Bonum Certa Men Certa

Lots of New Vendor/Developer Support for OpenDocument Format

Young generation



Summary: More OpenDocument Format (ODF) wins and an important reminder of people who try to harm it, sometimes while pretending to be "helping"

THE OTHER day we wrote about what Alex Brown had been doing in Wikipedia. For those who do not know Brown's role in Microsoft's OOXML fiasco, read [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21]. Regarding Brown's edits (as we showed them a few days ago), one reader wrote privately to say, "I just wanted to let you know what Alex Brown appears to have done from those wiki edits (as far as I can go on the first page). All the criticism is magically gone. "whoops"."



Right now he makes minor edits to ODF's article, which is not as bad as the malicious edits from hAl, who got banned for his obvious warping of the ODF article, making it an ODF-hostile article.

But let's concentrate on the positives, not the negatives from Microsoft and its known cronies.

The OpenDocument Web site introduces readers to two tools, Office-O-Tron and ODFPy, which Bart Hanssens describes as follows:

Office-o-tron is an online validator for office documents. It understands ODF (1.0, 1.1 and draft 1.2) and OOXML ("Transitional").


 

Odfpy aims to be a complete API for OpenDocument in Python, essentially an abstraction layer just above the XML format. The main focus is to prevent the programmer from creating invalid documents.


Here is another one about Open Search Server:

Open Search Server is an open source search engine and comes with a suite of full text search algorithms. ODF is one of the supported formats.


There is a new article about this in Linux Magazine (also in German):

Open Search Server 1.1 with Synonym and ODF Support



[...]

The first stable release of the Open Search Server Java software now includes a Web and file crawler and uploaded documents can be searched. The server can handle MS Word and Powerpoint, Open Document Format (ODF), HTML, XML and PDF files.


From one of the European Union's Web sites we gather that Norway is indeed very serious about ODF.

On 25 September 2009 the Norwegian Government adopted a new regulation on mandatory IT standards applicable to the entire public sector. As of 1 January 2010 open document standards will become mandatory for all public websites.

As the Minister of Government Administration and Reform, Heidi Grande Røys, stated, the new regulation ensures equal accessibility to the content of all public and communal websites. Users of any municipality or state will be able to visit the websites and read the documents regardless the type of software and computer equipment they use. It is a democratic right for all citizens to have equal access to public information and online services.


Some parts of the United States may be equally interested in ODF. Here is a reminder about the state of New York.

IBM's Rob Weir gathers questions for the "State of ODF" panel, which he will moderate. Some people lend their voices to Weir and Dennis Hamilton continues his good work in this area. Bart Hanssens is also a major contributor, as opposed to those who are only pretending. They know who they are.

Weir and OASIS take ODF a step further into 1.2 while Weir and Hanssens are highlighting this new tool for verification of ODF signatures.

Via this page you can test the eID Applet Signature functionality. This test will demo the creation and verification of ODF signatures. ODF signatures are also supported by OpenOffice.org version 3.1.


KOffice 2 adds a mission statement placeholder to its Wiki while in Wikipedia someone removes the sentence: "The OpenDocument Foundation is not related to any entity doing standardisation work for the Open Document Format." This is later readded and removed again. Test of patience?

"Ask Google Translate team to support ODF," says OpenOffice.org and Weir speaks of the OASIS ODF Interoperability and Conformance TC again. Microsoft and its cronies still try to ruin ODF from the inside or grab control of it. Clear evidence shows this repeatedly.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
 
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: Extreme Testing and Golang Documentation in Geminispace
Links for the day
Vice President of the European Patent Office (EPO) Complains That Techrights Gives Visibility to Legal and Technical Issues at the EPO
"Follow-up on enquiries relating to Dir. 1218 and 1001"
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Various Slopfarms That Lie About "Linux" and Are Promoted by Google News
Google does not seem interested in tackling this problem
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day