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ODF, PDF, The Antic Waste Land, and Monica's Blue Dress - Rob Weir

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 23:37:48 -0000

Comments:

Intriguing? Rob Weir knows full well that the Foundation proposed this exact same feature set as part of the da Vinci Plug-in design for Massachusetts, July of 2006!!!!!!!!!

The Complete Feature list of the da Vinci plug-in for MSOffice that was proposed and signed off on by CIO Louis Gutierrez in early August of 2006 was well known by IBM's representatives who were working hand in hand with us at the time: Rob Weir, Don Harbison and Doug Heintzman.

Louis Gutierrez had asked IBM and Oracle to create a "benefactors Group" to overcome the challenge that Massachusetts ITD did not have a budget. IBM and Oracle selected Google, Sun, Novell, Intel, and Nokia as key benefactors. The group was provided with the complete feature set and roadmap for da Vinci development.

The da Vinci roadmap was the schedule announced by Louis Gutierrez in his mid year report, August 17th, 2006.

The da Vinci plug-in feature set, in order of priority, consisted of:
- ODF iX Approval at OASIS
- Plug-in for MS WORD
- Accessibility Interface for all ODF documents in MS Word
- PDF - ODF iX Digital Signature container
- Plug-in for MS Excel
- Interoperability Wizard for OpenOffice
- Plug-in for PowerPoint
- XForms Interface
The roadmap we provided Louis and the "benefactors" was sceduled out with deliverables, test periods, and cost per deliverable. The buy-in per "benefactor" was set at $350,000, and included full access to da Vinci and InfoSet source code plus a permanent seat on the Foundations Board of Directors. Louis apponeted Timothy Vaverchak as the Project Manager, and he was to handle all finacial concerns, deliverables, testing schedules and reporting back to the Board of Directors. Massachusetts, California and the EU-IDABC had permanent BofD seats, including exclusive control of the Chairmanship. da Vinci was to be fully open sourced under the GPL, although "benefactors" had full access and distribution rights.

The least Rob could do is credit the Foundation with what was then a very creative and innovative solution. Instead, a year later he's trash talking us and posturing as if he thought of this approach!

~ge~

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

An intriguing idea is whether we can have it both ways. Suppose you are in an ODF editor and you have a "Save for archiving..." option that would save your ODF document as normal, but also generate a PDF version of it and store it in the zip archive along with ODF's XML streams. Then digitally sign the archive along with a time stamp to make it tamper-proof. You would need to define some additional access conventions, but you could end up with a single document that could be loaded in an ODF editor (in read-only mode) to allow examination of the details of spreadsheet formulas, etc., as well as loaded in a PDF reader to show exactly how it was formated.

Tags: cdf da-vinci massachusetts odf ooxml pilot rfi

Posted by: garyedwards

State's move to open document formats still not a mass migration

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:58:11 -0000

Comments:

Eric Lai keesp pokign at that Massachusetts hornets nest. One of these days he's going to crack it open, and it will be back to square one for the ODF Community. Still missing from his research is the infoamous 300 page pilot study and accompanying web site where comments and professional observations document a year long study concernign the difficulties of implementing ODF solutions and making the migration. 

The study was focused on OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office, and a IBM WorkPlace prototype. 

The results of the year long pilot have never seen the public light of day. But ComputerWorld is one of the media orgs that successfully filed a court action to invoke the freedom of information act in Massachusetts. How come they can't find the Pilot Study? 

At the end of the pilot study period, Massachusetts issued their infamous RFi; the request for information regarding the possiblity of a ODF plugin for MSOffice! Meaning, the Pilot Study did not go well for the heroes of ODF - OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office and WorkPlace. Instead, Massachusetts sought an ODF plugin that would no doubt extend the life of MSOffice for years to come. No rip out and replace here folks! 

~ge~
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Only a tiny fraction of the PCs at Massachusetts government agencies are able to use the Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications, despite an initial deadline of this month for making sure that all state agencies could handle the file format.

Tags: california iso lai massachusetts oasis odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument openxml xml

Posted by: garyedwards

EU-IDABC ODEF Workshop 2007 in Berlin - Documentation - presentations

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 11:41:55 -0000

Comments:

ODF officially died on February 28, 2007, at the Advanced eGovernment Conference in Berlin. Hellow ODEF
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

IDABC ODEF Workshop 2007 in Berlin

As information exchange in and with public administrations is very often bound to documents, editing, archiving and exchange possibilities for documents are crucial for the optimum function of administrations, both in terms of practicality and cost.

Initiatives such as the PEGSCO Recommendations on Open Document Formats published by the IDABC Management Committee, demonstrate public administrations preference for "open" document exchange and storage formats that are subject to formal standardisation via international standardisation procedures.

The primary objectives of the Berlin event, held at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), were to:

compile further input from Member State public administrations on their experiences and strategies on ODEF
gather industry viewpoints on the initiatives relating to ODEF standardization and information on future standardisation developments
provide a platform for exchange between stakeholders in public administrations and main industry players

The program of the workshop included, among other:

ODEF Strategies: Examples from European Administration
Practical Experiences with the implementation of ODEF
Report on ODEF-Standardisation activities
4 parallel sessions with participants
A panel discussion with stakeholders

Tags: california davinci interop iso massachusetts oasis odef odf ooxml opendocument politics xml

Posted by: garyedwards

MSFT: Let’s Do VHS Versus Betamax All Over

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:06:01 -0000

Comments:

Another great commentary from Walt Hucks. This time his target is the over the top self serving statements from Microsoft about consumers wanting "competition" between standards. I was a loser in the BetaMAX wars. At least SONY had an edge in those wars of claiming a somewhat, although leglible, advantge in video fidleity. Microsoft OOXML has no such advantage over ODF. None whatsoever.

Walt once again exposes Microsoft as the company you can count on to treat customers as mindless idiots. Given the choice, customers would choose ODF over OOXML hands down, time after tiem, every time. But they are not given "the choice". Mcirosoft spends a lot of spin cycles complaining and whining about IBM and others not providing native support for OOXML. Incredibly, they do this while announcing loudly that they have no intention of ever supporting ODF nativiely in their own applications? What's u with that? Leveraging the monopoly. That's what.

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

“You want the customers to vote with their wallets,” Hilf said.”The most healthy market environment is where there is competition.”

Tags: massachusetts microsoft odf ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards

Keeping both sides honest - O\'Reilly XML Blog

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:39:44 -0000

Comments:

Finally, someone in Massachusetts is talking and it's the master, Louis Gutierrez. Wiki Ricki has some nice comments about the ComputerWorld interview with Louis. As have become his custom though, Rick once again carries the flag (or should i say water) for Microsoft. Rick's expertise in XML used to be the draw for his column. Now you have to parse through his comments, separating the nuggets of truth from the torren of bias. Paid bias. It's too bad. Rick was one of the best.
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The former State Government CIO of Massachusetts (a state in USA) Louis Gutierrez has a worthwhile interview in Computerworld this week. What I like about the article in particular is that he seems clear that the role of govenment is not just to passively accept standards, but to pragmatically assess the suitability and impact and processes of each one. ISO makes “voluntary standards” not laws.

Gutierrez says the obvious: that there is a marked difference in the feature set between ODF and OpenXML (”straightforward simplicity” versus “feature-rich but very idiosyncratic diversty”): he does not trivialize the difference in coverage or scope between the two.

Tags: massachusetts microsoft odf ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards

Q&A: Former Mass. CIO feels \'bittersweet pride\' after battles with Microsoft, legislature

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:39:44 -0000

Comments:

Whoa, Wiki Ricki is right. This is a great article! A must read interview with Louis Gutierrez. I wonder though, since it was ComputerWorld and the Boston Globe that filed the August 2006 Freedom of Information Act invocation to get all the Massachusetts conversations and meetings, no doubt they were carryign some heavy ammunition into this interview. Up until this interview it's been next to impossible for the public or press to get truthful information. This is a good start, and i for one wonder just how far Massachusetts execs are willing to go with their public disclosures?
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Q&A: Former Mass. CIO feels 'bittersweet pride' after battles with Microsoft, legislature

Gutierrez says he would make same choices again that he did in ODF and IT funding fights

Tags: massachusetts microsoft odf ooxml opendocument openxml

Posted by: garyedwards