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The content on this site is my own and does not necessarily represent my employer’s positions, strategies or opinions. I work for IBM.
Category Archives: Document Formats
The OOXML BRM saga continues
Jomar Silva of Brazil has published his account of what really happened at the OOXML BRM in Geneva last year. Worth a read, but comments there please.
Upcoming OpenOffice.org 2009 Conference in Orvieto, Italy
The next incarnation of the OpenOffice.org 2009 Conference will be held in a couple of weeks in Orvieto, Italy. The exact dates are November 3, 2009 – November 6, 2009. In addition to OpenOffice.org specifically, the conference will include discussions … Continue reading
Daily Links for Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Document Formats BE: OpenOffice boom in Belgium The Port of Antwerp started preparing the migration of 1300 desktops to OpenOffice earlier this year. The completion of the migration is expected around September 2010. The IT-department decided not only to move … Continue reading
Posted in Document Formats, Macintosh, News, Open Source, Virtual Worlds
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Daily Links for Tuesday, October 13, 2009 – Lunchtime Edition
Environment Farms as skyscrapers Boing Boing / David Pescovitz It’s been a decade since Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier launched his “Vertical Farm” project, devoted to the design of skyscrapers that house farms, instead of people or offices. It’s an … Continue reading
Posted in Document Formats, Environment, News, Open Source, Standards
Tagged Germany, Linux, ODF, Second Life
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Daily News for August 13, 2009 – Morning Edition
eBooks Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books New York Times “Some restrictions on the use of e-books are likely to remain a fact of life. But some publishers and consumer electronics makers are aiming to give e-book buyers … Continue reading
Posted in Document Formats, News, Standards
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Daily Links for August 6, 2009
OpenDocument Format Microsoft offers Office 2010 file format ‘ballot’ to stop EU antitrust probe “”Beginning with the release of Office [2010], end users that purchase Microsoft’s Primary PC Productivity Applications in the EEA [European Economic Area] in both the OEM … Continue reading
US Open Government Dialogue
As part of the Obama administration’s effort to make the US government and more transparent, a website has been set up by the National Academy of Public Administration to allow public proposals and comments on the topic. While some of … Continue reading
Update on sharing documents
Three years ago (!) I wrote a post called “How do you share documents?” where I essentially said “When you give documents to others that you do not expect them to change, use PDF. If they need an updatable form, … Continue reading
ODF Alliance offers recommendations to Obama administration
Following on the heels of yesterday’s set of open standards recommendations to the Obama administration by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, the Open Document Format Alliance has offered its own recommendations in the area of open standards … Continue reading
Backups
It’s well known that you should back up your data. If your hard disk crashes, it can be a major problem to recover your information. On my Mac I use Time Machine with an external hard disk. This is better … Continue reading
ODF Alliance 2008 annual report
In the waning days of 2008 the OpenDocument Alliance published their annual report regarding progress made on getting the standard adopted around the world. The 28 page document discusses development of the standard, worldwide adoption, positive changes toward open standards … Continue reading
LaTeX revisited
Back in my math days before 1999 or so, I needed a document preparation system that could handle formulas and was programmable. That really meant one thing, TeX, or its somewhat easier to use set of extension packages, LaTeX. I … Continue reading
Daily Links 11/14/2008 (p.m.)
Doug Mahugh : ODF Interoperability and Conformance TC (OIC TC) “I’ve had a few people ask recently whether Microsoft would be participating in the OIC TC, and I’m glad to report that as of today we’ve signed up.” Excellent news, … Continue reading
ODF Alliance newsletter for September, 2008
The September, 2008, OpenDocument Format Alliance newsletter is now available in PDF form. I might be mistaken, but it looks to me to be the longest and most news filled edition yet.
OOXML appeals: Now or never
Rob Weir has published an extensive blog entry detailing why the OOXML appeals process should be allowed to go on. He says, in part, Dismissing an appeal with so many open unresolved issue is not expediency. It is merely creating … Continue reading
NATO: ODF is fine with us
A colleague just sent me a link to the NATO “3.4. NNEC Core Enterprise Services” which is part of the NATO Interoperability Standards and Profiles document. Lo and behold, about half way down the document in the Standards section is … Continue reading
Alex Brown: OOXML will be second to ODF
You’ve got to love Google Alerts. This morning I got this link to a Press Release from Giffin Brown with the title “OOXML will take second place following Microsoft’s announcement to support ODF, says Dr Alex Brown”. Alex was the … Continue reading
Update on ISO/IEC appeals regarding OOXML
Groklaw and Andy Updegrove have the latest news of the appeal process for OOXML in ISO/IEC. See Groklaw: “ISO to TMB: Here Are the Appeals Against OOXML; They Should Be Denied” Andy Updegrove: “ISO TMB Recommends Rejection of OOXML Appeals” … Continue reading
ODF keeps on winning: Uruguay
The Agency for the Development of Government Electronic Management and Information and Knowledge Society of Uruguay have now published their recommendation that public documents use either ODF or PDF. The former should be used for documents in the process of … Continue reading
Open Blog Rerun: “Avoid the single supplier document taxes”
Since I’m traveling this week and not likely to post much, I’ve scheduled some entries like this to point to some of my personal favorite blog writings. Here’s today’s blog blast from the past. Title: “Avoid the single supplier document … Continue reading
Posted in Document Formats, Standards
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Canadian Library Association’s pro-ODF resolution
The Canadian Library Association/Association canadienne des bibliothèques published several resolutions at their 63rd Annual General Meeting on May 24th in Vancouver. One that is of special interest to me is Resolution 1, “CLA/ACB Resolution on Open File Format Standards”. It … Continue reading
Why not ODF?
In my previous blog entry about the most recent ODF Alliance newsletter, I parenthetically included a sentence “Why not ODF?” with a link to an older blog entry. I got a couple of comments and emails explaining why it was … Continue reading
Latest ODF Alliance newsletter is available
I just got an email with the latest OpenDocument Format Alliance newsletter. It is also available in PDF form. [Why this is correctly available in PDF form and not ODF.] Topics include South Africa, Brazil, India, Venezuela Appeal OOXML Vote; … Continue reading
ISO press release about OOXML appeals
In case you missed it, the ISO has put out their press release about the appeals process for OOXML: “Four national standards bodies appeal against approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500″. Evidently this hasn’t happened before and so will be another … Continue reading
Protest on OOXML Fast Track results from group in Denmark
Via Groklaw there’s word that the Open Source Leverandørforeningen in Denmark has written a letter of complaint regarding OOXML. This is not a formal appeal as it was with India, Brazil, and South Africa, but nevertheless shows some of what … Continue reading
India also files appeal on OOXML to ISO and IEC
Thanks to Russell in a comment to my previous blog entry. PCWorld is reporting that in addition to South Africa, both Brazil and India are appealing the OOXML decision to ISO and IEC. Somehow after this last week’s news regarding … Continue reading
Brazil protests ISO/IEC OOXML BRM process and outcome
Both Andy Updegrove and Groklaw have the news that Brazil has sent a letter to ISO and IEC protesting the way the OOXML Ballot Resolutiuon Meeting was handled. There is some confusion regarding whether this is a formal call for … Continue reading
South Africa appeals ISO/IEC OOXML decision
Evidently the attempt to fast track the huge OOXML specification is not over. The national standards body of South Africa has decided to appeal the decision. See Andy Updegrove’s and Steve Pepper’s blogs for the story and links. Both are … Continue reading
Microsoft says they will support ODF natively, join OASIS ODF committee?
At various times in the three years in which I’ve been working on OpenDocument Format (ODF) adoption I’ve asked myself “What would success look like?”. In full, success would mean that consumers, governments, and businesses would recognize the value of … Continue reading
More on the New York State report: A customer’s request
Yesterday I mentioned that New York State published their “May 2008 Electronic Documents Report to the Governor and Legislature” that has been under development for several months. I included a paragraph from the executive summary that I think is a … Continue reading
