Bonum Certa Men Certa

ODF Alliance Newsletter: September 2009

Courtesy of Marino Marcich, ODF Alliance

Spread ODF






ODF TO BE OBLIGATORY IN NORWEGIAN PUBLIC SECTOR



Beginning on January 1, 2011 it will be obligatory to use ODF or PDF when exchanging documents as e-mail attachments between government institutions and users in Norway. ODF and PDF were included in the government's so-called Reference Catalog and is the second step in a long-term effort by the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform to establish recommended and obligatory IT standards to be used by public institutions and enterprises.

http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/fad/press-cent...




HUNGARY, MALAYSIA APPROVE ODF AS A NATIONAL STANDARD



ODF has officially become a government recommended Hungarian National Standard (MSZ ISO/IEC 26300) as of June 1, 2009. ODF was also approved by the Malaysian national standards body, SIRIM. Hungary and Malaysia now join, Brazil, Croatia, Ecuador, Italy, South Korea, South Africa, and Sweden as countries whose national standards bodies have formally approved ODF. Taiwan's approval of ODF by its Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) was announced 21 January 2009.

http://mszt.hu/angol/general.htm




ODF WORKSHOP CONCLUDES WITH SIGNING OF BRASILIA PROTOCOL



Brazil’s approach to putting ODF policy into practice took another major step forward with the signing of the Brasilia Protocol at the margins of the 3rd International ODF User Workshop, which concluded August 26 in Brasilia. Major government institutions across Brazil formally signed what is in effect a commitment, which will proceed in phases, obligating signatories to begin using ODF internally, with each other, and ultimately in their electronic interaction with third parties and the public. The protocol was also opened to private-sector entities for signature. The workshop – organized by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SERPRO (Federal Service for Data Processing - Ministry of Finance, Brazil) and Caixa Econômica Federal, in collaboration with the ODF Alliance – brought together government officials from twelve countries that have already made the move to ODF or are actively considering such a move. Workshop participants expressed a strong interest in “internationalizing” the approach taken in the Brasilia Protocol.

http://www.odfworkshop.org/home_en.html




2ND ODF 'PLUGFEST' NOV 2-3 IN ORVIETO, ITALY



The second in a series of events bringing together ODF implementers to fine-tune their interoperability capabilities and develop test scenarios, recommendations and best practices will take place November 2-3, 2009, in the Italian city of Orvieto. The ultimate aim of the “plugfest” is to achieve full seamless interoperability for the entire feature set of ODF across all suppliers, platforms and supported technologies. All implementers of ODF are invited to participate. The event is organized by the Dutch government program Netherlands in Open Connection and the OpenDoc Society together with the OASIS ODF TC, OASIS ODF OIC TC and ODF Adoption TC. The first plugfest held in The Hague in June of this year under the aegis of the Netherlands government attracted sixty-five participants from forty companies, open source projects and governments.

http://plugtest.opendocsociety.org/dok...




NEW OR IMPROVED ODF APPLICATIONS SUPPORT



GMV Solutions' atlas GMV lets you open ODF files on your Blackberry smartphone. http://www.gmv.com/e-mailing/atlas_gmv/atlas.pdf

FileAid 1.3, the latest version of the file manager and viewer for your iPhone and iPod Touch, now allows you to view ODF text, presentations, and spreadsheets. http://www.digidna.net/fileaid/

Serif PagePlus X4 desktop publishing software now imports ODF files. http://www.serif.com/pageplus/

The ODF Toolkit Union's ODFDOM 0.7, an open source Java toolkit for programmatically reading, writing and manipulating ODF documents, is now available. http://odftoolkit.org/projects/odfdom/downloads/dire...

The new release of GemBox.Spreadsheet, a .NET component which provides a way to write, read or convert native Microsoft Excel files without the need for Microsoft Excel on either the developer or client machine, now fully supports ODF for spreadsheets (.ods files). http://www.gemboxsoftware.com/GBSpreadshe...

Office-o-tron is a web application that accepts ODF packages and validates the XML within, returning a summary report. http://code.google.com/p/officeotron/

FastReport.net, which allows you to create application-independent reports, can now edit, print or convert to multiple formats including ODF. http://www.fast-report.com/en/products/FastRepor...

SlideBoom, a slide-sharing platform, now supports ODF presentation files. http://blog.slideboom.com/index.php/2009/05/07...

The Sun ODF Plugin 3.1 for Microsoft Office has been released giving users of Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint the ability to read, edit and save to ODF. http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/

JDBReport is used for generation, viewing and a print of reports in ODF and other formats. http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract...




NEW ALLIANCE MEMBERS



Please welcome the following new ODF Alliance members: Instituto Federal de Pernambuco - Campus Ipojuca (Brazil); Prefeitura Municipal de Silva Jardim (Brazil); Gnutech (Brazil); Ledger Consulting (USA); Done Deal ICT (Saudi Arabia); OUR Technology, LLC. (Azerbaijan); The SFL Audio Visual Group (UK); SOLAR Software Libre Argentina; Activistas por el Software Libre (Venezuela) : carolus-it EDV-Dienstleistungen und Software (Germany); Laboratório de Documentos Digitais/CCSH (Brazil); JSS Academy Ltd Mauritius; Cooperateva Tecnológica (Venezuela); SOLVE - Asociación Civil Software Libre de Venezuela; EQ Soft Consultoría y Soporte EIRL (Peru); ecology foundation еко.com (Bulgaria); Infogrid Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore); Opentelematics Internacional (Bolivia) ; Technology Initiatives (USA); Banco do Brasil (Brazil); Spotlight Cameroun (Cameroon); International Open Source Network (IOSN) – ASEAN+3 (The Philippines); Alsyrinx Tecnologia (Brazil); Asociación de Software Libre del Ecuador; TreeO Technology (USA); Inovis (UK); and Revista Espírito Livre (Brazil).




ODF IN THE NEWS



Report says IBM is switching from Microsoft Office to Lotus Symphony [The H Open] http://www.h-online.com/open/Report-says-IB...

Microsoft focuses on 'pragmatic interoperability' [David Worthington, SD Times] http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33574

"Productive" OpenDocument Plugfest [The H Open] http://www.h-online.com/open/Productive-Open-...

ODF and the Art of Interoperability [Glyn Moody, ComputerWorld UK] http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/in...

ODF Interoperability: Rough Consensus and Running Code [Roberto Galoppini, Commercial Open Source Software] http://robertogaloppini.net/2009/06/22/odf-interoperabil...

Office Shots for Confirmed ODF Interchange Fidelity [orcmid, nfo Works: Pursuing Harmony] http://nfoworks.org/diary/2009/06/office-shots-for-co...

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
 
Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025