Another busy day for me, with very little time for blogging, but there's so much going on in the Open XML world these days that my RSS feeds seem to have an "Open XML links" post ready and waiting every time I look. Here's what's new in my feeds today ...
Improved Open XML support for OpenOffice. Novell has announced availability of version 1.1.0 of the OpenOffice.OpenXML Translator , which adds support for docx/xlsx/pptx files to the latest Novell edition of OpenOffice.org on the Windows and SUSE Linux platforms.
Adobe Buzzword supports Open XML. I see on Brian's blog that Adobe's Buzzword word processor now supports the Open XML formats. The Buzzword Discussion Forum says they can import and export html as well, so you can use Buzzword to convert between docx and html if needed. Sign up for Buzzword and check it out.
Standards as a "strategic weapon." Stephen McGibbon has some quotes from an article on the IEC web site about how Sun views standards activities. Michelle Aden explains that Sun views standards as a “strategic weapon” in their arsenal, and she also offers some thoughts about how consortia (think Ecma or OASIS) have an advantage over international standards organizations (for example, ISO/IEC) because they can respond quickly to industry needs for standards. "As a result, Aden says the PAS process (bringing publicly available specifications as completed documents into the standards development process) is a good compromise because they come into ISO/IEC JTC1 and become international standards very quickly."
Anonymity going out of style? I see today that Bob Sutor has decided to stop allowing anonymous comments on his blog, and now Brian Jones is considering doing the same. I'm not sure where I stand. Some of my favorite blogs (and blog commenters) use pseudonyms, but on the other hand I think every blogger has a right to try to maintain a civil tone and not have their blog slide into Slashdot-style name-calling and rumormongering. And there have definitely been a few anonymous repetitive zealots in the document formats debate who remind me of Mencken's line that "It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull." If only it were as easy to filter traffic by social security number as by IP address!
Doug - I have never let anon comments on my blog, and neither has any of the IBM blogs we host (inculding Ed). Most of us go out of our way to delete comments where the name is not valid. So, I am all for it. My arguement is that if you can not say something with your real name, than it has no place on my blog.
Remember, it is your blog, you make the rules. John
Thanks John, that's a good way to look at it. And I think you guys have fewer name-calling threads than some blogs experience who do allow anonymous comments.
Doug,
Thanks for the tip. It's also possible to use the OpenXML Translator (aka odfconverter) on all Linux and Windows system as a command line utility without necessarily having OpenOffice.org or Office:
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/01/convert-openxml-documents-in-windows.html
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/01/convert-openxml-docx-etc-in-linux-using.html
In addition to Novell's OpenOffice.org, it works on Ubuntu too:
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/01/openxml-translator-odf-converter-11.html
Andrew