Executive Panel on Open Document Formats
Users Want
Grand Unification:
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a single universal format, one standard
Grand Convergence:
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of desktop, server and web
Choice:
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future office product decisions not limited by previous decisions
Investment Protection:
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compatibility with existing file formats and documents interoperability with existing office applications
Agenda
Panelist Presentations:
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30 minutes (5 min each) 30 minutes Submit questions on cards Address them to a single panelist
Questions + Answers:
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Free CD for a question (limit 25)
Open eGov
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Web CMS government portal
Open CD 07.04 (Latest and Last)
What should we do, What actions should we take in light of competing Open Document Formats?
Buck Martin
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Director of Legal Affairs Senior Director of Interoperability Corporate Standards, Global Government Strategy Open Source and Standards Program A Senior Principal Scientist
Jason Matusow Douglas W. Johnson, Ph.D.
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Arnaud Le Hors
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James C. King, Ph.D.
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What should we do, What actions should we take in light of competing Open Document Formats?
Convert legacy to CDF (W3C) using da Vinci plug-in
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da Vinci currently proprietary, possibly released as GPL in the future
Migrate business processes to Server side Open Stack systems Gradually transition from MSOffice to Open Desktop systems Reap the productivity of collaborative computing
Note: ODF dropped support for ODf in favor of CDF (W3C) in April, 2007
What should we do, What actions should we take in light of competing Open Document Formats?
Focus on first principles: 1
• Openness • Innovation • Interoperability • Data Control • Competition • Backwards Compatibility
Evaluate Tools Holistically Rather Than Formats Specifically 2
• Value is in the tool first, format second • Value for money is more than short-term cost • Past, present, and future investments all matter
Interoperability is more than just standards 3
• Interop = products, community, access, and standards • Specifications (engineering docs) and implementations (software) are each important, but different
What should we do, What actions should we take in light of competing Open Document Formats?
Governments have special procurement requirements:
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accountability (spending our money, not corporate profits) requirements-based acquisition is key standards enable competition and best-value procurement
Major drivers for IT standardization include:
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providing choice (of applications, not choice of standards) promote competition among implementations enable innovation on top of the standard
What should we do, What actions should we take in light of competing Open Document Formats?
Not all standards are equally “open”. ODF provides greater choice, cost effectiveness, control of your information. Multiple formats increase complexity & cost, decrease real choice. Assess your situation
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Current use of office documents, complexity of documents, use of older documents, current and future platforms, etc. Maintain current software for some time for older documents. Start using software that supports older formats as well as ODF. Start translating templates (simpler ones first), and increase familiarity. Phase in use of ODF by group. Identify and train local experts. Set explicit policy and a deadline for migration to ODF. Establish a network with others who are also doing a migration. Request ODF support from your current software provider.
Define a migration strategy to ODF
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Free yourself from vendor lock-in, take control over YOUR information
What should we do, What actions should we take in light of competing Open Document Formats?
“revisable” document formats
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ODF, OOXML
“exchange” document formats
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PDF
Note: Full PDF 1.7 is now under ballot to become the ISO 32000 – a publicly managed standard see: http://www.adobe.com/pdf/release_pdf_faq.html
Executive Panel on Open Document Formats