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.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Yesterday was the day.

OpenOffice.org was to be released earlier this month, but no less than twice delays appeared before the release could be announced.

See more details about this release here.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Dual standards

The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has decided to implement dual standards. Both ODF and OOXML is considered open standards and can be used in the implementation of Resolution B 103 (http://itst.dk/static/nyhed/English%20summary.pdf).

Warning: if you ever come to Denmark; Dont drive!
Because we are driving EITHER in the left side OR in the right side of the road.