[Plugtest-org] Presentation Proposal

Louis Suárez-Potts luispo at gmail.com
Thu Mar 1 22:19:45 CET 2012


Hi,
I'd like to submit my proposal for a presentation at the Brussels plugfest upcoming. 
--louis

--

ODF in your hands now
-louis suarez-potts
President, Age of Peers


This presentation has two parts. The first is an account of the ODF ecosystem. The second relates to a proposal engaging that ecosystem's resources.


Technical papers on the immediate future of the ODF, e.g., on ODF 1.3, are being presented this slugfest.What I would like to do here is argue for a direction I believe important to go in, and also promote a large-scale strategy for getting there. My argument for a preferred direction relates, I realize more to implementations of the ODF than to the ODF itself. In this particular case, however, I don't think that distinction much matters, as I am not speaking on behalf of any particular implementation. 

I want to see an ODF editor on handheld mobile devices this year. I am not alone. The anticipation and excitement greeting OnLive's iPad app, which supports some editing features for Microsoft file formats, suggests the volume of desire for having a mobile productivity tool. Given the growth of the ODF, and the safe guess that there will be even more millions of users in the next few years, as more students and government office workers start using implementations of the ODF, there is strong reason to believe that devices supporting ODF editing apps will be much in demand. 

Yet, though viewers of ODF files exist (most recently, Symphony's), to date, there is no actual app that can work on any Android or iOS device. The reasons for that lack are both obvious and subtle, but as I shall argue here, the need for such an app (or family of apps) overwhelms them. The resources required can be met, I will further suggest, by several means, all within reach, and all within the ODF ecosystem. 


More information about the plugtest-organisers mailing list