Submitted by Forget all I said about handbrake turns, OpenOpenOffice is here: “OpenOpenOffice [brings] OpenDocument support to Microsoft Office users. More importantly, it is a simple and elegant solution that can be implemented in weeks instead of months or years, solving the most pressing needs of Office users.“
Does this mean there will be a plugin for MS Office?
Well, I can say so much. Right now, some are working on it. But with all the handbrakes so far in this farce, I really don’t dare to say it for sure.
But when you look at the statements from all sides, it looks like we’re going to get an ODF-plugin for MS Office.
Remember all the talks about google and sun (and openoffice) – I know, most if it proved to be bogus, but this article made me think: what about an online plugin for converting MS documents to ODF and vice versa?
Since – at least that’s what I gather – it is going to be a client-server architecture, why not host the server part on google’s massive hardware cluster? This holds tremendous possibilities:
Software upgrade: check (google can spend time improving the filter, and the results are immediately visible)
Software distribution: check (after all, it’s google).
Yes, yes, I realize, this is pure speculation – but I think it would make sense.
http://www.clever-age.com/references/interne-plugin-openoffice-pour…
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooo-word-filter/
IF there was a plugin available….. Corporate users likely couldn’t legally apply it. It would break the terms of the EULA.
Not a BIG deal to the home user…. Huge deal if you are a corporation.
I doubt that seriously, considering the statements from Microsoft. Why would Microsoft say they more or less relied on 3rd party plugins to add support for ODF for corporate and home users, if the EULA said no.
AFAIK the EULA does not prevent the use of add-ons for home users, nor corporate users.
Whether in a EULA or not, MS will be unable to forbid the use of any other software on the computer. Because, this will involve a violation of the prohibition on linked sales. It will be anti competitive behaviour. The problem has nothing to do with EULAs. If during the purchase negotiations MS were to have the user sign a contract to the effect that it would not use various forms of software under various penalties, no EU court would ever enforce the penalties. On the contrary, MS would be prosecuted for violation of competition law.
In the same way, MS cannot, in a EULA or any other way, prevent companies from running Office under Wine. And, yes, in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reason, Apple will not be able to prevent, solely by conditions on sale, users from running OS X on any hardware where it is technically possible.
MS can prevent reverse engineering of various sorts under Digital Copyright law in the US.
And the case on technical measures will differ from case to case. Apple probably can get away with making it technically impossible, because it has so little market share. MS will not be able to – either in the Wine example or in the plug-in example, because it is technically a monopoly (more than 25% market share). Should it try to disable third party software from working with it, it would be certainly be caught.
It would never, for example, get away with the anti competitive tactics on DR Dos and Windows now, the warning messages and so on.
So, either by third party plug in or from MS, OD is coming to Office.
MS can prevent reverse engineering of various sorts under Digital Copyright law in the US.
Not in this case as the DMCA explicitly excludes reverse engineering for the purpose of computer interoperability from its provisions.
This is even better than microsoft embracing and extending ODF. Now “we” stay in control.
I wonder if a stand-alone tools to mass-convert word files to ODF would be possible.
Well, it’s possible, just not in USA. AFAIK this would be an IP-violation.
Well, it’s possible, just not in USA. AFAIK this would be an IP-violation.
MS Office does allow third party add-ons so therefore OpenOpenOffice is legal. If you’re allowed to convert files, then how does converting 100 files simultaneously become an IP* violation? It is perfectly acceptable to do so, and I hope that entities, like the Massachusetts government, take advantage of such things as they move old documents to ODF and start using StarOffice/OOo.
* IP is a rather ambiguous term as it lumps together to many items that are not neccessarily related such as patents, trademark, and copyright. None of those items should inhibit changing a file format
Yes, you could write an add-on, but the answer was to a question about stand-alone tools.
Yes, you could write an add-on, but the answer was to a question about stand-alone tools.
IP only covers trademarks, patents, and copyright; therefore file conversion whether it is internal (a plug-in) or external (a whole other app) is inconsequential. The best MS can hope to do is add a clause to their EULA to try and prohibit this.
Currently there are already many external apps that can convert MS documents to another format (OOo/StarOffice, AbiWord, Gnumeric, KOffice, etc.). There is nothing prohibiting the creation of an external app that can mass convert MS Office documents to ODF.
You can try to patent your file format, like MS has done with it’s next gen XML format. Whether that would stand up in court or not is up to debate (God I hope not).
Please correct me if I am wrong as its been a while since I’ve used OpenOffice, but doesn’t it already have a mass convert function (mass export)in there? From .doc to OpenOffcie format by choosing all files in a folder?
“I wonder if a stand-alone tools to mass-convert word files to ODF would be possible.”
There’s the ticket! Once this is in place it’s really easy for users to develop scripts to have MS Word itself do the converting… perhaps even add it as another plug in.
remember the mantra…
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish!!!!
…why install a $300 suite to save files in a non-native format (OpenDocument is foreign to MS) when a free one – OpenOffice.org – does it better anyway? Never understood that part…
…why install a $300 suite to save files in a non-native format (OpenDocument is foreign to MS) when a free one – OpenOffice.org – does it better anyway? Never understood that part…
No need at all for retraining (just change the default file format and you’re set), no need to spend IT wages installing and maintaining a new Office Suite (and likely MS Office at the same time as users transition) and last but not least, no need to retrain users (I am aware of the duplicate). This one is important….believe it or not, most computer users don’t know what the hell they are doing. For instance, if paste changed from Ctrl+V to Ctrl+L, geeks would find it annoying but transition. Normal people would be still figuring it out 5 years from now (trust me, I have a grandma who uses computers, I know this as a fact).
That was a stupid example I admit, but it shows why OpenOpenOffice is a good idea. A better name would be OpenOpenDocument I would think though.
Also, this plugin is important for people who simply don’t want to switch to a new Suite, but need to open OpenDocument files.
This is the same reason why OpenOffice supports .DOC. Most OpenOffice users don’t want to use MS Office, but they often need to receive and open MS Office files.
“..and last but not least, no need to retrain users (I am aware of the duplicate). This one is important….believe it or not, most computer users don’t know what the hell they are doing. “
Have you seen the interface of the next version of MSOffice? Retraining is going to be necessary anyway, so while you’re at it, why not go with something else that will:
a) Support an open standard and
b) Save, over time, a substantial amount of money ??
I understand there are situations where this wouldn’t be possible, but for the vast majority of business users, the switch to OpenOffice.org really should not be discounted …nor, hopefully, underestimated
How about for people who are happy w/ what they currently have installed? I’d assume an OOO plug-in would be backwards compatible with older Office versions, so people who are still using Office 97 et al. would continue to use what they have and just use the plug-in.
Plus some companies might have a contract to use Office for x number of years or other obligations that require them to retain MS Office.
The State of Mass intendeds to hold hearings before the switch is golden….
Might be a BIG problem before this one comes to pass….
I for one can’t wait for these hearings. This is the best way to publicize Microsoft’s abusive monopolistic practices – and there’s no way MS can buy a majority of Mass. senators for this. It’s not splitting up MS, it’s a state choosing a file format that is in the best interest of its citizens (because it is open).
I really think this is a lose-lose situation for MS.
The State of Mass intendeds to hold hearings before the switch is golden….
Might be a BIG problem before this one comes to pass….
Yes I heard tha MS had bought another politician – I wonder how much they paid him ?
Worst project name ever?
The only way to bit monopoly in the office suites is
by having standardarised formats. With this plugin,
gonverments will be able to adopt the OASIS format
without forcing anyone to change office suitel.
It should had been implemented before the format was
officialy out.
It might be a coincidence but i submitted this news today at the same time, then appeared as submitted by dylansmrjones. It wouldn’t make any difference, though :p
Well, the story I submitted about ODF-plugins for MS Word was linked to the french company working with Microsoft, and their open source plug-in on sourgeforge.
Perhaps this news should be tributed to you rather than me
Its absolutely fine, I waqs just impressed by the coinsedence of somebody submitting a 7 days old news at teh same time as me
stelli
Am I reading this correct? It sounds like the Office plugin is just going to look for an OpenOffice server on the network which will do the conversion and send back the converted file. On a certain level, I suppose that makes sense for corporations (only one piece of software to update, not thousands of clients). But it sounds like a hassle as well. I suppose they figure the smaller organizations can just use OOo manually.
I’ll be interested to see how this works out. Maybe I misunderstood, but from their description, it sounds like the architecture is designed to automate Office using .Net and the PIAs on the server. This is a totally unsupported scenario which has significant performance considerations. Also, if the plan is to convert using automation to grok the document contents instead of actual file conversion, I think that they’ll find this is a highly error-prone mechanism for conversion. You’ll just lose all kinds of information (how thick was that cell border again? Where were the series labels for that chart positioned? What was that currency format? …) unless you’re really careful.
Anyway, since they seem to think they can get this done in a matter of months, I guess we won’t have to wait long to find out.
I’m sure the people who thought this up understand the requirements better than I, but it seems kinda asinine to put up an OO.o server and use SOAP between Office and it. That would just about rule out home use because it would never be practical to do that when you could just use plain OO.o. Why couldn’t they take the document conversion code and plop it into a Word plugin so that there’s no need for a server?
Also, I don’t really see this being too useful so long as it focuses on conversion rather than native editing (as Mystic Taco said). For one, it’ll never be perfect and second, only the common features of both formats will be useable. Anything word-specific will just get destroyed and anything odf-specific will be unuseable. The only benefit I see to such a scenario is reading odf files in word, but not editing or creating.
In the end, though, I really respect the people trying this for realizing that it’s the interoperability that counts and not which program people are actually using.
Why not ask Microsoft about guidelines for file format support code in Office (if it’s not already available in MSDN); them develop most of the code for parsing OpenDocument’s files, and them release it as BSD/MIT licensed code?
Microsoft could incorporate it in MS Office with not political-license problems, and everyone would be happy!
…also, if the code is public offered as free(dom)-with-no-conditions (like BSD/MIT licenses), it would be very bad for them to not accept it, about every tech news site/journal/magazine would retaliate a decision like that…
It may sound odd at first, but, IMHO, it’s a very good thing to do!
Microsoft could incorporate it in MS Office with not political-license problems, and everyone would be happy!
Except MS, who is keeping it out for economic, not political reasons. All this would do is help expose that, and I’m sure MS could come up with more excuses. Like not wanting to bloat their suite with features that their customers don’t want, etc.
well,
at least it’s something to try… asking them why not; solve this “problem” and them asking “now what?”…
Having ODF plugin into MS-Office is not only going to work Openoffice way but also going to help other Office suites to catch up with the rest of the players. This plugin could really break away the dominance of MS-Office in the computer world.
So far right from our customers to our Business partners, everyone was asking for MS formats when it comes to exchange documents, now we can send them docs in OSS format and ask them to conver it to their wish! Very well… very neat!
Good idea, but the name must be the stupidest that I ever heard…
Does that mean that installation of openoffice is required? The plugin should be easy to download-install
if we are talking about official oodocument support!
Does that mean that installation of openoffice is required? The plugin should be easy to download-install
if we are talking about official oodocument support!
Not exactly either. the O3 proposal means you will be able to download and install a small plugin, but you will need to have access to a server side installation of OOo (running a special perl script) either on the internet or on your intranet. A home user who did not have access to or alternatively wish to use such a service could set up a server installation on his own machine and use the plugin. At least thats my interpretation of the article.