Submitted by Microsoft has failed in its attempt to have its Office Open XML document format fast-tracked straight to the status of an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization. The proposal must now be revised to take into account the negative comments made during the voting process. Microsoft expects that a second vote early next year will result in approval, it said Tuesday. That is by no means certain, however, given the objections raised by some national standards bodies.
This is good for everyone, long life to ODF!
Edited 2007-09-04 21:49
As it should be.
Though I’m kind of curious why ODF wasn’t rejected “with comments” as well, as it has it’s own share of technical issues. Why couldn’t they do that for ODF as well so the technical issues could be addressed, giving plenty of time for it to be approved on the “fast track” process.
Basically, no format as encompassing as an office suite format should be approved the first time around for iso status on the fast-track process. If it is, something is wrong.
Well ODF spent 4 years at OASIS before being submitted. And then when it was submitted the limitations of the proposal were documented. A specification does not have to cover every eventuality. However what the specification does cover should be clear and allow for an implementation (in terms of compliance) to be created based on the specification alone. Writing a specification and saying that part X “should match this specific legacy app” is not only insufficient but sloppy.
Edited 2007-09-04 22:06
4? I’ve heard 3 elsewhere.
The dates are on Wikipedia.
“The first official ODF-TC meeting to discuss the standard was December 16, 2002”.
“After responding to all written ballot comments, and a 30-day default ballot, the OpenDocument International Standard went to publication in ISO, officially published November 30, 2006.”
That is four years from woa to go.
The other relevant date is this:
“OASIS submitted the ODF specification to ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) on November 16, 2005”
So that is 1 full year in the ISO process, following three full years of collaborative, consesnus development.
Ah, that explains it. Thanks.
A format doesn’t have to have all kind of functionality. A standard will always have weaknesses. And that’s okay. That’s why standards are updated from time to time.
What an open standard cannot have is dependencies on proprietary technologies. Especially unspecified proprietary technologies.
The fact that a standard have technical issues is not a reason to disapprove the standard – as long as the format is fully specified. A fully specified format doesn’t have to have all kind of functionality. What functionality it DOES have MUST however be documented. ODF is fully documented, but have some weaknesses. OOXML is not fully documented, since parts of it is unspecified. Therefore it has been rejected.
QUOTE
What an open standard cannot have is dependencies on proprietary technologies. Especially unspecified proprietary technologies.
UNQUOTE
Well said……….
I totally agree with you here….
So I hope that the standards body will keep this in mind.
I think the FSF must start a campaign as well because you can expect MS to do the same. Countries that voted yes should be influenced to vote no. Especially the countries that have done this in a suspicious way.
It’s very hard to do so. The countries that voted yes are mostly poor, corrupt countries where money will get you anything you want. Money talks there, not reason. Unless FFII is prepared to offer conter-bribes, fat chance of swaying the vote.
As it is, on the current vote OOXML was barred within very thin limits (a few percentage points on the no-vote for instance, it was 26% when 24% would have meant pass). Microsoft is right to expect the situation to hold in their favor in february. They will have a lot of time to consolidate their cronies and undermine ODF.
Of course, in the long term all those countries lose. They lock themselves in Microsoft’s proprietary formats, lose any credibility with ISO, don’t have a real open format to use. But as I said, it’s not about being reasonable.
I can’t say for sure, but I’ll venture that it’s because it aims at being a true portable standard, and not one that tries to incorporate all kinds of legacy MS cruft, which is what OOXML does (legacy support should be handled by *applications*, not file formats).
ODF may have been incomplete in some ways (though that is matter to debate), but it was designed from the ground up to be truly platform-neutral.
MS is already trying to spin this in a positive light, saying that a majority of participants voted yes, and that this indicates that its chances of being accepted after the “regular” process are good, but make no mistake: this is a slap in the face for MS, and seriously hampers their underhanded efforts to retain control of the “standard” office file format (and thus, of the desktop).
This is a good day for ODF supporters.
ODF did not go through the “fast track” process. It went through the “Publicly Available Specification” (PAS) rules.
This is the story for ODF:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opendocument#Standardization
It is a story of consensus and iterative development resulting in a collaborative work, rather than a story of manipulation and pushing and corruption and ballot-stuffing.
This is why ODF passed through ultimately with no “NO” votes.
Edited 2007-09-04 23:24
It’s easier to read 600 pages as opposed to reading 6000 pages.
When it comes to specifications, the standard has to be at least as large as it needs to be, and not one page shorter. Larger is usually better, especially when there’s more room for explanation (and less room for uncertainty).
Ever browsed the POSIX standard or the C definition, or the Java specification?
Except… the 6,000 pages of the OOXML spec. don’t contain everything the spec. needs for one to implement it.
Can you guess how big it should be?
(Yes, ODF is still shorter after including referenced standards)
Sorry but that’s a poor excuse.
“It’s easier to read 600 pages as opposed to reading 6000 pages.”
It’s also easier to ask on a forum then to RTFM. However a good chunk of responses on questions will be RTFM. So, read the novel and enjoy it
“It’s easier to read 600 pages as opposed to reading 6000 pages.”
This is true, but I read yesterday that the Java spec had 8000 pages.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/28/Retired-Ecma-chief-expect…
“Regarding objections to the Open XML application because of its length, Van Den Beld said that when Sun Microsystems submitted the Java programming language to ECMA in 1999, the application — which was eventually withdrawn — was more than 8,000 pages long.”
Also, the OOXML spec actually used a larger font than is standard practice, which increases the number of pages, and has lots of tutorial documentation.
http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/08/last_days_for_office_ope…
“Behind the scenes, Patrick Durusau (the ISO ODF editor) has been working on a really interesting and useful project. While he is not keen that people use ISO Open XML, he is keen that the quality of ISO standards should be maintained and he sees OOXML as a way to get MS’ technical requirements on the table to help future ODF improvement (whether by cherry-picking, mix-n-match or knowing what to avoid.) I suggested to him a time ago that one approach to fixing DIS 29500 would be radical surgery: removing all the explanatory and non-normative material. At the moment it is far too tutorial. That is fine for the Ecma version, but gets in the way of an ISO-quality standard. I had also suggested that the schema fragments were otiose too, and that the 11pt body text should be 10 pt. . So Patrick has gone ahead and stripped out the fluff from the WordprocessingML chapter and with tighter formatting he was able to go from 1874 pages to 607 pages without altering the technical content!“
So it may be that during the next phase, they’ll use 10pt font rather than 11pt, and remove all of the tutorial material (which would become a supplementary document, but not part of the spec itself). That would address the complaints about “too many pages!”
Edited 2007-09-05 01:05
There is really one one complaint that needs to be addressed. That complaint is that OOXML is just “Not Open”.
If Microsoft are prepared to make it so that OOXML and all the enabling technologies it relies upon are fully defined and able to be implemented royalty-free by any party on any platform, then it can become a standard format. Not otherwise (because it will have no consensus).
Then they could switch to 8pt font, strip out all the stuff describing the spec, and they’ll be left with one page! Wow!!!
“Then they could switch to 8pt font, strip out all the stuff describing the spec, and they’ll be left with one page! Wow!!!”
*That’s* your response? I posted something interesting, something that ISO ODF editor did to make the OOXML spec more Kosher, and you come back with the very lame retort? Maybe you should go back to trolling Brian Jones’ blog (I assume your the same “MiliTux” that trolls there).
As a side note, I now see that even my post regarding the work that the ISO ODF editor did to clean up the OOXML spec has been modded down. I would have thought that you guys at least respected work done by the ISO ODF editor, but I guess that any work done to improve the OOXML spec is evil by definition, even if done by a bonafide ODF guy himself, and any news of such work *must* be modded down!! Pathetic.
And yet you modded UP Militux’s very lame post. You guys are abusing the mod system badly.
*That’s* your response? I posted something interesting, something that ISO ODF editor did to make the OOXML spec more Kosher, and you come back with the very lame retort? Maybe you should go back to trolling Brian Jones’ blog (I assume your the same “MiliTux” that trolls there).
Rick Jelliffe came up with the very same laughable answer as to the shear size and verbosity of the OOXML specification. Oh, it’s really not 6000 pages if you use a different font size. He even started to talk about different paper weights as well!
It is still thousands of pointless pages larger than any other comparable format specification, and it still doesn’t contain enough for you to practically implement it! Go figure.
Oh no, Microsoft’s spec happens to be far more comprehensive than the ODF spec. More pages must mean bad!
Christ…
Edited 2007-09-05 16:37
Oh no, Microsoft’s spec happens to be far more comprehensive than the ODF spec. More pages must mean bad!
Yer, and it still isn’t implementable!
Ignoring whether or not that is true, that has nothing to do with how long it is.
Ignoring whether or not that is true,
Well it is true I’m afraid. It isn’t implementable, and there is more than enough evidence for that now.
that has nothing to do with how long it is.
Have you read it? It’s even full of specific clipart banners, some of which look like a row of breasts (mostly western specific), in an international standard?!
It’s there from page 1632 to page 1682. Standardised clipart border images! Unbelievable. Apparently, everyone is so stupid that we need standard, western, Anglo-America page borders. This is apparently done in the name of backwards compatibility. One would think that you could just include the relevant image in the document from the application you have used, and have the document markup reference it – but no.
Mmm…why would you assume that he’s the same person, just because he has the same nickname…? 🙂
😀
I never would have thought the defence for “OOXML spec. is just too damn big” would be “look at Java!!!”.
You would think, while preparing a specification for ISO, the editor would select the recommended font size.
After font reduction, culling ‘tutorials’, how big would it be? 3,000 pages possibly?
That’s still 5x the size of ODF.
“Though I’m kind of curious why ODF wasn’t rejected “with comments” as well”
Because no one complained about the “technical issues” or they weren’t considered serious?
Part of why ODF was accepted is simply that very few people cared about it at all.
If it had gone under the same scrutiny as MS OOXML have been put under, chances are that the number of comments would have been a lot more. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be accepted though, as it reportedly didn’t go through “fast-track”.
This comment does not bear any relation to reality.
ODF went through a far greater scrutiny than MS OOXML. The ODF approval path took 4 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opendocument#Standardization
Unanimous.
ODF indeed did not go through a “fast track” process … it went through a far more thorough and far longer process than that. (PAS process).
Microsoft sat in on the development of ODF. If Microsoft had any issue with what ODF did or did not support, or how it was supported, then they sat mute for a long, long time about it.
Still, even now, if Microsoft wants something added to ODF so that the world can come to an agreed open format consensus, then let Microsoft just speak up as per the French suggestion of a merged standard and any such problem is solved.
Edited 2007-09-05 07:23
Translation: Microsoft expects to exert enough pressure and spend enough money to get OOXML approved next year regardless of relative merit.
I do not like to bash MS, Windows is a fine OS but it does not suit me personally. However I find MS’s behaviour in this offensive to the point that the concept of OOXML in the form it is now as an ISO “standard” offends me. They should address the comments on deficiencies, not the acceptance process.
I’m really interested in hearing the different objections, in detail, of where exactly MS went wrong. I, personally, can name a few but a list of what the international bodies pointed out would be nice.
As far why ODF was approved and OOXML not, that certainly points to many of my own thoughts and arguments against standardizing this supposed ‘open’ format.
I like what the ODF alliance had to say on the matter.
Enough said, really. 😉
> I’m really interested in hearing the different objections, in detail, of where exactly MS went wrong.
http://www.asianlinux.org/downloads/docs/itsc2007/ODF-vs-OOXML-late…
According to Brian Jones himself, this list is about 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) comments long. The vast bulk of them will, of course, be duplicates … but are you really sure you want to wade through that list?
Do we really need to say anything else to emphasise the point that OOXML is not a consensus in any way, shape or form?
Edited 2007-09-04 23:15
> Do we really need to say anything else to emphasise the > point that OOXML is not a consensus in any way, shape
> or form?
Quite really, no, and it’s obvious from its sheer god damn size. The ODF documentation has been criticized for being difficult to implement — but there are already two FOSS applications using it (OpenOffice and KWord). Out of OOXML’s 6000 pages, about a fifth are spent on detailing implementation, but I’m yet to see an application that actually implements it.
Judging from the way that documentation looks, I’d offer free beer every day to any developer who would willingly submit himself to actually working by those specifications.
The fact that it is not a consensus can be seen through other perspectives too. With SVG and MathML being W3C-recommended, widely-accepted and widely-used standards which almost every application in their respective field can use, OOXML uses DrawingML and VML for files converted from older formats. Not to mention the annoying inconsistencies, like the numbering system which is simply unusable in several countries, and contradicts W3C XSLT recommendations.
Claiming anything positive related to being consensus in such a context is so Microsoftish. As far as I see it, it’s a wonderful vendor locking technique. Continue supporting older, binary, closed formats, make sure they stay binary, closed and unsafe for converting to other formats (ODF included) while babbling something about interoperability. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks (or ethics).
Agreed. OOXML is clearly the antithesis of “consensus”.
It occurs to me that I was not clear in why I mentioned “consensus”. Consensus is actually required for OOXML to get past the next stage:
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070
ISO’s own words, my bold.
“…but I haven’t seen the final list yet. With the number of countries participating I wouldn’t be surprised if we got somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10,000 comments total. Many of these will be duplicates, but either way there will be a lot of comments to work th[r]ough.”
This quote was from Brian on 31 August, before the results
There might be a good amount of duplicates, it is likely with each NB being as meticulos as the next.
Well, they have a week to provide answers in Feb, if they don’t, game over.
> I’m really interested in hearing the different
> objections, in detail, of where exactly MS went wrong
Well, a list here under issues menu
http://www.noooxml.org/
And in blogs like
http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/formula-for-failure.html
This is great news, now they need to cut the spec down, remove potential patent problems, and turn it into something decent. For me ODF stands.
ODF stands for me too, and it appears for a lot of governmets around the world.. France, Germany, UK, Norway etc etc
Soon, to interoperate for any lucrative government contracts, companies will have to ditch MSOffice and use something that will open the documents government departments will be using.
At the end of the day, that can only be good for us all.
No.
Some of the probably will switch to different software, most of the will, at least for now, use one of the ODF I/O solutions, likely a format plugin which allows to set ODF as the default format.
When the Massachusetts ETERM was a driving issue, Microsoft engineers are said to have told Massachusetts (off the official record) that to fully & properly implement ODF in MS Office would take just two weeks of effort.
I have no doubt that Microsoft have already done that two weeks worth of work.
If ODF momentum builds, and the OOXML standardisation effort falters, then expect a “patch” for MS Office to suddenly become available.
That would be a last-ditch fallback position for Microsoft, but really it should have been their approach in the first place as soon as ODF was accepted as an ISO standard.
Lets not forget that even if OOXML does get approved it wont mean the end for ODF. ODF will still be an ISO standard. I agree, however, that MS Office’s dominate will initially be in OOXML’s favor.
If OOXML somehow doesn’t fulfill its promises as a completely open and platform neutral document format, users can drive ODF adoption. Even if MS Office remains dominate there is nothing stopping Office ODF plugins from being developed.
Edited 2007-09-04 22:52
I believe these already exist.
And they suck. As if they were made to suck on purpose:
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=116
This is great.
Even though I support OOXML, I stated in the previous OSI thread that once a Microsoft guy in Sweden resorted to bribery, the fast-track process had lost all integrity, and should be aborted.
But I still support the objections being addressed and if addressed well, then the format being approved.
If the objections are addressed well then it goes that the format should be approved. Everything else would be double standard. And for a semi-official organ like ISO that would be completely unacceptable.
Let’s use logic shall we? ODF is more succint, because it delegates to existing standards whenever possible. Yet it took OASIS 3 years of work to declare itself pleased with it, and it ran through an almost 1 year long ISO approval process.
OOXML is 8 times longer, it shuns existing standards and redefines almost everything, plus has a lot of flaws. It has spent roughly 1 year with ECMA and only 5 months with ISO in a “fast-track” procedure. A lot of the national standard bodies that voted “yes” admitted not having even read the spec, let alone understand or discuss it.
“If the objections are addressed”? Do you honestly expect the hundreds of issues to be adressed in another 5 months until February? When it took a 8 times more succint spec 4 years to become flawless?
Plus, let’s look at it another way. Microsoft does not lack resources (money, manpower, brains). If they really wanted a good spec, would they not have done it? So do they really want an open spec? When it would threaten the monopoly that MS Office holds on the market?
I never said I liked the proposed format from Microsoft, nor did I write anything about the likelihood of the issues being fixed – ever.
I merely agreed the format should be approved if the issues were fixed properly. Personally I think that will take years.
But as soon – if ever – the issues are fixed the format should be approved.
Getting angry at me is doing no good.
While I am not a fan of having two similar standards, I have to agree on this one.
If the objections are properly addresses, i.e. fixed, the format should get a chance as well.
However, it is very unlikely that all of the objections can be fixed in this short period.
The legal issues maybe, but the technical flaws would require quite substantial changes to both format and main implementation (MS Office).
If Microsoft fix the legal issues, and allow any party to fully implement (royalty free) OOXML and all of its dependencies on any platform, and Microsoft are prepared to actually specify how those dependency technologies also operate, then the technical issues reduce to mere clumsiness.
If the legal issues are addressed, and the OOXML specification is actually allowed to become a cross-platform unencumbered royalty free specification, then I for one can see no real objection to it becoming an ISO standard, even if it remains technically exceedingly clumsy and a horrible kludge as it now is.
Edited 2007-09-04 23:57
I am not so sure about this.
Several of the technical issues might be problematic to fix, e.g. when an actually fixed way of handling an issue would require too many changes in MS Office.
It is quite likely also difficult to correctly specify all currently unspecified items, since Microsoft itself might not even have access to specifications in the sense of public material, e.g. things like “do something like Word95” might currently be purely “documented” in Word95’s source code.
Legal issues?
I’m not sure what you mean with legal issues, but if you talk about possible patents or other things that may need a license (that’s paid for), I hope you are aware of that there are plenty of ISO standards that have the same “legal issues”, so that shouldn’t be any hinder to accepting OOXML.
The problem with this arguement is that there is already an existing ISO standard that describes a format for electronic storage and interchange of Office douments in XML format that has wide consensus (even from Microsoft who were on the development committee) and it has NO legal issues or encumberances.
If Microsoft have any real belief of any shortcoming in the existing standard (called ODF), then the correct thing for Microsoft to do is:
(1) firstly to have raised their concern at any time in the four years of development of the standard, or
(2) do so now, so the standard can be expanded to accomodate whatever it is Microsoft believes it currently cannot support (but Microsoft won’t say what that is).
The incorrect thing to do is for Microsoft to try to subvert the existing standard and use a near-monopoly position to suppress open document interchange.
Of course, Microsoft has stubbornly chosen to do the incorrect thing.
Edited 2007-09-05 07:11
In the last week, more than a dozen countries were added to the ISO group to vote regarding MS OOXML. From those late-comers, the vast majority (all but one?) voted for MS OOXML.
It is quite strange to have such a rush of countries to be added, countries that have no expertise to analyze MS OOXML. These countries include Jamaica, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Syria. With all respect to these countries, it looks suspicious.
“countries that have no expertise to analyze MS OOXML.”
What do you base this assertion on? Or are you implying that MS bribed entire countries? (Probably won’t work with Cuba though)
‘implying that MS bribed entire countries’
Nah, just their standards bodies, and/or their heads of state.
http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/09/ooxml-is-not-ye.html
After the standards body voted unanimously to vote “No, with comments”, suddenly they abstained!
“Nah, just their standards bodies, and/or their heads of state. ”
Yes, I’m sure that worked great for american “friendly” countries like Cuba and Syria…
And I still don’t see why any of these countries would be less fit to analyze OOXML than, say, the U.S.
Ah, but there is a major difference between not liking US imperialistic behavior/politics and not liking having huge amount of US currency
Money is money. It has nothing to do with politics. Microsoft has more money in *cash* than the Cuban government spends on its annual budget, and about four times what the Syrian government spends.
In fact, Microsoft’s got more cash than the GDP of Syria (adjusted with the official exchange rate). That should tell you something…
America != Microsoft.
I don’t believe those countries are less fit to analyse OOXML.
But for votes to change for no good reason? (as I linked)
That’s something I doubt could happen easily in, lets say, France or the UK.
Read this blog post,
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/09/how-to-hack-iso.html
It covers the case of last-minutes members.
I just hope that IBM, Sun and al. manage to have a little talk with these last-minute members before the March vote… 🙂
So lobbying and affecting votes is ok as long as you’re not Microsoft?
Lobbying and effecting votes to get a proposal pushed through that otherwise would not have been even considered for acceptance is not ok, no matter who you are. This is not a popularity contest or a PR campaign, it is a standards committee and MS has made a mockery of the process.
Well, don’t you think opponents to OOXML should get a fair hearing among the new member states? Or is lobbying only allowed for Microsoft? That seems to be what you’re suggesting.
I know you guys are celebrating, but I hope you don’t mind my giving voice to the other side. Please do not take offense.
I am merely going to quote Brian Jones’ take on this, and yes it’s a Microsoft take, but I think hearing both sides of the issue is healthy; I would *hope* that most would agree with that.
——————————————————
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/09/04/another-word-p…
“It looks like AbiWord, which is an open source word processing application is now working on Open XML support. http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/OpenXMLImport
They finished up inline formatting about a month ago, and I’m not sure what they are currently working on.
So, now we have AbiWord; iWork; OpenOffice; MS Office; Corel; Gnumeric; iPhone; NeoOffice; Palm reader (and a whole host of other applications and tools) supporting the Open XML format. Huge momentum, and we’ve only just started.
ISO Update
The 2nd round is now complete and the votes are all cast. I haven’t seen the official numbers yet, but some of the early reports show that we already have about 74% of the voting countries in support of Open XML ISO approval. That’s actually quite a bit higher than I was expecting (I thought we’d be closer to 60% at this point). There are two criteria that you must hit for final approval (2/3 or P members approval; 3/4 of all voting members approval), and it sounds like we’ll be really close on both fronts.
This large scale support should set us up really nicely going into stage 3 of the fast track process. The Ecma TC 45 editor (with the help of TC 45) is now going to sort through all the comments coming in and work towards a more improved specification based on those comments. At that point we’ll see a number of the countries who voted “no with comments” switch their vote over to “yes” and we should see Open XML approved after the ballot resolution meeting next year.
Between now and then though there is going to be a ton of work. There will be thousands and thousands of comments to work through. I’m confident that we’ll be able to get some solid solutions in place that make it easier to sort and address the comments, but it’s going to be pretty intense. I think we have some great momentum right now though which should make it easier for everyone to work together on reaching consensus.
-Brian”
——————————————————
Anyone want to make any friendly wagers as to whether the ECMA committee fixes the “objections” sufficiently to turn enough “No with comments” votes into “Yes” by February (which I believe is the deadline)?
You, know, we could do something like: If they fail then I will sign each of my posts here with a sig praising RMS for one month. But if they succeed, then you guys would have to sign your posts with a sig praising Bill Gates. :p We can have some fun with this instead of taking everything so seriously. 
Edited 2007-09-04 23:37
They might, they might not. If ECMA fixes the OOXML spec, then according to Microsoft the spec might not then have anything to do with any format output by Microsoft Software.
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/07/12/spreadsheet-fo…
Microsoft themselves are not comitting Office to conform with the eventual form of OOXML.
“Microsoft themselves are not comitting Office to conform with the eventual form of OOXML.”
That’s actually pretty scary to think that a company who is trying to play the standards submission game isn’t going to play by the standards rules if the standards body won’t conform to the rules of the company in question.
[sarcasm] I’m quite sure I’m not alone in saying that I smell a ruse for the next 10 years.
Holy crap. That is scary indeed.
I had missed this little gem…this further reinforces the notion that MS is still looking to gain an unfair advantage in controlling office file formats.
I guess having a monopoly is like being addicted to crack – it’s really hard to let go, and you’re ready to lie, cheat and steal in order to keep it!
Lol! Now that you mention it, everything is starting to fall into place! All the dirty, backhanded, scummy tricks throughout the years suddenly start to make allot more sense.
What a crummy way to do business. 😀
Now, this would be an interesting situation:
Two ISO standards for office documents and Microsoft Office officially not implementing either
Oh well, we all know that this won’t happen. Microsoft will always claim to implement OOXML despite anything specified in a propably diverging ECMA spec.
To be fair, this isn’t complete support: it’s an import filter only.
This is a good thing. Word processor (and other Office applications) should be able to import – and arguably export – OOXML docs, if only because they’re the Office 2007 format. On the other hand, a good import/export ODF plugin for MS Office is *more* important. ODF has to be the main standard.
Predictably, MS has already been hard at work to spin this defeat into a positive thing:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/123978/microsoft-takes-big-step-towards…
Ugh. This is why PR people make me sick – being paid to lie through your teeth. One has to wonder how they can sleep at night.
(Note: this in now way, shape or form implies that MollyC is a PR person…)
As for the wager, I don’t really mind, though OSNews doesn’t have a “sig” functionality, and in fact I think it’s kinda frowned upon.
However, I should say that, though I do not agree with his efforts to maintain Microsoft’s monopoly over the years, I have absolutely nothing against Bill Gates. In fact, I do believe that he was instrumental in moving the PC revolution forward, along with Linus and RMS (this view is presented very eloquently by Neal Stephenson in his essay “In the Beginning there was the Command Line”).
I also support his humanitarian efforts, even though it has to be said that some of the company the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invests are actually part of the types of problems the foundation is trying to alleviate…still, he does try to make a difference, and for that I commend him.
Speaking as a Office user, this is bad for me. As the formation of Office documents is now public knowledge, like “real” open-source, it can no longer be trusted for security, stability, or forwards compatibility. However, by being locked out of a public channel for improvement, Microsoft is missing out on the only redeeming factor of open-source, public discourse. MS Office documents now combine the worst of both open-source and closed-source formats.
. As the formation of Office documents is now public knowledge, like “real” open-source, it can no longer be trusted for security, stability, or forwards compatibility.
Wait a minute….you thought office documents could be trusted for security stability and forwards compatibility before? What?!? Is this some kind of joke?
I am more concerned with him implying that an open and public document format means less secure..Maybe he should think about it a bit more thoroughly
“As the formation of Office documents is now public knowledge, like “real” open-source, it can no longer be trusted for security, stability, or forwards compatibility.”
Good thing we have closed-source stable and secure stuff like Windows. Noone’s ever found any security or stability issues with it. Because it is closed, you know.
Security and stability is a function of how well engineered something is, not by whether it is open or closed. Badly engineered software or formats are not made more secure or stable by being closed and being open does not automagically make it secure and stable either.
Edited 2007-09-05 06:25
As described in increasing detail, the ISO organization has been subjected to much blatant manipulation by Microsoft in order to try and become a self-appointed, monopolistic *standard controller*. How much more of an indication that it may not be the best idea to have this one company with a God-complex controlling (and milking) the world’s IT resources do we need in order to just say no to this type of manipulation? What is wrong with taking the cooperative approach and submitting backwards-compatible modifications to the existing ODF ISO standard? Why does Microsoft have to reinvent the wheel so that it can only be turned by them? Turning the ISO approval process into a farce of corruption does little to prove anything but the fact that self-interest and greed seems to be the major motivator of Microsoft’s actions.
Under these circumstances, letters and petitions to your government asking for the rejection of any future attempts to institute the OOXML format as an ISO standard may be one way to stop this type of abuse of process in the future.
I thought I’d post Miguel’s take on this. I know many here don’t like him, but he’s always an interesting read, and an intersting guy. (And yeah, he supports my position, why else do you think I’m posting this? lol And as I said earlier, I think it’s better for both sides to be aired.)
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/09/04/another-word-p…
“I for one applaud Brian’s commitment to go over the issues, prioritize them and fix the issues that have been pointed out. The end result should be fantastic.
There is no perfect spec and there is no perfect program, they all have bugs. The extra QA will ironically make OOXML a more complete and rounded up specification than ODF is.
Miguel
Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:44 PM by Miguel de Icaza”
Regardless of what Miguel and Brian Jones think, there is no way (given the sheer number of issues) that there is going to be a consensus reached.
Also, given the sheer number of issues in the OOXML specification, there is no way that any current document saved as .docx will ever be compliant to a standard format.
Don’t save as .docx. Your document is bound to become orphaned.
Given the number of implementations in existence or being built, that’s simply a false statement. And ISO .docx will still have the same capabilities that ECMA .docx does, thus a conversion should be no more difficult than going from binary to .docx. Even in the worst case where there aren’t converters going directly from ECMA to ISO, you can still go from ECMA .docx back to binary, then to ISO .docx (and this applies to the other OOXML formats as well).
It is not false. There is only one implementation of .docx. Given that the ECMA definition of OOXML will now have to diverge even further from .docx there is no doubt at all that your .docx documents will be orphaned and you will be locked in.
Can you still open the .docx files in Word 2007 or whatever you created them in? Assuming Word 2007, would you not then be able to save them out using, as an example, the odf converter?
Locked into Word 2007 for opening .docx files perhaps, and it would not amaze me in the slightest. I would not classify them as “orphaned” though.
Microsoft’s ODF converter cannot be used as a “save as” file format.
For that you need the Sun plugin.
The Sun plugin does not work properly with Office 2007, because Microsoft nobbled the way it works at the last moment before official release of Office 2007.
Microsoft are doing their level best to make absolutely sure that if you create a .docx file in Office 2007, then that file is forever constrained to be editable only on a Windows/Office 2007 platform.
This, after all, is Microsoft’s whole objective.
I was quite surprised to see that ‘bug’ in Office, breaking binary filters. I wonder what the EU has to say about it…
ECMA won’t be standing still. As will their other specs, there will be subsequent versions. I doubt there will be a massive divergence, mostly a consolidation (e.g., Using only DrawingML instead of VML, which was deprecated in the existing standard anyway and only allowed when converting from the older format) and “purification” (for lack of a better term — e.g., enhancing or replacing the date format).
Spec changes to bring ECMA inline with ISO will be addressed at future ECMA meetings (and in concert with the ISO TC as they’re already going to be working together to address ISO comments). ISO OOXML v1 will be the same as ECMA OOXML v2, just as it is with C#, CLI, et al.
Converters are a red herring. You need to be able to open and save a file format directly with your Office suite.
Think “email attachments”. Think “sharepoint”. Think “double-click in the file manager”. You need to be able to associate your Office applications directly with a file format in order for these work-flow actions to work. Therefore, you need your Office application to be able to directly open and save the format.
There should be no dependency in the format to the underlying OS. That is a fundamental non-negotiable requirement of any “standard” format. Neither OOXML nor .docx achieve this. Of the two formats, .docx is far worse.
It may be that the BRM phase of ISO approval can remove the underlying OS dependencies from the ECMA OOXML format. That would then just drive it even further away from .docx.
Edited 2007-09-05 02:35
So it’s Microsoft’s fault if no one other than them implements the formats? If I’m using Lotus, should I blame IBM if their tools are optimized for ODF, but I want to use Office instead?
Then don’t use ODF either as it allows embedding of content that may be platform or vendor-dependent as well. If you don’t want to be “locked-in” in either case, avoid using elements that may create those dependencies. It’s not hard to do. Use scripts rather than macros. Don’t use embedded components to feed in data if they’re only available for one platform (or at all if you always want the information to be contained in the document).
You got that utterly backwards. If you have an ODF file and your Windows system has MS Office installed as the Office suite and Microsoft’s ODF converters, then you cannot click on ODF email attachments, you cannot use ODF files in sharepoint and you cannot double-click on ODF files in a file manager and have your Office suite application open the file. Essentially, you cannot associate ODF files with MS Office if the only capability you have is Microsoft’s ODF converters. This is because Microsoft’s ODF converters cannot be set as a “save as” format, and you cannot just open ODF files via the converter (ie. you have to “import” ODF files).
Yes, this is indeed Microsoft’s fault. Entirely. It is deliberate. It is Microsoft that mandates that the workings of CleverAge ODF support for MS Office is via converters.
Sun’s ODF plugins do not have this restriction.
Then change the file associations. It’s easy to do. Just because you have Office installed, you don’t have to use it to open ODF files. Install an ODF editor and associate it with ODF files.
Then what’s the issue. Use Sun’s plugins or use CleverAge’s source to build the support (which Sun does IIRC).
What number of implementations?
The only nigh-on full implementation is in Office 2007, and if the MXOOXML spec changes, then no implementations will exist.
“Also, given the sheer number of issues in the OOXML specification, there is no way that any current document saved as .docx will ever be compliant to a standard format.
Don’t save as .docx. Your document is bound to become orphaned.”
I disagree. First, it’s already an ECMA standard, so it’s false to say “docx will never be compliant to a standard format”.
Second, as n4cer said just before me, there are lots of implementations coming on line, ISO or no ISO.
There are partial implementations of OOXML. They don’t work well.
There is only one implementation of .docx. That is a different thing.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/business_applications/the_po…
http://www.robweir.com/blog/labels/Mac.html
Now there is to be a “comments resolution” phase for OOXML. The standard will have to be extensively changed if it is to be accepted. That will take it a long way away from .docx … even further than it is now.
As I said, your .docx documents will be orphaned. You will be locked in. You have been warned, over and over.
The same could be said of ODF. It’s funny how OOXML is always held to a different standard.
Given the non-standard elements still used by Open Office, this too can be said of ODF.
In implementation possibly, but not in capability. It isn’t going to be an all-new set of formats, just a refinement of the current formats. The goals are still the same. Should I not use ISO ODF because it’s outdated and will be replaced by a new version that will have a greater number of changes than OOXML solely due to the integration of many new capabilities, not to mention similar refinements? In neither case do I expect difficulty transitioning to the newer standards.
And as I’ve detailed, this statement is false. You are not locked in. The format isn’t dead. It will be more prevalent than the ISO version for some time. And because the the formats were engineered to have the same capabilities of the previous binary formats, you can always use those as intermediaries between ECMA .docx and ISO .docx. Why this is in question is a mystery.
That’s because it is not a true open standard, unencumbered by patents, reached by consensus between many industry players. Rather, it was designed as a way to ensure Microsoft’s continued control over office file formats, which is the keystone of its domination over the desktop.
*If* it gets accepted as an ISO standard. This is not a done deal – and you can bet closer scrutiny on the whole process in the coming months, now that Microsoft’s gambit has been exposed for all to see.
Edited 2007-09-05 04:14
There were more industry players involved in the standardization of OOXML than ODF.
This process has exposed the motives of many. The irony of it all is, as has been said by Miguel and others, it will make OOXML a more complete standard than ODF.
This is utter fantasy. It is just more FUD along the lines similar to “ODF doesn’t support formulas”. Utter lies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenFormula
OOXML will not be fixed to the point it can be acceptable as a standard until such time as its dependencies on MS proprietary technologies are removed.
Since the whole point from Microsoft’s perspective is lock-in, this will never hapeen.
Therefore, it is utter fantasy to think that OOXML will ever become “a more complete standard than ODF”.
There is no consensus in OOXML. There are bits (or dependencies) that you legally may not do. It CANNOT be a standard, by definition.
ISO ODF does not support formulas.
It’s useless if it isn’t in the spec.
Like?
I seem to remember 20+ entities reaching consensus and creating ECMA OOXML.
Sigh!
Yes, ODF 1.0 (which you call ISO ODF) does support formulas. So does ODF 1.1 (which is the current version).
It is in the spec. Go and read the spec if you disbelieve.
The precise complaint with respect to OpenDocument ODF 1.0 and ODF 1.1 formulas is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opendocument#Criticism
There was not a precise definition of the formula language. This allowed different applications to have differences in their formula language for some things that are supposed to be the same formula. It is not a problem for the vast bulk of formulas, because the syntax (or formula language, if you will) is common sense. But it was a problem for some complex escoteric functions.
Fixed in ODF 1.2. OpenFormula is the agreed, consensus, detailed formula language. Virtually all the ODF applications use this now. OpenFormula is consistent with ODF 1.0 and ODF 1.1, it just ties down formally the formula language to an agreed standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenFormula
It is just a matter now for the formal approval process to catch up with the reality.
A partial list can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooxml#Criticism_by_competitors_and_fre…
… and here:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Undisclosed_prop…
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Ecma_376_require…
There is a long list of objections to OOXML, primarily about the lock-in nature of the specification … where have you been for the last year or so?
Edited 2007-09-05 06:49
Microsoft fronts don’t count.
I notice you didn’t address the other points, so I imagine you agree that OOXML is not truly open, and encumbered by patents.
Who was it that has been stacking the committees at the last minute? Oh, right, Microsoft.
I see the PR machine is in full swing – predictably. But no matter how you apologists try to muddle the issues, you’re fooling yourself if you think Microsoft doesn’t look bad after all that 11th hour maneuvering.
Miguel is either incredibly naive, or he’s received a big fat check from MS in the last couple of months. In any case, he’s recently shown himself to be more of a liability than an asset for the FOSS world. I respect the work he’s done on Gnome and Mono, but I think he’s lost a lot of credibility with the community on this issue.
In any case, it’s not a matter of OOXML being more “complete”. In fact, “completeness” is part of the issue, with legacy support of years of Office document cruft.
Apple, Novell, The British Library, et al. are MS fronts? So who are IBM and Sun fronts for WRT ODF — FSF, GNU, Groklaw?
No, I don’t agree. I just didn’t feel like addressing it again. Some people will always believe Microsoft has a hidden agenda in anything and I’m tired of having similar arguments in every thread. I address what I think is most important and move on. On some things, it’s just better to agree to disagree. Either way there’s frequently an echo chamber, so why bother.
And IBM (and they also wrote at least one country’s comments). At least MS invited people who were actually implementing the spec rather than just coming to vote a certain way.
I see, as usual, you can’t wait to go negative just because someone actually has a view different from yours. How (un)surprising. And you naturally wouldn’t be part of a PR machine now would you? As someone on Brian’s blog said of the anti-OOXML crowd, you certainly are sore “winners”.
Funny how your respect for his work doesn’t stop you from insulting his integrity just because he has a mind of his own and happens to disagree with you. Talk about lack of gratitude. He’s ok as long as he’s giving away his work to you, and even better if he trashes MS, but disagree and suddenly he’s on their payroll. I’d venture to guess you’re the last type of user people like Miguel contribute their time and intelligence.
What anti-OOXML people can’t understand is the “cruft” didn’t all originate with Microsoft, most of it is there for good reason, and the majority finds value compatibility with that “cruft”. ODF even has its own “cruft” that OOo still generates. Maybe if there were more, you could interchange spreadsheets.
Sigh!
ODF applications can interchange spreadsheets.
They have all agreed on the OpenFormula definition of the formula language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenFormula#OpenFormula_Project
That was a year ago. There were only a few exceptions to formula incompatibility anyway, and it is fixed now.
We are just waiting for the formal process to catch up with the reality.
Exchanging spreadsheets amongst various ODF applications has always been far better than excahnging spreadsheets between various versions of Excel on different platforms anyway, let alone exchanging between Excel-compatible applications.
Microsoft cheerleaders show enormous chutzpa when complaining about document interchange for other formats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpa
Edited 2007-09-05 07:00
I wouldn’t know about the library, but Apple is always threading lightly with Microsoft, as it doesn’t want to lose MS Office. Novell, well, they have been flirting with MS for a while, now. Who knows what they’ve been promised.
However, I was not talking about these few companies, but rather about all the ones that registered late in the process and then all turned out to be MS partners.
Microsoft *does* have an agenda here, and it’s anything but hidden. It’s an established fact that MS considers control of the file format to be the cornerstone of their domination of the desktop (as Bill Gates’ 1998 memo shows). There is *no* reason to believe that Microsoft has changed its past ways.
If MS really wants to prove that it has become FOSS-friendly, then let it open up its legacy office file formats (and I mean *really* open up, with no hidden patent traps).
Who have they brought on to stack committees at the last minute?
At least you don’t disagree that MS has been stacking the committees.
I’m sorry, I just fail to see why an intelligent person would willingly contribute to further MS’ stranglehold on the desktop unless they have something to gain from it.
It’s even harder to believe when we get to read all of the talking points on all these websites, right at the same time as MS receives a slap in the face with the rejection of its fast-track ISO application. It almost sounds like it was all ready to go…
I’m in favor of truly open formats unencumbered by patents. I’m against MS’ latest attempt to retain control of file formats for the next ten years. Those are the only two motivations I need.
That’s because we haven’t completely won yet. Getting there, though.
Nonsense. Most of the cruft is there for legacy compatibility reasons. Legacy compatibility should be handled strictly by the application, through import filters.
And as for the majority finding value with that cruft, I’d like to see some source on that, because to me that seems like nothing else but your own opinion.
I had missed this little gem:
First, I don’t insult his integrity. I do give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s naive enough to think that MS is really interested in creating a truly open file format which will increase interoperability between platforms. I really believe Miguel thinks MS has changed his ways. The other hypothesis was given as another possibility, which I feel is less likely, but sadly must also consider.
Second, gratitude has *nothing* to do with it. He’s not giving his work to me under the condition that I have to approve of his statements regarding MS and OOXML. Nowhere does it say that I have to agree with someone in order to use their software. To suggest otherwise is absurd – and to claim I accused Miguel of being on MS payroll is not true, since my personal belief is that he’s just naive.
Well, truth be told, I use neither Gnome nor Mono applications, so that’s no skin off my nose.
What I take exception with is that he can’t spot such an obvious wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing.
Edited 2007-09-05 07:51
“First, I don’t insult his integrity. I do give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s naive enough to think that MS is really interested in creating a truly open file format which will increase interoperability between platforms. I really believe Miguel thinks MS has changed his ways. The other hypothesis was given as another possibility, which I feel is less likely, but sadly must also consider. “
Hello? Raising the possiblity that someone is being paid off (with absolutely NO evidence, I might add) isn’t insulting his integrity? Wow.
I see that smear tactics and character assassination are now the weapon of choice. That’s a shame.
Edited 2007-09-05 13:33
Wow, unfortunate timing, isn’t it? 🙂
I’m not sure if you count the post but Archie did apologies in the end.
No, it’s called “considering all possibilities.” I did state very clearly that my personal belief is that he’s naive – but I’m forced to consider other alternatives if I want to be intellectually honest. Since MS has a history of buying approval, I must consider that possibilty, however repulsed I am by it
I would be really, really disappointed if Miguel had been bought out, but I can’t let this fact prevent me from considering that possibility.
I can’t let anything prevent me from considering the possibility that you are paid by IBM.
Of course not. Consider away – as long as you give it reasonable odds.
I’m flattered you guys would think I work for IBM, but…why not Sun? Or RedHat? Or any other company opposed to Microsoft’s monopoly?
Or maybe, just maybe, I’m a concerned consumer and citizen, who understands that it’s never good for a single company to hold so much power.
Sigh! The statement was not false. There is only one implementation of .docx. Parts of it are proprietary, and Microsoft has already rattled the patent sabre at OpenOffice.org. The clear aim is to preven full interoperability, and to suppress competition, and to lock end-users into Microsoft’s platform. The claim that .docx can be an interoperability format is indeed dead. Dead as a dodo. Converters are a non-issue, as any path that is forced to go via format conversion (instead of direct open and save in an application) will not work in workflows.
As for the claim that “It will be more prevalent than the ISO version for some time” … I’m not sure what you meant, but I’d like to point out that .docx isn’t very prevalent just yet:
http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/archive/20070813-1201
Formats get converted between each other all the time in workflows (e.g., pull data from a DB and/or set of existing documents into a new document, process it, output new document for print distribution, transform to (X)HTML for web distribution). Doing this with OOXML only gets easier as you can do it all programmatically without Office. In the manual case you’re talking about, this is still an implementor issue. Vendors such as Corel, Apple, and possibly Novell are working on solutions.
That may be, but it’s mainly because many businesses (and individuals) don’t move to new versions of Office until it’s convenient for them to do so, usually waiting for the first SP just as with Windows (and especially when there’s a new OS release as well – as is currently the case). There’s little reason to use .docx currently if you still have an older version of Office and don’t mind the binary formats or have no need to use them outside of Office. Though they can be generated with older versions of Office, people will still use binary in many cases to assure there’s no problems (e.g., they don’t want the recipient to have to install the compatibility pack, or the recipient may be a Mac user). It takes a while for distribution formats to change when people don’t care. I use OOXML internally, for example, but still publish most documents in the binary formats to ensure there’s little hassle. Microsoft even uses binary for most of their publishing, presumably for the same reasons, even though most of their employees have been using Office 2007 for over a year now. This will change as adoption grows. By contrast, I’ve seen some ODF proponents say they distribute only in ODF and tell the recipient to install something like Open Office to read it rather than just sending in a format that the recipient can read in the first place. Might be good for external format proliferation, but not much else.
As to my comment about ECMA OOXML being more prevalent than ISO, it’s just common sense. It’ll take months to produce ISO OOXML. Even after their’s an ISO standard, it’ll take longer to implement it. It won’t just happen overnight. In that time, ECMA OOXML will have been around for at least a couple years. More people will have Office 2007, WordPerfect v.Next, Mac Office 2008, iWork v.Next, and other MS and non-MS implementations will be more mature. There’s less concern about compatibility and many more users. Even your link shows the format isn’t standing still.
I agree with MollyC. .docx is in little danger of being orphaned any time soon, if for no other reason there is the install base of Office 2007.
On the other hand I have heard of multiple attempts at implementations of the OOXML spec but they all seem to be flawed or no generate consistent documents across implementations. Not exactly what I would call a stellar recommendation for a proposed standard.
As far as Miguel’s take… perhaps OOXML will become a more encompassing or even better standard than ODF. Right here, right now in the format it was submittied it should not have been submitted at all.
MollyC, I have a serious question: Do you not find the irregularities in this vote, even ignoring Sweden (got it right this time) questionable from a business practices standpoint? For instance the extremely odd turnout from a large number of MS partners across the globe all paying at the last minute to vote on the standard? Then the sudden influx of participating countries, with all but 2(?) voting for the standard? Do you not find these events unlikely to be coincidence and further do you honestly believe that the MS partners and newly promoted participating countries were voting yes for OOXML based on merit and a thorough technical review?
Spin the results as you like, the events of this vote smack of chicanery.
Edited 2007-09-05 02:18
I very much doubt it … for these reasons:
(1) OOXML has OS dependencies … and what is worse those dependent technologies are proprietary and not covered by Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise.
(2) OOXML is not the same as “Microsft Office 2007 default file format” (which is .docx). There are many parts of OOXML that Microsoft claim to be “non-normative” … which means optional. There is no interoperability to be had here … and it is designed that way.
(3) OOXML will have to change significantly in order to pass ISO approval (if it ever does). This might improve OOXML, but it will also mean that the ISO-approved version of OOXML will have nothing to do with Office 2007.
(4) Microsoft are already saying that if OOXML changes they will not necessarily support those changes in Office 2007.
(5) OOXML is a kludge that only Microsoft could love. It is doubtful that any consensus review will be able to unkludge it.
(6) Microsoft’s “Open Specification Promise” would not apply to any changes that ECMA make to OOXML. This gives Microsoft a further “in” to sue other implementers that Microsoft want to suppress.
Edited 2007-09-05 03:07
I never said OOXML in its current format. To correct some of the deficiencies OOXML will need significant adjustments. Further you cut out the second half of my statement. Finally, given Microsoft’s actions on the subject to date, I happen to agree with you. Others such as MollyC and Miguel are more optimistic however.
Edited 2007-09-05 03:22
I concur with your posts (but please note I did not edit any of your sentence that I quoted). What I disagree with is Miguel’s take.
Miguel seems to think that if OOXML is just changed & improved, then it will be “full interoperability with MS Office, here we come!”. My observation would be that such an outcome is totally at odds with Microsoft’s apparent ultimate objective (despite Microsoft’s PR).
Edited 2007-09-05 03:30
“I agree with MollyC. .docx is in little danger of being orphaned any time soon, if for no other reason there is the install base of Office 2007.”
“I never said OOXML in its current format.”
Which format were you talking about, then?
.docx will only ever have one full implementation (who will implement it after OOXML changes?), Office 2007. OOXML will deviate, and as such, will require patches to Office (or maybe a new release?)
“MollyC, I have a serious question: Do you not find the irregularities in this vote, even ignoring Sweden (got it right this time) questionable from a business practices standpoint? For instance the extremely odd turnout from a large number of MS partners across the globe all paying at the last minute to vote on the standard? Then the sudden influx of participating countries, with all but 2(?) voting for the standard? Do you not find these events unlikely to be coincidence and further do you honestly believe that the MS partners and newly promoted participating countries were voting yes for OOXML based on merit and a thorough technical review? “
My posts here are being modded down for no good reason, so seems that there’s no interest in hearing the other side, so I’m not sure I should bother to answer if the people here aren’t grown-up enough to tolerate an opposing view.
But since you asked:
As you may know, I have twice condemned the Swedish situation and called for rejection of the fast track procedure on that basis alone.
Now, do I find it a “cooincidence” that MS partners came into the process to vote their own interests? No. But I’d much rather have people that actually care about working with OOXML participating in this process than those that have no intention of using it at all. I mean, if you have no intention of using a particular standard, what the hell are you doing participating in whether it gets standardized or not?
As I’ve said before, Microsoft did not participate in developing ODF because they had no intention of using it, so it wasn’t their place to participate in it. That is also the reason they made no effort to block ODF during ISO and ANSI voting (actually voted YES both times since they happened to be on the committees). Microsoft’s attitude was, “We don’t plan to use ODF, so it’s really none of our business. It’s the business of those that intend to use it, and if those parties have any problem with ODF, they should be the ones to raise them.”
Contrast that with the anti-OOXML forces, who “participated” in the OOXML process for the sole purpose of killing a standard they never intended to use in the first place. IMO, since they never intended to use it, “it was really none of their business”., just as ODF none of Microsoft’s business.
Regarding Microsoft inviting its partners to participate, well they had no other choice, since IBM was bringing in parties that had no interest other than to block OOXML, and guess what, that was done for *their* own business interest as well. Nobody had to invite “partners” into the ODF process because nobody was marshalling any anti-ODF forces. Don’t you think that if Microsoft had started marshalling its own forces against ODF, that IBM and Sun would’ve been forced to bring in their own partners to counter that? And make no mistake – Microsoft could have very easily brought in enough forces to prevent ODF from reaching the super-majority required for passage, if they had wished to do so.
Now, for whoever has been modding down all of my posts in this thread (all of which were extremely mild posts, quite unlike this one lol), do note that I was asked a direct question by Kokopelli. I would think that you’d see the value of not modding down an answer to a direct question. Wouldn’t be very nice for others to see a question posed to another party, but not be able to read the answer because the answer was modded down into oblivion, now would it?
One last thing, Kokopelli, I question the entire process. It’s 90% political 10% technical. It’s a BS process that people are being forced to wade through.
As you may know, I have twice condemned the Swedish situation and called for rejection of the fast track procedure on that basis alone.
Net effect was the same. There was simply an abstention rather than a No vote that would have likely resulted had the Microsoft Certified Partners not appeared on the scene.
I mean, if you have no intention of using a particular standard, what the hell are you doing participating in whether it gets standardized or not?
Presumably, the people already on those committees already had a vested interest in the areas of interest otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Filling those committees with Microsoft Certified Partners is hardly going to create a conducive atmosphere to get improvements on the drawing board.
How dare you tell these people already on those committees that they have no vested interest and they should get out of the way.
Contrast that with the anti-OOXML forces, who “participated” in the OOXML process for the sole purpose of killing a standard they never intended to use in the first place.
Everybody who has an interest in documents has a vested interest in OOXML, whether for it or not, because Microsoft Office has something called a monopoly. That’s the very reason why ODF was created – to give everybody a level playing field – and why governments obviously became interested. It wasn’t to exclude Microsoft Office at all. As with all government contracts, you either use the standard a government chooses or you don’t and you have no chance of getting your foot in the door. It’s that simple.
Not to mention the obvious technical and practical shortcomings with OOXML, but of course, the goldfish like to forget that whenever they post.
Microsoft could have very easily brought in enough forces to prevent ODF from reaching the super-majority required for passage, if they had wished to do so.
It’s irrelevant. Microsoft Office has a monopoly, and they were merely concerned about keeping it.
This is yet another nugget that appears on MSDN blogs: “Oh, we didn’t block ODF so why are you being so horrible to us? Pretty please.” Doesn’t work like that.
One last thing, Kokopelli, I question the entire process. It’s 90% political 10% technical. It’s a BS process that people are being forced to wade through.
So that makes it perfectly fine for Microsoft to totally abuse it then? Blame the system.
Where does this ‘being forced to wade through’ thing come from? Lots and lots of ISO standards have gone through this kind of process over countless years, and we’ve never had any problems even approaching the utterly childish fiasco we have now.
We will start with the factor that whoever is modding you down it is not me. I have been the recipient of the same behaviour before as well. I am sorry you are being unfairly modded down. The reason I asked these questions directly of you is that you seem to be the only reasonably well thought out voices in the defense of MS on OSNews at the moment.
Now onto your responses.
Indeed but be that as it may the MS partners could have participated in the review process and contributed some kind of significant opinion on the subject instead of just showing up on the day of the vvote. Further multiple of the partners seem to not only lack expertise in the area but no indication that they intend to use OOXML outside of the fact that they are MS partners.
But it seems they did participate in some fashion even if their requests were not deemed reasonable by the other participants. I do not know much on the subject of OOXML or ODF but given the OOXML specs I would not be surprised if MS tried to inject MS specific work arounds for either legacy documents or the way in which Office stores data internally that would be difficult for 3d parties to implement. This is not reasonable, Further if MS had no interest or participation in ODF then they should not have voted at all or abstained.
First do you have any proof of this behaviour? Having worked with (but not for) IBM for approaching a decade I would not be surprised but I have seen no evidence of this to this point. Further IBM and Sun do have a vested interest in OOXML, just as MS has a vested interest in ODF. Any company designing an office suite with an interest in cross compatibility has a vested interest in an ISO standard being submitted involving file formats for said documents. IBM and Sun will, or at least should, implement a filter to allow opening and saving of OOXML documents should it be approved as a ISO standard. While MS has enough dominance in the document field to ignore existing standards, IBM and Sun are not so lucky.
Then you repeat your accusations of IBM stacking against OOXML. Proof and information as to their objections would be nice. Again, I would not be surprised but outside of your statements I have not seen this particular reasoning for MS’s egregious abuses of the system.
As someone who has participated in two ISO standards (one ongoing) I disagree. Perhaps in a politically charged one such as OOXML, but in my experience it has been mostly a technical merit discussion.
Hi Kokopelli. I apprecate your saying that I’m a “reasonably well thought out voice”.
I’ve been up all night surfing the web, and keep coming back to this site, because it’s addicting (I’m thinking of imposing a one month hiatus from this site), so I’m very sleepy and may be sloppy with my words, and I’m too tired to go through your post point-by-point, so bear with me.
First, you seemed to suggest that Microsoft tried to inject things into ODF. Microsoft didn’t participate in ODF development, period. They voted YES for it’s ISO and ANSI ODF approval because they had no problem with its existence (not caring about it at all), and probably to buy some good will. Maybe they thought playing nice on the ODF committees would lead to IBM doing the same regarding OOXML, which turned out not to be the case. You say they should’ve abstained. But why? Can you imagine the outrage if they’d even just abstained? Why take that bad PR when you don’t care one way or another? The point is that Microsoft didn’t try to block ODF even though they had no intention of ever using it. THey didn’t try to deny it to those that wanted to use it. Similarly Microsoft is not lobbying governments to ban use of ODF, while IBM is lobbying them to ban use of all formats other than ODF (for government use, not the citizens).
My accusations regarding IBM stacking the ODF committees aren’t made up out of whole-cloth, I’m not about that. There’s proof all over the web, and not just IBM, but Oracle, Red Hat, and Google all joined committees in various countries as the last minute for the sole purpose of voting NO. It’s known that Google joined Sweden at the last minute, for example. And none of these companies had any intention of using OOXML, so why did they join a committee? If you want proof of IBM, Red Hat, and Oracle’s shennanigans, check out my follow-up post to the one to which you responded. It’s been modded down because I dared cite Microsoft’s Jason Matusow’s blog, but it’s all there.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18566&comment_id=268815
There is plenty of evidence that a very high percentage of the objections from various countries are duplicates, nearly verbatim all originating from IBM themselves. I’m too tired to search for a reference. Check Brian Jones’ blog or something.
Or just choose not to believe it. I’m too tired to care. lol
But do check out this entry from Wouter van Vugt’s blog regarding the Dutch vote: The IBM rep in Holland voted NO on OOXML and refused to state why for fear that his reasons would be addressed. He didn’t even want to give the other side a chance to address his supposed issues!
http://blogs.infosupport.com/wouterv/archive/2007/07/20/Working-to-…
“The IBM rep states that ‘he will just say no’, and also stated that he will not provide any technical comment because that would allow the comment to be fixed, hence opening the door to making Open XML an ISO standard. Can you believe that?”
He goes on,
“Personally I can say that I feel IBM is trying to play the decision makers to vote against Open XML, solely to benefit their own investment in ODF, with complete disregard of customer and community demand. Our committee has to fight against ‘secret agenda’s’ being handed down from IBM headquarters to the IBM rep in the committee. You can probably imagine how technical this secret agenda will be… (I think it states ‘just say no’) “
Stuff like this is what I take to be committee participation in bad faith. Joining a committee for the sole purpose of ensuring the failure of the committee’s project. I’d never heard of such a thing until now. I have to keep repeating it to myself because I can almost not believe that IBM is getting away with this: A committee is formed to work on a project that you have no interest in utilizing. You decide to join the committee in order to kill the project and thus deny its use to those that were actually interested in the project’s success. It’s unbelievable when I say it straight like that. The true meaning of that never really dawned on me until today. Intellectually, I understood that this was occurring, but I never really appreciated how underhanded, cowardly, and f-ed up this is until now. Can you imagine, for example, the 1983 ANSI C committee including participants whose sole purpose is to thwart the standardization so as to promote Pascal? This is what’s going on here, and it stinks to high heaven.
Here’s my bottom line:
If a file format is under consideration for standardization, it does not make logical sense to include as members of the evalutaion committee parties that are dedicated to the project’s failure.
Now, there are those countries that raised issues wrt OOXML in a good faith effort to improve the spec, and many of them voted “No with comments” in an effort to make sure that their comments would be addressed in this next six month phase (the comments submitted by the “Yes with comments” votes will be addressed, but possibly not until OOXML 1.1). Many of those countries are on record a saying that if their comments are addressed, then they will change their votes to YES. That is great, because they voted NO, not to kill the project, but in a good faith effort to make the project as perfect as possible in the end. But in my opinion, IBM and its allies are deidicated to killing OOXML as a standard, period. And it sucks. In fact, frankly, I find it disgusting that those who are dedicated to thwart the process are included in the process at all. This makes absolutely NO sense.
This site would be outraged had Microsoft tried to block ODF. But this site cheers when IBM does it to OOXML.
I’m frankly disgusted with this whole business. I get a kick out of debating this stuff which is why I come around here, but I almost feel I have to take a shower afterward to wash off the grime of this disgusting side of the industry.
I’m sorry, Kokopelli, but I feel as if I’m doing a Stream-of-consciousness rambling.
Take my post as you will. I’m going to get some sleep. 
Edited 2007-09-05 16:50
There is plenty of evidence that a very high percentage of the objections from various countries are duplicates, nearly verbatim all originating from IBM themselves.
Considering that these committees have been filled with Microsoft Certified Partners, and Microsoft have admitted that process, there is simply no evidence for this and there is nothing to back up the blog entry you’ve got there at all. All we got was this:
The difficulty in this process is not the technical basis of Open XML
Errrr, yes it is.
but the passion and politics of people surrounding this great technology.
Oh, woe is us! Everyone hates us. I love the ‘great technology’ bit :-).
It’s straw clutching given the silliness that has gone on. Given that the vast majority voted ‘with comments’ in one for or another, IBM’s dastardly masterplan doesn’t seem to have worked, does it?
But in my opinion, IBM and its allies are deidicated to killing OOXML as a standard, period. And it sucks.
Given the way the voting went, that doesn’t look like it’s occurred, does it? Oh pity us! Evil IBM is trying to kill our standard!
This site would be outraged had Microsoft tried to block ODF. But this site cheers when IBM does it to OOXML.
And there it is again. Microsoft didn’t object to ODF, so why doesn’t everyone just let OOXML go right ahead and be unopposed? Sorry, but in case you didn’t know, OOXML has an awful lot of shortcomings that need solved so people can implement it. Microsoft simply do not want to talk about those shortcomings, let alone solve them.
I’m frankly disgusted with this whole business. I get a kick out of debating this stuff which is why I come around here, but I almost feel I have to take a shower afterward to wash off the grime of this disgusting side of the industry.
I’m sure you do. Getting Microsoft Certified Partners on to committees in lowly countries that have never had a voting interest, or any kind of interest, in this before can’t be an easy business.
Thank you for your response and I hope you slept well.
While the unfair opposition defense seems a little sketchy and definitely not as clear and incorrect as MS’s respons I will take it on face value. Again, while I work quite a bit with IBM it does not mean I think every step they make is either correct nor necessarily even ethical. That said here are my thoughts as I typed away waiting for lunch:
—————-
You and I seem to have a rift in opinions as to the importance and purpose of an ISO Standard. The fact that MS did not participate in the ODF review but put a rubber stamp “yes” also shows a certain stance on standards. It is my opinion that MS could have participated meaningfully and given feedback and suggestions such that the standard satisfied (to a greater or lesser extent) the various interested parties. Instead they simply voted yes and created a separate standard targeting the same subject. Any company interested in interoperability of their product or system with the proposed ODF standard was given plenty of time and opportunity to have their voice heard. Yet MS chose not to say anything?
Now we are looking at OOXML. Redhat, IBM, and Google are all making their voice heard. They are not passive because they have an opinion and do not plan on putting out a third standard for the same subject. If it is a standard, and it is to mean anything, the major players in the industry should support it. ODF or OOXML, it does not matter, if it is an ISO standard serious consideration should be made to support the standard as much as possible. MS seems not to feel that way, due to their dominance in the market I suppose, but IBM, Google, and Redhat do.
Here is my take as a consumer, not as a technical expert in the subject (which I am not). A standard that is adoptable and implementable by all parties is a good thing.
1) I would very much like to have my co worker be able to save a document in Word and then let me open it in OO.o without significant formatting problems. OO.o handles Word documents to a certain extent but it is far from perfect. Adoption of ODF by MS would help this. Ratification of OOXML will not due to the “optional” elements of the specification with relation to legacy support among other things.
2) I would very much like to be able to open said same document on the road using Google Office from a client site computer to allow quick editing and adjustments. Adoption of ODF by MS would heplk this. Ratification of OOXML as it stands will not
3) It would be nice to be able to choose which of the plethora of Linux office suites are best for a particular application but not fear locking myself out from other choices at the same time. ODF helps in this goal, OOXML does not.
4) It would be nice to be able to choose Word, OO.o, Google Office, AbiWord, or whatever the workplace offering is based on MERIT rather than compatibility with the dominant player in the market.
From a standpoint of industry players I find it sad that you think IBM, Google and Redhat should not be interested in OOXML. IBM would like documents created in their Workplace suite to be compatible with google office, OO.o, and Word. Google would like to be able to support documents from Word as well as non MS related products. And lastly Redhat would like to be able to create a Business environment where their products can reasonably be used in end client situations yet be inter operable with the MS dominated world. I fail to see how they could not have a HUGE stake in the OOXML ratification process. The fact that MS is big enough to be able to ignore the rest of the industry does not imply the converse.
Firstly, Microsoft did so “participate in ODF development” … they attended every single OASIS meeting during the three full years of ODF development. Microsoft were entirely aware that the purpose of this development process was to define a document interchange standard that anyone could use, and they offered not one word the whole time.
Microsoft apparently don’t understand the meaning of “standard”. ODF is an agreed International standard for electonic storage and interchange of Office documents. “Standard” means “this is what everyone agrees will be used to interoperate in this domain”.
Microsoft, as you say, voted “YES”. If Microsoft never intended to use ODF for interoperability purposes, then why exactly did they vote “YES” for it?
Microsoft were clearly treating the whole thing as a marketing exercise. That is not what standards are for … they are for interoperability.
If Microsoft never intended to use ODF, yet they voted for it as an ISO standard, then clearly Microsoft were saying that they were not interested in providing interoperability.
The problem for Microsoft then started when governments got interested in ODF. Governments are interested in their sovreignity, and in interoperability, and in long term archival storage of records. ODF fits those aims admirably.
OOXML does not achieve any of these aims, despite Microsofts claiming that it does. OOXML is riddled with dependencies on Microsoft proprietary technology, most of which is obscured Microsoft trade secret. This makes OOXML totally unsuited to be considered as a standard, and it makes OOXML unsuited for many purposes of use by governments.
The ideal, perfect solution to all this is that Microsoft should fully implement ODF in Office 2007 (so that Office 2007 could save and load ODF compliant documents as verified by the ODF test suite). That would benefit everyone, even Microsoft. It would make Office 2007 instantly ISO-compliant. It would make Office 2007 the best solution for an Office product in terms of both compatibility with legacy formats and new XML formats. It would generate fantastic goodwill and PR for Microsoft. It would remove any possible claim of anti-trust against Microsoft. It would save a whole heap of lobbying effort and rework of Office 2007 and OOXML to make that acceptable. It would make Office 2007 useable for government purposes. It would generate huge sales for Office 2007.
I’m fairly certain Microsoft has already done the coding for this, as a Plan B. Well, now is the perfect time for Microsoft to go to Plan B.
I have never heard a Microsoft cheerleader or spinmeister anywhere come up with a single valid reason why Microsoft should not implement ODF in Office.
I have heard lots of claimed reasons … in fact Microsoft’s story on this has changed many times. First Microsoft claimed no-one was interested in ODF. That didn’t last long at all. Then Microsoft claimed ODF had no support for legacy format documents (despite the fact that OpenOffice did a demonstrably good job of reading and writing both legacy format documents and ODF documents). That claim died a death after a while as well, especially when the Sun plugin became available. There have been claims that ODF does not support formulas, which is demonstrably untrue.
So, here is the real challenge. Why should Microsoft not release a SP1 for Office 2007 which includes full and complaint support for ODF formats? Such a move would bring enormous benefits to everyone, including Microsoft. It would make Office 2007 a hot seller. It would make Microsoft money. It would enable Office 2007 to be specified in government procurement. It would place Office 2007 as the undisputed best option for an Office suite going forward. It might even help sell Vista.
So … how about it, Microsoft? Are you finally going to do the right thing by everyone? If not, then why not?
Edited 2007-09-06 02:34
Microsoft did neither of those things.
What Microsoft did was to show up to every single meeting for the entire development process of ODF, and offer not one single word the whole time.
That act in and of itself reeks of Microsoft being involved in ODF development metings at all only for the sole purpose of figuring out strategies to undermine ODF.
Not to quote Bush, but “you forgot Poland.”
The Polish situation is also scandalous.
What about MS telling member countries they could vote “Yes, with comments” and still have their comments addressed, when that is simply not true? Now that the fast-track process is pretty much dead, will those countries change their vote to a “no, with comments”?
Kokopelli, here’s a follow-up to my previous answer.
Let me warn the readers here that I am going to offend some of your delicate sensibilities by having the temerity to cite a Microsoft blog. I know that you guys regard them as being filled with nothing but lies (while Rob Weir’s blog is to be taken as Gospel, completely devoid of spin). But I’m going to do so anyway. It’s a blog written by Jason Matusow, and it describes that there were business motivations on BOTH sides of this issue:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonmatusow/archive/2007/07/18/open-xml-us-v…
If you would, please allow me to quote some of it (and I did bold some parts I found interesting):
——————————————————
“Participation Hypocrisy:
· IBM and ODF advocates (ODF Foundation, Andy Updegrove…) repeatedly have called for mobilization of those who opposed Open XML.
· All over the world, IBM has been working to bring their business partners and organizations into the standards process in favor of their position.
· Oracle and Red Hat (neither of whom have any work directly associated with Open XML) are among those who have recently joined the committee and both voted no.
· Mr. Sutor (IBM) and other IBM representatives have continually raised concern that Ecma was not inclusive enough (even though more companies have directly participated in the Ecma TC-45 work than did in the OASIS ODF working group). Yet, now that more and more interested parties are seeking to participate that is a bad thing according to IBM.
So, I am a little confused. V1 committee participation has increased with organizations who have technical and business interests with the standard being discussed. If IBM is such an advocate for open standards (meaning process and technology), why then be so concerned when it turns out that the openness invites participation of those who disagree with them?
…
IBM “Stacks The Deck” For Technical Review:
· IBM claims that MS participation is too much by encouraging participation by those with business and technical interests in Open XML.
· Yet, for the V1 committee there were 230 technical comments (rounding due to a .5 listed in the official report) – Rob Weir of IBM was responsible for 191 of them (83% of the total).
· The head of the V1 committee was the technical editor of ODF.
· Of the 224 general comments made – 171 were letters of support for Open XML, 31 were letters of general opposition to Open XML; with the remainder being 2 additional substantive questions, 17 more from Rob Weir, and 3 general cautions from the community.
So again, I’m a bit confused. As committee participation increased for V1, it did so with individuals from organizations who are very interested in commercial implementations of this technology. Their customers, their business opportunities, and their own use of technology will be improved by this move to greater openness in document formats. Yet, IBM seems to have taken the stance that their own opposition to this standard will be best served by overwhelming the committee with their issues and pushing for procedural challenges to the adoption of the standard. This is particuarly strange when you consider the fact that IBM is a member of Ecma and could have participated in the work of TC-45. TC-45 has a wide range of participants (including folks from OpenOffice.org). I look at the 171 community support letters to V1 as being a pretty strong statement that it is not just MS that is interested in the ISO/IEC adoption of Open XML. (Not to mention the 1700+ letters of support at the OpenXMLcommunity.org site.)
Opinions Differ:
IBM is welcome to their opinion of the standardization of Open XML. They are working in more than 100 countries to oppose its adoption and will push as hard as they can to achieve this goal. They are advocates for the technologies that best fit their products and business model – their actions regarding Open XML are in their best interests…not that of their customers. If they don’t want to support the Open XML standard in their products, they are not obliged to do so. Working to defeat the standard is 100% an industry competitive play and not about customer benefit. “
——————————————————
There’s more to that blog entry for those that are interested.
Note that Jason has admitted multiple times in his blog, including above, that Microsoft and its partners do have business incentive in OOXML’s success. But he also points out that IBM and its allies have business interest in OOXML’s death. Again, note that Microsoft made no effort to block ODF, and could very easily marshalled enough forces to block ODF super-majority.
I am tired of the pretense that the opposing side had only technical purity as their motivation and not business interests. There are business motivations on both sides of this issue. Of your side, I’ve only seen raver31 come even close to admitting as much (he earler salivates at the prospect of everyone ditching MS Office due to government mandated use of ODF and only ODF.)
Again, whoever’s been modding me down, this is an answer to a direct question (I originally included it in my first answer, but it was too long), so take care not to mod it down simply because you disagree with it.
Edited 2007-09-05 11:24
I’m sorry Molly, but this reasoning is fatally flawed. There is absolutely nothing (other than Microsoft’s own desire for lock-in) that prevents Microsoft from fully implementing ODF. Microsoft is perfectly welcome (nay, encouraged, nay … pleaded with) to implement ODF as a fully-fledged capability in Office.
The reverse is simply not the case. Microsoft reserves exclusively for itself, under threat of legal attack, the right to fully implement .docx (the full features of Office 2007 file format).
If governments actually mandated ODF, Microsoft would not be disadvantaged in any way.
Please try to remember that it is only Microsoft that prevents Microsoft from fully implementing ODF, just as it is only Microsoft that prevents everyone else from fully implementing .docx.
Agree 100%. Modding down just because you disagree with an opinion is silly.
One does not defeat an argument by ignoring it or censoring it.
So, MollyC, are you EVER going to address the main point of all this?
The main point being NZ & France’s ANFOR suggestion …merge ODF & bits of OOXML and make one all-encompassing open and universal Office XML file format.
Why doesn’t Microsoft just provide full support for ODF in Office 2007? Instant brownie points. Instant quelling of all anti-trust accusations. Instant acceptance of Office 2007. Instant success for Office 2007. Profits for Microsoft. Goodwill and Kudos for Microsoft.
And don’t try the furphy of “ODF doesn’t support this or that feature”. If it truly doesn’t, it can be added.
Can you answer this? Honestly? Without the PR spin, please?
Edited 2007-09-05 11:33
But I’m going to do so anyway. It’s a blog written by Jason Matusow, and it describes that there were business motivations on BOTH sides of this issue:
Molly, if all you can do is quote MSDN blogs verbatim then you’re comments are going to get modded down.
Wow, someone writing on a MSDN blog has said that IBM are evil and are against OOXML. Wow. News at 11.
But he also points out that IBM and its allies have business interest in OOXML’s death.
I didn’t see the ISO committees being flooded with IBM’s goons, and no, you don’t get away with using the argument of “Well, IBM are evil so we can as well”.
It’s a mental illness you and people at Microsoft seem to have.
Edited 2007-09-05 11:36
“Molly, if all you can do is quote MSDN blogs verbatim then you’re comments are going to get modded down.”
Over half my posts in this thread have been modded down, whether they quoted an MSDN blog or not.
Here’s a refresher regarding the moderation rules:
“Please do not use this feature to vote down comments that you merely disagree with, or even ones that contain factual errors or misinformation. Rather, use the reply feature and enlighten us all with your opinion or correct facts.”
I don’t see any of my posts fitting the “personal attack/offensive language”, “off-topic”, or “spam” catagories, so the only one left, the one that you guys must be clicking is “I disagree with this user/opinion”.
Maybe some equate quoting a blog as “spam”, but how do you explain the other posts you guys have modded down?
I quoted the blog because it was more eloquent than I could be on the matter, and gives another side of the story for those that might be interested, including those that may be relatively neutral on the issues. Those readers deserve an opportunity to hear the other side. And there’s no evidence that anything in Jason or Brian’s blogs are false. I don’t assume that blogs are filled with “lies” such that I’d have to verify everything I quote from one through my own research, though they do slant to the blogger’s point of view. And Jason’s blog, in particular, raises many points that are seldom brought up here. I’d think we could discuss those points rather than mod people down that dare raise them.
BTW, let me know when you get around to modding down citations of and quotes of Rob Weir.
Edited 2007-09-05 14:10
In your defense I have to agree that it’s both stupid and really childish to mod all your posts down just because you happen to support MS. That does NOT make us OSS supporters look too smart..
And as for the matter at hand: Microsoft IS using dirty tactics (as shown f.ex. by the incident in Sweden) and I generally dislike Microsoft very much. But I wouldn’t still have any objections towards OOXML if it was properly open and unencumbered by patents. It would just be a good thing IMHO. But it’s kind of stupid to be trying to force OOXML as a standard when there is already a good and open standard. Oh well, I am just waiting to see how this all turns out in the end.
Whining about being modded down is off-topic. I didn’t mod your other posts down, but I’m certainly modding this one down.
By the way, when you say “you guys are modding me down”, that seems to be quite the blanket accusation. Seems you’re not above making unsubstantiated accusations yourself. Pot, meet kettle.
LOL
I see it didn’t take too long for you guys to start modding me down. Took less than 10 minutes. I just *love* how some of you just can’t *stand* to hear a view differing from your own.
Well, fine then. Go ahead and have this thread to yourselves. It’s not like this thread will make any difference in the outcome. But I won’t be answering any more of your questions or responding to your challenges, since since you’re just going to mod me down anyway.
I’ll leave you with this: I found it very entertaining watching n4cer run rings around you guys!
Cheers!
I just *love* how some of you just can’t *stand* to hear a view differing from your own.
LOL. A differing view needs evidence to support it, and quoting MSDN blogs verbatim is not it.
I found it very entertaining watching n4cer run rings around you guys!
You and n4cer have been taken to the cleaners on numerous occasions. You have nothing to back up any of the drivel that you’re writing about, and we end up right back to square one.
Edited 2007-09-05 12:28
Right…except he didn’t. He just spouted the same old FUD, trying to turn the tables and present IBM, Sun, etc. as the ones playing dirty tricks to affect the outcome. It’s not convincing anyone.
Sweden, Poland, Malaysia…the ISO abuse scandals just keep piling up. This is turning into a PR disaster for Microsoft.
Only 5 votes need to be swung in the BRM for OOXML to become an ISO standard. Already, I’ve heard of 3 countries seriously characterizing their NO votes as conditional. Unless their comments are ridiculous, like the Danish ones, they will get fixed.
The BRM is going to probably be a really interesting and contentious meeting. Up until now, Microsoft and the other ECMA supporters of OOXML have always had another vote to look forward to. If the BRM fails, then OOXML will have totally failed in fast track.
One thing that should be noted is that the tactics used against OOXML may in fact be applied against the next standard that comes out of Open Source technologies, or the next thing that Sun and/or IBM propose.
The tactics used against OOXML amount to pointing out, over and over again, that OOXML is not open, but instead that it depends on proprieatry Microsoft technologies and that it is therefore single-vendor, sole-source and platform-dependent. Therefore OOXML is not appropriate to be considered as a standard.
It isn’t possible to use that same tactic against “open source technologies”. Think about it. If it is open source, then of its very nature it is not single-vendor and it is not single-platform.
You would think that someone whose chosen handle was “PlatformAgnostic” would understand that point.
lemur2, please stop posting what I’m about to say with more eloquence than me. 😛
Sorry boss. It is, after all, your thread.
The “tactics” against OOXML are nothing compared to the backroom dealings MS has conducted during the fast-track process.
By the way, you should change your nickname from “PlatformAgnostic” to “MicrosoftFaithful”, since that much better represents your comment history.
I’m glad Microsoft couldn’t ‘persuade’ countries to say yes. Are we finally not letting the money speak? I can only hope so…
I’ve seen comments in this thread saying, “There’s just no way that all 10,000+ comments will be addressed in the six-month time frame, so approval is impossible”.
What some fail to apperciate is that not all 10,000 comments need be “fixed”, only enough to sway the required number of NO/Abstain votes.
What I would do, were I running the ECMA committee, would be to create two sub-committees, a “low fruit” group, and an “priority” group.
The “low fruit” committee would handle all of the easy objections.
* First, a huge number are duplicates (many of the objections originated from the same source, so that shouldn’t be a surprise). One of the tasks would be to identify all of the dupes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this eliminated 90% of the comments right off the bat.
* Second, many of the objections are based on faulty information. Things like, “The type of zip format is not specified”, when in fact it is. Those get “fixed” very quickly and easily.
* Third, many of the objections require one-line fixes. “The angle unit of mesure for trigonometric functions is not explicitly stated.” So you add one line saying that the unit for those functions is “radians”.
* Forth, eliminate unnecessary portions of the spec that have caused friction. For example the optional flags saying, “Try to mimic the behavior of WinWord 2.0” or whatever. Just eliminate that altogether. So what if the data that such flags related to gets displayed slightly differently than the way WinWord 2.0 displayed it. It’s not like all browser display HTML the same way either. So that kind of stuff should just be thrown out (the flags were optional anyway, so nothing is lossed by eliminating them to begin with).
Now, the “priority” sub-committee would be dedicated, not to fixing as many comments as possible, but triaging the comments according to the easiest path to ISO-approval, and working on the objections with the resulting highest priority. For example, a substantial portion of the comments came from “Yes with comments” votes. Those comments get lowest priority. Of the remaining comments, you only need to get 5 countries to flip their votes, so you identify the 5 “no with comments” countries with the fewest number of comments, and give their comments the highest priority.
Once the priorities are set, you first fix those that would sway those 5 countries, then you work on the rest of the comments in order of priority, as time permits. Any comments still remaining at the end are postponed for ISO OOXML 1.1.
The above is just one strategy. I think many here underestimate the ability of dedicated workers to accomplish a task like this.
Edited 2007-09-05 09:43
It would of course be far simpler, a great deal less effort, and far far better for nearly every person on the planet (and I would argue better even for Microsoft itself) if Microsoft simply adopted full compliance with ODF.
Just issue the “ODF as a supported file format” patch for Office 2007 that I’m sure Microsoft has already done. Microsoft engineers are reported to have said (off the record, over a year ago) that it would require just two weeks worth of coding effort. I don’t mean a converter – I mean the ability to save as ODF, to directly open ODF, and to be able to set ODF as the default format (like Sun’s plugin, only better).
The world would gain true interoperability, true cross-platform, true “future-proofing” and a truly open universal XML Office file format.
Office 2007 would instantly become the undisputed best option for an Office product. It would have by far the best support for legacy formats, and it would be compliant with agreed consensus ISO standards for the future formats, and governments could use it and specify it for procurement without the controversy of requiring their citizens necessarily to obtain a product from just one vendor. Microsoft would suddenly become utterly free of anti-trust accusations. Goodwill for Microsoft would soar.
Such a fully-ODF-compliant version of Office 2007 would sell like hotcakes. It might even sell Vista.
Edited 2007-09-05 10:35
“far far better for nearly every person on the planet (and I would argue better even for Microsoft itself) if Microsoft simply adopted full compliance with ODF.”
Why? Presuming OOXML end up being a unencumbered and open specification why would ODF be better for “every person on the planet”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperability
(or lack of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power#Monopoly_power )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition#Economics_and_business
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-efficiency
(or lack of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microeconomic_theory
… and finally, lack of …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-trust
Edited 2007-09-05 10:53
Cute, but that has nothing to do with my question. MS would no longer control and open and unencumbered specification.?
Good thing we have “ethical” companies like IBM and Sun to watch out for us, eh?
You do realise that Microsoft were represented on the OASIS committee that designed ODF? (If they needed anything to be included in the format, they just had to state what that was, but they refused to do so).
You do realise that with ODF you have sovereignty over your own data?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty
You do realise the with an open source application you can audit its functionality,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit
(in other words, we can look out for ourselves)
… but with Microsoft software you do not even own the application you paid for?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eula
Edited 2007-09-05 11:14
Thanks Prof, I really didn’t know what sovereignty and audit was.
Too bad this has NOTHING to do with the specifications for a file format. OOXML does not come with an EULA, yo u know.
I realize it’s hard to let go of the irrational MS hatred, if even for moment, but perhaps we could at least try.
Too bad this has NOTHING to do with the specifications for a file format. OOXML does not come with an EULA, yo u know.
Too bad OOXML doesn’t have a practical, real-world implementation either – apart from Office 2007 ;-).
I realize it’s hard to let go of the irrational MS hatred, if even for moment, but perhaps we could at least try.
Oh, everybody hates Microsoft! The same tactic appears again and again.
You could look at what people are saying and then let go of the ‘everybody hates Microsoft’ hatred. Nobody is saying that apart from you.
Edited 2007-09-05 12:27
Multiple real-world implementations is not a requirement for an ISO standard. Nice try deflecting the issue though.
Don’t put words in my mouth, I’ve never said such a thing.
Multiple real-world implementations is not a requirement for an ISO standard.
ISO standards always come with a benchmark, or some kind of test suite, so that you can verify your conformance to the standard. Happens a lot. This seems to have been bypassed in this case, because it is supposed to be talked about in a polite and civilised manner within the various committees.
Nice try deflecting the issue though.
This is the only issue that matters sweetheart.
Don’t put words in my mouth, I’ve never said such a thing.
Yes you did. As soon as the going gets tough people seem to be quick to play the ‘everybody is anti-Microsoft’ card.
There is such a test suite for ODF. If there is not one for OOXML, then that is yet another reason to reject OOXML.
I don’t hate Microsoft … I just want an open standard for documents. I want to own my own data and my own computing resources … is that unreasonable?
I would be over the moon if Microsoft joined in and participated in free & open competition by adopting the open ODF standard in its products.
Please Microsoft, give us ODF in Office 2007. I would buy it … even it it did run only on Windows.
Even IBM invites Microsoft to join the open standardisation effort:
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1827
I’m with Bob … and would extend an open invitation to Microsoft to join in and be part of it.
“I just want an open standard for documents. I want to own my own data and my own computing resources … is that unreasonable?”
Quite reasonable and it is something I want too. I do however not really care if this open and unencumbered standard was designed by MS, IBM or someone else as long a it is just that, open and unencumbered.
Now *if* ISO was to ratify OOXML and it is still encumbered in some ways, well, that would be bad.
Cute, but that has nothing to do with my question.
Yer, fair trade and equal implementations. Cute.
MS would no longer control and open and unencumbered specification.?
Flawed. You’re assuming that OOXML is unencumbered, and it simply isn’t.
Edited 2007-09-05 11:38
Yes, it is.
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx
So, anything that is referenced but not defined in OOXML is not covered by Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise.
That includes a lot of things that are necessary for full compatibility with the .docx format: things like ActiveX, VBA. WMA, WMV, WMF and all sorts of references to “behaveslikeWordnnn” descriptions. OOXML is rife with references to things that are still proprietary to Microsoft.
This is the ENTIRE reason for the strong and determined opposition to OOXML.
Edited 2007-09-05 11:40
Yes, it is.
Wrong choice of words perhaps. I wrote ‘OOXML’ and fell into the trap of not talking about the only practical implementation of OOXML we have and whether it is useful or not.
That includes a lot of things that are necessary for full compatibility with the .docx format: things like ActiveX, VBA. WMA, WMV, WMF and all sorts of references to “behaveslikeWordnnn” descriptions. OOXML is rife with references to things that are still proprietary to Microsoft.
True.
No, I’m assuming it *could* be. Perhaps you should actually read what I wrote.
That remains to be seen – in any case, as Brian Jones has helpfully pointed out, there’s no indication that MS will support changes made to OOXML in the next iterations of its office suites.
Just issue the “ODF as a supported file format” patch for Office 2007 … the ability to save as ODF, to directly open ODF, and to be able to set ODF as the default format …
Office 2007 would instantly become the undisputed best option for an Office product.
For this reason, I hope that MS does not issue that patch. For many years IE has been the undisputed most popular option for displaying standard HTML and it has done an undisputed terrible job at it.
If most people use Word to read/write ODF, MS will have huge influence on it’s implementation. They can just ignore the ODF standard the way they have ignored the HTML and CSS standards. This will create the dependence they want because documents created with Word won’t look right in any competing application, so people will conclude that obviously only Word does it right.
Unlike OOXML, there is a test suite available for ODF.
http://testsuite.opendocumentfellowship.org/summary.html
You can check an application’s ODF compliance. If Microsoft’s software did not do it right, it wouldn’t be a sell feature for MS Office. It would only be a sell feature if it was done correctly.
If it was done correctly, and released say as “SP1 for Office 2007”, then and only then would it be a selling point. It would, in effect, be “instant ISO compliance for Office 2007”.
I’ve followed this conversation, but the level of ‘he said she said’ in the comments is a serious turn-off.
Can OOXML be fixed in time for a February vote? As a software professional and specification writer I think the written spec could potentially be fixed. However, I see no incentive to the organizations involved to do so.
Problem Area 1: Typos and Clarifications.
This area will be addressed. It’s cheap, easy and shows you listen.
Problem Area 2: Windows Dependencies.
This will not be fixed.
* MS, the creator and guardian of the spec, wouldn’t want it fixed. It would damage the monopoly sales.
* The volume of dependencies is too large. Hardware (Binary Endian in XML?) Operating System (Dates, Embedding, Clipboard) Application (Office-explicit features)
* Many features are not implemented in Office, but in Windows itself. Problems of Dates, Language compatibility, Numeric Presentation, Color, Cut-Paste, Printing, etc. stem from the OS. This causes the same document to appear different on different versions of XP, much less being able to appear on Vista, Linux or Java. MS hasn’t been able to even describe their own networking in 4 years of trying. We expect them to define all of this in 4 months?
Problem Area 3: Legal Ambiguity
This will not be fixed.
* Issues of patent coverage, legality of implementation, etc. Prevent non-allied companies from implementing the standard. This benefits Microsoft.
* Microsoft owns the patents and will not give them up in a manner that could threaten their monopoly. (They were asked to on OOXML, and have consistently ignored the issue entirely beyond a statement of ‘belief’ that it is not needed. When a lawyer says he ‘believes’ something, get worried. It means he can’t prove it and doesn’t want to try.)
Problem Area 4: Obtuse and Difficult Implementation
This will not be fixed.
* The XML output for OOXML is very ugly and impossible for a human to really parse without automatic tools. (Which makes me wonder why anyone would bother making it verbose text in the first place?)
* Changes to structure imply a need to change MS Office. Given the multi-year release schedules, that couldn’t happen until after 2010.
* OOXML began life as a definition dump of MS Office binaries. While Office might be capable of separating presentation from data, the fact is that capability is rarely used in documents. (How often do YOU redefine the 20+ default styles for your documents?)
* OOXML contains numerous inter-dependencies which making changes to one element effect additional items. Changing the name of an element is easy, keeping track of a dependency tree of elements is much tougher and almost always leads to mistakes. (There are what, 5 different meanings of the ‘s’ element currently? No cut and paste corrections for you!)
Precisely.
Nail, hammer, head.
It is the exact same reason why my question will not be answered: “Why not just fully implement ODF in Office 2007?”
It would remove all the opposition to Office 2007, and make it a viable, attractive product. It would make Office 2007 worthwhile. It would bring goodwill and kudos back to Microsoft.
Such a move would, in all likelihood, profit Microsoft greatly and make a huge success of Office 2007 and ODF both.
So why not? Are Microsoft really this afraid, that they would rather suicide their reputation rather than do something that was actually good for everybody?
I just don’t get it.
What some fail to apperciate is that not all 10,000 comments need be “fixed”, only enough to sway the required number of NO/Abstain votes.
Which means they’re not going to be fixed.
One of the tasks would be to identify all of the dupes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this eliminated 90% of the comments right off the bat.
Sadly no, I’m afraid.
Second, many of the objections are based on faulty information. Things like, “The type of zip format is not specified”, when in fact it is.
Not sure where that one is, but given that Office 2007 is the only test container we have for this then the OLE document that results when you password protect a file is going to have to be dispensed with in Office first.
“The angle unit of mesure for trigonometric functions is not explicitly stated.” So you add one line saying that the unit for those functions is “radians”.
Well, no because a lot of the units of measure in OOXML are internal Microsoft implementations pulled from Office.
For example the optional flags saying, “Try to mimic the behavior of WinWord 2.0” or whatever. Just eliminate that altogether. So what if the data that such flags related to gets displayed slightly differently than the way WinWord 2.0 displayed it.
Because that will mean that older Office documents converted to supposedly OOXML files will contain tags that cannot be dealt with by any application apart from Office 2007. How about Microsoft actually document these things, eh?
It’s not like all browser display HTML the same way either.
Yer. Lets just get rid of the anchor or the table tags. I mean, it’s not as if people are going to need them.
The above is just one strategy. I think many here underestimate the ability of dedicated workers to accomplish a task like this.
The format is flawed from start to finish. It needs reworked from top to bottom, because no one else can create a working, practical OOXML implementation as it stands.
Mostly because some of them can’t be solved simply by being more specific in the documentation. For one thing, it is recommended to use ISO date format within the files, rather than what it already does, which will break their current implementations.
Other things are such as “Use the ISO certified Graphics Metafile, rather than your own WMF or EMF, for which there’s no public definitions.”
It makes sense for the standards organizations to prefer the newcoming standards to refer to other ISO standards, as that results in much less maintenance of the new standard. Also for signing and encryption of the documents, the statement is clear, ISO do not want some new unproven algorithm inside their system, as that would make users have false assumptions that everything has been tested and proven.
I doubt that MS will want to bow to those demands of using open standards and formats within their documents, especially is it unlikely that they want to support any other metafile-type than their own. And I believe MS wants to keep their own proprietary algorithms secret, as they have made it so that there’s some kind of DRM to documents in Office today. If they open it up for everyone to see there’s a 70% chance that there’s gonna be a weakness serious enough to render their security useless within 60 secs or less.
On the other hand, there’s no doubt that they could conform with those comments within time… They’ll just have to swallow so much pride and put so much at risk and stray so far from their regular path, that I doubt they’ll ever get an ISO approval through honest means.
Lets put pressure on local, regional and national governments (and EU bodies in Europe) and request that all their public documents are released always in ODF and then in something else if they’d like double work (for taxpayers money). And decline to use documents in .doc, .xls and other closed formats.
And vote for politicians who understand the need to use free standards in communication.
That may shift things a bit.
Why would they need to release all their documents in ODF? Why not PDF? You don’t need to modify them, right? PDF is perfectly suitable for this and should be the preferred format.
This year I downloaded PDF forms for both federal and state income taxes, filled them in on my GNU/Linux PC using only Adobe’s free ‘reader’ software, printed them and sent them in.
So some portions of the massive US federal and state governments are already using PDF very effectively.
Oh I know they are. I was simply addressing the guys post saying governments should use ODF. I’d prefer government use PDF and I’m glad I can use PDF in most scenarios currently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A
(The first of the two ISO standards I have been involved in.)
PDF is good for static storage, consistent display, and form based applications. It is less satisfactory for working documents however and in situations where there is a dynamic structure or a desire to have continuing edits are necessary.
Uh… when they publish the documents (make them available publically), they can convert those to PDF. The internal versions they are editing can be stored however they want for all I care. PDF is good for finalized/published version of documents to ensure the end reader sees what you see.
PDF is good for finalized/published version of documents to ensure the end reader sees what you see.
Bah! We should just use TIFF for that!
Now they will have to standardise format and actually make it something that competition could use. With this fast-track procedure they tried to bypass standardisation process and keep the spec half-usable – so that only MS could read or create MSWord-compatible documents without reverse engineering. Actually the only thing that forced them into this was ODF’s success and governmental requirements for standardisation.
Problems for other implementations are of course sw patents, especially for use in the USA (while in the EPO it is much harder to get trivial patents to pass).
Pragmatic move for Microsoft would be to ship Office with ODF support. Software that provides it already exists. They would be able to continue business as usual, and go on with ISO submission. But, there is always ego……
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
Kochise
Just like he did at the Justice department.
Gnumeric dev Jody Goldberg just posted a blog regarding the ease of implementing ODF vs OOXML wrt the Gnumeric spreadsheet app.
http://blogs.gnome.org/jody/2007/09/10/odf-vs-oox-asking-the-wrong-…
First, as Jody states, the Gnumeric OOXML impl is a work in progress, though that didn’t stop Rob Weir from ripping it for being incomplete. But Jody says that the basics of OOXML import was written on a plane, and the export was written on the way back. Chart support was added the next day. Jody says this was orders of magnitude easier than implementing support for MSO’s binary format.
But Jody goes on to say that “it [implementing ODF] was significantly more difficult [than implementing OOXML]”.
One of the reasons given was that OOXML fits in with Gnumeric’s code structure better than does ODF; for example, “ODF’s model of ‘chartness’ didn’t fit well with Gnumeric.” So much for ODF’s vaunted “app-neutral” claims. As I’ve said before, ODF was written with OO.o in mind (being based on OO.o XML 1.0, after all), so the further you get away from OO.o’s features and code structure, the more difficult time you’ll have implementing ODF. By the same token, OOXML is derived from previous MSO formats, and is created with MSO in mind. The closer your code structure is to MSO, the easier time you’ll have implementing OOXML. Neither formats are app-nuetral. The difference is that ODF purports to be so. Well, now you have truth that “It ain’t necessarily so.”
Edited 2007-09-10 22:04
Following up my previous post:
At slashdot, there’s a huge thread going on regarding comments that Miguel made wrt OOXML:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/10/2343256
(As a side note, I must say that OSS folks can be truly vicious when someone disagrees with their “conventional wisdom”. Some of the slashdot comments against Miguel are truly vicious, vile, and digusting.)
Anyway, that thread contains a couple of posts by the aforementioned Jody Goldberg (the Gnumeric dev I refered to in my previous post), that may prove interesting (though I’m sure the most vitriolic pro-ODF anti-OOXML folk will say he’s lying, or being paid off, or whatever).
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293507&cid=20552341
“Short version : ‘Both need work’
You’re getting close. No, I do not say OOX is a great format. There are lots of places it could have been improved. However, the same is true of ODF. Gnumeric makes a lovely test bed for comparison. We’re a neutral 3rd party implementer trying to handle both of these specs. Once the politics have been removed there are two unpleasant truths that the ODF-cheering section doesn’t want to hear.
1) like OOX, ODF is underdocumented, and has significant limitations.
2) OOX, despite it’s various flaws, is better documented, and in some ways superior to ODF.
There is a fundamental hypocrisy that is unfortunate. We should be discussing the limitations of each standard and how to improve them but at the core it is my belief that if ODF is acceptable as a standard, then so is OOX. Take both or take neither, but to chose just one is nonsense.”
And here’s a bit of FUD-debunking:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293507&cid=20552911
“Legacy Blobs all over the place ??
When working on filters for gnumeric my standard approach is to write a collection of test files tweaking various pieces of the format (see gnumeric/samples dir in svn). I’ve yet to hit any significant binary blobs that are not also in ODF (eg emf/wmf images). Indeed, while reviewing parts of Spreadsheetml I haven’t come across significant binary content. There is lot’s to complain about in OOX without our making up random stuff.”
Following up my previous post:
At slashdot, there’s a huge thread going on regarding comments that Miguel made wrt OOXML:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/10/2343256
(As a side note, I must say that OSS folks can be truly vicious when someone disagrees with their “conventional wisdom”. Some of the slashdot comments against Miguel are truly vicious, vile, and digusting.)
Anyway, that thread contains a couple of posts by the aforementioned Jody Goldberg (the Gnumeric dev I refered to in my previous post), that may prove interesting (though I’m sure the most vitriolic pro-ODF anti-OOXML folk will say he’s lying, or being paid off, or whatever).
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293507&cid=20552341
“Short version : ‘Both need work’
You’re getting close. No, I do not say OOX is a great format. There are lots of places it could have been improved. However, the same is true of ODF. Gnumeric makes a lovely test bed for comparison. We’re a neutral 3rd party implementer trying to handle both of these specs. Once the politics have been removed there are two unpleasant truths that the ODF-cheering section doesn’t want to hear.
1) like OOX, ODF is underdocumented, and has significant limitations.
2) OOX, despite it’s various flaws, is better documented, and in some ways superior to ODF.
There is a fundamental hypocrisy that is unfortunate. We should be discussing the limitations of each standard and how to improve them but at the core it is my belief that if ODF is acceptable as a standard, then so is OOX. Take both or take neither, but to chose just one is nonsense.”
And here’s a bit of FUD-debunking:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293507&cid=20552911
“Legacy Blobs all over the place ??
When working on filters for gnumeric my standard approach is to write a collection of test files tweaking various pieces of the format (see gnumeric/samples dir in svn). I’ve yet to hit any significant binary blobs that are not also in ODF (eg emf/wmf images). Indeed, while reviewing parts of Spreadsheetml I haven’t come across significant binary content. There is lot’s to complain about in OOX without our making up random stuff.”
One last post on this topic.
Miguel posted a brilliant post to slashdot, dealing with issues such as the Lotus date issue, SVG, MathML, ODF’s rush to release (including citations from ODF folk admitting as much), ODF’s problem with formulas, etc. The post includes many URL citations to back him up.
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293507&cid=20549289
And here’s another Gnumeric dev, Morten Welinder, calling ODF-folk out for FUD against OOXML:
http://blogs.gnome.org/mortenw/2007/09/11/ooxml-vs-odf/