ODF Alliance: Microsoft Support for ODF is Lacking
The Open Document Format (ODF) Alliance has analyzed whether Microsoft’s Service Pack 2 for Office 2007 fulfills the promise for compatibility with the free document standard. Their findings give little reason to hope.
The standard organization sees the conversion as a kind of litmus test to see just how serious Microsoft is regarding interoperability. Upon analysis, the enterprise has apparently not done a particularly good job of realizing this aim: "unfortunately, serious shortcomings have been identified in Microsoft’s support for ODF.“, stated Marino Marcich (director of the ODF Alliance). “A number of basic interoperability tests between Microsoft Office 2007 and various ODF-supporting software suites revealed that the level of interoperability is far short of what governments around the world are demanding”, according to Marcich. For example, simple spread sheet functions such as addition do not function under the conversion as well as page numbers, diagrams, and other objects are simply missing when opened in the tests.
In addition, the standards activist Rob Weir a couple of days ago came to a similar conclusion using Excel 2007 with Service Pack 2. Pamela Jones of the legal platform Groklaw was also of the mind that Microsoft had failed to deliver „To Microsoft, vendor lock-in is not a bug, I suspect, but a feature.” She elaborated by explaining she never expected a change of opinion regarding the enterprise, but felt for the various worldwide governments truly trying to attain electronic communication interoperability for their citizens. ODF Alliance boss Marcich also sees this goal as endangered with Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Office 2007: “Putting potentially millions of ODF files into circulation that are non-interoperable and incompatible with the ODF support provided by other vendors is a recipe for fragmentation.”
The test results are available as a Fact Sheet on the ODF Alliance Web site.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.