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Gary Edwards's List: Compatibility matters - The lessons of Massachusetts are many. Application level "compatibility" with existing MSOffice desktops and workgroups is vital. Format level "compatibility" with the legacy of billions of binary documents is vital. And "ecosystem" compatibility with the MSOffice productivity environment.

This is amazing stuff. With all the talk about OpenOffice ODF compatibility problems with existing MSOffice productivity environments and documents, this comparison is stunning. I stumbled across this Compatibility Comparison reading this article: ThinkFree Set to Launch The First Complete Android Office Suite. Documents To Go is currently the only provider of Word and Excel documents on Android. The ThinkFree Office comparisons to OpenOffice cover a number of familiar compatibility issues, with layout at the top of the list. ThinkFree Write 3.5 vs OpenOffice Writer 3.0 ".....When using a word processor to create documents, you really shouldn't have to worry about whether your client will be able to see the document as you intended." ".... However, if you use a low-cost solution like OpenOffice, you should be prepared for frustrations and disappointments....."

Excellent legal piece explaining the options and methods of how software programs use licensed and copyrighted third party libraries through an API. Finally, some clear thinking about Google Android and the Oracle Java Law Suit.
excerpt: Another option for a developer is to do what Google did when it created Android, and create replacement code libraries that are compatible with the existing code libraries, but which are new copyrighted works. Being "compatible" in this context means that the new libraries are called in the same way that the old libraries are--that is, using the same APIs. But the actual copyrighted code that is being called is a new work. As long as the new developer didn't actually copy code from the original libraries, the new libraries are not infringing. It does not infringe on the copyright of a piece of software to create a new piece of software that works the same way; copyright protects the actual expression (lines of code) but not the functionality of a program. The functionality of a program is protected by patent, or not at all.
In the Oracle/Google case, no one is arguing that code libraries themselves are not copyrightable. Of course they are and this is why the Google/Oracle dispute has no bearing on the enforceability of the GPL. Instead, the argument is about whether the method of using a code library, the APIs, is subject to a copyright that is independent of the copyright of the code itself. If the argument that APIs are not copyrightable prevails, programs that are created by statically-linking GPL'd code libraries will still be considered derivative works of the code libraries and will still have to be released under the GPL.
Though irrelevant to the enforceability of the GPL, the Oracle/Google dispute is still interesting. Oracle is claiming that Google, by creating compatible, replacement code libraries that are "called" in the same way as Oracle's code libraries (that is, using the same APIs), infringed

Comment posted 1 week ago in reply to Zzgomes .....  by Ed Carp.  Finally someone who gets it! OBTW, i replaced Windows 7 with Linux Mint over a year ago and hope to never return.  The thing is though, i am not a member of a Windows productivity workgroup, nor do i need to connect to any Windows databases or servers.  Essentially i am not using any Windows business process or systems.  It's all Internet!!! 100% Web and Cloud Services systems.  And that's why i can dump Windows without a blink! While working for Sursen Corp, it was a very different story.  I had to have Windows XP and Windows 7, plus MSOffice 2003-2007, plus Internet Explorer with access to SharePoint, Skydrive/Live.com.  It's all about the business processes and systems you're part of, or must join.   And that's exactly why the Linux Desktop has failed.  Give Cloud Computing the time needed to re-engineer and re-invent those many Windows business processes, and the Linux Desktop might suceed.  The trick will be in advancing both the Linux Desktop and Application developer layers to target the same Cloud Computing services mobility targets.  ..... Windows will take of itself.   The real fight is in the great transition of business systems and processes moving from the Windows desktp/workgroup productivity model to the Cloud.  Linux Communities must fight to win the great transition. And yes, in the end this all about a massive platform shift.  The fourth wave of computing began with the Internet, and will finally close out the desktop client/server computing model as the Web evolves into the Cloud. excerpt: Most posters here have it completely wrong...the *real* reason Linux doesn't have a decent penetration into the desktop market is quite obvious if you look at the most successful desktop in history - Windows.  All this nonsense about binary driver compatibility, distro fragmentation, CORBA, and all the other red herrings that people are talking about are completely irrelevant

Finally! Someone who gets it. For an office suite to be considered as an alternative to MSOffice, it must be designed with multiple levels of compatibility. It's not just that the "feature sets" that must be comparable. The guts of the suite must be compatible at both the file format level, and the environment level. Randall put's it this way; "It's the ecosystem stupid". The reason ODF failed in Massachusetts is that neither OpenOffice nor OpenOffice ODF are designed to be compatible with legacy and existing MSOffice applications, binary formats, and, the MSOffice productivity environment. Instead, OOo and OOo-ODF are designed to be competitively comparable. As an alternative to MSOffice, OpenOffice and OpenOffice ODF cannot fit into existing MSOffice workgroups and producitivity environments. Because it s was not designed to be compatible, OOo demands that the environment be replaced, rebuilt and re-engineered. Making OOo and OOo-ODF costly and disruptive to critical day-to-day business processes. The lesson of Massachusetts is simple; compatibility matters. Conversion of workgroup/workflow documents from the MSOffice productivity environment to OpenOffice ODF will break those documents at two levels: fidelity and embedded "ecosystem" logic. Fidelity is what most end-users point to since that's the aspect of the document conversion they can see. However, it's what they can't see that is the show stopper. The hidden side of workgroup/workflow documents is embedded logic that includes scripts, macros, formulas, OLE, data bindings, security settings, application specific settings, and productivity environment settings. Breaks these aspects of the document, and you stop important business processes bound to the MSOffice productivity environment. There is no such thing as an OpenOffice productivity environment designed to be a compatible alternative to the MSOffice productivity environment. Another lesson from Massach

Is Intel right?  Is there a "compatibility-interoperability" problem between Windows RT Office (ARM) and legacy (x86) Windows MS Office productivity environments?  It seems to me that the entire reason iPAD, Android and other ARM based tablet systems want MSOffice and MSOffice Visual Document Viewers is exactly because they want and expect a high level of compat-interop with legacy Windows productivity workgroups and client/server systems. What's the truth?  And is there anything x86 providers like Intel and AMD can do about compat-interop and the unstoppable cloud-mobility revolution? excerpt: The Asus tablet has a quad-core Tegra 3 processor from Nvidia. Windows RT comes preloaded with Office 15, a group of widely used productivity applications. Microsoft has said it had to re-engineer Windows RT to deal with expectations for ARM based devices, which include all-day connectivity and low power consumption. The tablet also has an 8-megapixel camera at the rear with LED flash, and a 2-megapixel camera at the front. It has 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. Intel has already started the war of words against ARM around Windows 8, with Intel's CEO Paul Otellini saying that ARM devices will be incompatible with existing Windows applications and drivers. But analysts have said that Windows RT devices will likely be attractive to users who have few ties with legacy Windows PCs. Low prices could also attract users to Windows on ARM devices.

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Eucalyptus, an open-source platform that implements "infrastructure as a service" (IaaS) style cloud computing, aims to take open source front and center in the cloud-computing craze. The project, founded by academics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is now a Benchmark-funded company with an ambitious goal: become the universal cloud platform that everyone from Amazon to Microsoft to Red Hat to VMware ties into. [Eucalyptus] is architected to be compatible with such a wide variety of commonly installed data center technologies, [and hence] provides an easy and low-risk way of building private (i.e. on-premise or internal) clouds...Thus data center operators choosing Eucalyptus are assured of compatibility with the emerging application development and operational cloud ecosystem while attaining the security and IT investment amortization levels they desire without the "fear" of being locked into a single public cloud platform.

A collection of Web articles and discussions concerning Compatibility and the Lessons of Massachusetts

Florian's docx reader is now available for iOS high-touch devices.  Extreme fidelity for reading/viewing native docx documents.  I hope he is working on a Chrome eXtension version!!!!   The world urgently needs WEB ready - Web view-able docx business documents.   Conversion of docx to HTML sucks.   The ultimate Visual Document system would enable users to work entirely in the native document format of the authoring system.  Florian's reader can do this, but so far he's limited to iOS.  Seems to me that the exploding sync-share-store market sector (DropBox, Box, Egnyte, SugarSync, etc) really need native document viewers that are HTM5 browser ready. " Naverage Reader HD Features: ... Designed for business documents. View your business document in an unbelievable quality. .....Tracked Changes Support. View text insertions, text deletions and comments on your iPad. ..... Layout Fidelity. Headers and footers, footnotes, tables, paragraph numbering, frames, graphics layout optimized for business documents. .....Font Embedding. Corporate fonts on your iPad. .docx-compatible. Compatible with the new Microsoft® Word format (.docx)."

This document discusses the primary reason ODF failed in Massachusetts: compatibility with the MSOffice productivity environment, and, the billions of binary documents in use by MSOffice bound workgroups and the business processes so important to them.

Wow.  Google has re-purposed IE for the Open Web! excerpts: A number of modern Web features cannot be used pervasively on the Internet because Microsoft's dominant browser, Internet Explorer, often fails to support current and emerging standards. Google has a plan to drag IE into the world of modern browsing by building a plugin that will allow it to use Chrome's HTML renderer and high-performance JavaScript engine. Google hopes that delivering Chrome's rendering engine in an IE plugin will provide a pragmatic compromise for users who can't upgrade. Web developers will be able to use an X-UA-Compatible meta tag to specify that their page should be displayed with the Chrome renderer plugin instead of using Internet Explorer's Trident engine. This approach will ensure that the Chrome engine is only used when it is supposed to and that it won't disrupt the browser's handling of legacy Web applications that require IE6 compatibility. Google is opening the source code now to get feedback and assistance with testing. The plugin will include Google's speedy V8 JavaScript engine, support for Canvas, SVG, and all of the other features that users enjoy today in Chrome. That also includes the next-generation CSS rendering features of WebKit such as rounded corners. The pages will look just like they would if they were rendered in Chrome. Google is going much further [than Mozilla] by providing the entire renderer. If the plugin is adopted by a sufficiently broad number of users, then Web developers will never again have to contend with IE's limitations. It could also open the door for adoption of HTML 5 and other important emerging standards.

Interesting strategy. Now if we could just get da Vinci/HTML+ to market ...

Another good article form Michael Hickins, this time linking the success of Google Wave to the success of Microsoft OOXML. Rob Weir jumps in to defend , well, i'm not sure. I did however respond. Excerpt: Developers hoping to hitch a ride on Google's Wave have discovered that Microsoft may have unwittingly helped them resolve the single greatest problem they needed to overcome in order to challenge the dominance of Office. When Microsoft set out to create Office 2007 using a brand new code base - Office Open XML (OOXML) - it needed to accomplish two goals: make it compatible with all previous versions of Office, and have it accepted as a standard file format for productivity tools so that governments could continue using it while complying with rules forcing them to use standards-based software. ..... Depending on your perspective, either Microsoft has sowed the seeds of its own undoing, or international standards bodies succeeded in forcing Microsoft to open itself up. Either way, Microsoft has given away the key to compatibility with Office documents, allowing all comers to overcome the one barrier that has heretofore prevented customers from dumping Microsoft's Office suite.

Great article!  First order of the day?  Go to DD-WRT and TomatoUSB to see if your router is compatible.  If it is, download and install the new firmware.  Pretty funny stuff.

Incredible project exploring new methods of story telling that make full use of an emerging interactive, graphical and multimedia rich, extraordinarily visual Web platform.  Awesome use of Web technology and a great story to boot!   While the Snow Fall Project is hardly the first Visual Document, it's truly a landmark effort.  Hopefully the business process and systems editing tools for Web based Visual Productivity will not be far behind simple Visual Web publication tools. Marbux viewed the source code and pointed out the great efforts that the NY Times had gone to to provide cross browser compatibility.  That in turn reminded me just how close the world came to having Microsoft seize the Web and take control of its future.  A very close call if ever there was one.  Many thanks to Marc Andresssen and the Netscape investors for their heroic efforts to stop Bill Gates and his Microsoft monopoly.

While trying to help a friend understand the issues involved with exchanging MSOffice documnets between the many different versions of MSOffice, I stumbled on this oldy but goody ......... "A group of software developers have created a program to make Microsoft Office work with files in the OpenDocument format, a move that would bridge currently incompatible desktop applications. Gary Edwards, an engineer involved in the open-source OpenOffice.org project and founder of the OpenDocument Foundation, on Thursday discussed the software plug-in on the Web site Groklaw. The new program, which has been under development for about year and finished initial testing last week, is designed to let Microsoft Office manipulate OpenDocument format (ODF) files, Edwards said. "The ODF Plugin installs on the file menu as a natural and transparent part of the 'open,' 'save,' and 'save as' sequences. As far as end users and other application add-ons are concerned, ODF Plugin renders ODF documents as if (they) were native to MS Office," according to Edwards. If the software, which is not yet available, works as described, it will be a significant twist to an ongoing contest between Microsoft and the backers of OpenDocument, a document format gaining more interest lately, particularly among governments. Microsoft will not natively support OpenDocument in Office 2007, which will come out later this year. Company executives have said that there is not sufficient demand and OpenDocument is less functional that its own Office formats. Having a third-party product to save OpenDocument files from Office could give OpenDocument-based products a bump in the marketplace, said Stephen O'Grady, a RedMonk analyst. OpenDocument is the native format for the OpenOffice open-source desktop productivity suite and is supported in others, including KOffice, Sun Microsystems' StarOffice and IBM's Workplace. "To the extent that you get people authoring documents in a format that is natively compatible with

The king of clicks returns!  No doubt there was a time when the mere mention of ODF and the now legendary XML "document" format wars with Microsoft could drive click counts into the statisphere.  Sorry to say though, those times are long gone. It's still a good story though.  Even if the fate of mankind and the future of the Internet no longer hinges on the outcome.  There is that question that continues defy answer; "Did Microsoft win or lose?"  So the mere announcement of supported formats in MSOffice XX is guaranteed to rev the clicks somewhat. Veteran ODF clickmeister SVN does make an interesting observation though: "The ironic thing is that, while this was as hotly debated am issue in the mid-2000s as are mobile patents and cloud implementation is today, this news was barely noticed. That's a mistake. Updegrove points out, "document interoperability and vendor neutrality matter more now than ever before as paper archives disappear and literally all of human knowledge is entrusted to electronic storage." He concluded, "Only if documents can be easily exchanged and reliably accessed on an ongoing basis will competition in the present be preserved, and the availability of knowledge down through the ages be assured. Without robust, universally adopted document formats, both of those goals will be impossible to attain." Updegrove's right of course. Don't believe me? Go into your office's archives and try to bring up documents your wrote in the 90s in WordPerfect or papers your staff created in the 80s with WordStar. If you don't want to lose your institutional memory, open document standards support is more important than ever. "....................................... Sorry but Updegrove is wrong.  Woefully wrong. The Web is the future.  Sure interoperability matters, but only as far as the Web and the future of Cloud Computing is concerned.  Sadly neither ODF or Open XML are Web ready.  The language of the Web is famously HTML, now HTML5+

Interesting development in the world of real time Web Apps.  Looks like Business processes and services in the Cloud are embracing HTML5, and moving fast to replace legacy client/server.  Note this is not Flash or Silverlight RiA.   excerpt: Telax Hosted Call Center, a leader in cloud contact center solutions announced the release of its HTML5-based Call Center Agent (CCA) today. Key to the development of the browser-based CCA was Websocket, a component of HTML5 that provides a bi-directional, full-duplex communication channel over a single Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) socket. Websocket is currently supported by the latest versions of Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Firefox, making Telax's new CCA compatible with the most popular browsers in Mac environments. Before HTML5, real-time unified communication software was typically deployed as a local client because its browser-based counterparts were unable to deliver an acceptable user experience. Some browser-based clients use 3rd party software such as Adobe Flash or Sliverlight to operate adequately, but both solutions require software installation and are not mobile friendly.

The drastic change in technology has brought several changes that even the corporate world is now under its influence. Whatever how big is the corporate or organization no matter infact all the needs are fulfilled, well organized, affordable and a gradual development of the latest Gadgets to its success. For example the mobile phones, memory cards and online internet are always being upgraded to the upcoming advanced and more compatible latest Gadgets. In the present world Gadgets being considered as fashion accessories, with respect to the future trends of Gadgets usage appear to be quite positive. In regards or what could be the future expectation when compared to the previous technology trend and how would this collide the organizations and businesses?

Good video walk through demonstrating Windows RT running on an Asus ARM-NVIDIA Tegra tablet.  Very cool.  One thing that caught my attention though was the comment that the entire MSOffice Suite will be included with every Windows RT OS when it ships in November of 2012.  Wow.  Doesn't answer the compat-interop issue Intel (x86) is raising.  But certainly the stakes are very high here. excerpt: The annual Computex show is happening in Taiwan this week, and we're finally getting a look at some real Windows 8 devices. Below is a video from NVIDIA and Asus, demonstrating a new tablet running Windows RT. It's called the Windows RT Tablet 600. (Windows RT is the version of Windows 8 that will only run on tablets.)  The Tablet 600 looks a lot like Asus's excellent Android tablet, the Transformer Prime, thanks to an optional keyboard dock that turns it into a laptop.