Donnerstag Dezember 20, 2007

ODF support for Wikipedia
I thought I already mentioned this in my blog earlier, but I can't find an entry. Thus, I must be mistaken. I recently read the announcement by the Wikimedia Foundation that ODF support will be added to the technology behind Wikipedia. You can find the whole annnoucement here. And here is the key quote:
"The third stage, planned for mid-2008, will be the addition of the OpenDocument format for word processors to the list of export formats. "Imagine that you want to use a set of wiki articles in the classroom. By supporting the OpenDocument format, we will make it easy for educators to customize and remix content before printing and distributing it from any desktop computer," Sue Gardner explained. This work is funded through a US$40,000 grant by the Open Society Institute.
The technology developed through this cooperation will be available under an open source license, free for anyone to use for any purpose. It ties into the MediaWiki platform, the open source technology that runs Wikipedia. As a result, thousands of wiki platforms around the world will have the option of providing the same services to their users."
( Dez 20 2007, 08:58:39 PM CET ) Permalink

Linux iPod Alternative with ODF Support
I just became aware of the wizpy. It seems to be a Linux alternative to the Apple iPod and includes ODF support. According to this site, OpenOffice.org seems to be pre-installed. Pretty cool!
( Dez 20 2007, 08:54:36 PM CET ) Permalink

Norway will mandate PDF, ODF and HTML
Apparently Norway will mandate government documents to be published in PDF, ODF and HTML. Check out this!
( Dez 20 2007, 08:26:37 PM CET ) Permalink

Dienstag Dezember 18, 2007

Comments regarding the European Interoperability Framework published
The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) is currently being revised. As a preparation for the revision Gartner wrote a report and several organizations commented on the report and the EIF revision ideas. All the documents can be found here. I thought I should mention it here, as the EIF probably has impact on the usage of open standards and open source.
( Dez 18 2007, 11:52:42 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

New York State asking for input regarding ODF and OOXML
New York State is asking for input regarding electronic records and ODF and OOXML in particular. They are particularly interested in experiences by government agencies. If you are interested in providing input to their questions, you should check out this website.
( Dez 18 2007, 11:46:19 PM CET ) Permalink

Freitag Dezember 14, 2007

Austrian Ministry of Education licenses video training for OpenOffice.org/StarOffice
According to this German article, the Austrian Ministry of Education licenses video training for OpenOffice.org / StarOffice which will be used at Austrian schools.
( Dez 14 2007, 08:54:18 PM CET ) Permalink

Tables for Mac OS X has ODF support
I don't know how I can have overlooked this, but I just found out that Tables for Mac OS X can import ODF documents. See here. Great! One more application for the list!
( Dez 14 2007, 08:45:14 PM CET ) Permalink

Mittwoch Dezember 12, 2007

Dutch parliament approves ODF plan
According to this German article on heise, the Dutch parliament approved the open standards and open source adoption plan submitted by the Ministry of Economy. According to the plan, government agencies are supposed to read and write ODF in parallel to existing formats by April 2008, at least that is my understanding.
( Dez 12 2007, 09:36:14 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Every OLPC contributes to the ODF user base
I was not sure until yesterday, but according to different, trustworthy resources, the productivity software shipping with the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) or XO (which is the official product name) supports ODF as the default file format. Thus, every OLPC contributes to the fast growing ODF user base. Cool!
( Dez 12 2007, 04:18:41 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

VeryPC pre-installs OpenOffice.org
VeryPC is yet another PC vendor pre-installing OpenOffice.org depending on the customer's choice. OpenOffice.org is the pre-selected option for an office suite for at least a few (maybe all!?) of their computers. Check out their product pages to see how they promote OpenOffice.org.
( Dez 12 2007, 04:15:25 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

ODF Support for Office 2007
Apparently Microsoft fixed the Office 2007 bug that kept us from supporting Office 2007 for our ODF plug-in. Check out Malte's latest blog entry for details!
( Dez 12 2007, 03:48:34 PM CET ) Permalink

"Ministry of Justice Open Source Discussion Paper"
I just became aware of the "Open Source Discussion Paper" by the Ministry of Justice of New Zealand. I found the open source policies of the Ministry of Justice in the appendix particularly interesting. Here is a quote of the first two policies:

"Policy 1: Open standards
Choose software that implements open standards wherever possible. OSS is more likely to implement open standards than proprietary software, facilitating interoperability and data transfer in and out of application data stores. But evaluation must be on a case-by-case basis, as some proprietary software has excellent support of open standards and might meet Ministry needs better than a comparable OSS product.

Policy 2: Prefer OSS
When evaluating software as part of a technical solution, preference is to be given to OSS alternatives over comparable proprietary solutions. OSS increases deployment flexibility, provides for more robust code, allows faster changes, and permits flexibility of support arrangements. Put generally, OSS avoids the risks associated with vendor lock-in, and greatly lowers the cost of adoption (though not to zero; see below). This policy does NOT override the Ministry's policy of reuse before buy/build; existing applications should not be eliminated simply because they do not include OSS components. (Ignoring OSS alternatives is a form of irrationality, but replacing working systems because they aren't built with OSS is equally irrational.)"
( Dez 12 2007, 03:29:03 PM CET ) Permalink

Business Intelligence for NetBeans with ODF Support
I just came across the following announcement:
"today announced iReport, the world's most popular open source graphical report and dashboard design tool, will now support the NetBeans(TM) 6.0 Integrated Development Environment (IDE) as a native plug-in ... This includes the creation of ad hoc and parameterized reports, pixel-perfect reports in a variety of formats (Open Document, PDF, ..."
Pretty cool! Yet another tool supporting ODF! The full announcement can be found here.
( Dez 12 2007, 03:16:23 PM CET ) Permalink

Dienstag Dezember 11, 2007

Keeping Google and OpenOffice.org documents in sync
"The OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs extension imports documents from Google Docs and Spreadsheets to OpenOffice.org and exports from OO.org to GDocs so you can work with your docs both online and off as you see fit."
Found here.
( Dez 11 2007, 09:40:47 AM CET ) Permalink

Montag Dezember 10, 2007

News about the Dutch ODF adoption plans
"On Wednesday the Dutch parliament will discuss a plan to mandate use of the Open Document Format (ODF) at government agencies. The proposal is part of a wider plan to increase the sustainability of information and innovation, while lowering costs through the reuse of data."
Found here.
( Dez 10 2007, 04:23:24 PM CET ) Permalink