Open Norway: Norwegian Broadcasting Moves to OpenOffice and ODF
Norway's national broadcasting and TV facility NRK is intent on using the Open Document Format as a standard and is therefore changing its clients over to OpenOffice.
Norway appreciates free standards. After the government a year ago recommended Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Ogg Theora next to their commercial alternatives MP3 and H.264 as standards for audio and video files, this year it focuses on ODF as the standard document format. According to the governmnent's Reference Catalog for IT Standards, the recommendation should become binding in January of 2011.
The first larger institution, Norway's national radio and TV corporation, Norsk rikkringkasting (NRK), is now taking the move to OpenOffice seriously. The conversion is based on the better ODF support, therefore the NRK is running many of its clients on Mac OS X because the Mac version of Microsoft's Office Suite doesn't support the open document format. Another reason for the move is the Microsoft Office licensing costs.
From the first of March the majority of the 4,300 NRK clients will run OpenOffice as the standard. The 850 or so Mac systems will get OpenOffice installed in the coming weeks, even thin clients will use it. Only administrative systems will continue to use both office suite versions, with users to decide which one they prefer.
Successful Pilot Project
Before the announced conversion, the NRK has already begun a successful pilot project in Tyholt that, according to project leader Steinar Bjørlykke, surprisingly went without a hitch. Only a couple of Visual Basic scripts and template layouts caused some problems with a few documents with embedded audio files, which was resolved with some plugins. Visual Basic was to be avoided as much as possible for the scripting problem.
A benefit was also noticed in that OpenOffice opened some Word and Excel documents significantly faster than the corresponding Microsoft programs.
Source: NRKbeta site
Comments
comments powered by DisqusIssue 244/2021
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Another New Linux Laptop has Arrived
Slimbook has released a monster of a Linux gaming laptop.
-
Mozilla VPN Now Available for Linux
The promised subscription-based VPN service from Mozilla is now available for the Linux platform.
-
Wayland and New App Menu Coming to KDE
The 2021 roadmap for the KDE desktop environment includes some exciting features and improvements.
-
Deepin 20.1 has Arrived
Debian-based Deepin 20.1 has been released with some interesting new features.
-
CloudLinux Commits Over 1 Million Dollars to CentOS Replacement
An open source, drop-in replacement for CentOS is on its way.
-
Linux Mint 20.1 Beta has Been Released
The first beta of Linux Mint, Ulyssa, is now available for downloading.
-
Manjaro Linux 20.2 has Been Unleashed
The latest iteration of Manjaro Linux has been released with a few interesting new features.
-
Patreon Project Looks to Bring Linux to Apple Silicon
Developer Hector Martin has created a patreon page to fund his work on developing a port of Linux for Apple Silicon Macs.
-
A New Chrome OS-Like Ubuntu Remix is Now Available
Ubuntu Web looks to be your Chrome OS alternative.
-
System76 Refreshes the Galago Pro Laptop
Linux hardware maker has revamped one of their most popular laptops.
Norway richest country in the world