“The Malaysian government today announced plans to adopt open standards and the Open Document Format (ODF) within the country’s public sector,” Lynn Tan reports for ZDNet Asia.
“In July this year, Japan became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to embrace open software standards. Last August, the United Nations urged countries in the region to adopt the ODF,” Tan reports.
“Published by OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), the ODF–or Open Document Format for Office Applications–is an XML-based open standard, enabling any office software to format, save and exchange file documents such as spreadsheets, databases and text,” Tan reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
WHEW!
That’s a relief. I haven’t slept for weeks over this. Chewing up pillows and sobbing late into the night.
Heads up, incoming chairs
Talking of glossy screens, C1 how did the setting up go? and what do you think of Glossy screens now?
Thanks for the fart! it wasn’t very potent so here is a tip for you:- Eat a pickled hard boiled egg and wash it down with a fresh glass of camel’s Milk! the whooshy farts you release will glaze the eyes so that glossy screens become irrelevant. Ps have a gas mask handy! some people have been known to knock themselves out after sniffing their own farts!!!
Malaysia embrace ODF? Old Drunken Fart??? (Just kidding!)
Well, you can cross Malaysia off my list of vacation destinations.
All you have to do read the ‘About‘ statement from these OASIS babies. What a bunch of losers—the kind MAC lemmings fawn over with their talk of a “not-for-profit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society”. Who the hell do they think they are?
Look, Microsoft has already done the work to establish common office document standards and they don’t need some independent, consortium-based standards organization screwing things up. REAL standards creators don’t waste their time with ratifications, specifications and some dopey approval process. Just use Microsoft Office and be done with it. Dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Isn’t ODF the reason Office Mac 2008 is delayed? And doesn’t iWork apps already comply?
So, I am confused. IF ODF is an open format, does the new Word support this format or just a screwball windows only version of the format?
And does Apple software support this new standard? Will my old Apple works programs open these std documents? How about the open standard Open Office and Neo Office???
Any techno geeks out there with the answer????
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Why Apple adopted mafiasoft instead ODF in iWork?
Here’s some light reading on the subject.
Well, it’s a start anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
Apple’s failure to embrace ODF is the largest mistake that the corporation is making today. Apple has a big opening right now with Microsoft’s continued stumbles, but they have less than a year to capitalize on it. If iWork helps ODF reach critical mass, we will see the end of MS Office. If Apple keeps on the current course of fragmented file formats we will continue to live in a Windows/Office world.
In idiot terms, what does this mean
“ODF”
By the way, I love Numbers, but have found it is not easy (for me) to try to import Excel and work on them (upgrade the looks) but great for doing new work sheets
Before becoming too rabid over ODF, take a few minutes to think of the many people who cannot afford the price of M$’s Office & Apple’s Mac price tag.
It is for them that ODF was developed for. It was also developed as a means to curtail the evil empire from becoming all mighty to the point where it dictates to Governments , business’s as well as individuals.
What we now need is an ODF type developement for drugs to combat aids, malaria, TB etc for Countries where the people cannot afford the exhorbitant prices the drugs companies impose on their proprietory drugs.
Nuff said!
I have had enough! I keep getting “cannot accept your post at this time” also teh password seems to never show until after umpteen dozen attempts. GONE FISHING MDN
I don’t mind the lack of macros, in fact I prefer it that way, but Numbers not supporting Excel’s ‘Offset’ makes smart spreadsheets (with a bit of artificial intelligence) hard to do, particularly in the absence of macros.
This is good. No more excuses for those in MegaCorp IT who do ANYTHING to prevent a switch away from MS To some other baseline doc format
Okay, so Apple adopted MS Office Open XML instead of ODF. Could be that was the price Apple had to pay to have MS continue the Mac version of Office. Obviously Apple made a strategic decision, but only time will tell if it was the right one. I don’t know enough about strengths and weaknesses of ODF.
@Crabapple: “What we now need is an ODF type developement for drugs to combat aids, malaria, TB etc for Countries where the people cannot afford the exhorbitant prices the drugs companies impose on their proprietory drugs.”
I don’t see the correlation. If open source software gets released with flaws, the application doesn’t work right or, at worst, it crashes a computer. Try that with drugs and you’re going to have a lot sick, damaged, or dead bodies on your hands. I wish it were different, but it’s not.
M$ will embrace it too, will give you free tool, will put in some incompatibilities, and guess what, people will start to bitch how bad this format is.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
See http://www.noooxml.org/start to get an idea…
Malaysia, you are finished! Kaput!
How dare your puny little so called country of towel heads adopt a non american standard. I am going to have a serious chat with my pal Dick Chaney, see if we can’t give you an offer you cannot refuse…
America F**K Yeh!!!
@KillBill… Thanks for the link.
What comes to mind is that Apple has released an office suite that is compatible with the latest iteration of the world’s dominant office suite, MS Office, while the Open Source solutions are still being debated. The vote on OOXML is still a month away. As a business decision it is hard to fault Apple for producing software that is interoperable with the largest user base in the world. Apple knows that iWork is dead on arrival if it cannot read and write into Office formats, especially when the Open Source alternative is still being debated at ISO. I know that iWork would have a hope in my office without MS Office interoperability.
MS’s OOXML format is in theory a good idea but take a look at its schema and you’ll find a lot of legacy support baggage and very Office specific design aspects – so its not very open at all. ODF is the main hope for companies, government departments and consumers to free themselves from being 100% reliant on MS Office for something as simple as document creation and viewing. Especially for gov depts and poorer countries that don’t want to pay that much $ to read and write documents and spreadsheets. MS has worked hard to corner this market but having the world’s office productivity in the hands of one company doesn’t sit too well for some people.
Apple is in a tough spot. They’re not shy to stick it to MS when they have the guns but ODF is still in its infancy and they’d be on shaky ground to support it so soon. But as traction gains, Apple, Google et al will be there I’m sure