[NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC Survey Results Analysis - Part I

[Seun Ojedeji]

Wearing my FOSS hat as the Council Chair of FOSSFA[1], I wholeheartedly
support the suggestion to be libre in our choice of tools.
I believe there are many other FOSS members on this list that would be
willing to help in anyway required.

Regards
1. http://fossfa.net
sent from Google nexus 4
kindly excuse brevity and typos.
On 25 Apr 2015 12:33, "Timothe Litt" <litt at acm.org> wrote:

>  On 24-Apr-15 23:35, Norbert Klein wrote:
>
> "ICANN needs to invest in a higher quality or easier to use proprietary
> work space than we have now."
>
> And in this context also the use of Proprietary *OR* Open Source software
> should be considered. Not everybody has all he newest expensive Proprietary
> Software, to read files that come with for example the .docx and similar
> extensions.
>
>
> I support (and participate in the development of) open source solutions.
> And of course documents need to be available to all members.
>
> However, note that M$ does provide free viewers for all versions of office
> documents - see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/891090.  This
> includes both stand-alone viewers and compatibility packs for older
> versions of Office.  Further, .docx is an ECMA (376) and now ISO (ISO/IEC
> 29500-4 standard.  And *.docx can be both read and written by OpenOffice,
> LibreOffice, and others*.  This is one area in which M$ has moved from
> its proprietary (word .DOC, excel .xls, etc) solutions toward more open
> solutions.    So there are non-proprietary, open-source and free (as in
> beer) solutions for accessing these files.  M$ still deviates from the
> standards from time to time, so compatibility isn't perfect, but over time
> the FOSS solutions adapt.  I'm no apologist for M$, but credit where it's
> due.
>
> Personally, I've switched to Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail and OpenOffice
> for most documents... compatibility withs M$ docs isn't perfect, but it's
> quite good.  I18n support is good.  Standard distributions of OpenOffice
> are windows, linux & OS/X.  There are also stable ports to Android and
> Windows portable.  And Solaris (though I think the Solaris ports are a
> major version behind).
>
> With respect to a workspace/wiki, there are a number of choices.  I use
> TWiki (www.twiki.org); it's open source, fairly easy to setup and has a
> small learning curve for simple tasks.  It has a WYSIWYG editor.  It can be
> customized for complex tasks and has a broad user base.  Changes are
> tracked and can be reverted.  Drawback is that if you want to do complex
> formatting, you probably need to learn its markup language.  A fork,
> foswiki (www.foswiki.org), has more features and developers, but release
> timing has been erratic.  Both have I18n support.  Full disclosure: I have
> contributed to both.
>
> Another FOSS alternative is MediaWiki, which is what underlies Wikipedia.
> It requires more setup.  It's familiar to many because of Wikipedia, but as
> far as I know has no WYSIWYG editor.  There are others.
>
> All on-line services - and especially Wikis - require maintenance and
> management.  They are not free to operate; they will be assaulted by
> wiki-spam, vandals and probes for security issues.  It takes time and
> energy to stay up-to-date with patches, updates, and whatever
> customizations you're lured into making.  There will be user question &
> bugs.  And don't forget backups - because if your security provisions don't
> fail, hardware will :-)
>
> So while these can be a valuable resource, they are not projects to be
> taken-on lightly.  Ugly as the ICANN Wiki is, it's maintained by someone
> else...
>
> All tools have a learning curve for both users and operators.  I urge a
> careful evaluation of the advantages, disadvantages, costs - and long-term
> commitment to support - before going off on your own.  Again, it's not a
> commitment to be make lightly.
>
>
> Timothe Litt
> ACM Distinguished Engineer
> --------------------------
> This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,
> if any, on the matters discussed.
>
>
>
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>
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