Category Archives: Open Standards

Starting 2011 : a progress report on LibreOffice

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Now that everyone is back from the Holiday Season the LibreOffice mailing lists and repositories are again bristling with activity. In fact we did progress in several ways and I would like to give a brief update on what we did and what we’re working on now.

  • The Document Foundation has joined the OpenDoc Society. The OpenDoc Society is an international community (based in the Netherlands) that promotes the use of open standards such as ODF and helps various initiatives related to open standards. I think it illustrates our unwaving commitment to ODF -despite what you might have read around the Internet these past weeks- and you should expect more news to come about our commitment to ODF in the coming months.
  • LibreOffice RC3 has been released; will we be releasing the final version soon? Suspense! In any case, give it a shot, and bring us your feedback!
  • By now you may have noticed that we do indeed have a new and beautiful website. I would like to thank everyone who worked hard on it. In fact since the Steering Committee of the Document Foundation wanted to improve the clarity and the organization of the work around the website it has decided to appoint a team of four persons who will effectively further the development of our website, each of these persons being responsible of one specific area: content, site design, user experience and site administration/infrastructure.
  • While we have a final draft of our Community Bylaws we hadn’t implemented them. Part of the reason was a lack of time, and part of the reason was that we felt that until we hadn’t properly incorporated our foundation we might have been led to amend them for legal reasons. Yet some people pointed out that we could at least start to implement them and progressively enact them as to enable a clear governance and leadership of the community. It’s a good point. So we started by appointing the first Membership Committee, while the Engineering Steering Committee will be formalized very soon.  The Membership Committee is in charge of managing our contributors, who in turn have the power to elect the Board of Directors, run as candidates for various roles, etc. It is in fact this process that defines the fabric of our community, and it’s therefore a crucial one, for almost everything else will depend on contributors running our project.
  • Much in the same way we were lacking a trademark policy. We were really missing one, with people coming to us asking for the permission to use our logos and names and also a few people misrepresenting themselves as LibreOffice or the Document Foundation. Here’s the stable draft; we’re waiting for legal reviews on it.
  • We also started to work on the incorporation of the Document Foundation. As we have chosen to incorporate an actual foundation in Germany, the process will take time, effort and money. We will keep you posted on this.
  • We will be present at several shows soon, throughout the world: the FOSDEM in Brussels and the SCALE in southern California: come and visit us!
  • Last but not least we just received the news that the former “OOoAuthors” team who was writing quite a lot of good user documentation for OpenOffice.org has changed its name to ODFAuthors, working now on manuals and documentation about LibreOffice as well. Congratulations folks, we look forward working with you !

The tragedy of Soapboxing

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Recently we had a bunch of quite furious people storming one of our lists at the Document Foundation. The issue at stake was that someone understood that LibreOffice was going to have OOXML filters. It sparkled quite some debate and I read so many inaccuracies, not say so much outright bullshit, that I was dismayed to see the rumor spreading across identi.ca and twitter. Check #OOXML if you want to read more. The problem comes from three causes I think: ignorance, the complexity of the matter, and for some people the urge to have a soapbox and to use it to the fullest: The fact remains that despite all the concerted efforts to censor the Internet by the French “Democratic and Transparent” Government and others, still no one knows you’re a dog on the Network these days. (Update: Pamela Jones of Groklaw is not targeted here and I would never call Groklaw a soapbox) But let me clarify what LibreOffice is doing, what it is not doing, what it is about, and what it is not about.

LibreOffice is not owned by Novell. LibreOffice is independent, is a project created by the Document Foundation that counts Novell, Red Hat, Canonical, Google, BrOffice and many other entities and people as its supporters. Yes, Novell, Debian, Red Hat engineers (and others) contribute to the code of LibreOffice.

LibreOffice, just like OpenOffice.org offers the ability to handle documents in the format of Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010. As we know, these are called OOXML but are different from the ISO standard (ISO 29500) known as OOXML. Microsoft is trying hard, as far as I know, to work out something that might be implemented by MS Office 2010 and is known as OOXML Transitional, which is the polite label to call a proprietary format that still comes with a lot of undocumented areas. OpenOffice.org has offered such a feature ever since 2008, not by reading whatever specification was sent to the ISO, but in analyzing the format used in the real world and called OOXML . (yes it’s confusing) If OOo had tried to implement OOXML by reading the standard it would have ended in a dead corner, because as we know, the OOXML ISO standard is broken, and the ISO itself with it.

LibreOffice is no different than that. But there is one addition compared to OpenOffice.org: where OpenOffice.org allowed the reading of MS Office 2007 and 2010 documents only, we allow their editing and saving under the same format. It does not imply any dramatic extension of features: the same capability is in OpenOffice.org, but it’s been intentionally crippled around 2007 or 2008 for obvious strategic reasons (OOXML hadn’t become a standard yet and MS Office 2007 new formats hadn’t been widely distributed). I would not be surprised if Oracle were to enable such a feature in the coming months.

The other factor was that people connected dots: Quite murky details about the Novell/Microsoft emerged recently thanks to Groklaw : and what was known by many of us, discussed on this blog for quite some time, became apparent to the eyes of everyone: Novell got paid by Microsoft to promote OOXML and to implement some compatibility layers with it inside Go-OO. So people connected the dots, and I would understand their concern, if it had been voiced in a more polite tone and in a less oracular and imperative tone. But it was a mixed bag of everything: “stop implementing OOXML now, you’re traitors and owned by Novell, and by the way you’re based on Go-OO”. Therefore I’d like to clarify certain things again:

  • LibreOffice is an independent project, not owned by Novell and not even based on Go-OO. But it’s based on OOo with some patched of Go-OO, and now more than ever before, it’s making its own choices.
  • LibreOffice strives to be an independent community, not an area for people who do not know how to contribute to Free and Open Source Software Communities, do not even want to learn but only want to stand on their soapbox and shout whatever they will please. Just take a look at the founders of the Document Foundation: there are Novell engineers. Some others work for Red Hat, some others come from Debian, some others are talented community individuals, and then there’s yours truly. Call it a worldwide conspiracy for Novell if you want, and sit on it. If there’s anything that should be clear, it’s that we are for ODF. We’ve joined the OpenDoc Society, and we will be joining the OASIS Consortium as soon as we can. Free Software, Open Standards, Community and Innovation, that’s what we strive for.
  • Of course, there will be the question that needs to be asked: Are we falling into Novell’s trap (or rather Microsoft’s trap) ? I think we aren’t and we won’t. Truth be told, the Document Foundation is not aware of any secret pact between Novell and Microsoft to stuff LibreOffice with OOXML and patents (were it only because 1) their cooperation is ending soon 2) MS was not in the know about LibreOffice until a long time, and Novell does not own anything in LibreOffice). But the more important -and perhaps some will find it naive- is that the Novell people we’re working with, among them Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Kendy (and all the others) have so far proven to be not just reliable and trustworthy, but also good and loyal fellows of ours. They’re not in this to serve Mr Ballmer and the dancing ponies of Redmond Club: they’re in this because just like me, just like all of us, the founders of the Document Foundation, we believe in Freedom, Free Software and Open Standards. And if it were of any reassurance to anyone: if one day we had the evidence of patches directly resulting from a secret agreement between Novell and Microsoft on LibreOffice, I trust the community would replace them as soon as possible.

Happy New Year everyone, and may the Force be with you!

Links under the snow

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  • Julian Assange goes out of jail, fears for his life, while Bank of America blocks payments to Wikileaks. I didn’t know that Bank of America had so high moral standards. This is why I do expect that, after blocking the payments process to Wikileaks, Bank of America will also block payment processes flowing to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan whose regimes feed and harbor terrorists. What? Did I say something I shouldn’t have? Okay, so how about this: After having taken part in the most serious financial crisis in the western History, engulfed billions of tax payers’ money, gobbled up those same billions to its own traders and executives, it is only normal that Bank of America takes a unequivocal actions to protect the United States. Aha. When I was a kid I used to think we, the “free world” stood against this sort of things. Now it just reminds me of a quite dark reenactment of the french drama “Tartuffe” by Molière. Meanwhile Private Manning is tortured in a maximum security prison, without any trial.  Did someone say “Soviet Union”?
  • It’s Holiday Season, nonetheless, and I thought you may want to take a look at how Christmas looks in Paris, especially under the snow. (Paris is a city that looks particularly beautiful under the snow). Prête-moi Paris has all the details.
  • The EIF and EIS 2.0 are published at last. In many ways it is disappointing, but it is at the same time a clear political gesture in favor of open standards and true interoperability.

Best wishes for the Season!

    It’s the Document, stupid!

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    Today the Document Foundation has issued a press release that marks the beginning of something exciting; but it’s likely that not a lot of people will understand what’s being explained through the multiple layers of buzz and general statements that were made. Here’s the statement:

    “”The Document Foundation is about documents and the associated software is pivotal to create, exchange, modify, share and print documents”, says Thorsten Behrens, a software developer and a member of TDF Steering Committee. “LibreOffice 3.3 is the first flavour of this long term strategy, but the journey has just begun, and the enormous advantages of our developer-embracing environment are not yet fully reflected in the upcoming software release”.

    LibreOffice 3.3 is based on OOo 3.3, with code optimisations and many new features, which are going to offer a first preview of the new development directions for 2011 and beyond. TDF founders foresee a completely different future for the office suite paradigm, which – in the actual format – is over 20 years old, to be based on the document (where the software is a layer for the creation or the presentation of the contents).

    TDF developers are working full steam at improving the overall quality of OOo code, which is a good starting point, and making easy testability of the code and quality assurance a priority. This is an area where new developers and code hackers, whose number has grown to over 90 in just a month, are instrumental for the bulk of the activity.

    In addition, each single module of LibreOffice will be undergoing an extensive rewrite, with Calc being the first one to be redeveloped around a brand new engine – code named Ixion – that will increase performance, allow true versatility and add long awaited database and VBA macro handling features. Writer is going to be improved in the area of layout fidelity and Impress in the area of slideshow fidelity. Most of the new features are either meant to maintain compatibility with the market leading office suite or will introduce radical innovations. They will also improve conversion fidelity between formats, liberate content, and reduce Java dependency.

    “The Document Foundation is going to be at the heart of the Free Software universe, where users want to build a different future for office suites, working together with developers”, says Italo Vignoli, a digital immigrant, and the oldest member of TDF Steering Committee. “Users read, write, modify and share documents, and are focused on contents rather than software features. After 20 years of feature oriented software, it is now the right time to bring back content at the centre of user focus”.”

    The statements quoted above unveil several items. This is not a press release about the community itself, it’s a press release showing the result of a liberated community at work. And what does a liberated community at work do? Not only does it fix what can be fixed on the spot; it  is not shy in assessing whether the code base it’s working on is going to be relevant in 5 years and whether the state of the art has changed. Therefore we, the community, gathers around a few simple (but in fact quite complex ideas):

    1. Our code base is getting old. Worse, the whole frigging software looks  and feels like we’re stuck in the Bush area. Many things were not fixed, some others need a complete rewrite.
    2. The Document is really the epicenter, the conundrum’s point, and software should be built around it, not as if documents were some sort of odd appendices. It’s not just the user that matters, it’s that when the document is what the software is running for, rather than running with, you end up with much more ability to create, share and innovate.  In fact, designing software following this concept leads you to develop something quite different from office suites. That’s a shift of paradigm.
    3. It’s time to realize people hate using office suites. You can make them more visually compelling, more practical, and we want that too. But it’s the tool that is the problem in itself. No one really knows why we have to stick to specific features; Powerpoint was a nice visual concept in the eighties; it became a management tool. Who could have guessed it?  Therefore, there is an urgency in making office suites fun to use, by allowing users to unleash their creativity, win time and efforts, there fore make their lives easier and more enjoyable.

    The way the Document Foundation is going to address these issues is twofold: First, we will have incremental changes on LibreOffice, although these changes will sometimes be quite visible. This will allow to solve real and identified issues by maintaining the overall code stability and homogeneity. Second, we will open new development initiatives aimed at rewriting entire portions of the codebase (leading in the end to a complete rewrite) that we think are the most urgent to be rewritten. Mind, however, that we won’t have a rewrite for the sake of a rewrite. I think that Ixion, the spreadsheet rewrite project, will show that we’re in this game to change it. Yes you read well: Initiatives such as Ixion will not lead to a nice MS Office clone. It will be a radical departure from what we have today.

    These two tracks will thus offer the choice between improved stability and radical innovation, and somewhere down the line, these two will merge, somehow. But that story has yet to be written.

    Stay tuned!

    Links for the beginning of November

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    • The light is shed on OOXML; I’ve lost count of how many officious, ISO sub-versions (and subversions) , alongside the proprietary formats also called OOXML but used in MS Office are now floating in the air. In any case, this short document from the ODF Alliance explains this obscure matter in a remarkably simple way.
    • The Document Foundation publishes the first hints of its bylaws for the Community. Not exactly a draft, as it obviously lacks some real meat, like process and governance description, yet an interesting read nonetheless.
    • Apple exits the server market. I have a good friend who worked at Apple until two years ago or so, and he always told me that Apple’s XServe product line surprisingly sold like hot cakes, although most of the customers were not interested the OS X server, but in the machine itself and ran various Linux flavors on it.
    • European Union invests 22 million Euros in the Symbian operating system, just days after the Symbian Foundation announces it’s about to close. Wait, what? I thought Symbian was a platform losing customers and momentum… A strange surge of European “patriotism” that I’m not used to, as someone who had to attend European Commission conference calls starting at 6 pm in order to accomodate US lobbyists.
    • If I wasn’t pointing that out, I guess something would be missing: Rehost & Carry on T-shirts available on Café Press.
    • This blog will soon undergo a server upgrade (next week or so) so apologies in advance for any downtime.
    • Last but not least -I still want to get the facts and numbers straight- it seems we won 50 new developers contributing to the core of LibreOffice. Thank you! You can donate to the Document Foundation here, meanwhile.