Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Erwin's StarOffice Tango
Erwin Tenhumberg's Insights into Open Source and Dancing
... or why Open Competition matters

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Montag Juli 12, 2004

The "open rails" of document based communication
I just read Jonathan Schwartz's newest blog with the title "Commodities, Railroads and How Sun Monetizes Java". I really like his comparison of the Java technology with rails. I would like to add something, the OpenOffice.org open source project, the StarOffice office suite and the new OASIS Open Office XML Format.

Java technology and TCP/IP allow open Internet communication. The OASIS XML file format which is based on the OpenOffice.org file format and will be used by future versions of OpenOffice.org and the StarOffice software, is the foundation for open document based communication. This was recently also acknowledged by the EU in their recommendation.
( Jul 12 2004, 09:05:53 PM CEST ) Permalink

Why "dancer"
For those of you who are wondering why I called my self "dancer" you should check out this link.

My fiancee and I are the couple that placed 2nd. BTW, we both danced for the Berkeley team during our two years in the Bay Area.
( Jul 12 2004, 03:05:17 PM CEST ) Permalink

More peace & lower costs
What comes to your mind if you hear the words "open source"? Is it "no licensing costs"? Or "low TCO"? Or "free mailing list support"?

A lot of people only think about the monetary aspects of open source. However, the sociological benefits might be even more important.

In February 2004 the OpenOffice.org Native-Lang Confederation announced the new native-lang projects for Arabic and Hebrew on the same day. Contributors from both teams together had to agree on one announcement text.

The OpenOpenOffice.org project brings people together who normally might not feel inclined to approach each other for collaboration. Currently there are 36 native-lang projects that bring together community members from almost all continents.

I can say, that I have already learned quite a bit about other nations and cultures through my OpenOffice.org work. For example, in our weekly IRC meetings we have people from Australia, Malaysia, Romania, South Africa, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, USA, etc. In addition, one of our most active community members works most of the time out of Benin (Africa).

I'm looking forward to meeting these people at the second worldwide OpenOffice.org Conference in Berlin later this year!
( Jul 12 2004, 01:05:16 PM CEST ) Permalink