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From: "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>
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Subject: RE: The City of Udine is moving from Windows for OpenOffice
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 13:14:51 -0700
Organization: NuovoDoc
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I share the concern expressed by Roberto and Andreas.

Starting with the effort to establish ODF for use in civil =
administration in Massachusetts, it was clear that no US civil =
authority, at any level up the governmental hierarchy, was prepared to =
invest what was necessary to achieve *actual* substitutability among =
standards-compliant implementations and to identify and have addressed =
(via procurement policies and technical means) their requirements for =
genuine cross-product/-platform interoperability.  This does not seem to =
be something that governments can take on as a public good in the =
present reality.

It is perhaps also no surprise that "interoperability" assessment among =
ODF implementations appears to be more of the "works for me!" variety. =20

I could make a living if there were a bounty for every bug I find =
practically anywhere I attempt to interchange documents cross-product.  =
The fact that there are now deviations between Apache OpenOffice and =
LibreOffice is particularly discouraging as is the fact that the =
pair-wise deviations are even greater with respect to interoperability =
with the Microsoft Office counterparts, whether via ODF or via OOXML.

Hmm ...=20

I was just presenting at an international workshop on technical aspects =
of this problem, centered around tracked changes.  Just in developing my =
papers and the slides, I am going to need to spend considerable time =
reporting the bugs I encountered, along with a possible defect in ODF =
itself that I had not appreciated before.

And I am ignoring, here, the problems of training and staffing that goes =
with making product substitutions in what we term office-productivity =
activities.

There seems to be a lack of will and means for the adopters, and a lack =
of commitment among producers to cooperate enough to provide some =
reliable assurance of interoperability.

Writing this has me be dispirited.  I will recover.  I have hope.

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Roberto Resoli [mailto:roberto@resolutions.it]=20
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 08:52
To: dev@openoffice.apache.org
Subject: Re: The City of Udine is moving from Windows for OpenOffice

Il 18/09/2014 09:19, Andrea Pescetti ha scritto:
> On 17/09/2014 Marcus wrote:
>> Am 09/17/2014 09:36 PM, schrieb Vladislav Stevanovic:
>>> Another goog news:
>>> =
http://www.zdnet.com/another-italian-city-announces-its-ditching-microsof=
t-windows-for-open-source-7000033682/
>>>
>> sometimes it's going fast. It's already on our homepage in the =
"Recent
>> News" section. :-)

It's also on Softpedia:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/City-of-Udine-Planning-to-Replace-Windows-=
with-Linux-458963.shtml

> It's another nice surprise from Italy! I know nothing about the Udine
> migration (I've simply read the this article), but I hope that cutting
> spending is just one of the reasons.

I hope that too; we have seen too many failed migrations to FLOSS sw
because the only expectation was cutting spending.

> I would like that institutions do not behave as ordinary end-users, =
but
> try to be more actively involved with the community (directly or =
through
> consultants).

Yes, I think this is also a key factor for a sustainable FLOSS adoption.

bye,
rob


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