A case of the general for the specific and for not getting it at all...
So I just read this article about the AbiSource project in the Google Summer of Code. The article as a whole was neither here nor there, but the joke headline:
"AbiWord developers show strong support for OOXML"
and closing paragraph:
"Interestingly, we did receive quite a few applications about improving OOXML support, while we got zero OpenDocument related proposals. Apparently the support for the OpenDocument ISO standard isn't strong enough in the F/OSS community to actually make an effort to improve support for it. Even when paid. Food for thought."
between them annoyed me greatly...
I could go on about the difference between OpenDocument (the widely supported standard ISO26300) and OOXML (the not supported standard - note MS Office 2007 does not support the proposed standard version of OOXML, and in particular nothing like the strict version. which is the one you should use for new documents as opposed to importing legacy ones).
I feel unable to avoid mentioning that the fact there are already a number of F/OSS (Free/Open Source Software) implementations of OpenDocument, like OpenOffice and KOffice, which may blunt demand for an AbiWord one.
But mostly I was annoyed because someone had made the mistake of slipping from the specific case to the general; actually it would be more accurate to say
"...the support for the OpenDocument ISO standard isn't strong enough in the AbiSource community to actually make an effort to improve support for it. Even when paid. Food for thought."
And this is a criticism of the AbiSource community. Without open standards the rest will be history; AbiSource developers need to have excellent support for the word processor portions of ODF and strongly consider making it the default format. Not doing so perpetuates the "you must be able to read the file, it's .doc" mentality that is currently the norm.
NB: the author of the news article has my utmost respect as one of the main developers of libwpd which allows a number of packages to happily open WordPerfect files...
Posted at 04:17PM May 12, 2008 by Chris Puttick in Open Archaeology | Comments[3]
Fact checking... not !
libwpd is to open WordPerfect.
Posted by Hub on May 12, 2008 at 09:37 PM GMT #
So maybe the issue is that in fact that our ODT support is good enough now for most people, so they don't pay attention anymore for improving it.
PS. libwpd opens WordPerfect documents, not MS Works. libwps, which is partially based on libwpd opens MS Works files
Posted by uwog on May 12, 2008 at 10:03 PM GMT #
@uwog: pleased to hear the OLPC implementation saves to ODT - I guess there's not any chance the general implementation will go the same way in the end (as KOffice have)? On the good enough ODT support and criticisms voiced elsewhere, would it be useful if a way was found for someone from the AbiWord project to be involved in ODT development?
Posted by Chris Puttick on May 13, 2008 at 11:19 AM GMT #