KDE abd ODF

[fbmx24]

Good article on KDE stance on ODF.

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15738/1090/

Also why I will be using KDE from now on.

p.s. sorry about the typo in the title dont know how to edit that...

[maniacmusician]

Good article on KDE stance on ODF.

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15738/1090/

Also why I will be using KDE from now on.
That's a somewhat disturbing article. I'm not really sure how much of it is true and how much is exaggerated FUD, but it's disturbing nonetheless. Sadly, I don't know enough of the story behind it to really make any insightful comments.

[Sp4cedOut]

I'm getting the opposite feeling.

If Microsoft puts OOXML in it's office suite it will become the defacto standard, regardless of what anyone else says. Even if it's a bad format it's still an open format, and if KOffice doesn't implement it they will be behind the times.

[igknighted]

I'm getting the opposite feeling.

If Microsoft puts OOXML in it's office suite it will become the defacto standard, regardless of what anyone else says. Even if it's a bad format it's still an open format, and if KOffice doesn't implement it they will be behind the times.

IF it gets passed. KOffice will get OOXML support should it be approved as an ISO standard, but we need solidarity in the FOSS world to prevent that from happening. If all the major apps and DEs stand firmly behind the one, true standard, then MS really will have no choice. Don't forget that very few have adopted microsofts new file formats yet (.docx, etc.), so there really isn't an established beast to fight here. Many businesses and governments are leaning towards the standard, and if that becomes ODF it will be a huge win for the FOSS community, because microsoft will have no choice but to add support for ODF, or conceed a large number of government and business clients. Either way we win.

But, if we fragment and microsoft pushes through OOXML as a standard, we are only very slightly better off than we were in the .doc era.

[fbmx24]

I'm getting the opposite feeling.

If Microsoft puts OOXML in it's office suite it will become the defacto standard, regardless of what anyone else says. Even if it's a bad format it's still an open format, and if KOffice doesn't implement it they will be behind the times.

But thats besides the point, the point is that if the ISO choses ODF as the standard then MS will have to use it

instead of OOXML. If they dont then they will only suffer. Gnome not stating they oppose OOXML is hurting

the fight against OOXML and its terrible standards.

People freaked out when Novell signed with MS, but when Gnome practically does the same thing there isnt

any anger. To me taking money as Novell did and supporting( or in the very least not opposing) OOXML is just

as bad.

[fbmx24]

IF it gets passed. KOffice will get OOXML support should it be approved as an ISO standard, but we need solidarity in the FOSS world to prevent that from happening. If all the major apps and DEs stand firmly behind the one, true standard, then MS really will have no choice. Don't forget that very few have adopted microsofts new file formats yet (.docx, etc.), so there really isn't an established beast to fight here. Many businesses and governments are leaning towards the standard, and if that becomes ODF it will be a huge win for the FOSS community, because microsoft will have no choice but to add support for ODF, or conceed a large number of government and business clients. Either way we win.

But, if we fragment and microsoft pushes through OOXML as a standard, we are only very slightly better off than we were in the .doc era.

Very well put I couldnt agree more.

[Sp4cedOut]

The fact is there are no serious contenders to MS Office right now, MS Office is simply the mainstream office suite. Once MS puts OOXML into Office (which people will buy), people will use it, regardless of a standard.

I'm certain OOXML will be the new document format. I'd love to be wrong, but I just don't see it happening.

EDIT: At least it's an open standard, even if it's a bad one.

[maniacmusician]

The fact is there are no serious contenders to MS Office right now, MS Office is simply the mainstream office suite. Once MS puts OOXML into Office (which people will buy), people will use it, regardless of a standard.

I'm certain OOXML will be the new document format. I'd love to be wrong, but I just don't see it happening.

EDIT: At least it's an open standard, even if it's a bad one.
the main part of the standard would be open, but there are allowances for proprietary binary-only parts that will be implemented in MS Office.

Why should we vote in a bad standard, even if its open?

OOXML has certainly not been doing too well in its bid for the ISO standard so far. Despite its attempts at bribery, it failed to attain it. There are just too many people against OOXML and too many reasons not to use it. I'm pretty sure it won't be the new standard.

[DeadSuperHero]

It makes me sad to see GNOME and KDE devs (and Linux users) fight each other on this issue. If this was Microsoft's plan from the beginning to split us up, then they are certainly winning.
I'm with the KDE guys, screw OOXML. At least us *nix users will still be able to send important files to one another without any problems.

[igknighted]

I don't believe that just because microsoft makes it default in 2007 that it will become the de facto standard. I think governments and corporations (many of which require ISO certification... would not ODF instead of OOXML should the vote got that way be a part of that as well?) will go with ISO, and if ODF comes out on top, then it will at least take a sizable chunk out of MS-Office, enough to force them to support ODF.

[slimdog360]

does it make me a bad person if i said i just dont care?

[leo_rockway]

I have KOffice and OO.o installed. So far I like OO.o better but I hope the new KOffice will change my mind.

We seriously should fight against ooxml not because it comes from M$ (which would be enough reason for most of us to be against it) but because it is a very bad format. If ooxml comes to be a standard, the quality of the documents will be really bad.

I support KOffice and their statements regarding ooxml.

[meborc]

well... was this article biased or what? ... this reminds me of the russian media during the april riots in estonia :)

oh, and what has gnome to do with open office?... or implementing ODF anyway? or am i just plain stupid

[graabein]

AFAIK OOXML still has some not open parts. I think since ISO did not accept it but accepted ODF it would be great if ODF was the standard for KOffice, OpenOffice.org and AbiWord.

I hope most governments switch to ODF in the years to come. Too much to be expected from the big companies I think but one has to stay positive! :)

[bailout]

ODF is a bit of a mess. ODF documents aren't 100% compatible between OOo and koffice despite the format supposedly being open. By all accounts the OOo code is a mess and difficult to work with and development is very slow. MS office is the standard whether we like it or not. Perhaps adopting ooxml is just being realistic?

[meborc]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/12/10/dutch/index.php

some news form the netherlands... seems like they have taken stand as well :)

[fbmx24]

ODF is a bit of a mess. ODF documents aren't 100% compatible between OOo and koffice despite the format supposedly being open. By all accounts the OOo code is a mess and difficult to work with and development is very slow. MS office is the standard whether we like it or not. Perhaps adopting ooxml is just being realistic?

Its not a standard at all. The specs that MS submitted are terrible, the descriptions given by MS are a joke. Parts of the document actually state " like tables from Microsoft Office" to describe that format tables should be like.
Also to answer the claim that this is a biased article just go look at any other article written on the subject. Gnome refuses to support the Linux community against this OOXML format. Simple as that..

[igknighted]

Its not a standard at all. The specs that MS submitted are terrible, the descriptions given by MS are a joke. Parts of the document actually state " like tables from Microsoft Office" to describe that format tables should be like.
Also to answer the claim that this is a biased article just go look at any other article written on the subject. Gnome refuses to support the Linux community against this OOXML format. Simple as that..

Not accusing you, I'm just curious... Are you a developer and have looked at the specs with an eye on trying to implement them, or is this from another source, and if so can you post it? There's so much FUD flying from both sides, I'm trying to track down something "from the horse's mouth" if you will. Thanks.

[meborc]

Its not a standard at all. The specs that MS submitted are terrible, the descriptions given by MS are a joke. Parts of the document actually state " like tables from Microsoft Office" to describe that format tables should be like.
Also to answer the claim that this is a biased article just go look at any other article written on the subject. Gnome refuses to support the Linux community against this OOXML format. Simple as that..

can someone please explain to me how gnome can stand against OOXML? i understand that KDE dev's can do that - they develop KOffice... simple... what do gnome dev's develop? gnome!

i understand that OOXML is bad... and i love ODF... but i think gnome has nothing to do with it... why haven't XFCE dev's taken the stand? :) why not FLUXBOX dev's?

DO YOU SEE MY POINT NOW?

sorry the caps, but what i see here is that if there is one project, that tries to stay neutral (even if the gnome dev's in person have their own points of view) the bullies pick on it until it joins their cause... and that is plain wrong...

[igknighted]

can someone please explain to me how gnome can stand against OOXML? i understand that KDE dev's can do that - they develop KOffice... simple... what do gnome dev's develop? gnome!

i understand that OOXML is bad... and i love ODF... but i think gnome has nothing to do with it... why haven't XFCE dev's taken the stand? :) why not FLUXBOX dev's?

DO YOU SEE MY POINT NOW?

sorry the caps, but what i see here is that if there is one project, that tries to stay neutral (even if the gnome dev's in person have their own points of view) the bullies pick on it until it joins their cause... and that is plain wrong...

I think gnome is about as involved with gnome office as kde is with koffice... neither is officially a part of the DE, but is fairly closely tied. This is 100% assumption though, as I know very little about the relationship between the gnome project and the gnome office application developers (abiword, gnumeric, etc.).

EDIT: Upon further review, not that close apparently... no mention of the gnome-office apps on the gnome site that I could find.

[smartboyathome]

I am basically FORCED to use .doc since my school uses MS Office 2007 and a lot more assignments are coming in .docx. Until Linux gets a bigger market share, I don't think we will be able to oppose Microsoft, and doing exactly what KDE is doing will only hurt us.

[TeraDyne]

*headdesk*

I love KOffice, but if they're going to refuse to support OOXML, a format that is starting to explode in terms of the use, they're only going to anger many of their users. Sure, someone could make an unofficial patch to support it, but to claim that they will never support something that will become very widely used is just... ARGHH!

It drives me nuts that they're limiting the choices of their non-technical users, those who would be completely clueless when it came to figuring out why their friend's document won't work. Instead of helping to push open standards and free software, this stance will just push people away.

Besides, if I find out that I can't open a story that someone else sends me JUST because they saved it in OOXML format, I'm going to go back ot OOo. That would honestly anger me to the point of switching back.

[igknighted]

I am basically FORCED to use .doc since my school uses MS Office 2007 and a lot more assignments are coming in .docx. Until Linux gets a bigger market share, I don't think we will be able to oppose Microsoft, and doing exactly what KDE is doing will only hurt us.

Short term, yes. Think long term though. If ODF wins at ISO, then MS will have little to no choice but to release an ODF patch for Office 2007, or else it wil lose the many customers to whom ISO standards are important (and there are plenty of them). I think they will be smart and offer an ODF patch, in which case any time you get grief for file formats you could simply tell the person that your format is the accepted international standard and they need to get the patch to use it.

Contrast that with the current method of partial compatability, I think it is clear that while we might suffer short term (and in reality, in the short term we can use .doc instead because it is compatible in both Office 2007 and OO.o). Office 2007 will simply take too long to catch on as a standard for people to throw .docx files around assuming others will be able to read them, and by then the ISO thing will have gone down, and we'll know which way we need to go.

[igknighted]

*headdesk*

I love KOffice, but if they're going to refuse to support OOXML, a format that is starting to explode in terms of the use, they're only going to anger many of their users. Sure, someone could make an unofficial patch to support it, but to claim that they will never support something that will become very widely used is just... ARGHH!

It drives me nuts that they're limiting the choices of their non-technical users, those who would be completely clueless when it came to figuring out why their friend's document won't work. Instead of helping to push open standards and free software, this stance will just push people away.

Besides, if I find out that I can't open a story that someone else sends me JUST because they saved it in OOXML format, I'm going to go back ot OOo. That would honestly anger me to the point of switching back.

IF (and as of right now, .docx is very rare) .docx becomes as widespread as you believe, KOffice 2.0.1 will have support. It's all a front for ISO. Once the vote for the standard is done, you will likely see .docx support in KDE shortly thereafter. And if ODF wins, you will likely see ODF support in an Office 2007 patch too.

Sry for DP

[GeneralZod]

The KOffice team's statements about OOXML seem to be rooted as much in manpower concerns as in ideology (IIRC, the entirety of KOffice - KWord, KSpread, Krita, KPresenter, Karbon, Kexi etc - has only one full-time developer working on it, and he works only on Kexi). If someone wrote a third-party plug-in to load OOXML, I imagine they would accept it, although I obviously can't speak for them. They do seem pretty contemptuous of OOXML, though.

[darrelljon]

What about the mammoth task of replacing Microsoft Word Document as the de facto standard? ODF deserves it more than OOXML but I'm sceptical that either of them will successfully usurp DOC.

[DigitalDuality]

dd

[TeraDyne]

IF (and as of right now, .docx is very rare) .docx becomes as widespread as you believe, KOffice 2.0.1 will have support. It's all a front for ISO. Once the vote for the standard is done, you will likely see .docx support in KDE shortly thereafter. And if ODF wins, you will likely see ODF support in an Office 2007 patch too.

OOXML is already becoming a de facto standard in many schools in my area. My previous college, Baker College Online, practically gave every assignment in some form of OOXML-based document\spreadsheet\presentation, and from what I've heard, University of Arkansas is very close to doing the same thing.

Besides, people blindly trust MS products, and many of them don't care what is standard and what isn't. They just want something that works, and the ideals of FOSS and standards are lost to them. If the default MSO format is OOXML, that's what those people will use. Not supporting the format will make things harder for the end user.

As for "support when it becomes widespread", I don't know what that path will hold, and I doubt that even the greatest psychic will have an easy time coming up with an answer. With the way the article is worded, it sounds like they are saying that it will never be supported. I honestly hope it's a misquote.


What about the mammoth task of replacing Microsoft Word Document as the de facto standard? ODF deserves it more than OOXML but I'm sceptical that either of them will successfully usurp DOC.

That's a VERY good point. As it stands right now, ODF is in an extreme minority compared to DOC, and OOXM even more so thanks to being the newcomer.

[Ebuntor]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/12/10/dutch/index.php

some news form the netherlands... seems like they have taken stand as well :)

I had no idea they supported ODF. :) It's a good day to be a dutchman. ;)

[cluepon]

If Miguel continues to be a fence sitter so be it.

de Icaza obfuscates and muddies just about anything when it comes to things relating to Microsoft.

If we were to total up the number of ironies when it comes to him talking about anything these days, it would make us all cry. (He works on gnome, is employed by Novell, who owns SUSE, which uses KDE as a default)

I've learned to pretty much ignore de Icaza, and anything that comes out of his either side of his mouth. He's a talented individual, but in the back of my mind, I always wind up questioning his motives, and where his loyalties lie.

That's not to say, I agree with Stallman calling out the gnome project the way he did. But then, Stallman has a history of less than diplomatic moments. =)

The OOXML/ODF argument is not going to be decided by Miguel alone. And, to be sure there is alot of debate ahead. If the gnome folks stick their head in the sand, they stand to lose face. It wouldnt be the first time. But, there is a place in the world for both gnome and KDE. And, at the end of the day, both of them will have no choice but to follow whatever market forces drive the people in order to remain competitive.

[23meg]

(He works on gnome

He doesn't.

[cluepon]

He doesn't.

Yeah, he helped found GNOME however. I know he's not actively devving on GNOME anymore. He's a VP of Dev Platform at Novell.

I stand corrected on that point. Nonetheless, I think the irony still stands. =)

[23meg]

There's not the slightest connection between de Icaza admiring certain Microsoft technologies, and someone on behalf of the GNOME Foundation participating in TC45-M talks. He's simply a red herring in this discussion.

Many people hear "bad things" about GNOME here and there, don't really want to get informed about the individual issues in depth and want to just "play safe" and err on the side of suspicion. That results in lumping together different anti-GNOME sentiments as if they were somehow related, and that's FUD, pure and simple.

As far as de Icaza is concerned, I at least understand the irony you see. As far as GNOME is concerned, I don't.

[Luggy]

I think people are making a bigger deal out of this then need be.

With a community of Linux users you are going to be using either odt, abi or whatever KWord uses right? I know Abiword has plugins to allow you to open odt, so I assume OpenOffice and KWord have the same support. Open standards, they can all interact nicely between each other ( maybe ).

What are a community of Windows uses going to use? Why .doc of course! So what is the majority of documents going to be, again .doc! MS isn't going to make OOOXML the default, it's still going to be .doc so thus the majority of people are going to use just click as fast as they can and put out .doc files.

If Windows users care about standards or documents working across multiple platforms they would already be using OpenOffice.

OOXML wont even be adopted by Windows users so why give a **** about it.

[bruce89]

People have to realise that people just press "save", they don't care about the file format it's in. This is why not having OOXML support is bad.

[Luggy]

People have to realise that people just press "save", they don't care about the file format it's in. This is why not having OOXML support is bad.

Windows users are just going to keep clicking 'save' and saving their documents as .doc, not OOXML.

Gnome will be able to accomidate the 0.01% of the Windows population that make the decision to save their MS Office documents as OOXML.

The rest of the Linux world and OpenOffice users will just use ODT and be fine.

And the other 99 % of the world will keep saving their documents as .doc.

[bruce89]

Windows users are just going to keep clicking 'save' and saving their documents as .doc, not OOXML.

Gnome will be able to accomidate the 0.01% of the Windows population that make the decision to save their MS Office documents as OOXML.

The rest of the Linux world and OpenOffice users will just use ODT and be fine.

And the other 99 % of the world will keep saving their documents as .doc.

I thought that OOXML was the standard of Office '07. If not, this is hardly worth getting excited about, OpenDocument should be the only standard.

[Luggy]

I thought that OOXML was the standard of Office '07. If not, this is hardly worth getting excited about, OpenDocument should be the only standard.

Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't payed too much attention to it but I doubt that MS will throw away their .doc format. I know it would confuse my parents too much if they switched the default document type to something else.

[TeraDyne]

Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't payed too much attention to it but I doubt that MS will throw away their .doc format. I know it would confuse my parents too much if they switched the default document type to something else.

IIRC, ".docx" is the default format in MSO '07. As for confusing your parents, just make sure not to let them upgrade past MSO '03 and you should be fine. The ribbon is nothing but hassle to most of the older users I've met, so... Yeah, just an FYI.

[cookies]

It's not as if it matters. Some one will write a OOXML plugin for KOffice, GNOME will still be able to use ODF, and everyone's happy. <_<

Okay so that's exaggeration, but you know the basic idea is there and will happen. No matter what, GNOME has the right idea here, even if the format fails, it will soon be de facto, and that's what GNOME saw. (I'm using KDE as I type this, and I know I haven't seen many KDE users all happy, more of a meh reaction).

So, it doesn't really matter in the end, as we'll end up pretty much where we started.

[23meg]

http://cyrilleberger.blogspot.com/2007/12/koffice-and-ooxml.html


KOffice position concerning OOXML is that, in its current version, it shouldn't be made an international standard. The main reason is that OOXML isn't build on pre-existing standard (like ODF for instance, or SVG or even dates...), which result in a huge specification.

But the need of our users is important, it's very likely that, at some point, we will offer a way to import OOXML, most likely using one of the OOXML to ODF converter. But there is no urgency about this, as currently OOXML is an unfinished specification used by nearly nobody.

http://www.linux.com/feature/123597


KOffice developers like Faure and Berger deserve credit for balancing practical and political concerns in the middle of the OOXML controversy. Moreover, Faure in particular, has worked five years to improve the ODF standard. In both these ways, KOffice in general stands in marked contrast to the GNOME Foundation, which has ignored the politics of the issue in favor of the practical by rushing to support OOXML after only recently become involved with the development of office format standards.

However, neither of these comparisons justifies the idea that KOffice -- let alone KDE -- has shown a high-mindedness that GNOME lacks. In fact, the idea seems a distortion of at least some of the opinions prevalent among KOffice developers.