Microsoft Votes to Add ODF to ANSI Standards List

RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "In a puzzling move, Microsoft today voted to support the addition of the OpenDocument file formats to the American National Standards List. OpenDocument is used by many free-software office suites, including OpenOffice.org. Microsoft is still pushing its own Office Open XML format, which it hopes will also become an ANSI standard. Is Microsoft serious about supporting ODF, or is this a merely a PR stunt to make Office Open XML look more like a legitimate standard?"

Publicity?

[jaavaaguru]

I don't see how this looks like a PR stunt. Making ODF an ANSI standard isn't exactly making Office Open XML more popular is it?

Probably wouldn't have happended if it was close

[SmackedFly]

Not that strange, when you think about Microsofts "it's good to have more standards" argument. Knowing that the standard would be added anyway, they probably voted for it, to make that argument more credible, when OOXML is up for the ISO vote, besides ANSI is more or less irrelevant when ODF is already ISO certified. I would be very surprised if Microsoft doesn't later use this as part of an argument for accepting OOXML, directly or as a response to critics.

PR stunt.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I am more likely to think of it as a PR stunt. If anyone votes against OOXML, they would issue press releases saying, "We voted for their standard, and they are voting against our standard". Lost in the argument would be the basic need to have just one standard.

But still, as long as customers dont know the difference between interoperability and "microsoft compatibility" they win these games. Sad.

Peaceful Co-existence? Gimmeabreak!

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

It's like the "peaceful co-existance" the Soviets were all in favor of. They want to then be able to say they support is even as they choke the life out of it.

Re:My Name Is Bill

[maxume]

Hah hah, but exactly which versions of Word didn't support plain text and rtf? Consumers just don't care.

Listen, Kreskin

[NotFamous]

They did a good thing. It is fruitless to speculate why. 'Nuff said.

MS Open XML is NOT a standard....

[Fallen Kell]

If you can't read the "standard" documentation and develop a program that properly works for that standard, then it is not a standard. The "standard" still has things like "will support rendering of Office97 table format", and never define what the "Office97 table format" exactly is and how it works.

Until each and every thing in the standard is properly defined and explained, it is not a standard.

Sheesh

[Grashnak]

Apparently M$ can do no right. It reminds me of a quote from Jesse Jackson. He once said that if he walked across one of the Great Lakes, the next day the newspapers would report that "Jesse Jackson can't swim". Methinks some of you take your evil empire conspiracy too seriously.

Re:Publicity?

[Goeland86]

No, I think it has to do with the fact that more and more governments are requiring ODF to be adopted.
MS was scared by this, as Office wasn't designed around it, so they're trying to put themselves in a position where they can supply what the governments want AND fulfill legislative requirements. They've learned that from the ongoing EU dispute, imo.
The fact that they're still pushing for their own format just shows that they want to retain dominance in the office world, and perhaps regain complete monopoly of the office programs suite. However, it's going to be harder and harder, as OpenOffice will implement a way to read and write MS's XML format, since it HAS to be documented if MS intends to satisfy government customers.
It's a business move, nothing less! I just hope that OpenOffice will catch up on the feature list quickly (there's some basic stuff that OO's still missing) so that the decision really does come down to TCO for the IT managers, and then OO will truly shine, as there is no license fee, only support cost, and I'm guessing it'll be cheaper than MS Office support.
Just my $0.02 of opinion on this matter.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Microsoft hasn't stood in the way of ODF at all. They just think there's room for more than one standard.

Actually, Microsoft does stand in the way of ODF adoption, just not of it becoming a recognized and official standard. I can see some good reasons from a PR standpoint to go this route. With Microsoft, you have to be very careful with the word "standard." MS is all in favor of standardization. They fight tooth and nail against anything that gives users most the benefits of open standards. When most people think of a standard, they think of something like SAE bolt specifications; something anyone can make standardized for the purpose of allowing interoperability. Everyone can see the benefit of such a standard for the construction industries, manufacturers, and end users.

When MS talks about standards, however, they are more commonly referring to something where they are the sole gatekeeper, and often the sole creator of items that follow said "standard." OpenXML, for example, is not a "standard" in the same way ODF is and it sure doesn't bring end users the lion's share of the benefits normally associated with what we call an open standard. This is because of the application of patents, the ties to secret information, because it is copyrighted, and because MS has a monopoly in the desktop OS space, a "standard" from MS is not just a "standard" as it would be referred to in most other industries. You could call ISO 898, industry members believing there is room for more than one bolt standard, because that is what ISO 898 is, another standard equivalent to SAE. Saying, however, that OpenXML, is just another standard is misleading to the majority of people, because openXML and ODF are not equal, in terms of what sort of standardization benefits they bring to the industry.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[shaitand]

'What's "the" standard programming language?
What's "the" standard webserver?
What's "the" standard OS?'

Yup, that would be why they aren't standards.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[Colin Smith]

Um, you've completely misunderstood the network effect. Deliberately? None of the things you have mentioned are specifically meant to be used as a communication medium to transport information.

Instead examples should be networking protocols, spoken/written language, mobile phone protocols, DVD formats etc. Things which are designed to convey information. These are all highly standardised.

 

semantic retardation ..

[rs232]

Can two or more standards be, by definitation, standard? Why not just publish a RFC and allow everyone write applications to that. What could be more standard than that.

What is a "Standard [case.edu]

"Is Microsoft serious about supporting ODF", NO

"is this a merely a PR stunt to make Office Open XML look more like a legitimate standard?", YES

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[JohnFluxx]

You're missing the point of a standard. There can be multiple implementations of a single standard. There is a standard for a webserver (which, funnily enough, MS also break). It should speak the standard HTTP, and mostly likely that's layered on the standard TCP, and so on.

Same with the OS. The OS should follow the standard POSIX calls (which Windows sorta manages to do), and so on.

As for programming languages.. well that's too broad. For particular languages, there are standards. There is a standard for C, there is a standard for C++, and so on.

Re:Don't we have 2 http standards? 5 TCP/IP standa

[man_of_mr_e]

There already are more than one document format standard. For instance, ODF and PDF are both ISO standards, and while they don't do precisely the same thing (there is plenty of overlap though), neither does ODF and OXML. Multiple standards exist because some standards aren't universally applicable. ODF can't do everything that PDF does and vice versa, the same applies to ODF and OXML.

Why is it, by the way, that having 300+ Linux distro's and dozens of GUI is "choice" and a good thing, but having more than one document format is "stupid"?

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[StarvingSE]

Of course there isn't a "standard" operating system. However, there are standards of OS components that make writing software easier (POSIX, etc)

There is no standard web server, but there is a standard http protocol for processing web requests.

You seem to be confusing standards with implementations of standards, or software written as to take advantage of a known standard.

Red herring

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The problem isn't whether M$ supports a standard's adoption. They supported HTML but...

1. IE renders differntly than many other browsers, which all look more similar to each other than IE (thinking FF, Opera and Safari here).
2. IE supported non-standard tags (like, say ActiveX)
3. Because of IE's automatic market penetration, their extensions (no doubt patented) and misrepresntations of the standard (maybe patented) became standard on the web.

Remember: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Plus, then they will "comply to open standards" removing a EU/Mass./Whoever-else objection to using their software.

Re:My Name Is Bill

[Vexorian]

I think that if rtf was the default file type for saving in word everybody would be using it.

I just hope that ODF being standard kind of forces MS to have it as default filetype for file-save else it would just be a meaningless standard, seriously.

Re:Not necessarily.

[Goeland86]

Actually, I think they *want* to fail at that.
Microsoft is the predominant supplier, and if other programs don't work with Office, MS will claim that it's "inferior" code, that the *other* programs don't follow standards, and the people in management will buy that BS because they've been dealing with MS for ever. It's sad, really, that we lack properly educated IT people. IT is not just about understanding machines, it's also understanding humans who try to sell you machines or software that runs on those machines. It's something few people truly try to understand, but is essential to being fully aware of the situation.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[shaitand]

'Rather, it's to sufficiently document something such that anybody could use it.'

That is a specification not a standard. I know that 'standards organizations' like ANSI and ISO make the arrogant assumption that they are defining standards but specifications they release are NOT standards unless they are actually adopted by the industry. The specifications these organizations release are supposedly developed by members of the industry who by participating are giving implicit agreement to adhere to the standards. In practice they often don't.

Many standards wouldn't even work without universal adoption. SMTP, HTTP, and TCP/IP are good examples of this. DVD-R and DVD+R are examples of specifications that are NOT standards. No standard has emerged to the detriment of manufacturers and consumers.

Re:Don't we have 2 http standards? 5 TCP/IP standa

[shaitand]

'Why is it, by the way, that having 300+ Linux distro's and dozens of GUI is "choice" and a good thing, but having more than one document format is "stupid"?'

Because those distros and GUI's adopt standards that allow them to all interoperate and exchange information. A document format is a means of storing and conveying information. All means of storing and conveying information should be standardized. It makes sense to have different document creation applications but they should all store the results in the same format so that your preferred application is interoperable with mine.

Re:My Name Is Bill

[hendersj]

I think you're wrong here - if RTF had been the default save format, everyone would be using it. Users don't want to think about what format to save documents in, they just go with the defaults most of the time.

So let's talk about poorly thought out responses, shall we? ;-)

Re:Sheesh

[lubricated]

As apposed to the alternate explanation. Microsoft is doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Yeah, that's more likely.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[NickFortune]

What's "the" standard programming language?

What's the standard hair color?

Oops, forgot the quotes, let's try that again.

What's "the" standard hair color?
What's "the" standard shape for snowflakes?
What's "the" standard DNA sequence?

That's better. It doesn't improve the argument though; listing things that don't need standards doesn't mean that standards are neither useful nor desirable in other areas.

What's "the" standard Shoe size?

Obviously there isn't one. But if you buy a pair of shoes from someone whose sizes are 20% smaller than the standard ones... well, you'll soon know about it, put it that way. But I guess to your way of thinking, that'd be your fault for having the wrong size feet.

What's "the" standard webserver?

Now webservers are a bit like shoes here. There isn't a standard shoe size but having standard sizes can eliminate a lot of pointless anguish and strife. Likewise there is no standard webserver, but having them conform to the same protocol is what made webservers worth having in the first place. And as with shoes, if you get one that doesn't quite conform to the standard, well you could be in for a lot of unnecessary aggravation.

What's "the" standard OS?

What's "the" standard railway carriage? There isn't one, of course. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be standard gauges for track. We don't insist that everyone uses the same make of train engine, but it's a really bad idea to let someone vary the width of the track to suit their marketing department's needs

Similarly, I we're not suggesting a standard O/S. Heck, we don't want a standard word processor. But we'd quite like to have a choice of word processor, just like you should have a choice when buying railway carriages.

Even paranoids have real enemies

[Xtifr]

Microsoft has proven, time and time again, that they will engage in all sort of nefarious, underhanded behavior, including lying, cheating, stealing and extortion, in order to maintain and extend their monopolies. They showed no hesitation about lying and evidence-tampering in front of a federal judge, for example. While they do occasionally do the right thing for the right reasons, their history is such that no sane, educated person can observe their actions, especially with respect to competitors, without wondering about their motives.

What you're seeing here is speculation, but it's speculation based on knowledge of the subject. This is not like seeing Jesse Jackson walk across a Great Lake. This is more like seeing John Gotti [wikipedia.org] walk across a Great Lake. I think it's reasonable to speculate that it might not be the second coming.

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I disagree. I've followed this battle in pretty close detail. My observation is that Microsoft has only stood in the way of ODF being adopted to the exclusion of any other format. They seem to be perfectly happy with any case where ODF and other standards being allowed.

ODF is not supported by MS in Word natively. Thus, ODF adoption usually means MS is losing a sale. Further, it means it is easier for their customers to migrate away from MS Office. You really don't think MS is doing anything to stop people from moving to ODF. You don't think they're offering price cuts to stop migrations away from MSOffice to say Openffice and ODF?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I highly doubt your premise. Sure, Microsoft wants standards to benefit itself, but you claim that Microsoft is gainst anyone else benefitting from them.

Open standards traditionally bring certain benefits including:

• competative vendor bids
• wider selection of tools
• no need to maintain compatibility with other tools/versions of tools
• no vendor lock-in

All of these things are benefits MS would prefer their customers did not have, because MS is overwhelmingly the leader in the market, possibly (probably) to the extent of weilding monopoly influence in the word processor market.

Funny you should mention that. How many different standards are there for bolts? Several.

Umm, what is the point of your comment? You're just repeating exactly what I present an example of. The point is, when you talk about ISO and SAE standards for bolts, you're comparing similar items from the perspective of the industry and of the end user. When you're talking about ODF and and OpenXML you're talking about items that are very, very different in the benefits they bring to the industry and end user. Now it would probably be better for the industry and end user if either SAE or ISO won the war and was the only remaining standard for that type of bolt size, but it doesn't much matter which one from an objective perspective. Both would and currently do provide similar benefits. This is absolutely positively not the case when comparing ODF and OpenXML.

ODF is no more "open" than OXML is.

Yes, it is.

It too is covered by patents (and required a patent covenant by Sun, just like OXML).

The restrictions needed to get patent protection from Sun are the same as PDF from Adobe, you just have to follow the spec. That is not the case with MS. Technically, there is nothing stopping MS from releasing a new version of OpenXML and telling all current software vendors implementing it that they are no longer in compliance with the license since they implement the "old" version and shutting down each and every competitor. That is not the case with ODF.

It too is largely championed by a single organization (in this case Sun), with several other organizations involved.

No, ODF is currently implemented by software from dozens of companies and no one company can stop another from implementing the spec. So long as they are following the spec there is nothing Sun can do, including releasing a new version of the spec, to stop someone like the WrodPerfect team from implementing it.

BTW, the very definition of a patent means the information is not secret. You might want to re-evaluate your argument.

Those were separate list items. Note the comma. OpenXML is encumbered by patents that can still be brought to bear. Additionally, OpenXML is tied by trade secrets. Parts of the spec refer to trade secrets and copyrighted implementations of other works. For example, in some instances it refers to behavior "like Word version X" but since only MS has the source to Word version X and it is both copyrighted and a trade secret, no one else can fully implement that part of the spec.

Ok, then you should

Re:Red herring

[prockcore]

Yes, but it specifically targeted the Acid2 test Safari is better than IE in terms of CSS, but FF is even better than Safari, even though FF doesn't pass the Acid2 test.

From the CSS selectors tests:

Firefox passes 357 tests
Safari passes 336 tests
IE7 passes 330 tests

Re:Don't we have 2 http standards? 5 TCP/IP standa

[ewanm89]

Everyone is unique and therfore interfaces with a computer in his/her unique way. This implies there is no standard human-computer interface, however we often want to do very simmilar tasks and then edit someone elses?

Re:Why would it be puzzling?

[man_of_mr_e]

Certainly. If you understand the file format, that's all that's required to be compliant. Nothing says you have to display that data in any particular way. Obviously, your users will expect a certain amount of compatibility in the way data is displayed, but that's a different story.

This subject is boring

[Evets]

ODF is unnecessarily complex and not very useful at all as it currently stands. Most of the people here are willing to accept a MS conspiracy theory. If anything, MS should want ODF to become a frozen standard so that they could

a) develop compatibility to the standard.
b) develop MS-only standard enhancements/extensions.
c) Argue against ODF adoption in government because of deficiencies frozen into the standard.
d) Release an upgrade to office that contains document formatting features not available within the ODF standard.

Re:Onus is on you.

[martin-k]

ODF mirrors the OpenOffice.org 2.x word processor.

OOXML mirrors the Microsoft Office Word 2007 word processor.

Each format has support for the respective features of each applications and either nothing or not a lot more.

If ODF doesn't support something, it's usually because OpenOffice.org doesn't support it. Two features I know of (because we discussed them in our implementation of the OpenDocument filter):

1. Tracked changes in OpenOffice.org are at a Word 97 level. ODF's support mirrors that.
2. Tables. OpenOffice.org is pretty restricted in what it can do with nested tables, merged cells etc. ODF's support mirrors that.

Your mentioning of 'relatively simple specs' needs to be put into perspective. Yes, the ODF specification is much smaller than OOXML's. But that's because it a) simply refers to other specs ("For more on vector graphics, read the SVG specs") without mentioning what subset of the referred-to spec ODF supports and b) because it simply does not mention many things. What is the default fill color of objects? Quick, tell me from the specs. You can't because it's not documented. You have to use OpenOffice.org as the reference implementation and try it out -- not much different from feeding Word a program-generated .doc file and seeing how it behaves...