Fuzz about Google supporting odf

Since Google announced their new so called support for the open standard for documents; odf, there has been a lot of fuzz. And yesterday when the new version of Google Docs and Drive, there has been even more fuzz.




I'm happy that Google is finally implementing support for odf BUT... and there is a but:

Honestly I'm not impressed. I'm very disappointed.

First of all because the support comes way too late. Secondly because its not even close to be good.

Back several years ago Google was politically supporting the process of getting odf approved as an open standard but they never really bothered. The business was clearly to keep both odf and ooxml/docx out of their products and keep their own proprietary document format.

Implementing good and solid interoperability is actually not difficult but it is a huge task. Google could have done this three or four years ago if they wanted to. But they didn't. Both proprietary software vendors has been busy making interoperability difficult while the providers of true open standards has been improving interoperability month by month. 

What about the implementation?
I'm not impressed by the implementation. Not at all. First of all because it works differently between different browsers and computers. If you are running a computer with chromium OS or is using a Chrome browser you get the best result. You will experience pretty good results besides the lack of collaboration features like comments and change tracking. One would think that collaborative tools would be obvious for Google to implement as the first. Collaboration between users are one of Googles advantages over local installed software.

If you are using another browser (I have tried with Firefox) the core functionality works completely different. If you have odf-files in you Google Drive and opens them with Google Docs, you are actually not editing you odf-document, but a converted Google Docs document. And now you have two versions of the same document. Both claiming to be the same file because the new Google Docs document is claiming to be an odf-document (the name is still xyz.odt) but now in Google Docs format. And as a consequence the default download format is ... docx.

Please try again Google. And this time please support odf in stead of stealing documents from odf. And don't force users to use a specific operating system or browser. You make me think of the browser war between Netscape and Internet Explorer when websites was "Optimized for [insert browser brand here]".

How to benefit

How to take advantage of crowd sourcing and contribute too:

I'm looking forward to my vacation starting two days from now. My wife and I are happy to see southern Spain.

We will rent a car in the airport and drive the approximately 100 km to the house in the small village called Gualchos.

As always when preparing a vacation where I need to find my way around by myself I start looking for maps. Years ago that was printed maps. Who remembers the good old fashioned maps from Michelin? Today that is digital maps on the internet. Like Google, Bing or OpenStreetMap.

About a month ago I started looking for maps and found that the area was pretty bad covered on both Google, Bing and OSM. Bad luck.

I then invested about two saturday afternoons mapping the village and the close surroundings from air photos. Most of the world is covered by images taken from airplanes.

You can see the result here: http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/?lon=-3.3897&lat=36.74396&zoom=16&num=2&mt0=mapnik&mt1=google-map

Yesterday I downloaded the resulting data as a Garmin navigation file from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ and installed it on my own Garmin device. It works like a charm.

So could I have done the same thing with Google Maps? Perhaps I could. But not for my Garmin device or any other device exept for devices that Google chooses to support. The reason for this is that Google owns and control the data behind their maps and they don't give me access to the core data. They only gives me access to the services that Google wants me to use. I'm not the customer so I'm part of the product.

From OpenStreetMap nobody owns or controls the data. The data belongs to you and me and we can do with them what we want. Without any restrictions exept for respecting the license.

When I get back from my vacation I will bring local knowledge and notes about further observations. I will also bring the trip log from my Garmin navigator. I will then update the map with corrections and additional information.

I hope other tourists or locals will take advantage of my improvements and I also hope that other tourists in Spain, Denmark and other places will do the same and add details to the map.

Note: When you map areas that you don't know your self you must be very carefull. Don't make up details and remember that its pretty difficukt to interpret air photos from a landscape that you don't know your self. So don't map anything that you are not 100% certain is what you think it is.

Happy mapping.

Summary from OOoCon2007 in Barcelona (III)

Quality
The quality of any software product can always be discussed. OpenOffice.org has from time to time met criticism. One thing is for sure: "It will never be bug free".
The quality program that we in the Danish community is a part of is one way of controlling the quality of each version. On the conference was demonstrated another approach to the problem. And even developers among the spectators had to acknowledge the results.
University of Szeged in Hungary has, with financial support from EU, developed a tool that can analyze the source code. With this tool it will be possible foresee where a bug will appear later on. I saw the tool demonstrated and it's very impressive, how it is possible, on a very detailed level, to analyze the code for possible future bugs. It is furthermore possible to analyze the progress from version to version and see if quality is getting better or worse. The University is planning to pass the information to the development project, but this must be done with care, because the test results can be used to create vulnerable code like virus. http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/friday_162.pdf

IBM Symphony
Friday morning I was specificly invited to join a presentation of IBM Lotus Symphony arranged by IBM. Michael Karasick presented the product and talked about the background for the decision behind the product. The product is a stand-alone version of the productivity tools that comes with lotus Notes 8 and I actually didn't see anything new. Except of cause, that IBM now is talking about it as "It's OpenOffice.org version 1.1.4 inside".
By the way, I got permission to correct a little misunderstanding in the Danish press: The reason for choosing version 1.1.4 is not that later versions are less stable. The reason is that until a fw weeks ago, IBM had no right to use the code in version 2.x because of the licenses.
After the presentation I had the opportunity to have a little talk with Rob Weir from IBM about other topics. http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/friday_abstracts.html#ibm

Marketing
A few presentations was about marketing. This presentation of one person, who decided to do a full page advert in New York Metro shows that, it's possible to get adverts with limited funds and that one persons work can do the difference. http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/wednesday_54.pdf.

Some of the presentations was about the problem: "How can we attract more individual contributors". I don't think we found a solution, but a small sub committee that will take care of a strategy on this issue. The waves goes the same way as the "Google Summer of Code" initiative in conjunction with earlier positive experiences from the Sun teaching RedOffice in China. What the result will be, we don't know, but I think I got my self involved in the committee.

Open source for entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs often don't require comprehensive compatibility from their computer systems. They need a few applications that can solve the every day needs. In most cases a cheep computer and open source software in conjunction with free Internet services can solve the tasks. As a consequense of that, more capital can be invested in developing the company.

A couple of days ago, I gave an interview to a journalist who asked me why open source software is god for entrepreneurs. When an entrepreneur is starting a new company, like a constructions worker or so, the person needs to spend as much time working as possible. Day-to-day administration like time registration, invoicing and budgets should be as simple and easy as possible. The most important IT task is often accounting and that should be handed to a professional. The same solution should be used when the talk comes to marketing and website. Ask the professionals for help and pay the bill. The final result will be much better, and the entrepreneur can spend his or her time developing the company. Outsourcing is the solution, unless the entrepreneur has the required accounting skills. When the company is established, these tasks might be insourced.

At the same time, as much capital as possible should be invested in developing the production and find customers. So every penny you can avoid spending on expensive software, can instead be invested in the key activities in the company. Business development. If you buy computers and software for all possible tasks, you will need thousands of dollars. If you try to look at the requirements with pragmatic eyes, you will find that most tasks can be solved with open source software or Internet services free of charge (e.g. Google Docs and Google Calendar). Even complicated tasks like time planning and financial calculations can be solved quite easily if ou find the right solutions and combinations.

When the company matures and grow, the entrepreneur has the choise between buying commercial software or stay with free, open and independant software.

So, when you start a new company your success is not depending on buying computers and expensive software. On the contrary, you should spend as little time and money on the computer as possible.

Advertising

A few days ago I blogged about advertising on my blog.

In three months I have earned

Adverts on my blog

Some of you might have noticed the adverts on my blog. It started some months ago, in May I think, when one of my friends asked me why I didn't take (financial) advantage of my blog. I had already seen some American bloggers, telling stories about how their happiness was final and how they had become 'professionals'. The idea was okay, and I started to find out how it works. And at the same time I was quietly beginning to dream about quitting my job and just sit here in my garden getting richer and richer.

I got Adsense configured and I was very much aware that Adsense would not send me any money before my account exceeded USD 100. Okay, thats fair enough. It won't be long, I thought.

To the left, I have inserted a small indication of the progress in the number of visitors, but no actual numbers. Can you guess how much I've earned since I set up Adsense ?

I'll let you think about it for a while. The result will be revealed on a couple of days.