Consensus in the Parliament

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/7121

It is expected that the Danish Parliament will reach consensus http://www.ft.dk/doc.aspx?/Samling/20072/forespoergsel/F24/index.htm about opening two new investigations about open standards:

1. First one is a technical investigation about the suppliers ability to provide full interoperability between the formats ODF and OOXML. This investigation will be carried out by a neutral part. Who that will be is not decided yet.
2. Second investigation will be about free competition. This investigation will be done by the Danish Consumer Agency http://www.forbrug.dk/english/ (Danish Competition Authority), an independent governmental organization.

This result must be considered acceptable. Even the Minister of Science and Technology agrees on theis one: http://videnskabsministeriet.dk/site/forside/nyheder/pressemeddelelser/2008/enigt-folketing-bag-koereplan-for-aabne-standarder

Was it Donald Duck or ?

Tonight I suddenly found three ducks in my garden.


On the roof was another duck:


We soon found out the reason. Among the tulips was a she duck:

Danish Newsletter from OpenOffice.org

The May issue of the Danish Newsletter is on the street now:
http://doc.oooforum.dk/Nyhed/2008Maj

More details...

The Parliament decided today that implementation of open standards in Denmark will be watched by the The Danish Competition Authority and another neutral 3rd part. The theird part could be Professor Mogens Kühn Pedersen from Copenhagen business School (also chairman of the Danish National committee for document standards). Another person who has been menthioned is Judge Bo Vesterdorf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Vesterdorf), who is known for his time in European Court of Justice where he has convicted one of the major decisions against Microsoft in a law case.

Danish Parliament agrees

It seems that the Danish Parliament has agreed to ask a 'neutral' person or organization to make sure that the Danish public handles open standards according to the previous agreements about interoperability and free competition.

I expect that such person or organization will be announced on Tuesday next week.

What really happened in Norway..

The former chairman in Norway speaks about what actually happened:

http://topicmaps.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/the-norway-vote-what-really-happened/

24.335 downloads

The Danish version of OpenOffice.org 2.4 has been downloaded 24.335 times from http://da.openoffice.org. This is the first time we have some kind of statistics, so it has been very exciting to follow the numbers.

This is the day-by-day numbers.

Will OpenOffice.org support OOXML ?

The answer is no !

From version 3.0 OpenOffice.org will be able to read MS Office 2007 documents.

The purpose is not to support an academic developed file format, but to help the pour users who by accident get hands on a document from Microsoft Office 2007.

I'm not sure if all document types (text, spreadsheet, presentations etc.) will be supported, but I know that first step is to support simple files. Advanced functionality (macros, main- and sub documents, embedded objects etc.) will not be supported from day one.

http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/ooxml_import_in_writer_a
and
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/office_open_xml_ooxml_filters

Thunderbird & Lightning - just discovered a new feature

I'm very happy to use my Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client for mail. I also use the calendar plug-in called Lightning. Lightning is connected directly to my Google Calendar account, so I can view my calendar live. I use several calendars on Google for different purposes. I just need a Todo thing on Google, but I solved that by creating a local account for that purpose.

Allright then. What is the new ?

I just discovered that it's possible to drag-and-drop an e-mail from my inbox to one of the panes on the right hand side. If I drag it to the calendar part of the pane, the mail is copied into a new calendar event. If I drag it into the task pane, the e-mail becomes a task.

I love open source !

Disgusting is what it is

Microsoft wanted that approval at any cost.

We didn't cheat. It wasn't fraud. It was clean and honest.

All' right then. Then we dont use the same definition of those words. We don't share the same moral.

Take a look at these 37 letters that was received at Standard Norway just before the vote:
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2007/ooxml/37-brev.pdf . 37 letters with exactly the same words. Some of the senders didn't even care to remove the 'Type company name here' text.

Simular letters has been circulating in Denmark as an e-mail from the Danish MD Jørgen Bardenfleth to customers and business partners.

I call it fraud, cheating and disgusting. If I wasn't anti-Microsoft before, I am now. Disgusting !

http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6965

Wild translating

The translation has gone wild. The Danish project now only needs to translate another 300 strings before we are done with the job.

Thanks to all the translaters. You have done a great job.

Talents in Herlev, Denmark

My son Christian performed well tonight when he participated in a music competition.

Demonstration against OOXML in Oslo, Norway

http://www.computerworld.dk/art/45252
http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=519531

Demonstration in Oslo, Norway on April 9th.

==============================================================
           Demonstration against Microsoft OOXML
                Wednesday 9 April @ 12:00
                       Oslo, Norway
==============================================================
Steve Pepper, the former Chairman of the Norwegian committee responsible for deciding the Norwegian vote on OOXML, is calling for a demonstration to take place outside the building where SC34, the ISO committee that has been landed with OOXML, is holding its spring plenary.

The demonstration will take place outside Håndverkeren, Rosenkrantzgate 7, Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday April 9 at 12.00.

Among the slogans are:

* No to ISO approval of OOXML!
* Defend the integrity of ISO!
* Microsoft: Support ODF!
* Ecma: Withdraw OOXML
* Norway must say no to OOXML!

Steve Pepper is supported by the majority of the Norwegian technical committee who were against approving OOXML, but who were overruled by the bureaucracy at Standard Norway.

"I call on all those opposed to ISO's approval of OOXML to join this demonstration", says Steve Pepper. "Standard Norway defends its scandalous act by pointing to 37 identical letters that were formulated by Microsoft and sent to Standard Norway by Microsoft's partners and customers during the open hearing."

"If they want numbers, we can give them numbers. Join me on the street and show your disapproval. Please pass this message on around the globe.

Let's use *our* technology for everything it is worth."

More (Norwegian): http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=519231

Norway changes its vote to NO

The Norwegian mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 has send a letter to ISO to confirm that the committee agrees with chairman Steve Pepper. Norway votes NO.

http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=519159

ODF works

From www.odfworks.com

MS answers to Master Thesis

Microsoft is commenting on the master thesis I wrote about a few days ago (http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2008/04/master-thesis-openofficeorg-vs.html) on the website Comon (http://www.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=35500) .
Among other things, Jasper Bojsen from Microsoft in Denmark says that...

It is not possible to say, that the same calculations are valid for all public institutions, because there are big differences between the medical systems etc. used and in the way they are integrated.

I say: True enough. There are big differences between the public institutions and the medical systems etc. That is already taken into consideration by the author. Further more has Microsoft promised us full interoperability in Office 2007 and OOXML, so the integration shouldn't be any problem, or should it ?

Microsoft also claims that there should be taken into consideration, the productivity-advantages in Microsoft Office. This is precisely what shouldn't be, because that subject is covered in another chapter in the master thesis, and the conslusion is, that there is very limitted advantage in Microsoft Office compared to OpenOffice.org.

Guess what, there will be another round !

ISO confirms approval of OOXML, gives two months to appeal

Microsoft must wait for appeal process to run its course

By Peter Sayer

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9074358&intsrc=hm_list

Master thesis: 'OpenOffice.org vs. Microsoft Office'

OpenOffice.org vs. Microsoft Office is the title of the master thesis from Birgir Ingolf Sigurðsson, Cand.merc(dat) at Copenhagen Business School. The master thesis is in Danish but there is a short summary in English:

This master thesis focuses on whether OpenOffice.org has the necessary attributes to be labeled a reel alternative to Microsoft Office and whether the Faroese public sector can lower cost by switching platform from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org. In addition to that, the thesis examines the Faroese public sector’s dependency on Microsoft Office and the IT vendors’ competences on the two office suites.

and the result ?

The total TCO for implementing OpenOffice.org at Klaksvík hospital is DKK. 306.554. TCO pr. workstation is DKK. 4.379. Compared to implementing Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus, the cost is DKK. 378.715 and pr. workstation DKK. 5.410. OpenOffice.org results in a cost reduction of 24 %.
The total TCO for implementing OpenOffice.org at Landssjúkrahúsið is DKK. 1.007.340. TCO pr. workstation is DKK. 2.518. Compared to implementing Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus, the cost is DKK. 1.682.400 and pr. workstation DKK. 4.206. OpenOffice.org results in a cost reduction of 67 %.
The total TCO for implementing OpenOffice.org at LandsNet (the entire public sector) is DKK. 13.181.750. TCO pr. workstation is DKK. 3.766. Compared to implementing Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus, the cost is DKK. 25.164.250 and pr. workstation DKK. 7.190. OpenOffice.org results in a cost reduction of 91 %

The complete thesis can be found on John Gøtze's blog .

UPDATE: The Master thesis is mentioned on the Danish magazines Version2: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6809 and Comon: http://www.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=35438

Sorry guys, defective but still approved

Andy Updegrove reports on his blog that OOXML (the defective standard, you know) has been approved to be an international ISO standard for office documents.