ODF – The Key to Preserving Government

Data

Dr. Yusseri Md. Yusoff

CTO of Omnilogic Sdn Bhd
on behalf of
The Malaysian Open Source Software Alliance
(MOSSA)
We'd put a logo here, except that we can't decide which one ...
 Outline

● Standards – use of, abuse of

● ODF – ISO/IEC 26300:2006
– International standard with overall goodness
● Reasons for Having a Standardised Document Format
● Examples of ODF in action
● Conclusions
● Questions
 Standards

● Standards are, at its core:

– An agreed way to do something
– NOT an application
● ergo, independent of implementation
– A mechanism to ensure competition
● which is different from competitiveness
– Often subject to manipulation by interested parties
(Trivial) Example of a Standard

● Consider the example on

the left
– Three soft drinks bottles
(contents drank by
presenter beforehand)
– 1 Kickapoo Joy Juice
– 1 100plus Lemon Lime
– 1 Coca-cola
(Trivial) Example of a Standard, con't

● Now, the bottles have

their caps swapped
around
– Kickapoo bottle, 100plus
cap
– 100plus bottle, Kickapoo
cap
– Coke bottle, PepsiMax
cap
 (Trivial) Example of a Standard, con't

● In the example given, we consider the caps to be

adhering to a set standard. As such, the caps can be
swapped around.
● Extensive experimentation have shown this to be true
for all 1.5 litre soft drink bottles and their caps.
– As such, manufacturers of soft drinks can pick and
choose which suppliers of bottles and caps to use, as
long as they adhere to the standard cap size
 The Open Document Format – ISO/IEC
26300:2006

● The OpenDocument format is a file format for

– word processing documents, presentations,
spreadsheets and charts
● First developed by the Open Office XML Technical
Committee of the Organisation for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
– based on the file format used by OpenOffice.org
 ODF is an Open Standard

● ODF is an Open Standard – NOT an Open Source

software project
– freely available, unencumbered by royalty claims or
other Intellectual Property Rights shenanigans
– Key contributor, Sun Microsystems have made an
irrevocable intellectual property covenant on their
patents, see:
● http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php
– Specs can be downloaded at:
● http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
Reasons for having a standardised
document format
 Big Picture View

● Not beholden to a single vendor for your documents

● Sovereignty and security
● Freedom of choice
● Ownership of your data forever (or until your hard disk
dies)
(All the above are more or less the same thing)
 Pragmatic View

● Version incompatibility (theoretically) eliminated

– e.g. Microsoft Word '97 cannot open Microsoft Word XP
documents
● Application incompatibility (also theoretically)
eliminated
– e.g. Documents can be passed around by/to users of
Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, Koffice, Corel
WordPerfect, Lotus SmartSuite, IBM WebSphere, Sun
StarOffice, GNUmeric, ABIword, ekcetera
– Formatting would be preserved
 Pragmatic View, con't

● Potentially saves money

– e.g. Retail copy of Microsoft Office 2007:
– Basic = 530, Small Business Edition = 745, Professional = 990
– e.g. Retail copy of OpenOffice.org:
– Downloadable for free from http://www.openoffice.org/
● BUT, it's not a zero-sum game.
 Reasons for having a standardised
document format, con't

● To expand, using ODF does not mean that you MUST

use OpenOffice.org.
– OpenOffice.org may not be suitable for your needs
– You have a budget which allows you to buy another
office suite, and you like that office suite better
● But not everyone you interact with can afford to
purchase your preferred office suite
Holding on to your data (a.k.a. the fallacy of
diminishing vendor support)
● We are not under any extreme risk of Microsoft pulling
support of their document formats
– Try hard enough, and you'd still be able to open Word
2.0 documents
● But we should strive for the decoupling of applications
from their formats anyway
– e.g. SQL databases (Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL,
PostgresQL)
– e.g. JPEG images (digital cameras, Picasa, Adobe
Photoshop, GIMP)
● The same should apply for document formats
ODF In Action
ODF in OpenOffice.org on Linux
ODF in OpenOffice.org on Windows XP
Professional SP 2
ODF in Microsoft Word 2003
ODF in Microsoft Word 2003, con't
 When All Else Fails ...

● In a scenario where all you have is a computer and

NO office suite, content can still be accessed.
● ODF is stored in a ZIP file
● Uncompress file, and look at content
When All Else Fails ...
When All Else Fails ...
When All Else Fails ...
Conclusions
 Conclusions

● ODF is just a file format – a container, if you like.

● As an ISO standard, ODF should be universally
applicable.
● Adoption of ODF brings benefits, some of which are
rather intangible (rather like insurance – you don't
need insurance except when you need it).
● Widespread adoption of ODF means freedom of
choice, and
● The guaranteed preservation of your data, for all time.
Wut?
 Thank You

email: yusseri@omnilogic.com.my
website: http://www.omnilogic.com.my/
phone: +60378801601
futher reading: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/