Re: [OOo-Hebrew] DAISY xml for blind users

Hi Micha,
Your note that "Microsoft has released a plug-in for Word to convert Open 
XML to DAISY format" is a bit premature. In fact, Microsoft only announced 
that they intend to start a project to this end and have contracted with 
Sonata to do the development. You should view this mostly as propaganda.

The Microsoft announcement is probably a reaction to the additions to ODF 
announced in http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-02-14.php that 
are intended to enable assistive technologies and to the announcement of a 
review document for ODF accessibility last month in 
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200710/msg00010.html

See background to this issue at http://blogs.sun.com/korn/date/20051113 
(published at the same time as Microsoft's announcement).

IBM is also committed to this, see
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer?tag=ODF

So there is no setback here, quite the opposite. Microsoft does not have 
to go through the public review process that a consortium like OASIS has 
to have, so they are able to bang out a plug-in (an announcement really at 
this point in time) without consulting anyone. Standards-based development 
requires some patience because of its democratic aspect. And note that 
according to most reports the MS plug-in will force you to upgrade and will 
have to be ported to non-Microsoft OS's.

If you look at the care that the OASIS group is giving for details such as 
pagination preservation I think that you will see that this is a turtle vs 
hare (rabbit) race. OASIS will be there in the end with a product that has 
better features and is supported across all platforms.
Shavua Tov,

  - yba


On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Micha Silver wrote:

> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:12:27 +0200
> From: Micha Silver <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [OOo-Hebrew] DAISY xml for blind users
> 
> Microsoft has released a plugin for Word to convert Open XML to DAISY format 
> for blind computer users.:
> http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-13DAISYPR.mspx
>
> Anyone know what Openoffice offers on this accessibility issue? This could be 
> a serious setback for ODF in the fight against Microsoft's non-open "Open 
> XML".
>
> Micha
> --
> Hebrew OpenOffice Mailing List [email protected]
> To unsubscribe see: http://openoffice.org.il/mailman/listinfo/hebrew
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