Just a piece of paper ...

Tonight I had a quick look at http://www.robweir.com/blog and I would like to quote:

When an amendment to a Florida State Senate bill was offered that called for a “business case analysis” for the use of open standard document formats (no particular format was called out) Microsoft's lobbyists, the three Men in Black, Will McKinley of Dutko Poole McKinley, Jim Daughton, Jr. and Geoffrey Becker both of Metz, Hauser, Husband & Daughton, swarmed down and zapped it. As one legislative aide put it, “By the time those lobbyists were done talking, it sounded like ODF (Open Document Format, the free and open format used by OpenOffice.org and other free software) was proprietary and the Microsoft format was the open and free one”. Perhaps a document, left by the lobbyists, filled with lies about ODF, had something to do with it? We should be fortunate that Microsoft sent only three lobbyists to handle this, rather than all nine lobbyists who are registered in Florida alone to support Microsoft's legislative activities.

Let's take a loser look at that piece of paper for a few seconds

• It's not dated
• It's not signed (not even indicating the origin)

Unfortunately this piece of paper is taken seriously in the debate. Lets have another look at the content.

Many more languages can be saved i Open XML than in ODF;

Says who ?
The truth is, that only the languages supported by Microsoft can be saved. ODF is an open standard. Developed by people that believes in the principles behind open source. Any language (any language at all) can use it. Why ? Because it's open.

Open XML supports technologies that help computer users with disabilities;

Says who ?
Technologies that help disabled people has absolutely nothing to do with document standards. There might be some differences in how the applications work. But thats another story.

Open XML includes financial formulas for spreadsheets that ODF lacks;

Says who ?
It's true that Microsoft Excel has more formulas that OpenOffice.org Calc. Some of these formulas is caused by old faults and mistakes in Excel and because of so called legacy reasons they are submitted as a part of the standard.

Btw: ODF is working on an update to ODF. In this new version you will find several new formulas. These formulas was developed in an open and free community.

Open XML works with data customized for specific purposes - e.g., healthcare records - a function not supported by ODF.

Says Who ?
OK, that's not the right reaction this time. -Sorry.

And so what ?
If you chance the standard it's no longer a standard, is it ? What happens next time we make an upgrade ? (can you recall these questions from meetings with other vendors of proprietary software ?). Btw: Just because the document standard doesn't support customization doesn't mean that the application don't. That's where customization belongs - not in the data.

Open XML provides better backward compatibility with older documents that ODF.

Says who ?
According to http://www.robweir.com/blog there are several problems with backward compatibility is you use OOXML. Besides the compatibility problem really shows the problem in a nutshell: We are all court in the Microsoft dominance and that is exactly what we want to get away from. We want freedom.

Powered by ScribeFire.

OpenOffice and Business Intelligence

The OpenOffice.org community is pleased to announce plans to extend the power of the database application, Base, with Report Designer, based on Pentaho's open-source reporting engine. Scheduled to be available in the next feature release of OpenOffice.org, Report Designer will particularly interest business users, as it will give them the ability to create sophisticated business intelligence reports from various sources, including OLAP and XML, and save them using the OASIS OpenDocument format, or ODF, the ISO-approved open standard for file format, among others.

The collaboration between Pentaho and OpenOffice.org proves once again the strength not only of open source but of open standards. Unlike with proprietary applications, there are no encumbrances to getting things done, for users and developers. OpenOffice.org works for businesses.

To learn more, read
the GullFOSS blog: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS
or Pentaho: http://www.pentaho.com/products/reporting

Answers to 'Use of open standards in software in the public sector'

Here is an overview of all answers to the report 'Use of open standards in software in the public sector': http://www.oio.dk/standarder/B103-Hoeringssvar

• Several answers recommends PDF as standard format for static documents.
• Several answers regrets that there is no economical compensation to cover initial costs.

The comments are my own and very unofficial translation of the most important issues.

	ODF or OOXML	Dual standards: PRO or CON	Comments
6 cities/counties: Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Esbjerg, Randers and Odense	?	?	It should be assured that proposed standards is not unnecessary complex in documentation and technology and that the standards are not related against one single vendor.
A.P. Møller - Mærsk	?	?	t is to be regret that we need two standards in stead of one world-wide document standard. We recommend the two standards is to be implemented as equal in the public sector in Denmark.
Banedanmark IT (Danish state railway network)	?	?
Bellcom Open Source	ODF	CON
Biblioteksstyrelsen Danish Library Agency	?	?	Standards that are dominated by one vendor can't be considered an open standard.
Business Software Alliance, Belgium	?	PRO
Civilstyrelsen Civil Law Division under Ministry of Justice	?	?	Finds a problem that some of these new standards is covering areas that is already covered by other standards, e.g. 'Lex Dania XML' under OIOXML.
KMD	?	?
CompTia, Belgium	?	PRO
Dansk Blindesamfund Danish Association of the Blind	?	?
Dansk IT Danish IT Society	?	PRO
Dansk Standard Danish Standards	?	?
Danske Regioner Danish Regions	?	?
Datatilsynet The Danish Data Protection Agency	?	?
De Samvirkende Invalide­organisationer DanishCouncil of Organisations of Disabled People	?	?
DKUUG Danish Unix User Group	ODF	PRO
Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste Danish Defence Intelligence Service	?	?
Forsvarskommandoen Defence Command Denmark	ODF ?	?	OOXML is too complex and has strong references to closed (Microsoft) formats.
Forsvarsministeriet Ministry of Defence	?	?
Fødevarestyrelsen Danish Veterinary and Food Administration	?	?
Hørsholm Kommune City of Hoersholm	?	?
IBM	ODF	CON
Indenrigs- og Sundhedsministeriet Ministry of the Interior and Health	?	?
Ingeniørforeningen The Danish Society of Engineers	?	?
Integrationsministeriet Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs	?	?
IT-Branchen The Danish IT Industry Association	?	?
ITEK Danish trade association for it	?	PRO
IT-Politisk Forening Danish IT-polical Organisation	ODF	CON
iZone	ODF	CON
Justitsministeriet Ministry of Justice	?	?
Kommunernes Landsforening association of local government	?	?
KMD	?	?	Takes dual formats into consideration and will support this policy as provider.
Konkurrencestyrelsen Danish Competition Authority	?	?	It becomes a problem when one company controls a dominating technology or technical standard.
Kulturministeriet Ministry of Culture	?	?
Leif Andersen, KMD	?	?
City of Lyngby Taarbaek	?	?
Lægemiddelstyrelsen Danish Medicines Agency	?	?
Microsoft	OOXML	PRO	ODF is only intended for e.g. textdocuments and some limited use spreadsheets. EOOXML is also about ..."
Kort & Matrikelstyrelsen National Survey and Cadastre	?	?
Fødevareministeriet Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries	?	?
Oracle Danmark	ODF	CON
OSL Danish Open Source Business Association	ODF	CON
HOW	ODF	CON
PROSA Association of Computer Professionals	ODF	CON
Region Hovedstaden Capital Region	?	?
Region Midtjylland Central Jutland Region	ODF	CON	A strong recommendation of one of the formats for office documents is needed.
Region Nordjylland Nothern Jutland Region	?	CON ?	It must be assured that there is no overlapping standards covering the same application types.
Region Sjælland Sealand Region	?	?
Rektorkollegiet Danish Rectors' Conference	?	PRO
Silkeborg Kommune City of Silkeborg	?	?
Skat Danish tax authority	?	?
Softace ApS	ODF	CON
SSLUG on behalf of SSLUG, MacBruger.dk, BSD-DK, DKUUG, ØJLUG, DTU-LUG, MVJ-LUG, ALSLUG, Da.OpenOffice.org and MozillaDanmark.dk	ODF	CON
Statens Arkiver National Archives	?	?
Syddansk Universitet University of Southern Denmark	?	?
The Trouble Shooters	ODF	CON
Transport- og Energiministeriet Ministry of Transport and Energy	ODF	CON
Undervisningsministeriet Minister for Education	?	?	Regrets that any standards is mentioned by name. All software products should be open to any format. So the dual standard policy should be considered a multiple standard policy.
City of Vejle	?	?
ZiteLab ApS	ODF	PRO	At least one standard format must be used but ODF should always be supported.
Økonomi- og Erhversstyrelsen Danish Commerce and Companies Agency	?	?
Aalborg Universitet Aalborg University	?	?

Easter eggs ...

Most users of OpenOffice.org know about a special function in Calc, =Game. The idea is to activate a small game =Game("StarWars"). No news so far.

I thought that I wanted to try this in Lotus Notes 8 (IBM Productivity tools). According to IBM this is not a distribution of OpenOffice.org but a separate application build on OpenOffice.org. Whats the difference ?

Well, I don't know. Anyway it didn't work. No game in Lotus Notes.

But then I thought of something that happened to me once I tried to activate the game in OpenOffice.org but forgot the parameter =game(). OpenOffice.org answered say what ? I tried to do this in Lotus Notes 8. Success !

In my country this is the prove that IBM Productivity tools is a distribution of OpenOffice.org. The easter eggs is the same.