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Stop porting OSS applications to the Windows platform. It doesnt help the Linux movement or Open Source in general.

It does. I was Windows user about 3 years ago but most of the apps I used were open source and cross-platform. I came to conclusion that moving to Linux won't hurt me a lot. Today I am proud Linux zealot

I have to agree with you. 90% of the apps I was using were open source software. Finally, after 4 years I decided to switch and I am running Ubuntu Linux.

The rest of the world are switching to Linux: Brazil, Venezuela, Germany, South Africa.....Microsoft has nothing new to offer.

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The rest of the world are switching to Linux: Brazil, Venezuela, Germany, South Africa.....Microsoft has nothing new to offer.

i have been here in brasil for almost 3 years and have heard the complaints that my wife and her family always have with microsoft. patience is an incredible thing, i remember the day i gave my father-in-law a demonstration with ubuntu linux ( brasilian portuguese )and open source. i could have sold it to him for a million bucks ! adeus, microsoft....

Yea. While I probably moved largely out of geeky obsession, I had some extended confidence due to Mozilla and Gaim.

While some things shouldn't be ported (KDE - too big, not enough benefit), smaller apps really should be and anything to help interoperation is a very good thing!

I couldn't have put it better. I myself started using opensource software on windows and eventually moved to linux once I became comfortable ussing these software. Not everybody has the technical skills to install linux on ones machine. The best way to ween them off windows is to make them realise that the operating system is not important rather the applications are. So porting opensource applications to windows goes a long way in helping linux on the desktop.

i think it does too. i was in the same position a year ago, now i use linux exclusively. alot of nice apps i used on windows were open source. helps users get a good idea of open source.

Me too. Suddenly what I had on the windowsdesktop was Gaim, OpenOffice (wich I've switched to KOffice now, btw), Thunderbird and Firefox, all of them running better now on Gnu/linux. Also I use to recommend those apps to windows-users, and in most (I think all) cases they're darned statisfied, like in "puh, good to get rid of MS Messenger". So next up is Gnu/Linux for them

mhm, ok to me this is the best news yet: people can finally send me .odf files from their office-suits, and more important I can finally send them .odf files. Compatibility will work in favor of linux in the long run, compatibility breakage with 90% of the world will help nothing at all. Besides what left with freedom of choice???

Are you Aaron Seigo?

I disagree with your assessment. Without perfect format compatibility, switching away from Office can be too risky; You're at a comparative disadvantage because transactions with the outside world go less smoothly.

So, you want perfect format compatibility so that using, say, OpenOffice doesn't put you at a disadvantage. But it's tough for OO devs to get Office format handling just right. And as long as MS keeps its format obscured and doesn't have ODF support, OO has to dance to MS's tune.

The beauty of this plugin is, it gives OO an opening to turn the tables. The way things currently are, a person has to download and install a couple hundred megs of extra, unfamiliar software to read ODF. I cannot reasonably expect this out of just anybody I send an email attachment to. But if the plugin is considerably smaller than OO, I'd definitely feel better about sending people .odf files and telling them how to open them.

IOW, ODF evangelism becomes a more realistic option. Perfect compatibility is attainable, and on ODF rather than on MS format. And by extension, switching away from Office becomes more realistic. A win for ODF is a win for OO.

Even better. Microsoft has been trying to frame the "standardize on ODF" debate as a "Defacto Superior and familiar Microsoft Standard versus Inferior Scary Unknown OpenOffice" debate. It's never been about OpenOffice. It's been about choice and freedom to use whatever word processor (MS Office, OpenOffice, KOffice, Abiword, IBM Office, Corel Office? ....) that suits your needs best and be confident that your documents will be readable (in it's original form) a 100 years from now. It's about interoperability with other WWW standards. It's about free access to government documents that does not require supporting any monopoly or purchasing of additional software (although you can if you want to).

This plugin pulls the rug out of any FUD Microsoft has in store for ODF and will make OfficeXML a lot harder to sell (especially since the choice will be to use an existing for a cross platform industry standard solution now or to wait for a possible Office-specific solution some time in the future while your competitors eat your lunch).

This plugin pulls the rug out of any FUD Microsoft has in store for ODF and will make OfficeXML a lot harder to sell

I'm starting to fear the MSOpenXML stuff might turn the tables on us if (and that's a big if, but I spoke to a MS employee who seemed quite positive about it) it really turns out to be sufficiently Open.

OOo and friends should then obviously implement MSOpenXML support, but that might well ODF abandoned. From what I've seen ODF is technically superior, but will that be enough to counterweight the massive use of MSOpenXML? OOo will remain vitally important in the Linux market and for users with a tight budget, but will it be able to continue to penetrate MS's space? I hope so....

I'm not so certain about that. The problem for openoffice adoption often was that it doesn't support files created with MS Office completely. If MSOpenXML is indeed sufficiently open we can have two fileformats that can coexist. MS office users now can switch to Openoffice.org without compatibility problems, and Openoffice.org users can now send their native format to MS office users. Installing a plugin is far more acceptable for some diehard MS office users than installing a completely different lookalike office-suit.

Your missing the point of odf completely. ODF has nothing to do with OSS, linux or windows. The whole point of odf is that it is an OPEN cross platform and cross operating system file format. It can be implemented by anyone, like Apple, microsoft or Redhat etc without paying licencing fees.

So dont turn this into a Microsoft's product are crap and OSS is the best.....

MSO inferior? Have you ever actually used MSO v. OOo?

Jesus man.

That's why this is such a blow to OOo. It can't compete as a product with MS Office, but litigation (e.g., Massachusetts) and fear of closed formats gave OOo a real leg to stand on.

Now it's down to the exceptional price (free) of OOo versus the vastly superior experience of MS Office. While cost is a large factor for many, MS Office is already installed on a huge number of machines and available at a nominal price to most government and education users.

I would hardly call what happened in Mass. litigation.

litigation: The process of bringing a lawsuit against someone

MSO inferior? Have you ever actually used MSO v. OOo?

OOo, KOffice, and Gnome Office are inferior to MS Office. MS Office is inferior to Mac iWorks. OOo is bloat and can't handle complex format. MS Office is fast but the GUI is not too good (but still better than OOo), and the price is too high for the provided features. iWorks are above all of them in terms of functionality and interface.

Never used iWorks, so I can't argue against that. I agree with the rest though.

Thankfully Office 2007 is taking care of the UI issue.

Well, I have.

And MS Word for example can handle Documents with many embedded pictures (2 large pictures a page) only to a very limited amount of pages well.

OOo ist much better in that regard, it can handle approximately 5 - 10 times more pages. LATEX is even better than that, it can handle everything you throw at it.

By the way, the bad MS Word experience is due to the Word97 *.doc format. If you save in HTML format, you will not experience such pain.

Regarding features MS Word and OOo are comparable, but if you are a very experienced MS Word user, you might find switching to OOo hard because advanced things actually DO get done differently. OOo only looks like MS Office on the basic levels, under the hood it is very different.

I don't have that issue with limited number of pages with large embedded pictures. Word 2003.

No I am not missing the point of ODF and ODF has everything to do with Open Source.

ODF has nothing to do with Open Source. It has everything to do with Open *Standards*, as a means to preventing vendor lock-in to proprietary standards and ensuring interoperability among different vendors, whether proprietary or open source.

Microsoft deals an inferior product, the point of Open Standards is to break consumers out of being locked in to an inferior technology like Microsoft Office.

You're mixing two concepts that are not interchangeable. Whether MS software is inferior is both debateable and irrelevant, the point is to prevent vendor lock-in. The intent is to provide an Open Standard (as you pointed out) to ensure accessibility to documents, not to dictate which software we should use.

ODF should only be used ion Office suites that use it natively.

I'm not sure how that is in line with the idea of a free (as in beer and as in speech) open standard.

What happens when, not if but When Microsoft decided to lock out this plugin, people still using Microsoft Office are still locked in.

Probably the same thing that would happen if, when and as has already happened, Microsoft chose not to support it natively. That is to say, life goes on.

Besides, while I wouldn't put it past Microsoft's technical capability to disable a plug-in like this, I would put it past them to specifically disable this plug-in without managing to impact the dozens or hundreds of other plug-ins in deployment. Let's not forget that custom plug-ins are very likely the number two reason MS Office reigns supreme (right behind their proprietary document formats), so it's not likely they would take that step. Political fallout aside, even.

Please take some time to read up on what ODF is really about. I use OOo2 to work with MS Office-based documents among my co-workers, customers and suppliers, and it's not a perfect solution. I would love to see ODF gain acceptance not because I think everybody should have to use OOo2, or AbiWord, or KOffice etc., but because I'd simply like to have transparent document interoperability. At the end of the day, people should always be free to use whatever software works best for them, whether it hails from Microsoft or SourceForge. This is simply about making sure we can "communicate" regardless of our choice.

"ODF should only be used ion Office suites that use it natively."

No office suite supports odf "natively." That implies, at least traditionally, that odf is a memory dump, like .doc files are. It isn't. It's based on xml and is simply a format that is well documented so that other programs can read and write to it.

Memory dump files are fine when you are only using the program that created it. ex: MS Word for .doc files. Those file formats are not so good when you want to do other stuff with them, like have other programs (email, calendars) open and edit them. That's why MS had to develop their own xml. It wasn't for the fun of it. I think you are confusing supporting a file natively with supporting a file as a default format. Only the latter applies to odf.

Ummm, no, the whole point is to provide a standard file format so that different office suites, including MS Office, can interoperate with each other. In-fact, most people were trying to get Microsoft to do this themselves, but they didn't so a thirdparty did it for them.

From the OASIS webpage : The purpose of this TC is to create an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications.

It has nothing to do with open source, but with open standards.

Do some research before commenting next time please. It took me 10 seconds to find that sentence.

The point is that it's f*&*&#^$*ing hard to design a document format that will be:
1. can intuitively and easily manipulated without burdening user with many dtp concepts
2. is rock stable when it comes to rendering on different codebases/configuraions/media/dpi... even in case of lamest of lame documents edited without a basic knowledge of dtp concepts
3. offers enough power and flexibility for long, structured documents, unusuall applications and dtp people
4. fallback bracefully in case of interoperability with simplier software, also nondamaging back and forth interoperability with simplier formats such as docbook commes here.
5. is transparent and enables meanigfull extraction of information for cooperating systems
6. enables interoperability with non wordprocessing office applications (browsers, spreadsheets, presentations), mainly in terms of preserving meaningfull formatting information.

None of existing formats score in all of those categories. In fact every of them sucks badly in at least one.

1. Commes from requirement that documents developed in glofied typewriter style are as easily edited in all supporting suites. MS seemed to do well here even optimising their application for this style. Whether it is function of a single codebase and their desperate efforts to emulate all the stupid special cases to preserve compatibility will remain a mistery. All the failed attempts to reproduce MS rendering engine in other codebase despite years of rev eng seem to confirm that. The fact that docxml is havily based on old doc, looks like the way not to dismiss years of such plumbing and the only sensible techncal solution to predictably convert from doc to docxml and the reverse.
ODF is havily based on html which escapes the problem by explicitly discouraging space padding and such. This may bode ill with interoperability with independent suites.
2. This requires a very strict and and unabigous specification and wery, wery broad and complex test suite and a certification process. Doc may fail miserably here as MS goal of zero interoperability for all the past years has been clearly contradicting with this requirement. ODF in turn is based on mature and well tested web standards. On the other hand Sun is still too shy about test suite and certification.It will take years to develope one. Actually the only format that passed realword test here is PDF.
3. ODF has a clear egde her and it shows when working with long documents in both test suites.
4. It is almost rarely talked about and I think only doable with well stuctured documents. ODF has some chance to inherit some html qualities here.
5. this is the very reason why xml was choosen above binary data. other than that its hard to say, MS seem's to cook some aliances to strenghten docXML in this regards. ODF counts on the power of standardization itself.
6. MS has years of experience and pushing envelope here. ODF is based on well established web standards but they are quite complex.

Stop porting OSS applications to the Windows platform. It doesnt help the Linux movement or Open Source in general.

So by your logic I should stop using all my useful open source development tools, such as SubVersion, Paint.NET, and what not for my .NET development? Well what about all the tools that were developed for Windows and moved to Linux? Like #Develop (In some respects), NUnit, or even big ones like Microsoft Offices Formats, or SMB? I know the last two were reverse engineered, but if I am following your logic OSS should stop using anything Windows related all together.

Nunit (.Net) was a port of JUnit (Java) :-)

But I agree with you. OSS is not limited to Linux, and never should be.

Everything in .NET is a port of Java. That's a given.

.NET is a Java clone that only runs on Windows (for official implementations anyway).

Although, I don't see how this applies to the conversation.

Edited 2006-05-07 16:23

.Net is a framework, Java is a language (and a framework too I guess).

.Net let's you use anyu language that is developed for it though. Right now, this is at the very least: C#, J#, VB.net, Boo, IronPython. I know there are a ton more though.

Java supports more languages than .NET does.

Also, .NET IS A JAVA CLONE.

They are both platforms for application development. Java happens to also include a language called Java. .NET has the same language, but they called it C# instead of .NET.

It does? What else does Java support besides JAVA?

I already listed only a few of the languages .NET supports.

NUnit was not a port of JUnit, it took the concepts of JUnit and implimented it a .NET way. I have used both and both are simular but definitly not a port. The same way NHiberate is not a port of Hiberate but a rewrite for .NET.

Also Java is not open source so that sort of goes against the original posters OSS on Linux only thing.

Okay will do as soon as you guys get a good editor for .NET. Or even a good editor this is even remotely close to VS.NET.

" Okay will do as soon as you guys get a good editor for .NET. Or even a good editor this is even remotely close to VS.NET."

Mono and Monodevelop are good alternatives to .NET development on Windows.

I didn't say I did not know about Mono. I said a good editor. MonoDevelop is no where close to how useful VS.NET is, I will switch when you guys get a good .NET editor until then Windows is the greatest operating system in the world.

No wonder why they port OSS application to it.

VS.Net is heavily suited to conventions and habits of windows programmers. They are used to tight integration, easy support for popular MS technologies and ready-made template solutions for typical problems. As these guys are trained from the beggining on MS's devlelopement suites, no doubt other options doesn't suit them as well.

OSS software is mainly based on Unix developers mindset that trades user frienliness and instant productivity for flexibility and long term gains.
Anyway if you're looking for good java editor (.Net is still not nearly as entrenched in linux world and java unfortunately is still the most serious framework on linux for commercial app developemet) give Eclipse with some good gui design tool plugin a try. It really matches VC in terms of code editing automatization. It also has C/C++ plugin but it's intelisense implementation is a little bit less smart than MS's.
I mostly do C developement and for me JEdit with some custom macros offers all that I need to be productive.

Edited 2006-05-08 10:30

You are assuming the OOo implementation is correct and not the others. Which I believe is false, although it may be closer since ODF was sort of based on its original format.

I don't know about Abiword/Gnumeric, but I think KOffice support should be pretty good by the time 1.5.2 is released. (August?)

I'm confused about why it is that Kwrite and Abiword don't have the same level of filters (inport and export) as OOo if they are using the same underlying document format ODF??

Well, the issue is that ODF is just an export filter - each program has a different internal format that is used in memory, which means that whether or not you support ODF is irrelevant. Most programs should be able to use the OOo import filters at least as a basis for their own, but I've heard that the OOo code is so ugly it is impossible to seperate the import filter code from the rest of the suite. It doesn't have anything to do with licensing issues, though.

Well if the OOo filters can't be broken off into a libDocFilters type library then that is a damn shame.

If there were a libDocFilters (or whatever) then:

a) Everyone could just convert from the foreign format to ODF before doing their own "internal" filter giving them the same level of filters as OOo.
b) This is the really major crime, if there were one libDocFilters that everyone used to convert back and forth between ODF then everyone could work on the same code instead of all that effort being duplicated! Bugs being created twice! Fixed twice! Features missed twice! Implemented twice! Shit that seriuosly makes me want to cry. What a total f--k up by the OOo people. We could be light years ahead if all OSS office apps had a high level of filtering for all document formats and the level of quality would be even higher than it is now because everyone would be helping out together. And, shit shit, all those proprietary apps would have the same high level of support for ODF because ODF.org (or whoever) could easily make and distribute plugins or at the very least standalone filters for the supported document types. Shit, what a shame.

Would there really be any question at all about document formats for these governments and big corporations if OOo had not f--ked up in such an important way?? It would be so easy for them to migrate, all the legitimate concerns they have about interoperability with the rest of the MS using world would just melt away.

Man they really were not thinking ahead on this. I hope the effort to lib-ize this code is underway soon before everyone implements their own versions creating a new era of incompatabilities and balkanizations that MS can leverage against ODF and the larger OSS cause.

I don't mean to blame OOo too much because they have spearheaded everything up to now and I realize that ODF is a recent development but what a shame that they didn't see the opportunity and take it.

"2. I'm confused about why it is that Kwrite and Abiword don't have the same level of filters (inport and export) as OOo if they are using the same underlying document format ODF?? They are all OSS projects so why don't they all just run every doc that is not ODF through the same set of libDocFilters or whatever?? And why isn't making plugins for existing office suites that have ODF filters in OOo just as easy? I just was reading about the early status of MS doc filters in Abiword and I am frankly confused. I hope this isn't a GPL vs LGLP vs BSD licence issue is it??"

They have only been supporting OO.org formats for about 2 years now. Most of the projects started work with OOo 1.1 support which isn't the same as ODF support because they started before the spec was final and some things got changed. OO.org 2 is the first true ODF program and it's "barely" done. Also, they are just "bolting" on support to their own established programs.. and that makes some features hard to implement properly. Considering MS Word is 10 years old (and Word 97 still not perfect) and ODF not even final yet, I'd say they're doing just fine. See how much faster they can work with an open spec!

his is what needs to happen, but we also need to keep Open Source off of proprietary systems, not just Windows but proprietary UNIX systems, BeOS, etc. Its Open Sources time to shine and Windows and proprietary systems just need to go away. The only way for that to happen is to make sure no OSS software gets put on these platforms.

So in turn should commercial software companies stop support for open source ?

Should formats and file structures be locked down so that OSS software cannot interoperate ?

Of course not, just as open source should not shut out commercial software. There is a place for each one and limiting choices and options on either platform harms consumers and end users.

"Im composing a letter to send to all project heads to stop porting OSS software to Windows. Hopefully they will do the right thing."

I do hope you'll report back and post some of their responses. I could do with a laugh.

Not a laughing matter. I no longer view Open Source projects that make offerings on the Windows platform true open source.

There is no place for commercial software anymore. Its dead.

Hundreds of millions of users worldwide and its dead?

Should we continue to support and enhance proprietary systems with Open Source software? Of course not.

I think the systems that are widely used should be supported by open source, that is if the open source developers actually want to see their software heavily used.

I know a few people who continue to run Windows 2000. Its insecure, Microsoft does not make service packs for it anymore. How are they keeping that system alive? Open Source software for Windows.

Please explain to me how Windows 2000 is insecure. MS still releases security fixes for this OS.

People are keeping Windows 2000 alive with support from MS, commercial applications that they have purchased and open source. Its not an 'if then or' situation here, most of this stuff works together just fine.

Because of Open Source software there are millions of PC's running Windows 2000 and earlier products insecurely.

Thats gotta be the most hilarious thing I've heard out of a zealots mouth yet. Heck I'm gonna save that for a quote on a new website I'm putting up!

Imagine if they did the right thing and moved to Linux or another Open Source system.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. What seems *right* to you just might be a waste of time for someone else.

Im composing a letter to send to all project heads to stop porting OSS software to Windows. Hopefully they will do the right thing.

I'm sure you'll get some interesting responses, one of which will probably be a nice 'f**k off'

Put your money where your mouth is, refuse to run any open source applications that have a windows port available. Refuse to support these people and refuse to use their software!

There are millions of proprietary systems plugged into the internet, proprietary companies control major parts of the internet backbone. Don't support those losers! They are riding a dead horse! Please do the right thing as defined by you and stop using the internet right now.

Agreed. I use MSO 2003 at work and MSO 2007 at home. 2007 is light years ahead in terms of usability, and it's going to talk a while for other office suites to catch up.

The interface is debatable, but I don't mind it. In fact, most of it is part of the usability thing, which helps make it so easy and fun to use.