22:16 2009 From: jeanweber at gmail.com (Jean Hollis Weber) Date: Sat Mar 21 07:30:32 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools In-Reply-To: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> References: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> Message-ID: <49C4CDE8.2050404@gmail.com> Ian Lynch wrote: > Maybe a little off topic but I thought it might be of interest. > > http://tinyurl.com/dyhopm > [details snipped] > NAACE (National Association of Advisors for Computer Education) is > compiling opinions on the report. Would the fellowship would like to > make an official contribution? I'm a member of NAACE so I can put > something forward if its the general will of the people :-) > > Something on the lines of "The ODF fellowship welcomes the recognition > of the importance of generic and transferable skills and believes this > should be taken further to include an understanding of why > interoperability between applications, supported by fully and clearly > transparent open standards is important." > Good idea, Ian. Yes, I think you should put forward a contribution as a representative of the Fellowship. --Jean From lars at umich.edu Sat Mar 21 09:27:30 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sat Mar 21 09:27:36 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools In-Reply-To: <49C4CDE8.2050404@gmail.com> References: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> <49C4CDE8.2050404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <49C4EB42.30105@umich.edu> Jean Hollis Weber wrote: > Good idea, Ian. Yes, I think you should put forward a contribution as a > representative of the Fellowship. +1 From lars at umich.edu Sat Mar 21 10:42:10 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sat Mar 21 10:42:26 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools In-Reply-To: <388f7e1a0903210418y4cdd0952o97cf114323cfc496@mail.gmail.com> References: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> <388f7e1a0903210418y4cdd0952o97cf114323cfc496@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49C4FCC2.3090404@umich.edu> One thing that comes to mind, was back when I worked at a community college's computer lab, *all* the end-user courses on applications used at least two packages of the same type. The focus might be mostly on one or the other, but more than one was *always* used. The policy insisted upon by the teachers then was that the concepts be taught so that the skills would be portable. -Lars From ian.lynch at theingots.org Sat Mar 21 16:15:53 2009 From: ian.lynch at theingots.org (Ian Lynch) Date: Sat Mar 21 16:14:20 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools In-Reply-To: <49C4EC55.10202@scheie.homedns.org> References: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> <49C4EC55.10202@scheie.homedns.org> Message-ID: <1237666554.25800.9.camel@Zaphod> On Sat, 2009-03-21 at 08:32 -0500, Peter Scheie wrote: > The link did not work for me. I landed on an Ofsted web page saying the website > had changed and that I was probably trying to connect to an old link. Try this link www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/070035 > > Peter > > Ian Lynch wrote: > > Maybe a little off topic but I thought it might be of interest. > > > > http://tinyurl.com/dyhopm > > > > First key finding > > > > In both phases, higher-attaining pupils and students were insufficiently > > challenged, often spending time consolidating what they could already do > > rather than acquiring higher-level skills, particularly in some > > vocational courses at Key Stage 4. > > > > Over- reliance on a standard ???office??? application and operating system > > restricted their opportunities to develop generic and transferable > > skills. > > > > Para 103 > > For instance, open source operating systems and software are now a > > reliable and cost-effective solution, enabling the few schools that > > choose this route to achieve excellent value for money. > > > > A few schools have used open source software for establishing a virtual > > learning environment, enabling them to obtain several years??? worth of > > development with no licensing costs. > > > > NAACE (National Association of Advisors for Computer Education) is > > compiling opinions on the report. Would the fellowship would like to > > make an official contribution? I'm a member of NAACE so I can put > > something forward if its the general will of the people :-) > > > > Something on the lines of "The ODF fellowship welcomes the recognition > > of the importance of generic and transferable skills and believes this > > should be taken further to include an understanding of why > > interoperability between applications, supported by fully and clearly > > transparent open standards is important." > > -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. From marbux at gmail.com Sun Mar 22 01:39:18 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Sun Mar 22 01:46:23 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF 1.2cd01 --- AWOL interoperability conformity requirements In-Reply-To: References: <2c60d980903150338k4c183ea8i5e4152dc370e4ec0@mail.gmail.com> <2c60d980903150921t3b39ee1ch1d7fe7bb32e8b9af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2c60d980903212239v26ee99e9xb9e5158b73f4cd38@mail.gmail.com> My apologies for the delay in getting back to this. We encountered unexpected glitches in an app I'm helping to develop and had to drop everything else to make the release deadline. On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 9:49 AM, wrote: > odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com wrote on 03/15/2009 > 12:21:26 PM: > All I said was that your naive approach of merely counting how many times > the word "shall" occurs does not accurately reflect how many conformance > requirements are defined by an XML-based standard because the majority of > such requirements are expressed in the schema. Not what you said, Rob. And merely counting how many times the word "shall" occurs is not what I've done. > Since you are unable to point to even a single line of code in a single > ODF implementation that changed because of the difference in control > vocabulary in OASIS ODF 1.0 versus ISO/IEC 26300, then I'll take that as > acknowledgement that interoperability was not impacted in the slightest by > that change. You didn't respond to what I said in that regard. The problem is that (presumably) no code did change because with circa 7,192 mandatory interoperability requirements flicked off, vendors could claim conformance for non-interoperable implementations. Moreover, your entire discussion of schema requirements is irrelevant because the circa 7,192 requirements that went missing all specified implementation *behavior,* as quoted in my article, They had only tangential relationship to the schema or validation against the schema requirements. For example, validation against the schema tells implementers nothing about preservation of markup during processing that was received from another implementation, an area in which ODF has since been massively under-specified. The AWOL interoperability requirements spoke loudly to that that subject, in mandatory terms: >>> MAY This word, or the adjective "OPTIONAL", mean that an item is truly optional. One vendor may choose to include the item because a particular marketplace requires it or because the vendor feels that it enhances the product while another vendor may omit the same item. An implementation which does not include a particular option MUST be prepared to interoperate with another implementation which does include the option, though perhaps with reduced functionality. In the same vein an implementation which does include a particular option MUST be prepared to interoperate with another implementation which does not include the option (except, of course, for the feature the option provides.) <<< > If uttering a few magical incantations was all that was required to have > perfect interoperability, then it would have been done by now, right? Perhaps and perhaps not. But vendors would not be entitled to claim conformance for non-interoperable implementations as they have been able to do since the definitions were switched from RFC 2119 to ISO/IEC Directives Part 2 definitions. I suspect that an inability to claim conformance would have produced far more progress on the interoperability front than your "eating the elephant one bite at a time" approach. But here in the real world, > on planet Earth, interoperability is not changed by magic words. ?It > requires real code changes in real products, and this requires real work > by real programmers. ?Making real change in real products x--snip--x I'm not enamored of the view that standards should be defined by its implementations. It seems to produce interoperability disasters like the ODF standard, ridden with hard-coded implementation dependencies either masquerading as options in the spec and/or left unspecified. Saying that one can't produce a vendor-neutral specification designed for interoperability because the changes have to be implemented puts the implementation tail wagging the standard dog. I favor an approach where the vendors can advise but have no vote in the standard-setting decisions. That's why I place more hopes in SC 34 fixing the ODF standard than in OASIS doing so. > If you have any novel and nonobvious observations on the topic, I'd love > to hear them. ?But the same old tripe you've been serving up for the last > 2 years is growing really old. ?Time to put something fresh on the table, > don't you think? Tripe, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. Personally, I tire of your excuses for not producing an ODF 1.2 that "specif[ies] clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the interoperability." I'm not the only one who shares that sentiment. E.g., "So I think users need to understand, very clearly, that an ODF document/app of *either* conformance class has an EXTREMELY WEAK CLAIM TO INTEROPERABILITY. The "pure ODF conformance" sticker would be at best valueless and at worst positively misleading. "So what I'd like to see is some real effort from the TC going into resolving this problem ..." Alex Brown, Foreign Elements and Attributes, OASIS opendocument-users list (4 March 2009), . How many people have spoken in favor of keeping ODF dark and mysterious other than you, Rob? Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council From peter at scheie.homedns.org Sat Mar 21 09:32:05 2009 From: peter at scheie.homedns.org (Peter Scheie) Date: Sun Mar 22 04:28:37 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] UK school inspectors report on ICT in schools In-Reply-To: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> References: <1237632910.15184.50.camel@Zaphod> Message-ID: <49C4EC55.10202@scheie.homedns.org> The link did not work for me. I landed on an Ofsted web page saying the website had changed and that I was probably trying to connect to an old link. Peter Ian Lynch wrote: > Maybe a little off topic but I thought it might be of interest. > > http://tinyurl.com/dyhopm > > First key finding > > In both phases, higher-attaining pupils and students were insufficiently > challenged, often spending time consolidating what they could already do > rather than acquiring higher-level skills, particularly in some > vocational courses at Key Stage 4. > > Over- reliance on a standard ???office??? application and operating system > restricted their opportunities to develop generic and transferable > skills. > > Para 103 > For instance, open source operating systems and software are now a > reliable and cost-effective solution, enabling the few schools that > choose this route to achieve excellent value for money. > > A few schools have used open source software for establishing a virtual > learning environment, enabling them to obtain several years??? worth of > development with no licensing costs. > > NAACE (National Association of Advisors for Computer Education) is > compiling opinions on the report. Would the fellowship would like to > make an official contribution? I'm a member of NAACE so I can put > something forward if its the general will of the people :-) > > Something on the lines of "The ODF fellowship welcomes the recognition > of the importance of generic and transferable skills and believes this > should be taken further to include an understanding of why > interoperability between applications, supported by fully and clearly > transparent open standards is important." > From soren.roug at eea.europa.eu Sun Mar 22 15:51:50 2009 From: soren.roug at eea.europa.eu (=?iso-8859-1?q?S=F8ren_Roug?=) Date: Sun Mar 22 16:09:14 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] odfpy 0.9 is out Message-ID: <200903222051.50973.soren.roug@eea.europa.eu> Remember odfpy? The little Python library that can create ODF documents. Version 0.9 is out. Main new features are: * Updated to ODF 1.1. * A csv2ods program * The ability to load ODF 1.2 files * Online manual (though not complete) Read more at http://odfpy.forge.osor.eu/ Best regards S?ren Roug European Environment Agency -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/pipermail/odf-discuss/attachments/20090322/0d51bf94/attachment.html From jza at openoffice.org Sun Mar 22 18:27:49 2009 From: jza at openoffice.org (Alexandro Colorado) Date: Sun Mar 22 18:28:12 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] odfpy 0.9 is out In-Reply-To: <200903222051.50973.soren.roug@eea.europa.eu> References: <200903222051.50973.soren.roug@eea.europa.eu> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:51:50 -0600, S?ren Roug wrote: > Remember odfpy? The little Python library that can create ODF documents. > Version 0.9 is out. > > Main new features are: > * Updated to ODF 1.1. > * A csv2ods program > * The ability to load ODF 1.2 files > * Online manual (though not complete) > > Read more at http://odfpy.forge.osor.eu/ > > Best regards > > S?ren Roug > European Environment Agency Looks good, I also notice that they are now in OSOR. I am not sure if it was there originally. I also like that feature to convert from csv2ods. -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org From Soren.Roug at eea.europa.eu Mon Mar 23 05:46:27 2009 From: Soren.Roug at eea.europa.eu (=?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren_Roug?=) Date: Mon Mar 23 05:56:25 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] odfpy 0.9 is out In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks. No, ODFPY was originally on the SVN for the OpenDocument Fellowship, but I seemed to be the only person, and I needed more features, so I took the decision to move. Since I work for a EU agency, and OSOR is EU-sponsored, the choice was straight-forward. BTW. The ODF 1.1 schema is available for easy browsing on http://odfpy.forge.osor.eu/manual/ in Python syntax. I could make one that is in XML syntax as well. Any interest? It would look somewhat like DocBook's element reference: (http://docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/para.html). -- Sincerely yours / Med venlig hilsen, S?ren Roug European Environment Agency, Kongens Nytorv 6, DK-1050 Copenhagen K Tel: +45 3336 7212 Fax: +45 3336 7199 Jabber: roug@jabber.eea.europa.eu This email was delivered using 100% recycled electrons. Please try to keep it that way. -----Original Message----- From: odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com [mailto:odf-discuss-bounces@opendocumentfellowship.com] On Behalf Of Alexandro Colorado Sent: 22 March 2009 23:28 To: ODF Discussion List Subject: Re: [odf-discuss] odfpy 0.9 is out On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:51:50 -0600, S?ren Roug wrote: > Remember odfpy? The little Python library that can create ODF documents. > Version 0.9 is out. > > Main new features are: > * Updated to ODF 1.1. > * A csv2ods program > * The ability to load ODF 1.2 files > * Online manual (though not complete) > > Read more at http://odfpy.forge.osor.eu/ > > Best regards > > S?ren Roug > European Environment Agency Looks good, I also notice that they are now in OSOR. I am not sure if it was there originally. I also like that feature to convert from csv2ods. -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org _______________________________________________ odf-discuss mailing list odf-discuss@opendocumentfellowship.com http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/mailman/listinfo/odf-discuss From marco at digifreedom.net Sat Mar 28 06:47:37 2009 From: marco at digifreedom.net (M. Fioretti) Date: Sat Mar 28 07:15:55 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Seminar on how file formats impact innovation now online Message-ID: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> Greetings, back in January, I had posted this announce here: > I am preparing an updated, extended edition of my seminar "How file > formats can be used to favor (or hamper) innovation: concrete > impacts on free markets, business competition, culture, equal > opportunities, education..." The 2009 edition is finally available at my new website: http://mfioretti.com/how-file-formats-can-be-used-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-citizenship-and-really-free-markets Feedback is welcome, of course! Ciao, Marco Fioretti http://mfioretti.com -- Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how software is used *around* you: http://digifreedom.net/node/84 From lars at umich.edu Sat Mar 28 07:44:05 2009 From: lars at umich.edu (=?UTF-8?B?TGFycyBOb29kw6lu?=) Date: Sat Mar 28 07:44:12 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Seminar on how file formats impact innovation now online In-Reply-To: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> References: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> Message-ID: <49CE0D85.2080106@umich.edu> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 M. Fioretti wrote: > ... > The 2009 edition is finally available at my new website: > http://mfioretti.com/how-file-formats-can-be-used-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-citizenship-and-really-free-markets > ... Thanks! This is a most excellent set of slides. A key point made on slide 43, that the close formats hurt the copyright holders, is something this presentation has in common with archival discussions in the early to mid-1990's. - -Lars -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFJzg2Ffz2bZ9qH75oRAvSMAJ9HOqkgSUyKl32rgHAg0mATXQQiIwCdE/lq 8ahG+muSkkg9u32bbubCLIE= =5W7a -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jelledejong at powercraft.nl Sat Mar 28 13:34:42 2009 From: jelledejong at powercraft.nl (Jelle de Jong) Date: Sat Mar 28 13:55:25 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Seminar on how file formats impact innovation now online In-Reply-To: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> References: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> Message-ID: <49CE5FB2.4050400@powercraft.nl> M. Fioretti wrote: > Greetings, > > back in January, I had posted this announce here: > >> I am preparing an updated, extended edition of my seminar "How file >> formats can be used to favor (or hamper) innovation: concrete >> impacts on free markets, business competition, culture, equal >> opportunities, education..." > > The 2009 edition is finally available at my new website: > http://mfioretti.com/how-file-formats-can-be-used-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-citizenship-and-really-free-markets > > Feedback is welcome, of course! Thanks! Excellent examples and lots of background information. Keep up the good work, Best regards, Jelle de Jong From mfioretti at nexaima.net Sat Mar 28 16:24:18 2009 From: mfioretti at nexaima.net (M. Fioretti) Date: Sat Mar 28 16:42:34 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Seminar on how file formats impact innovation now online In-Reply-To: <49CE5FB2.4050400@powercraft.nl> References: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> <49CE5FB2.4050400@powercraft.nl> Message-ID: <20090328202418.GA2503@nexaima.net> On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 18:34:42 PM +0100, Jelle de Jong wrote: > > http://mfioretti.com/how-file-formats-can-be-used-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-citizenship-and-really-free-markets > > Feedback is welcome, of course! > > Thanks! Excellent examples and lots of background information. Thanks. Speaking of open formats, I've seen at tuxcrafter.net that you are interested in DjVu, so you may also like this other link: http://mfioretti.com/djvu-saving-our-paper-heritage Ciao, Marco -- Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how software is used *around* you: http://digifreedom.net/node/84 From jelledejong at powercraft.nl Sat Mar 28 21:02:55 2009 From: jelledejong at powercraft.nl (Jelle de Jong) Date: Sat Mar 28 21:03:08 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] Seminar on how file formats impact innovation now online In-Reply-To: <20090328202418.GA2503@nexaima.net> References: <20090328104737.GB31779@nexaima.net> <49CE5FB2.4050400@powercraft.nl> <20090328202418.GA2503@nexaima.net> Message-ID: <49CEC8BF.7000708@powercraft.nl> M. Fioretti wrote: > On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 18:34:42 PM +0100, Jelle de Jong wrote: > >>> http://mfioretti.com/how-file-formats-can-be-used-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-citizenship-and-really-free-markets >>> Feedback is welcome, of course! >> Thanks! Excellent examples and lots of background information. > > Thanks. Speaking of open formats, I've seen at tuxcrafter.net that you > are interested in DjVu, so you may also like this other link: > http://mfioretti.com/djvu-saving-our-paper-heritage Thanks again for the other link[1] and yes that website[2] is indeed mine, and I am very interested in DjVu but I am also worried about the non-royalty free patents[2] on the algorithms used by the DjVu tools. The commercial tools also have far better compression implementations. I currently recommend the GPL tools for people using Linux environments and do lots of digital archiving. Is there a way to completely free (as in freedom) the DjVu format and find a way to gather some money to improve the GPL tools (especially for color compression) as an community thing? I got the feeling DjVu is depending to much on the company behind it and that is not good...? The thing is I use DjVu for scanned documents and in lineart mode I have astonishing compression and speed rates compared with PDF. And I can always convert DjVu back to PDF. with GPL compliant tools. I access my scanned documents over remote network and I can have 200 pages in less then 7MB (600dpi A4 lineart) and with evince it loads very fast. This same document will be 80MB in PS and freaking 55MB in PDF. So you can see it saves a lot of money in bandwidth and processing time. A single page DjVu files is around 43.5kB in lineart 600dpi A4, and the same pages is about 497kB in PDF1.4 so that 1130% larger more then 11x the DjVu size .... But then the issue remains there is no common accepted DjVu or document reader for Microsoft Windows or Macintosh users. (chicken egg problem) When using Mozialla Firefox it will not automatic download a DjVu viewer, this would be something I would like to see. I also created an efficient multi-language cli automated document scanning tool[4] that uses both DjVu and/or PDF, it will be accepted in Debian within a few months since I have a sponsor for it, but still need to do some fine tuning. [1] http://mfioretti.com/djvu-saving-our-paper-heritage [2] http://www.tuxcrafter.net/ [3] http://djvu.sourceforge.net/licensing.html [4] http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/pct-scanner-scripts/ https://secure.powercraft.nl/svn/packages/trunk/source/pct-scanner-scripts/ From jdavid at itaapy.com Mon Mar 30 12:11:55 2009 From: jdavid at itaapy.com (=?UTF-8?B?IkouIERhdmlkIEliw6HDsWV6Ig==?=) Date: Mon Mar 30 12:25:13 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] ODF Converter Test Suite Message-ID: <49D0EF4B.8040907@itaapy.com> Hello, I would like to announce the release of a derivative work of the OpenDocument Fellowship test suite, which we will call the ODF Converter test suite. The focus of this test suite is to test toolsets that extract text from ODF documents for translation. We have taken the test cases we believed relevant for this purpose and added the PO files with the expected output. More details are available here: http://www.hforge.org/odf-i18n-tests http://git.hforge.org/?p=odf-i18n-tests.git;a=blob;f=README.txt This work has been sponsored by the NLnet foundation [1] and realized by Itaapy [2] in the context of the ODF Converter project [3]. [1] http://www.nlnet.nl/ [2] http://www.itaapy.com/ [3] http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/developers/projects/odf Best regards, -- J. David Ib??ez Itaapy Tel +33 (0)1 42 23 67 45 9 rue Darwin, 75018 Paris Fax +33 (0)1 53 28 27 88 From tpeland at tkukoulu.fi Tue Mar 24 04:57:57 2009 From: tpeland at tkukoulu.fi (Tero Pelander) Date: Tue Mar 31 03:05:02 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] .org->.com link fix at opendocumentfellowship.com Message-ID: <20090324085757.GA18505@tkukoulu.fi> On page http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications Link "Fellowship ODF Viewer" points to http://opendocumentfellowship.org/odfviewer while it should point to http://opendocumentfellowship.com/odfviewer From marbux at gmail.com Tue Mar 31 05:11:35 2009 From: marbux at gmail.com (marbux) Date: Tue Mar 31 05:11:38 2009 Subject: [odf-discuss] .org->.com link fix at opendocumentfellowship.com In-Reply-To: <20090324085757.GA18505@tkukoulu.fi> References: <20090324085757.GA18505@tkukoulu.fi> Message-ID: <2c60d980903310211l2f1121aao86e3ce22d9c1794f@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:57 AM, Tero Pelander wrote: > On page > http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications > > Link "Fellowship ODF Viewer" points to > http://opendocumentfellowship.org/odfviewer > while it should point to > http://opendocumentfellowship.com/odfviewer Probably good to run a Replace operation against the entire site's content to substitute the new domain name for all occurrences of the old. Best regards, Paul -- Universal Interoperability Council