Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, while speaking today at the annual conference of the company Most Valuable Professional, has given some perspective about the relationship between Microsoft and open source, as reported by Todd Bishop. What I see as a dangerous problem, especially when you look at interoperability between applications and file formats (especially ODF and OOXML), is the fact that Microsoft ignores the open source community.
If we look at OpenOffice.org, the three markets where the open source office suite is competing most successfully with Microsoft Office are probably Germany, France and Italy, followed by other European markets like Spain and the Netherlands. In Italy, where I have the updated numbers, we are hitting today - maybe while I’m writing this post - one million downloads since January 1st, 2008 (over 350.000 since the announcement of OOo 2.4 in late March). Although we don’t have Microsoft figures for Office 2007, we estimate a maximum of 1.8 million licenses sold in 2008.
I already know the reply: “You can’t compare licenses with downloads…”. Of course, gentlemen, but do you really think that one million downloads in slightly over one hundred days (at an average of over 9,200 downloads per day) still equals to a few thousands users? Do you really think that a small bunch of people, just the same small bunch of people, can get all these downloads? Come on, we’ve other stuff to do. Please, be realistic. We’re eating your pie, quickly. We’re hungry.
I don’t know the figures for Germany and France, but I’m quite sure that they are even better than those for Italy. The results in these markets are mainly due to the daily activity of the local community, while Microsoft - with the exception of Italy, where Associazione PLIO is recognized and respected - apparently ignores the reality. I am sure, for instance, that Microsoft’s Document Interoperability Initiative would greatly benefit from the involvement of the open source community.
Technorati Tags:
ooxml, open source, openoffice, microsoft, odf
The change has been announced last week, but I think it’s important to read Simon Phipp’s comments on its relevance.
This quote sums it up:
OpenOffice.org’s license will change to LGPLv3 as part of a broader set of changes intended to improve the OpenOffice.org community for everyone. Those changes also include a switch to the latest version of the standard Sun contributor agreement, with an addendum specifically tailored to the needs of the OpenOffice.org community. There’s increased latitude for documentation writers to publish their work on OpenOffice.org. And in future, plugins for OpenOffice.org may host their source code directly on the community site without copyright being shared, helping collaboration within the community.
In order to understand the complete picture about software patents and all the related issues I think it’s important to read what Simon has written in may 2007 about patent covenants.
Tags: openoffice, softwareDeveloper’s Guide is now in the Wiki
The OpenOffice.org Developer’s Guide is now available online in the OpenOffice.org Wiki. The main purpose of moving the guide into the wiki is for maintenance reasons and the hope to get more contributions. We also hope to get a localized version of the guide to reach more users/developers all over the world.
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/developer_s_guide_is_now
Users demand support for OpenOffice.org
QualityLogic, a provider of leading-edge QA and QC test tools and services for the imaging and telecom industries, has released test files for the first of several planned applications found in OpenOffice.org 2. Test files are now available for “Writer” and “Draw”. “Impress” is in development, and additional applications are planned. QualityLogic has been developing test files for popular Windows applications for over 20 years. These files are used by printer companies to ensure compatibility between their printers and the applications their customers use, and by software companies whose applications convert one file format to another. They are also used by Fortune 1000, government, education and healthcare companies to help make printer and software purchasing decisions. The popularity of the OpenOffice.org office suite has created a need within these companies for sophisticated test files similar to those QualityLogic has developed for Windows applications.
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/users_demand_support_for_openoffice
New StartCenter replaces StartModule
After a hectic week of discussion, implementation and rewriting we now have a new initial window when you start OpenOffice.org without a document. This up to now brought up a large window (so large because it defines the size of the document that will replace it) in “battleship gray” as some call it. On most platforms you don’t see this window so often, because system integration will usually leave you with an application window (Writer, Impress, Calc, …) instead. On Mac however the so called StartModule is the norm rather than the exception. So we put a long planned overhaul of the StartModule in motion. The first plan was to use a dialog replacing the StartModule, however that would lead to questions about modality, startup and exit behavior due to the modal event loop and similar issues.
So in the end we decided to improve the existing StartModule instead, turning it into the new StartCenter. The StartCenter contains a host of labeled buttons (natively themed where available of course) that allow the user to create a new document or open an existing one. It also shows the same menu entries as before, so additional features like the recent file list are still available.
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/new_startcenter_replaces_startmodule
Impressive Eye Candy: 3D OpenGL Transitions
PowerPoint’s old push-down transition has done its 15 years of service, and it’s time for it to retire. Do the sleepy faces in your meetings agree? OpenOffice.org Impress 2.4 has the answer in the form of ten 3D OpenGL-rendered transitions:
- Flipping tiles
- Outside turning cube
- Revolving circles
- Turning helix
- Inside turning cube
- Fall
- Turn around
- Iris
- Turn down
- Rochade
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/02/eye-candy-3d-opengl-transitions-impress.html
PDF/A Support in OpenOffice.org
The first release candidate for OpenOffice.org 2.4 has just been released. One of the key new features is the built-in PDF/A export capability. The new Chart features are very cool as well! Please check if the release candidate is good enough for being promoted to a final version!
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/pdf_a_support_in_openoffice
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Tags: marketing, openoffice, softwareI’ve had a long phone conversation with Sam Ramji today. It was plagued by some bandwidth problems on my side (next time I will have a dedicated PC for Skype) but it was definitely constructive for both of us: Microsoft and Associazione PLIO. We are both committed to start working about and around interoperability, maintaining our respective independence and therefore our different views on some issues.
During the call, Sam has pointed out that a very large percentage of OpenOffice.org users (close to 90%? maybe, although every Linux user and an increasing number of Mac users adopt it) are also Windows users (from the emails and phone calls that we receive on a daily basis, I would dare to say that all the Italians that use Vista have already switched to OpenOffice.org).
Therefore, interoperability is a key factor for Microsoft, because a malfunctioning OpenOffice.org on Windows would raise question marks about the operating system, and is a key factor for OpenOffice.org, because there are areas where performances can be improved with a better understanding of Windows.
Then there are document formats. During the recent press conference, Microsoft has stated the following:
To promote user choice among document formats, Microsoft will design new APIs for the Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office 2007 to enable developers to plug in additional document formats and to enable users to set these formats as their default for saving documents.
Unfortunately, only a few people understand the implications of standard document formats for the user. During the last couple of weeks I have talked with many Italian journalists about this subject, and I have realized that their knowledge is still limited and sometimes even confused. We have a long education process in front of us.
Given this limited understanding, the chaos around standard formats has raised more than one eyebrow in those who have followed the discussion on the press. It’s time to stop being negative and start being positive, for the sake of the user.
Tags: Linux, openofficeOSS Groups
FSFE News: http://www.fsfeurope.org
IDABC: http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en
Linux OS Blog: http://linux.wordpress.com
No OOXML: http://www.noooxml.org/start
OASIS Press: http://www.oasis-open.org/news/index.php
ODF Alliance: http://www.odfalliance.org/blog/index.php
Open Doc: http://opendocument.xml.org
OSA Blog: http://blog.opensolutionsalliance.org/
OSI Blog: http://opensource.org/blog
OSI News: http://opensource.org/aggregator
OpenOffice
Charles Shulz: http://standardsandfreedom.net
Discovering OOo: http://openoffice.ozlady.com
Eric Bachard: http://eric.bachard.free.fr/news/
Erwin Tenhumberg: http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/
GullFOSS: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/
John McCreesh: http://www.mealldubh.org
Louis Suarez-Potts: http://ooo-speak.blogspot.com/
Malte Timmermann: http://blogs.sun.com/malte/
Pavel Janik: http://blog.janik.cz
Solveigh Haughland: http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt/
Analisti
Alex Fletcher: http://alexfletcher.typepad.com/all_bets_off/
Anne Manes: http://apsblog.burtongroup.com/
Caos Theory: http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource
Craig Roth: http://knowledgeforward.wordpress.com
Gordon Haff: http://www.cnet.com/8300-13556_1-61.html
Guy Creese: http://creese.typepad.com/pattern_finder/
James Governor: http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor
Michael Coté: http://www.redmonk.com/cote
Stephen O’Grady: http://redmonk.com/sogrady
Vinnie Mirchandani: http://dealarchitect.typepad.com/deal_architect/
OSS Press
Desktop Linux: http://www.desktoplinux.com
eWEEK Linux: http://www.eweek.com
Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net
InfoWorld OSS: http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/?source=rss
ITtoolbox: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com
Linux News: http://lxer.com/
Linux Watch: http://www.linux-watch.com
LWN: http://lwn.net
NewsForge: http://www.linux.com/feature
O’Reilly Blogs: http://weblogs.oreilly.com/
O’Reilly GMT: http://www.oreillygmt.co.uk/”
O’Reilly Radar: http://radar.oreilly.com/
OSS Watch: http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/rss/
The Pulse: http://www.pulseofoss.com
ZDNet OSS: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source
Microsoft
Brian Jones: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/default.aspx
Gray Matter: http://blogs.technet.com/gray_knowlton/default.aspx
Jason Matusow: http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonmatusow/default.aspx
Mary Jo Foley: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft
Microsoft Clips: http://www.mclips.it/default.aspx
Port 25: http://port25.technet.com/default.aspx
OSS
Alan Lord: http://www.theopensourcerer.com
Alex Fletcher: http://alexfletcher.typepad.com/all_bets_off/
Amanda McPherson: http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/amanda
Andy Astor: http://andyastor.blogspot.com/
Andy Updegrove: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog
Anthony Gold: http://anthonygold.blogspot.com/
Arnaud Le Hors: http://lehors.wordpress.com
Benjamin Horst: http://www.solidoffice.com
Bob Sutor: http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open
Christopher Keene: http://www.keeneview.com/
Derek Rodner: http://rodner.blogspot.com/
Digital Divide: http://digitaldivide.garuti.it
Doug Levin: http://bduck1.blogspot.com/
Finalmente Libero: http://finalmentelibero.ning.com
Gianugo Rabellino: http://boldlyopen.com
Glyn Moody (1): http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/
Glyn Moody (2): http://www.linuxjournal.com/blogs/glyn-moody
GNUband: http://www.gnuband.org
Ian Howells: http://blogs.alfresco.com/ianh
Ian Murdock: http://ianmurdock.com
IBM Linux: http://www.ibm.com/press
James McGovern: http://duckdown.blogspot.com/
Jason Stamper: http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/
Jeff Waugh: http://perkypants.org
Jim Kern: http://www.linuxwins.com
John Cherry: http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/cherry
Jonathan Schwartz: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/
Leif Lodahl: http://lodahl.blogspot.com/
Marco Caresia: http://www.didawiki.org/wordpress
Mark Hinkle: http://socializedsoftware.com
Mark Radcliffe: http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.blogspot.com/
Mark Shuttleworth: http://www.markshuttleworth.com
Matt Asay: http://blogs.cnet.com/8300-13505_1-16.html
Open Malaysia: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/
Palle Pedersen: http://www.inside-open-source.com/
Rob Weir: http://www.robweir.com/blog/
Roberto Galoppini: http://robertogaloppini.net
Sam Hiser: http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/
Savio Rodriguez: http://saviorodrigues.wordpress.com
Seeing Both Sides: http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/
Shaun Connolly: http://connollyshaun.blogspot.com/
Simon Phipps: http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/
Stephen Walli: http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/
The Pulse: http://www.pulseofoss.com
Walt Hucks: http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com
Zack Urlocker: http://www.theopenforce.com
Tags: desktop linux, gnu, Linux, Open Document Format, open document format, openoffice, softwareOrvieto has submitted a proposal to organize the OpenOffice.org Conference in 2008.
I quote John McCreesh:
I believe one European bid this year stands above the others, which is the bid from Italy. I believe the combination of an experienced organising team, a delightful warm location, and a thriving local community would be hard to beat. I would urge anyone wanting an OOoCon in Europe this year to unite behind Orvieto.
Voting is open to all individuals who were registered as members of the Community on January 1st 2008. If you happen to be one of them, please go to this page and pay your duty.
Today, we have decided to follow yesterday’s Microsoft announcement with an open letter to the company. This is my translation into English of the text (unfortunately, some of the extra care put in each word gets lost, but the meaning is there).
Welcome, Microsoft.
Following yesterday’s announcement, we are ready to co-operate at the promotion of open formats in order to support this new endeavour in the area of office suites. We are ready to co-operate, but we will criticize you for every uncertain or false step.
Inside interoperability there isn’t any space left for tricks: interoperability means that you have chosen to be on the same side of the users.
We believe in your good faith more than the European Commission does, as they have told the world that this is the fourth time that Microsoft makes an announcement about interoperability, without any impact - until today - on the company strategy.
We sincerely hope that this time, for a number of reasons - including our proactive opposition to the fast track standardization of Office 2007 file formats, which will go on until all the necessary changes will be made, the chances that mere words are going to translate into facts are higher than in the past.
At the same time, we invite all the companies that support the ODF format together with us - and those that belong to the OpenOffice.org community: Sun, IBM, Novell & Red Flag - to work for a full interoperability, as the technical and legal obstacles are going to disappear soon.
Users should be able to exchange transparently Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org documents, in both directions.
The software industry, which is not based just in Redmond, must demonstrate a true commitment to make ODF a more widespread format.
If this will happen, users will win, and the market - i.e., all of us - will win.
Associazione PLIO (Italian National Linguistic Project OpenOffice.org)
We know that many inside the community have a different opinion. Of course, we have carefully evaluated the pros and the cons of such a statement, and are quite sure that this is the right attitude for this specific time in the history of computing.
Tags: office suite, Open Document Format, open document format, openoffice, softwareA few old news articles that I’d nevertheless like to catalog here today:
InformationWeek writes, in mid-January, of Lenovo preinstalling Linux:
“Starting Jan. 14, the T61 and R16 Centrino ThinkPads will have the option of shipping with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, with OpenOffice.org included. A news item over at DesktopLinux.com revealed that the T61 will sport a Core 2 Duo T7205 2.0-GHz processor, 1 Gbyte of DDR2 RAM, an 80-Gbyte 5400 RPM hard drive — all for $949.” (Incidentally, choosing Linux will save a buyer $20 over Windows on the same hardware.)
Erwin Tenhumberg writes a status report on ODF that he titles “Dispelling Myths Around ODF.”
A very thorough article that debunks some of the FUD Microsoft has been spreading around ODF (though personally, I have not seen as much MS FUD as I expected–maybe their energy isn’t what it once was).
My favorite section is where Erwin lists some of the prominent applications that use ODF as their default, or one of their primary, formats. These include KOffice, OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, IBM Lotus Symphony, Corel WordPerfect, Apple TextEdit, Google Docs, and plenty more.
Tags: Linux, Open Document Format, openofficeWHDb writes “The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy–and Their Open Source Alternatives.”
Most of these programs are familiar old friends, like Ubuntu and OpenOffice, but the list includes some that are new to me, such as Archimedes CAD.
The list is mostly focused on open source programs to run on Windows, though most (yet, not all) of the key applications are cross-platform for Linux and Mac as well. (I maintain a list of my preferred FOSS programs for Mac OS X here.)
Tags: Linux, Open Source, openoffice