Hello,
I would like to publish that for Document Freedom day and I would like your feedback before as well as your propositions to make it a better text.
http://hugoroy.eu/open-standards-att.php
= Send me attachments I can read, use open standards! =
There are many ways to share documents, files and data over the Internet. Among them, emails are often used to do so, because whoever has an email address can send and receive emails freely. People from one mail server[1] to another can communicate without any difficulty. Why is it working so simply? Because emails are designed to use a set of open standards[2], based on the Internet protocols.
However sometimes, people send attachments along with their emails, and it happens frequently that the attachments cannot be read by your correspondent. For example, many attached files are documents produced by word processors and they can be impossible to read correctly if you don't have the same word processor.
This is often the case when using proprietary word processors. These programs don't use open standards, but they use proprietary file formats[3] instead. In 2002, a campaign was started to put an end to Word attachments. However, this is also true for all kinds of documents and files: texts, spreadsheets, slides, videos, etc.
When you attach a file to an email, please make sure that your correspondent will be able to read your files correctly. It is a basic principle of courtesy. There is an easy way to make sure it is possible: use open standards. If you do so, your correspondent will have the possibility to choose which program he or she wants.
Moreover, by promoting open standards you will help everyone: sharing documents can be as easy as sending and receiving emails! If you receive an email using proprietary file formats, don't hesitate to share this page.
Campaigns for Open Standards
* Document Freedom Day * Play Ogg and rOgg On!
Organisations and Software supporting Open Standards
* OpenOffice.org * VideoLan, the project making VLC * Free Software Foundation Europe support Open Standards
Footnotes:
1. ^ Mail servers transfer emails from one computer to another. For more information, you can read the Wikipedia 2. ^ Open Standards are protocols and file formats that can be freely used and implemented, and are designed in an open process. For more information, see the Open Standards definition. 3. ^ Microsoft Office by default save your files in the ".doc" format or the ".docx" format. If you share these documents with people using different word processors, it will not be working properly. Good alternatives for Microsoft Word are documents in .RTF or in .ODT (use the "Save As" feature)
Hugo Roy hugo@fsfe.org writes:
I would like to publish that for Document Freedom day and I would like your feedback before as well as your propositions to make it a better text.
Is there some mailing list where one can discuss Document Freedom Day? I spent a while browsing http://documentfreedom.org but only found twitter and identica.
Eventually I put my ideas to http://documentfreedom.org/Talk:Open_Standards but I'm not sure if this is the right place.
hi Timo,
* Timo Juhani Lindfors timo.lindfors@iki.fi [2010-03-30 18:51:06 +0300]:
Eventually I put my ideas to http://documentfreedom.org/Talk:Open_Standards but I'm not sure if this is the right place.
Feel free to discuss this topic here.
Best wishes, Matthias
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org writes:
Feel free to discuss this topic here.
Ok. I'll start new thread. Should this be mentioned on
http://www.documentfreedom.org/Get_Involved
? If somebody who does not known FSFE visits www.documentfreedom.org he/she is not easily going to guess that he should join discussion@fsfeurope.org to send feedback.
Hello,
A new version is available at: http://hugoroy.eu/open-standards-att.php
Send me attachments I can read, use open standards!
There are many ways to share documents, files and data over the Internet. Among them, emails are often used because people can communicate from one mail server1 to another without any difficulty. Why does it work so simply? Because emails are designed to use a set of open standards2, based on the Internet protocols.
However, sometimes people send attachments along with their emails, and it happens frequently that the attachments cannot be read by the recipients. For example, many attached files are documents produced by word processors and it can be impossible to read them correctly if you do not have the same word processor. Many proprietary word processors use proprietary file formats3. In 2002, a campaign was started to put an end to Word attachments. But the same is true for all kinds of documents and files: texts, spreadsheets, slides, videos, etc.
When you attach a file to an email, please make sure that your correspondent will be able to read your files correctly. It is a basic principle of courtesy. And there is an easy way to make sure it is possible: use open standards. If you do so, your correspondent will have the possibility to choose which program he or she wants. Open standards guarantee sustainability and interoperability for your data, making sure you will be able to access them in the future, even with another software, on another platform or operating system.
Moreover, by promoting open standards you will help everyone: sharing documents can be as easy as sending and receiving emails! If you receive an email using proprietary file formats, don't hesitate to share this page and explain why it is important to use Open Standards.
Campaigns for Open Standards
* Document Freedom Day * Play Ogg and rOgg On!
On Document Freedom Day, the FSF started a campaign to call on computer users to start politely rejecting proprietary attachments.
Organisations and Software supporting Open Standards
* OpenOffice.org * VideoLan, the project making VLC * Free Software Foundation Europe support Open Standards
1. ^ Mail servers transfer emails from one computer to another. For more information, you can check Wikipedia 2. ^ Open Standards are protocols and file formats that can be freely used and implemented, and are designed in an open process. For more information, see the Open Standards definition. 3. ^ Microsoft Office by default save your files in the ".doc" format or the ".docx" format. If you share these documents with people using different word processors, it will not work properly. Good alternatives for Microsoft Word are documents in .RTF or in .ODT (use the "Save As" feature)
Hugo Roy hugo@fsfe.org wrote:
I would like to publish that for Document Freedom day and I would like your feedback before as well as your propositions to make it a better text.
When you attach a file to an email, please make sure that your correspondent will be able to read your files correctly. It is a basic principle of courtesy. There is an easy way to make sure it is possible: use open standards. If you do so, your correspondent will have the possibility to choose which program he or she wants.
For many formats my choice is not to install anything and that choice is file format independent.
For example I'm currently not aware of a proper ODF reader I'd want to install on systems I care about, in fact I'm not even aware of something similar to antiword, which mostly works to get the information I care about out of doc files, has a reasonable list of dependencies, doesn't take ages to compile and is easy enough to audit and use.
Organisations and Software supporting Open Standards
* OpenOffice.org * VideoLan, the project making VLC
Given that the page is about email attachments I don't think VLC should be mentioned here.
- ^ Microsoft Office by default save your files in the ".doc" format
... Word ... saves ...
or the ".docx" format. If you share these documents with people using different word processors, it will not be working properly. Good alternatives for Microsoft Word are documents in .RTF or in .ODT (use the "Save As" feature)
Most of the time an even better option is to simply copy and paste the frickin' content into the email directly, as the recipient is unlikely to care about the fancy layout anyway, and if she does, she can always request the source file. It also saves bandwidth and makes discussing the content easier.
Fabian
hi Fabian,
* Fabian Keil freebsd-listen@fabiankeil.de [2010-03-30 19:59:00 +0200]:
For example I'm currently not aware of a proper ODF reader I'd want to install on systems I care about, in fact I'm not even aware of something similar to antiword, which mostly works to get the information I care about out of doc files, has a reasonable list of dependencies, doesn't take ages to compile and is easy enough to audit and use.
For e-mail I use
odt2txt - simple converter from OpenDocument Text to plain text
it works quite well.
Organisations and Software supporting Open Standards
* OpenOffice.org * VideoLan, the project making VLCGiven that the page is about email attachments I don't think VLC should be mentioned here.
What about Ogg Vorbis audio files?
or the ".docx" format. If you share these documents with people using different word processors, it will not be working properly. Good alternatives for Microsoft Word are documents in .RTF or in .ODT (use the "Save As" feature)
Most of the time an even better option is to simply copy and paste the frickin' content into the email directly, as the recipient is unlikely to care about the fancy layout anyway, and if she does, she can always request the source file. It also saves bandwidth and makes discussing the content easier.
That is a good point. In a lot of cases it is much better to just add the content in the e-mail directly.
Best wishes, Matthias
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org wrote:
- Fabian Keil freebsd-listen@fabiankeil.de [2010-03-30 19:59:00 +0200]:
For example I'm currently not aware of a proper ODF reader I'd want to install on systems I care about, in fact I'm not even aware of something similar to antiword, which mostly works to get the information I care about out of doc files, has a reasonable list of dependencies, doesn't take ages to compile and is easy enough to audit and use.
For e-mail I use
odt2txt - simple converter from OpenDocument Text to plain text
it works quite well.
Interesting, thanks. I'll look into it as soon as I receive the first ODT file whose content I care about ...
Organisations and Software supporting Open Standards
* OpenOffice.org * VideoLan, the project making VLCGiven that the page is about email attachments I don't think VLC should be mentioned here.
What about Ogg Vorbis audio files?
I don't think they belong into attachments. Obviously I don't mind getting links to them, though.
Fabian
hi Hugo,
* Hugo Roy hugo@fsfe.org [2010-03-30 17:34:21 +0200]:
When you attach a file to an email, please make sure that your correspondent will be able to read your files correctly. It is a basic principle of courtesy. There is an easy way to make sure it is possible: use open standards. If you do so, your correspondent will have the possibility to choose which program he or she wants.
Perhaps it would be good to have a list of different attachements. For example: - Text: Include it directly in the e-mail. If it has more formating there are other options like html, tex, rtf, odt, ... - Audio: Use ogg vorbis, or if you need a better quality flac. - Images: ...
Beside that I like the text.
Best wishes, Matthias
hi Hugo,
- Hugo Roy hugo@fsfe.org [2010-03-30 17:34:21 +0200]:
When you attach a file to an email, please make sure that your correspondent will be able to read your files correctly. It is a basic principle of courtesy. There is an easy way to make sure it is possible: use open standards. If you do so, your correspondent will have the possibility to choose which program he or she wants.
Perhaps it would be good to have a list of different attachements. For example:
- Text: Include it directly in the e-mail. If it has more formating there are other options like html, tex, rtf, odt, ...
it has more formating -> it needs more formating ?
Somebody already made the point that often formating isn't needed even if it's already present and accessibility / portability / bigger audience might be more interesting.
On the other hand. RTF is open in any way ? It's been ages since I last tried but I think not even one version of MS Office could open another version of MS Office rtf docs correctly. Let alone third party apps. It had a published especification by a single party that changed it with every revision of some of its software.
- Audio: Use ogg vorbis, or if you need a better quality flac.
- Images: ...
That's if you can't do anything better than attach huge files to mails, but that's probably another story.
Beside that I like the text.
Me too, thanks.
And for me the page at http://documentfreedom.org/Open_Standards is well meant and in the right direction, but needs more work, in the lines of what was already pointed out in this list. I'm not sure I could really improve it and keep it simple and short. But tha twas another thread or the wiki, I guess...
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org writes:
- Audio: Use ogg vorbis, or if you need a better quality flac.
Or, if you need specifically human speech, use Speex.
- Images: ...
Fortunately there aren't many problems using free software for the popular image formats. SVG for vector images, PNG for lossless raster images, and JPEG for lossy raster image compression. (The patents against JPEG can, in my not-a-lawyer opinion, be ignored as no more dangerous than any software idea patent.)