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Re: It makes no sense
by Cyrille Berger on Friday 02/Nov/2007, @16:22
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"still not spend time on supporting it." it means we won't spend time developing our own OfficeOpen XML support. One of the KOffice hacker allready made it possible to use OpenOffice to silently convert files to odf to then open them in KOffice.
But if there is a good OOXML to ODF converter, we will of course be able to leverage it and use that. I would also like to point out, that OOXML is not yet an ISO standard, and a lot of changes are needed to be made to the standard before it can become one, so support for OOXML is clearly not a priority for the next release.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Level 1 on Friday 02/Nov/2007, @16:53
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I think the koffice people need to implement at least basic microsoft document support if they expect people to use it. I love kde to the end of the earth and use kde apps everywhere I can, except office apps, there I use openoffice; The fact of the matter is I'm a college student in America. I can't turn in reports in odf, because my school uses ms word. I can't force people to use odf, but if kword supported doc it would be much easier
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Re: It makes no sense
by Adrian Baugh on Friday 02/Nov/2007, @17:19
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You clearly haven't found the "Save As" option (or are trolling...)
File -> Save As; select Microsoft Word document. It's not rocket science...
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Re: It makes no sense - compatibilty with msformat
by Pol on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @04:18
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I don not think he/she is a troll. Compatibility with Ms-office is crucial in spreading koffice.
Can one export kword files containing tables and pictures to the ms-doc format?
Can one _import_ ms-doc formatted documents containing tables and pictures?
Until last year, as far as i remember, that was not possible.
Are developers making progress in that direction?
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MS formats are history
by Right direction on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @10:03
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The onus is on M$ to become compatible. However, that'll never happen voluntarily. So, we have for the time being Sun's ODF plugin for MS Word:
http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/
MS formats are history. Sure several of the .doc formats are around now, but not a single one of the specifications has been published. That means as soon as a universal format gets a critical mass, people will leave.
KOffice is making the right move to turn to open standards.
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Re: MS formats are history
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Sunday 04/Nov/2007, @13:41
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I don't think anybody ever seriously considered/proposed making MS Office formats the default formats in KOffice. ODF should stay the default file format in KOffice.
But good reading support for MS Office formats is crucial.
I have a Linux PC and an iBook with Mac OS X. Thus I'm also visiting Mac user forums. You probably don't imagine it how big the resistance against the upcoming MS Office 2008 is. That release will display most existing MS Office documents just fine, but it won't support VBA scripting. If killing a feature that only a minority uses causes so much uproar, just think about how much resistance an office suite will get (on platforms where MS Office is available) that can't even open many MS Office file remotely correct.
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Re: It makes no sense
by AC on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @02:15
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OpenOffice is bloated and hard to use because instead of improving the apps they are always following Microsoft. There's no need for another app to go that way.
For example kpresenter is different from ms powerpoint, but IMHO it's better and easier to use (although some features are missing).
The bottom line is: we don't need another ms office!
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Re: It makes no sense
by T. J. Brumfield on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @18:44
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It isn't bloated for copying MS Office, and it certainly departs from MS Office in many ways. It is bloated because of a large, perhaps poorly written code base.
MS Office is perhaps the best piece of software MS has put out. It is very feature rich, stable, and loads very quickly. It is well integrated, and really a good product. If it were multiplatform, I might just use it on Linux believe it or not. Because it isn't multiplatform, I use OOo on both.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Leo S on Sunday 04/Nov/2007, @08:48
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Yeah, Office is truly excellent. Openoffice is ok for basic needs, but for anything more advanced I have to turn to MS Office (especially excel is leaps and bounds ahead of calc).
Trying to beat microsoft at their own game is impossible. KOffice needs to be innovative and take a different approach, which I think they are already doing very well. I look forward to 2.0.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Reply on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @23:11
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You should turn in reports in PDF, not .doc or .odt.
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Re: It makes no sense
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Sunday 04/Nov/2007, @13:27
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"But if there is a good OOXML to ODF converter, we will of course be able to leverage it and use that."
My point is that you don't want to do it. How hard is it for a C++ developer like you to launch an external executable from KOffice? If it's a piece of cake then just check if odf-converter is installed in the system's PATH, run it to convert an OOXML file to ODF, and open the resulting ODF file. AFAIK Novell already does this in their OpenOffice built.
When I mentioned odf-converter the last time, I just received hatred, because the converter is Mono-based. So what? I don't want to become Mono a requirement for KOffice either and that's why I just propose to make it optional.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Steve Brennan on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @14:03
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Yes and we all know about the Microsoft/Novell deal too. Sure Novell can use mono, and OOOXML and whatever Microsoft technology it wants to, they've signed a deal with Microsoft that allows them to do so.
Open standards work for everyone, Microsoft standards only work for those whom Microsoft allows them to work for.
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Re: It makes no sense
by T. J. Brumfield on Friday 02/Nov/2007, @17:08
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Office 2007 doesn't have the huge market share that Office 2003 does, because most businesses aren't making that jump yet. MS Office does have a huge market share lead, but a bigger priority should be on importing and exporting Office 2003 .doc and .xls formats first, before worrying about the huge mess that is OOXML.
Furthermore, now that there are .odf converters for Office 2007, you can convince Office 2007 users to send documents in .odf format to ensure compatibility with them. Office 2007 users who want to share documents likely have to "Save As..." in another format anyway, since not many people are using Office 2007 anyway.
OpenOffice is good, but not perfect. It is a little slow, has political issues with Sun going on, features bloat from an old code base, and has a poor UI.
Personally, I'd either like to see a combined effort from developers to make OOo the best it could be, or see a better product replace it. KOffice couldn't compete with OOo because it wasn't a multiplatform product, but it is about to be.
There has been some discussion in the OOo crowd to remove some older portions of its clunky codebase, and replace it with other existing libraries and products, such as page rendering and the like. Neither OOo nor KOffice is going away, so we're going to get developers split between the two products, and we have to accept this at some point.
However, I have to wonder if the OOo and KOffice devs couldn't work together on some joint libraries between the two products, such as MS import filters, ODF libraries, etc, and libraries for both products to best display natively on all three major platforms.
A codeveloped ODF library doesn't just benefit the KDE team, it benefits all developers, and the further adoption of the ODF format.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Sebastian Sauer on Sunday 04/Nov/2007, @11:54
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See, very good support can't be done within a day, a week, a month or even a year. It takes just very long. Now the situation is, that it's guaranteed that ISO OpenDocument will be the default file-format for a bunch of applications for a pretty long time. That means, if we invest today time, it will pay out tomorrow and even the day after tomorrow we still support a widly used format. Now try to compare that to the MSOffice2003-Format. 2003 is _NOT_ compatible with 2007. Don't believe there the MS food, they are pretty much different file-formats what means, that already today the MS2003-format is already expired and out-of-date. If you look back a few years you will note, that this was very often the case and the old MSOffice-formats got replaced each few years with a new format. Now we have those blending MSOffice2007-Format. And guess what? Its guaranteed that the format will be replaced with a new one as soon as there is a new MSOffice-suite out. We are already able to see this with the large VML-related parts defined in the MSOOXML2007-specification and down the road we can expect that the next MSOffice-format will also introduce more dependencies to .NET && .Windows .
So, rather then starting to work on import+export _filters_ it just makes more sense to put all energy into a format that is guaranteed to stay real backward-compatible, even in 2008, 2009, and so on... A format that will improve in small steps rather then beeing replaced behind closed doors in one huge rush with a new MSOffice-version.
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Re: It makes no sense
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Sunday 04/Nov/2007, @13:59
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"Office 2007 doesn't have the huge market share that Office 2003 does, because most businesses aren't making that jump yet. MS Office does have a huge market share lead, but a bigger priority should be on importing and exporting Office 2003 .doc and .xls formats first, before worrying about the huge mess that is OOXML."
Yes, you are right, but fully supporting old MS Office formats is hard. For OOXML files there already is a stand-alone converter that converts OOXML files to ODF files. Just executing this converter shouldn't be so hard.
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"Furthermore, now that there are .odf converters for Office 2007, you can convince Office 2007 users to send documents in .odf format to ensure compatibility with them."
Um, it's sadly a bit more complicated than that. As Windows users don't have a nice package management system, they have to resolve all dependencies by themselves, because they have to install the Office Compatibility Pack, install the .NET Framework, activate .NET Programmability Support, and then install the ODF converter. And that's only when they want to send their documents to someone else. What if those Windows users like to switch to KOffice 2? Why should they first need to convert all existing files they have on the hard drive? If KOffice supported them right away it would be a lot easier for them.
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"KOffice couldn't compete with OOo because it wasn't a multiplatform product, but it is about to be."
AbiWord has always been multi-platform. It boots faster and uses less resources while having all features common users want to have. Yet almost no Windows or Mac user uses AbiWord. Why? Because its MS Office file supports sucks as much as KOffice's.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Diederik van der Boor on Friday 02/Nov/2007, @18:19
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> [about OOXML] I'm sorry, but get a reality check. MS Office has about 90% market share.
No, this is a reality check. OOXML has *NO* market share today. There are more ODF documents at the web then OOXML documents. The .doc and .xsl formats do have market share. If KOffice and OpenOffice support OOXML now it will help Microsoft to get that marketshare.
It's a classical Microsoft trick: provide documentation so everyone jumps in the boat, and stop providing information once they got market share. They did the same with early MS-Office formats, the MSN protocol, and even the SMB protocol was documented partially once to kill Netware (MS even invited developers from Samba). The community shouldn't fall for this trick with OOXML.
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Fragmented at best
by T. J. Brumfield on Friday 02/Nov/2007, @20:17
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Of those 90% of users who use .doc, how many use Office 95 .doc, or Office 97 .doc, or Office 2000 .doc, or Office XP .doc, or Office 2003 .doc?
Most today probably fall within the last 3, but I work for a newspaper, and there aren't many vendors who specialize in software for the newspaper industry, but th Harris software we use (and hopefully we get away from) sits as a wrapper on top of Word 97, so our newsroom is forced to stick with Word 97, ten years later.
Google was once a nobody 10 years ago. IE once had an insurmountable lead in market share. Educating users, providing a better product, and good marketing can overcome huge market shares.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Chris Ward on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @07:34
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Ten years ago, most people used VCRs and VHS videotapes, to rent movies and record off TV.
Now, they use DVD players and ISO-standard DVDs.
You cannot put a VHS videotape into a DVD player. Either you use a conversion service, convert it yourself, or leave it inaccessible on VHS.
It's pointless making a DVD player able to read from and write to VHS videotapes. You want a VCR for that job.
New stuff goes on ISO-standard DVDs.
Good work, 'koffice' crew. Keep it up !
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Re: It makes no sense
by T. J. Brumfield on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @18:45
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Document archiving is somewhat more important than watching a 20 year old copy of "Romancing the Stone". That is a big reason why ODF is so important.
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Re: It makes no sense
by AJS on Tuesday 11/Dec/2007, @09:51
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For document archiving, the chances are that you <em>don't</em> have to be able to read your old files into your new office suite. You might want to <em>view</em> an old letter you sent 10 years ago, but you sure as heck don't need to <em>edit</em> it (in fact, editing it could be a Very Bad Thing in some circumstances). So, all you need do is get a Microsoft Windows box with a version of Office that can open all your old files, and a PostScript printer driver. Then "print" all your documents to PS files. They can be viewed or printed as required.
If you do ever need to edit an old file, any Open Source office suite should be able to have at least a brave go at opening it. Most files will need a few minor tweaks, but in rare cases it may work out easier and quicker just to retype the whole lot from scratch. At any rate, you can always call up the PostScript version as a reference rendering.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Terry Cole on Saturday 03/Nov/2007, @15:32
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The refusal to consider OOXML even if supported as a standard does seem hypocritical at first glance but only a little digging shows it's the only possible choice.
To begin with, Microsoft does not intend to support its own standard. The reason given by Microsoft was that once a standard, OOXML would necessarily have a governing board which is not Microsoft, and Microsoft refuses to guarantee that it will follow decisions imposed by a standards organization.
When you have 90% market share you can get away with this. Microsoft then has the rest of the world scrambling to keep up with OOXML which is broadly compatible with its own products, but is not itself obligated to follow inconvenient decisions. The technical committee for the standard will then be in the position of forever trying to catch up to changes by MS which are never properly documented.
Second, neither Sun nor KOffice nor the ODF developers are trying to supplant MS Office formats. Market share is not the immediate objective. The main reason why ODF is gaining traction is that it allows for archival formats which will forever be readable by future word processors, etc. This is why librarians and archivists the world over have been clamouring for such a standard. Since ODF is a slim, technically complete standard available right now which does the job, neither KOffice nor OOo nor Abiword has any particular reason to support MS-OOXML.
Third, the OOXML converters you mention have a huge problem. They do not (and can not, because OOXML is not completely specified) perfectly convert between ODF and OOXML. Nor will they ever be able to, since OOXML contains 'binary blobs' which are not properly understood at this time even by Microsoft. This is one reason why the French ISO representatives at one point suggested that the proper designation of OOXML was not a standard, but an ISO TS (technical specification). A TS does not have to meet the very high consistency and completeness criteria of a standard.
Regards, TC
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Re: It makes no sense
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Sunday 04/Nov/2007, @13:18
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"Third, the OOXML converters you mention have a huge problem. They do not (and can not, because OOXML is not completely specified) perfectly convert between ODF and OOXML."
Who wrote something about perfect support? I just wrote about not fragging documents. I did some experimenting with the CLI odf-converter and from what I saw the conversation is quite good.
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Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by Knut Yrvin on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @02:17
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* yxxcvsdfbnfgnds writes:
> I'm sorry, but get a reality check. MS Office has about 90% market share.
Yes, Microsoft Office 1997 document formats got 80-90% marked share. Ecma OOXML has zero marked share. Please don't mix together the product name Microsoft uses on their office suite and the realities concerning the different file format supported in Microsofts products. Microsoft has in two attempts made what they describes as an open format, one in used with MS Office 2003 and a new one with MS Office 2007. Unfortunately Microsoft just partly support OpenDocument Format. Microsoft don't use the Ecma OOXML specification they suggested them self. Microsoft has made a special non documented version of OOXML they follow them self. Almost no businesses uses OOXML, everyone uses the 12 year old MS Office 1997 format.
> People don't want to use office software that frags the documents they recieve.
I agree with you. Unfortunately Microsoft them self are betting on that people will change to their OOXML non-Ecma edition, leaving MS Office 1997 format behind.
Different national ISO-members has committed thousands of objections that has to be addressed before accepting Ecma OOXML. I will name three objections against supporting Ecma OOXML:
* Microsoft does not uses Ecma OOXML them self, but a special version of that format. If someone should be folish to implement Ecmas OOXML, they never know if it's really is implemented in real life as in MS Office 2007. This is a moving target, and you can end up with supporting 6000 pages with Ecma OOXML and has to reverse engineer Microsofts interpretation of OOXML. To implement 6000 pages of document format is a huge undertaking and a lot bigger than the around 600 pages OpenDocumnt Format spesification. But you must also support what Microsoft add and retract from the Ecma OOXML spesification. You don't get time left to make an usable office suite when betting on Ecma OOXML.
* Ecma OOXML is illegal to use for individual developers according The Danish Standardization body. Individual developers are prohibited from using Ecma OOXML. Most of the KOffice developers are individual developers and will be banded from implementing Ecma OOXML if they will contribute.
* Ecma OOXML consist of non documented features like binary only storage elements and non documented functions. To get access to _some_ of the feauture, not all, but some: Your company has to sign a patent deal with Microsoft to get access to some of the not documented features in Ecma OOXML. Microsoft then demand that they shall get right to use all your intellectual property. This kind of legal binding to Ecma OOXML shows that the format is really an Microsoft format, not controlled by a standardization body. Similar legal wording has made Japans competitive authorities to do a rassia against Microsoft for breaking the competitive law.
> No supporting MS file formats does not weaken MS's position,
> but makes people stick with MS Office.
I think you are slightly out of topic. Maybe because you are somewhat confused about the many formats Microsofts has implemented as a part of MS Office, and which formats they don't support where Ecma OOXML is not supported.
You are spot on when it comes to supporting the old MS Office 1997 format. But as mention above, Microsoft them self don't support Ecma OOXML. And Microsoft prohibits individual developers to use Ecma OOXML. ISO comities around the world voted against standardization of OOXML in its current form. Thousands of issues has to be addressed if OOXML gonna represent a transition format from old MS Office documents to a "modern" one. This is the main goal for Microsoft, but they have not delivered on promised, as the ISO standardization process shows.
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Re: Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @10:46
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"Ecma OOXML has zero marked share."
Oh, where did you get you data from? I'm eager to see that nobody ever bought Office 2007 and nobody pirated Office 2007.
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"Almost no businesses uses OOXML"
The world consists of more than just business. I'm fully aware that there are the OOXML file formats and older MS Office file formats. OOXML has the advantage that there is already a working, stand-alone converter.
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"I think you are slightly out of topic."
Who is off-topic? You wrote about ECMA OOXML and MS OOXML and so on. Honestly: I don't care. Maybe YOU are confused by all that political stuff. Let me try to explain again:
There is a working OOXML to ODF converter. It's stand-alone and it's free software that is already integrated into Novell's OpenOffice builds. I tried the converter with a few OOXML documents I found on the net (all created with MS Office 2007) and the results where quite good.
There's no need for any KDE/KOffice developer to write a new OOXML converter.
Just take the existing converter, wrap a GUI (=the open/save window) around it and have instant access to more file formats.
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Re: Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by Knut Yrvin on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @11:28
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Knut Yrvin wrote:
"Ecma OOXML has zero marked share."
yxxcvsdfbnfgnds wrote:
> Oh, where did you get you data from? I'm eager to see that nobody
> ever bought Office 2007 and nobody pirated Office 2007.
[...]
So you don't know the difference between the OOXML specification Microsoft committed to Ecma and their own deviated OOXML-version used in MS Office 2007? This emphasizes my point. You believe things works as long as you can read a label with a five letter acronym from a big cooperation. You don't care if it means to fit a driver seat from BMW in a Volvo, without any specification available. As long as Microsoft tells you that the BMW driver seat should fit in in a Volvo, you believe them. You don't care about the people who makes the solution you want, even if it involves legal risks or a huge pile of work.
> You wrote about ECMA OOXML and MS OOXML and so on. Honestly:
> I don't care.
You don't care ...
Free software developers cares about the software they write. They care about licenses and boring legal stuff. Unfortunately Microsoft makes it illegal to make OOXML integration for individual developers. When Sun makes an OOXML converter to ODF, they are a company and got the legal team to handle the licensing issues. I suggest you yourself, since you don't care of legal risks, tries to implement Suns OOXML->ODF in KOffice based on the work from Sun Microsystems. But it seems that you don't know about this things in depth to do it your self. If that true, I think you should put your money where your month is. Instead of letting others live with the legal risks implementing OOXML, you should pay any legal cost for the developers who supports MS OOXML as you suggests. Or don't you care about that either?
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Re: Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by Indian User on Friday 11/Jan/2008, @05:46
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I would be interested to know more about the source of information on Ecma OOXML being different from MS Office 2007. How does one validate this piece of information ?
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Re: It makes no sense
by Lee on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @07:12
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It makes perfect sense. What you're missing is the other factor: how crap and deliberately unimplementable MS's format is.
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Re: It makes no sense
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @10:13
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"What you're missing is the other factor: how crap and deliberately unimplementable MS's format is."
Bullsh*t. There is already a working converter. KOffice just needs to execute it. If KOffice's ODF support is good enough (the converter does OOXML->ODF), most OOXML files will open just fine in KOffice.
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Re: It makes no sense
by AC on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @10:29
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This converter is using Mono which many people don't like. So it won't be included with KOffice.
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Re: It makes no sense
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @10:51
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That's why I wrote "optional". Nobody should be forced to install it, but people should have the option to do so. Learn to read.
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Re: It makes no sense
by Knut Yrvin on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @11:41
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yxxcvsdfbnfgnds writes:
> That's why I wrote "optional". Nobody should be forced to install it, but
> people should have the option to do so. Learn to read.
Microsoft makes it illegal for individual developers to implement the OOXML specification. So pleas pay the legal risks and cost of implementing a OOXML<->ODF converter. But you probably don't care about legal risks as you wrote in an earlier statement. Put your money where your month is, or are you just another Troll?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
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