User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

User initiative for improving OOXMLintegration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org Dr. Matthias Stürmer, Ernst & Young Switzerland October 14th 2011, LibreOffice Conference, Paris

Short bio of Matthias Stürmer Matthias Stürmer studied business administration and computer science at University of Bern until 2005 and finished his doctoral dissertation at the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation at ETH Zürich in 2009. His research focused on open source communities and firm involvement, the title of his PhD thesis is "How Firms Make Friends: Communities in Private-Collective Innovation". He then worked for one year at Liip AG, a Swiss software company creating agile Internet solutions based on openDr. Matthias Stürmer source technologies.Senior AdvisorErnst & Young AG Since 2010 he is Senior Advisor at Ernst & Young in BernBelpstrasse 23 specializing on open source, open government data, and3001 Bern social media.Switzerland Matthias Stürmer is member of the board of Swiss Openmatthias.stuermer@ch.ey.comWork: +41 58 286 61 97 System User Group /ch/open, secretary of the SwissMobile: +41 58 289 61 97 Parliamentarian Group for Digital Sustainability, and project leader of www.opensource.ch and other open source initiatives. 2 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Agenda1. Why promoting a proprietary format?2. Workshop schedule and participants3. Summary of the workshop4. Results and next steps 3 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Why promoting a proprietary format?To increase adoption of LibreOffice! 4 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Motivation of the initiative Currently Microsofts Office Open XML (OOXML) format is not well integrated in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org. However, this is necessary to successfully complete and maintain migrations towards LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org. Today various public institutions have switched to LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org and fully use the Open Document Format (ODF) internally. Nevertheless citizens, businesses, NGOs, and other public stakeholders continue to send OOXML documents, especially .docx files. These external stakeholders expect that the public institution are able to handle such files. 5 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Major technical issues Opening OOXML formats is possible with current versions of LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org Unknown if visualization is conform to Microsoft Office 20XX Most relevant OOXML support issues: Layout of .docx documents regarding frames, images, tables, enumerations, header/footers etc. Fonts embedding (resulting in wrong or different layout of documents) Comments layout and editing in .docx and .xslx Change tracking within .docx files 6 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Collective action problem in open source projects “Scratching a developers itch” does not always work for public administrations because they have different itches. While open source projects bring great advantages for their users, it inherently bears the problem of „collective action“. Although it would be beneficial for all users to implement enhancements in open source projects, no single stakeholder is willing to invest sufficient resources to accomplish this considerable development effort alone while all the other beneficiaries would free-ride on the solution. Therefore often status quo does not represent the optimum. In order to solve this challenge coordinated action among the stakeholders is necessary. 7 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

How to solve the collective action problem Phase 1: Initialization a) Mobilize attention and interest of several open source software users b) Create clear and common understanding of the issues, ask the experts c) Aggregate and specify the requirements, prioritize and cluster them Phase 2: Funding a) Organize coordination for Request for Proposals (RFP) b) Send out specification to potential implementers c) Do fundraising for the best proposal Phase 3: Implementation a) Organize project management, sign contracts, start implementing b) Do testing among the open source software users, finalize development c) Publish resulting source code, pass it upstream to the open source project 8 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

2. Workshop schedule and participantsWho is who 9 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Workshop location and schedule October 10/11, 2011 at Ernst & Young in Zürich Day 1: Identification of common issues (users) Technical challenges and innovative solutions regarding OOXML (developers) Day 2: Specification of use cases regarding requirements and technical aspects (users and developers in groups) Discussion and prioritization of use cases (all) Funding models of implementation phase (users) 10 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Participating organizations Public Institutions City of Freiburg i.B. City of München City of Jena Swiss Federal Court Federal Strategy Unit for IT (ISB) Another Swiss federal agency Canton of Vaud Community organizations Association Swiss Open Systems User Group /ch/open Association Freies Office Deutschland e.V. (former association OpenOffice.org Deutschland e.V.) Open Source Business Alliance OSBA (merger of Linux-Verband and Lisog) 11 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Workshop participants Public administration: LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org/OOXML: Rüdiger Czieschla, City of Freiburg Thorsten Behrens, Novell Andreas Kawohl, City of Freiburg Florian Reuter, self-employed developer Andor Ertsey, City of München Svante Schubert, self-employed developer Dr. Jutta Kreyss, City of München Thomas Uhl, Open Source Business Alliance Dr. Martin Reinhardt, City of Jena Dr. Frank Siebert, Freies Office Deutschland e.V. Dr. Harro Rosner, City of Jena Lothar K. Becker, Freies Office Deutschland e.V. Marc von Weissenfluh, Swiss Federal Court Mario Wendt, Microsoft Daniel Brunner, Swiss Federal Court Stefan Stüring, KO GmbH Tobias Hintze, KO GmbH Jos van den Oever, KO GmbH Ernst & Young: Dr. Matthias Stürmer, workshop leader Mario Aeby, assistent 12 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

3. Summary of the workshopMethod on how to bring public administrators and open source developers to collaborate 13 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Challenges Stakeholders Users: public institutions Developers: LibreOffice and OOXML filter programmers Challenges Huge knowledge gap: terminology, standard specification, structures and processes within public administrations etc. Different perspectives: input oriented vs. output oriented Different interests: perfect implementation vs. solving problem How to bring them and collaborate together? 14 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Example: technical insight for users (like myself ;) Important difference between a) error in OOXML filter b) missing OOXML feature within LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org What does that mean? a) Little effort to correct OOXML filter b) Large effort to implement new office feature Example of not correctly displayed OOXML standard: Alternating row colors of tables within .docx files Little effort to hard format colors (however loss of information) Large effort to program this feature in office application, missing feature in ODF standard 15 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Structure of a use case 16 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Positioning of the identified use cases 1000 days possible show strategic 100 days stoppers featuresEstimated effort→ defined by developers 10 days low special hanging wishes fruits 1 day today ½ year 1 year 3 years Priority regarding implementation → defined by users (public institutions) 17 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

18User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

4. Results and next steps“Correct presentation of OOXML documents in open source office applications” 19 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Most urgent use cases - low hanging fruits? Use case bundle is called “Layout-preserving view of OOXML documents in open source office applications” Targeted use cases: 1. Formatting of frames and images within .docx 2. Formatting of tables within .docx 3. Formatting of lists and numbers within .docx 4. Formatting of comments within .docx and .xlsx 5. Font embedding for both OOXML and ODF Every use case is specified by test documents 20 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Current status of the user initiative Phase 1: Initialization a) Mobilize attention and interest of several open source software users b) Create clear and common understanding of the issues, ask the experts c) Aggregate and specify the requirements, prioritize and cluster them Phase 2: Funding a) Organize coordination for Request for Proposals (RFP) b) Send out specification to potential implementers c) Do fundraising for the best proposal Phase 3: Implementation a) Organize project management, sign contracts with implementers b) Do testing among the open source software users, finalize development c) Publish resulting source code, pass it upstream to the open source project 21 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

InitializationPhase 2: Funding Funding ImplemetationFunding model “intermediary”: Problem: Public procurement regulations requires clear results Funding partner 1 for spoken money Funding partner 2 Intermediary: Implementing Funding partner 3 Coordination company and contracts Funding partner 4 Funding partner 5 Funding partner X 22 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

InitializationPhase 2: Funding Funding ImplemetationFunding model “cake slices”:Technically there is one Legally there are several contractsjob to do: the cake which each define some specific requirements: the slicesFunding partner 1Funding partner 2Funding partner 3 Intermediary: Coordination ImplementingFunding partner 4 but no contracts companyFunding partner 5Funding partner X There will be one implementing company that makes several contracts 23 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Call to action to LibreOffice community Please support and promote and dont hinder the initiative Provide feedback on the specification once published Offer your programming services once RFP is out Start programming today without pay ;) Thank you for your support! 24 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

Comments, Questions Dr. Matthias Stürmer matthias.stuermer@ch.ey.com +41 58 286 61 97 All text and image content in this document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License (unless otherwise specified). "LibreOffice" and "The Document Foundation" are registered trademarks. Their respective logos and icons are subject to international copyright laws. The use of these therefore is subject to the trademark policy. 25 User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

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User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org

by Matthias Stürmer on Oct 14, 2011

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User initiative for improving OOXML integration in LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org — Presentation Transcript