Commentary 1
Reasoning Of Choice
Reposted from Inverted Dungeon, here is my commentary on Freedom and Formats
Introduction
I work with a wide variety of operating systems day to day, information can begin on Windows XP professional at work, move to Windows XP Professional x64 at home and be finalized on SUSE Linux 10. I'm not talking about pictures or movies or things of that nature, I'm talking about productivity files, text documents, spreadsheets and documentation. These are the files that I work with on a daily basis. These files are carried with me, edited, configured and worked on constantly. This need for a consistent environment across all platforms has led me to change my work environment at work and at home.
The need for standards
The first time I ever saw a need for a standard came a few years ago, I was working in a factory making synthetic materials and they ran Office 97 on all the machines in the office. One of night shift crew chiefs in his infinite wisdom, brought in a bootlegged copy of Office 2000 and installed it on the Crew Chief computer. Opening and saving certain files in Office 2000 changed the format of the files rendering them unusable to everyone running the older Office 97 system, which was everyone else in the plant. I've watched this happen a few times since then, when a migration from Windows NT Workstation to Windows 2000 would cause critical programs to no longer function, some of these were fixed with patches or upgrades from the programmers... some were not. The last time I saw this, was a customer of my current company who creates nose cones for NASA's space shuttles, they created everything in this archaic software.
When the computer's hard drive inevitably failed, it was then discovered that the version of the software they owned would not run on anything but windows 95 or 98. The company that created the software had since gone out of business. My company ended up installing windows 98 on a brand new Dell computer, so out there is a p4 2.8 ghz computer with 512 Mb of ram running windows 98 so this old software can be run. There is an update to the software out there, but it will not load their old project files.
My situation
I am not in a position where this has happened to me, but I am aware of the issue. All the documents I write, all the things I create, can be rendered obsolete by an upgrade from the Software provider. I don't like that at all, Enter Open Standards.
An Open Standard, is a set of rules that says “Everyone does it like this” so if you write a text file in an open standard, any software adhering to this standard will read your file and it will look exactly as it looked to you. And with this standard there is no additional cost for using such a standard, it comes with agreeing to follow the standard. OpenOffice.org is the first piece of software I'd like to touch on, OpenOffice is a great productivity suite, its an office client package, and with Version 2.0, it is Open Document compliant. OpenOffice also runs on a variety of platforms, meaning the interface and structure is the same when I'm on my Linux laptop as it is on my Windows desktop at work. As more and more of my common desktop environment becomes available on multiple operating systems, the less I am locked into a single vendor.
Office productivity
Lets face it, Microsoft Office is everywhere in a corporate environment, I've said in the past, that if Microsoft ever really wanted to kill apple's market, they would only have to stop creating Office X for Mac. No company would make the decision to outfit their company with Mac computers if there was no chance that their documents wouldn't fit the unwritten Microsoft Standards rule. There is an enthusiast market, and there is a corporate market, the enthusiast buys one copy of the software, the corporate market buys 5000 copies of the software, you can see where the money is made. This fits into the whole standards and compatibility like this, If your company creates documents and files, and when another company opens them, they do not look as expected, your company comes off looking poorly. When you create a document and when someone opens it and your pictures are all askew and the formating is wrong, your company looks low class.
This goes back to my earlier example, if I create something in Office XP and your company opens it in Office 97, it might look like hell or it might not even open at all, but if everyone followed an open format standard, it would look perfect across all platforms and operating systems. This is why Adobe has a stranglehold on the market, Adobe is Adobe is Adobe, if you want your stuff to look exactly as you see, you crank out a PDF and send that, when they open it in the free Adobe Reader or the Full version of the software, it is exactly what you saw when you created it. The other alternative is harder, to change the standard, to change the perception of a standard from the Microsoft Standard, to an actual standard.
In my workplace, Microsoft Office System 2003 is on my desktop, it is also on my laptop, it's installed on every desktop and a few of the servers here. For us, it is the system of choice for our productivity needs. But not for me, I've got 3 computers here at my desk, a windows workstation, a windows laptop and a Linux workstation. While the majority of the systems in this office are windows based, we have slowly been migrating machines to Linux, and in order to familiarize ourselves with it in a corporate world, My brother and I run Linux at work too. Microsoft Office does not natively run on Linux, while WINE and Codeweavers Crossover Office exist that can enable us to run Microsoft Office on our Linux machines, there is the license cost to consider, plus the best software for running MS Office on Linux, Crossover Office, is also a licensed product.
So from a cost prospective alone, it make sense for us to start changing the environment. OpenOffice.org is our new standard, I've got it on my workstations and my home computers, I can create a document here at work, save it to my USB key, load it on my Linux laptop at home and continue to work exactly as I did at work. Because Open Office can be run on both Linux and Windows, the software is the same, the interface is the same, and work continues as it should. If I'm in a position where the computer I'm working on is lacking Open Office.org, I know that its just a simple download and install to get it running on the computer, also there will be no licensing costs involved and if the computer has an open standard office client already, I'm good to go.
But what about the Microsoft Standard? Well, it goes back to Adobe here, Open Office has built in support for the creation of Adobe PDF files, again, this is free with the software, unlike with Microsoft Office, where to create a PDF of your word document, you need to purchase the full version of Adobe Acrobat, in OpenOffice.org, you just click the PDF button and your done. Also OpenOffice.org has compatibility with Microsoft Office documents, its not perfect, but it generally works well. However on the flip side, Microsoft has no Compatibility with Open Document format with their office suite and no plans in the works to implement such a Compatibility.
Comfort out of a windows world
By now, everyone has heard of or is using Mozilla Firefox. To continue using IE in its current state is a glorified nightmare, the browser is behind the times in features and contains more and more issues each passing day. From the ease in which spyware can be installed without asking for your consent to needing multiple windows to work in different pages, a move from IE to Mozilla or Mozilla-Firefox is not only a good idea, but necessary in this age of computing. More so then OpenOffice, Firefox is the starting point for a migration out of a windows world, An operating system change is a shock to the system, leaving you in an unfamiliar environment. But having programs that you are already comfortable using, available on different operating systems soothes those fears and gives you a starting point to learn and work with a new environment.
One of the first things installed on a new computer is an instant messager, be it yahoo instant messenger or AOL instant messenger. Communication with friends and family is important to a home user. Most IM programs come free, some, like AIM are equipped with advertisements or tool bars, but they are all saddled with a distinct limitation, they only work with a single client type. Multi-client tools do exist, such as trillian, however, products like trillian come at a price, not an excessive amount, but a price none the less. GAIM is a multi protocol system, working with, AIM, yahoo, jabber, ICQ and others. I prefer GAIM because it has a look and feel similar to AIM in windows. GAIM's instant message windows are tabbed, in much the same way as Firefox's browser window is, allowing better Communication in a smaller area.
This document has meandered a bit from what it was originally envisioned as being, So lets steer it back onto that road. I'm migrating to an Open standard of living. While I have a fully licensed copy of Office System 2003 sitting on my desk, I'm not using it, I had long since stopped using it prior to my move to Windows XP X64, and while it does run fine on x64, I'm more then comfortable with OpenOffice now that I had no need for it. The document was created in OpenOffice 2.0 on Suse 10, it has been opened and edited on Microsoft Windows Professional, Microsoft Windows Professional x64, CentOS 4.3, Windows XP Home, Debian, Mandriva Linux 2006 and Fedora Core 4. Each time I opened it, I got the same document, across a swath of OS's, system and computers. This type of interoperability and reliability is something that is required in the world today: a guarantee that your data is there, and can be read, used and modified not only on today's equipment and software, but in the future as well.
As a parting point, as Linux improves its position on the desktop and Apple continues it's move in market share, an open set of rules can only benefit everyone; a format that easily moves from one system to another can only help the spread of information in our increasingly digital world. I fear the day that a document created in Office XP is needed and cannot be opened by the current Microsoft Office product, and Microsoft no longer grants activation on it's outdated software, rendering your data inaccessible. Perhaps not today, but in the future it will become apparent that the data itself and it's availability should define what software is used. Remember, it is your data, make sure it stays that way.
Reasoning Of Choice
Reposted from Inverted Dungeon, here is my commentary on Freedom and Formats
Introduction
I work with a wide variety of operating systems day to day, information can begin on Windows XP professional at work, move to Windows XP Professional x64 at home and be finalized on SUSE Linux 10. I'm not talking about pictures or movies or things of that nature, I'm talking about productivity files, text documents, spreadsheets and documentation. These are the files that I work with on a daily basis. These files are carried with me, edited, configured and worked on constantly. This need for a consistent environment across all platforms has led me to change my work environment at work and at home.
The need for standards
The first time I ever saw a need for a standard came a few years ago, I was working in a factory making synthetic materials and they ran Office 97 on all the machines in the office. One of night shift crew chiefs in his infinite wisdom, brought in a bootlegged copy of Office 2000 and installed it on the Crew Chief computer. Opening and saving certain files in Office 2000 changed the format of the files rendering them unusable to everyone running the older Office 97 system, which was everyone else in the plant. I've watched this happen a few times since then, when a migration from Windows NT Workstation to Windows 2000 would cause critical programs to no longer function, some of these were fixed with patches or upgrades from the programmers... some were not. The last time I saw this, was a customer of my current company who creates nose cones for NASA's space shuttles, they created everything in this archaic software.
When the computer's hard drive inevitably failed, it was then discovered that the version of the software they owned would not run on anything but windows 95 or 98. The company that created the software had since gone out of business. My company ended up installing windows 98 on a brand new Dell computer, so out there is a p4 2.8 ghz computer with 512 Mb of ram running windows 98 so this old software can be run. There is an update to the software out there, but it will not load their old project files.
My situation
I am not in a position where this has happened to me, but I am aware of the issue. All the documents I write, all the things I create, can be rendered obsolete by an upgrade from the Software provider. I don't like that at all, Enter Open Standards.
An Open Standard, is a set of rules that says “Everyone does it like this” so if you write a text file in an open standard, any software adhering to this standard will read your file and it will look exactly as it looked to you. And with this standard there is no additional cost for using such a standard, it comes with agreeing to follow the standard. OpenOffice.org is the first piece of software I'd like to touch on, OpenOffice is a great productivity suite, its an office client package, and with Version 2.0, it is Open Document compliant. OpenOffice also runs on a variety of platforms, meaning the interface and structure is the same when I'm on my Linux laptop as it is on my Windows desktop at work. As more and more of my common desktop environment becomes available on multiple operating systems, the less I am locked into a single vendor.
Office productivity
Lets face it, Microsoft Office is everywhere in a corporate environment, I've said in the past, that if Microsoft ever really wanted to kill apple's market, they would only have to stop creating Office X for Mac. No company would make the decision to outfit their company with Mac computers if there was no chance that their documents wouldn't fit the unwritten Microsoft Standards rule. There is an enthusiast market, and there is a corporate market, the enthusiast buys one copy of the software, the corporate market buys 5000 copies of the software, you can see where the money is made. This fits into the whole standards and compatibility like this, If your company creates documents and files, and when another company opens them, they do not look as expected, your company comes off looking poorly. When you create a document and when someone opens it and your pictures are all askew and the formating is wrong, your company looks low class.
This goes back to my earlier example, if I create something in Office XP and your company opens it in Office 97, it might look like hell or it might not even open at all, but if everyone followed an open format standard, it would look perfect across all platforms and operating systems. This is why Adobe has a stranglehold on the market, Adobe is Adobe is Adobe, if you want your stuff to look exactly as you see, you crank out a PDF and send that, when they open it in the free Adobe Reader or the Full version of the software, it is exactly what you saw when you created it. The other alternative is harder, to change the standard, to change the perception of a standard from the Microsoft Standard, to an actual standard.
In my workplace, Microsoft Office System 2003 is on my desktop, it is also on my laptop, it's installed on every desktop and a few of the servers here. For us, it is the system of choice for our productivity needs. But not for me, I've got 3 computers here at my desk, a windows workstation, a windows laptop and a Linux workstation. While the majority of the systems in this office are windows based, we have slowly been migrating machines to Linux, and in order to familiarize ourselves with it in a corporate world, My brother and I run Linux at work too. Microsoft Office does not natively run on Linux, while WINE and Codeweavers Crossover Office exist that can enable us to run Microsoft Office on our Linux machines, there is the license cost to consider, plus the best software for running MS Office on Linux, Crossover Office, is also a licensed product.
So from a cost prospective alone, it make sense for us to start changing the environment. OpenOffice.org is our new standard, I've got it on my workstations and my home computers, I can create a document here at work, save it to my USB key, load it on my Linux laptop at home and continue to work exactly as I did at work. Because Open Office can be run on both Linux and Windows, the software is the same, the interface is the same, and work continues as it should. If I'm in a position where the computer I'm working on is lacking Open Office.org, I know that its just a simple download and install to get it running on the computer, also there will be no licensing costs involved and if the computer has an open standard office client already, I'm good to go.
But what about the Microsoft Standard? Well, it goes back to Adobe here, Open Office has built in support for the creation of Adobe PDF files, again, this is free with the software, unlike with Microsoft Office, where to create a PDF of your word document, you need to purchase the full version of Adobe Acrobat, in OpenOffice.org, you just click the PDF button and your done. Also OpenOffice.org has compatibility with Microsoft Office documents, its not perfect, but it generally works well. However on the flip side, Microsoft has no Compatibility with Open Document format with their office suite and no plans in the works to implement such a Compatibility.
Comfort out of a windows world
By now, everyone has heard of or is using Mozilla Firefox. To continue using IE in its current state is a glorified nightmare, the browser is behind the times in features and contains more and more issues each passing day. From the ease in which spyware can be installed without asking for your consent to needing multiple windows to work in different pages, a move from IE to Mozilla or Mozilla-Firefox is not only a good idea, but necessary in this age of computing. More so then OpenOffice, Firefox is the starting point for a migration out of a windows world, An operating system change is a shock to the system, leaving you in an unfamiliar environment. But having programs that you are already comfortable using, available on different operating systems soothes those fears and gives you a starting point to learn and work with a new environment.
One of the first things installed on a new computer is an instant messager, be it yahoo instant messenger or AOL instant messenger. Communication with friends and family is important to a home user. Most IM programs come free, some, like AIM are equipped with advertisements or tool bars, but they are all saddled with a distinct limitation, they only work with a single client type. Multi-client tools do exist, such as trillian, however, products like trillian come at a price, not an excessive amount, but a price none the less. GAIM is a multi protocol system, working with, AIM, yahoo, jabber, ICQ and others. I prefer GAIM because it has a look and feel similar to AIM in windows. GAIM's instant message windows are tabbed, in much the same way as Firefox's browser window is, allowing better Communication in a smaller area.
This document has meandered a bit from what it was originally envisioned as being, So lets steer it back onto that road. I'm migrating to an Open standard of living. While I have a fully licensed copy of Office System 2003 sitting on my desk, I'm not using it, I had long since stopped using it prior to my move to Windows XP X64, and while it does run fine on x64, I'm more then comfortable with OpenOffice now that I had no need for it. The document was created in OpenOffice 2.0 on Suse 10, it has been opened and edited on Microsoft Windows Professional, Microsoft Windows Professional x64, CentOS 4.3, Windows XP Home, Debian, Mandriva Linux 2006 and Fedora Core 4. Each time I opened it, I got the same document, across a swath of OS's, system and computers. This type of interoperability and reliability is something that is required in the world today: a guarantee that your data is there, and can be read, used and modified not only on today's equipment and software, but in the future as well.
As a parting point, as Linux improves its position on the desktop and Apple continues it's move in market share, an open set of rules can only benefit everyone; a format that easily moves from one system to another can only help the spread of information in our increasingly digital world. I fear the day that a document created in Office XP is needed and cannot be opened by the current Microsoft Office product, and Microsoft no longer grants activation on it's outdated software, rendering your data inaccessible. Perhaps not today, but in the future it will become apparent that the data itself and it's availability should define what software is used. Remember, it is your data, make sure it stays that way.