Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (46 mails)
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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] article on GNU/Linux in schools and universities
- From: Ian Lynch <ian.lynch@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:18:42 +0000 (UTC)
- Message-id: <1145373813.4502.56.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 15:33 +0100, Thomas Adam wrote:
> Bah. Typical. Oh well. Here's to hoping. The current filters in OO aren't
> too bad, for most things.
They will get better once MSO adopts an almost identical XML based
format. There are opportunities here as well as threats. Several
governments and most of the big players are backing ODF. IBM, Oracle,
Sun, Corel and whole host of others are members of the Open Document
Alliance which was only launched in March. MS is fighting but there is a
real chance that the EU will mandate ODF when it achieves ISO status.
So the way I see it is that worse case scenario is that MS bring out a
new version of MSO with a new default file format next year that will
confuse half their users some of who will migrate to OOo. The new format
is easier to hack so OOo filters get better. MS do not provide OOo
filters but really that is certainly no worse than now.
Best case scenario. EU mandate that all people who deal with them have
to use ISO documents ie ODF. Several US States follow this trend (2
already have shown clear signs of doing this) Google continue to develop
Web based office suite also using ODF. IBM and other office software
producers support ODF and so many more people start using OOo and
alternatives and ODF applications other than office software start to
spring up all over the net. OOo 3.0 is released and MS Office 11 sells
like a dog because most people find they have no need to upgrade so
there are far more ODF users than MSXML users in 5 years time. Game
over, MS don't control the document format anymore and are forced to
adopt ODF like everyone else.
Even the worst case is better than now so we are making progress,
question is just how much and how quickly.
--
Ian Lynch
www.theINGOTs.org
www.opendocumentfellowship.org
www.schoolforge.org.uk
> Bah. Typical. Oh well. Here's to hoping. The current filters in OO aren't
> too bad, for most things.
They will get better once MSO adopts an almost identical XML based
format. There are opportunities here as well as threats. Several
governments and most of the big players are backing ODF. IBM, Oracle,
Sun, Corel and whole host of others are members of the Open Document
Alliance which was only launched in March. MS is fighting but there is a
real chance that the EU will mandate ODF when it achieves ISO status.
So the way I see it is that worse case scenario is that MS bring out a
new version of MSO with a new default file format next year that will
confuse half their users some of who will migrate to OOo. The new format
is easier to hack so OOo filters get better. MS do not provide OOo
filters but really that is certainly no worse than now.
Best case scenario. EU mandate that all people who deal with them have
to use ISO documents ie ODF. Several US States follow this trend (2
already have shown clear signs of doing this) Google continue to develop
Web based office suite also using ODF. IBM and other office software
producers support ODF and so many more people start using OOo and
alternatives and ODF applications other than office software start to
spring up all over the net. OOo 3.0 is released and MS Office 11 sells
like a dog because most people find they have no need to upgrade so
there are far more ODF users than MSXML users in 5 years time. Game
over, MS don't control the document format anymore and are forced to
adopt ODF like everyone else.
Even the worst case is better than now so we are making progress,
question is just how much and how quickly.
--
Ian Lynch
www.theINGOTs.org
www.opendocumentfellowship.org
www.schoolforge.org.uk
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