> On Thursday 17 November 2011 12:56:56 pm Calvin Morrison wrote:
>> On 17 November 2011 12:47, Darrell Anderson <humanreadable@...>
>> wrote:
>> > > Excuse me if I jump in the discussion just to put my 2
>> > > cents about the editor.
>> > > What about the good old LyX?
>> > >
>> > > http://www.lyx.org/
>> > >
>> > > It's easy to use, it outputs LaTeX, it's multi-platform and
>> > > it's Free
>> > > Software.
>> >
>> > Lyx is a front-end wrapper to LaTeX. Basically then we're back to
>> > discussing markup. :) Lyx could be an option for some documentation
>> > teams, but the internal team still needs to learn LaTex. Doable if
>> those
>> > involved have the time for that kind of thing. :)
>> >
>> > Much of our recent discussion has been how to encourage non team
>> members
>> > to contribute where nothing more than everyday word processor skills
>> are
>> > expected.
>> >
>> > For internal purposes the leading focus is using a format that is
>> > maintainable in GIT for merging collaborative changes in a team
>> > environment. Hence the arguments in favor of markup, which is text
>> based.
>> > I think we have agreed to ODT, which fundamentally is XML, which is
>> text
>> > based.
>> >
>> > ODT allows writers to use any software supporting that format and does
>> > not limit contributors to a specific tool chain.
>> >
>> > Darrell
>>
>> Actually I am almost certain only LibreOffice and the now dead
>> OpenOffice
>> can import and work in fodt. Odt support is pretty standard
>>
>> Can someone shed light on this?
>
> I can't speak toward FODT since I don't use it. I think we should just use
> plain ODT.
>
> If we use FODT, most distros will include OpenOffice/LibreOffice by
> default.
> It includes a familiar interface closely resembling most other office apps
> (except MS Office 2007+, but older version still resemble OOo/LO).
>
> OOo and LO both have Windows/Mac version, some Win/Mac users use it. Not
> all
> people will want to install it, hence my argument in favor of plain ODT,
> which is supported by MS Office 2007 and (it now seems) most other office
> apps.
>

The biggest issue here is that ODT files are compressed binary blobs, and
therefore work rather terribly in version control systems.  Maybe it would
work better to automatically create a "HEAD" ODT file from the FODT in the
GIT repository that anyone can download/edit, and when it comes time to
merge their changes we can open the .odt and export as .fodt prior to
commit.

Tim