ODF Editor Says ODF Loses If OOXML Does

An anonymous reader writes "The editor of the Open Document Format standard has written a letter (PDF) that strongly supports recognizing Microsoft's OOXML file format as a standard, arguing that if it fails, ODF will suffer. 'As the editor of OpenDocument, I want to promote OpenDocument, extol its features, urge the widest use of it as possible, none of which is accomplished by the anti-OpenXML position in ISO,' Patrick Durusau wrote. 'The bottom line is that OpenDocument, among others, will lose if OpenXML loses... Passage of OpenXML in ISO is going to benefit OpenDocument as much as anyone else.'"

Read Contra Durusau by Rob Weir

[jkrise]

on his blog for more details.

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/contra-durusau-part-1.html [robweir.com]

This guy Durusau seems to have changed his mind to a pro-MS shill in recent times.

Re:Rob Weir's response to Patrick's sudden flip fl

[Anonymous Coward]

That post by Rob is particularly good, I recommend it.

In addition,

Patrick Durusau is one of several editors on ODF (in ODF 1.0 he was one of six editors) and in ODF 1.1 and the 1.2 drafts he's one of three and one of two respectively. So he's not the editor, he's an editor.

Patrick doesn't present technical arguments, he only presents political ones, and generally he seems to be of the opinion that it's better that Microsoft be involved in ISO than not (and this opinion overrides any issues of quality, or whether anyone else can implement OOXML). This is the idea that this way we get to have more of an impact on Microsoft.

In my opinion OOXML is an insincere involvement in the ISO process (as shown by minimum change during the fast-track, and poor documentation of OOXML) and I think it's naive to expect more in the future. So to me the political angle on this fails.

The technical angle on it fails completely [robweir.com].

Re:Don't fully understand his arguments

[pembo13]

I was a bit troubled by my inability to grasp the logic of the arguements put forward by this editor, and so I started Googling a bit to understand his background, etc. I am still going at this, but I cam across this link which others may find interesting: http://boycottnovell.com/2008/03/12/trips-to-microsoft-speculation/

From the Horse's mouth

[jeremiahbell]

Wanna know how much Microsoft has reformed this sort of thing?

[Microsoft Internal Document] I have mentioned before the "stacked panel". Panel discussions naturally favor alliances of relatively weak partners - our usual opposition. For example, an "unbiased" panel on OLE vs. OpenDoc would contain representatives of the backers of OLE (Microsoft) and the backers of OpenDoc (Apple, IBM, Novell, WordPerfect, OMG, etc.). Thus we find ourselves outnumbered in almost every "naturally occurring" panel debate.

A stacked panel, on the other hand, is like a stacked deck: it is packed with people who, on the face of things, should be neutral, but who are in fact strong supporters of our technology. The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select the panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. Since you can't expect representatives of our competitors to speak on your behalf, you have to get the moderator to agree to having only "independent ISVs" on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed - just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the "real world." Sounds marvelously independent doesn't it? In fact, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the "independent" panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you've got a major win on your hands.

You can get it all here http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958 [groklaw.net]

Re:ODF editor on OOXML

[NotZed]

OOXML doesn't have a specified mapping either.

see comment 3 [robweir.com].

So this argument is rubbish. I suspect they will not ever supply a proper mapping, otherwise it would just be used by ODF, and make OOXML even more redundant than it already is.

Re:Don't fully understand his arguments

[pembo13]

Also of possible interest Patrick Durusau site:blogs.msdn.com [google.com]

If OOXML wins then ODF loses

[DrXym]

I do not see how OOXML becoming a standard is a good thing for ODF. Microsoft is pushing for OOXML because they don't want to support ODF.

If OOXML became an ISO standard the chances of ODF support in MS Office is zero. I'm sure Microsoft will act all conciliatory once they get their standard but they will never offer more than token support for ODF. If they produce anything at all I expect it will be some broken tools that conveniently convert ODF to OOXML but botch OOXML to ODF conversion.

How anyone can think that OOXML standardization is a good thing just boggles the mind. It will either kill ODF or marginalize it so much that it doesn't matter any more.

Re:3 questions...

[KDR_11k]

The last time that topic came up many people mentioned that Office 2007's xml files don't match the OOXML standard so this isn't just "what if".

Re:3 questions...

[theonlyaether]

Actually North and South America historically were considered one continent, but going by the tectonic plates and modern geology they are actually two separate land masses. Europe and Asia, on the other hand, are actually representative of the inverse. They are made distinct for sociological reasons, but share the same plate.

MS Office file are wierd

[wrook]

I'm sure I've posted about this previously, but I think it's important, so I'll post again.

Even though I didn't RTFA (and it seems to be disappointing from the comments I've seen), I'm going to agree in one respect. A documented version of an MS word processor file format is a good thing. There are lots of reasons for this and I'm not going to belabour the point by listing them all. But it would be good for everyone if such a thing could be documented and standardized.

But there's a problem and it's called the MS Word formatter. Doc files in and of themselves are not particularly difficult to understand (well, there are some strange bits, but nothing you can't wrap your head around eventually). However, how the Word formatter interprets these files on a case by case basis is extremely complicated and strange. This has nothing to do with "the evil empire" trying to screw people over. It has to do with a complicated, poorly written legacy application having survived 2 decades of rewrites.

You could easily write a specification to explain the file structure of word documents, but such a thing is useless without explaining exactly how everything is formatted in every situation. And that's a dog's breakfast. So MS is between a rock and a hard place if they want to do the right thing.

Either they abandon backwards compatibility with their formatter (i.e., old files will *not* be rendered exactly as they were previously) and write a good specification, or they keep their bizarre formatter and write a horrendously crappy spec. They obviously chose the latter, and I have a hard time criticizing them for that decision.

Does that mean it should be an ISO standard? No. Ideally they should deprecate their old formatter and rewrite it to do something sane (arguably the same could be said for virtually every word processor on the planet). But they are going to have to keep the old formatter to support old documents. And we are stuck without the ability to format those documents exactly, mainly because you just can't describe in any meaningful way how to do it.

Strangely, this would be good for their business because right now they have very limited penetration in the US legal community because their formatter can not format footnotes properly. Scrapping their old formatter in conjunction with a new file format would allow them to get this market. I have to admit that I don't quite understand their reluctance to do so.

As an aside, I don't particularly believe ODF is "the answer" to a file format since it also lacks some crucial information about how the formatter should operate in certain situations. However, it has the advantage of being a *lot* smaller and relatively easy to understand, even if it isn't totally complete from my perspective.

OpenFormula anyone?

[testerus]

"OpenDocument currently lacks formula definitions for spreadsheets,"
OpenFormula [wikipedia.org] exists for years.

Re:How this kind of thing works - Soft Bribery

[Thomasje]

They dropped their opposition, recommended the MS deal, and got paid a quarter of a million (equivalent) to do sweet fuck-all for 6 months. My friend feels like a sell-out, but his daughter's now in a better school.

Wow, way to defend corruption. As if selfish, short-term monetary benefit is the only thing in the world that matters. OK, in all fairness, according to the current American political dogma, that is exactly true, but then again, that is exactly why so many people elsewhere hate the stereotypical "ugly American".
To get back to the point, I wonder if this guy will ever have the nerve to tell his daughter how he managed to send her to the extra-fancy school? To defend not only this elitism (how about working to improve the non-fancy schools instead?) but his act of screwing other people over just for her (don't those other people deserve consideration as well)?

"This is how it's done, people." Bah. Anyone should be ashamed to even play the apologist for this kind of behavior. Now excuse me while I go to the bathroom to throw up.

Even if ODF loses, OOXML must not be accepted

[Anonymous Coward]

The OOXML "war" in ISO is really a lot more important than OOXML itself (except for Microsoft, of course) and ODF.

It is about protecting a major standards body processes (bad as they are) and showing one of the major bad-behaviour corporation that they just can't buy their way everywhere.

If ODF goes to the trashbin in the process, it will be an acceptable loss. It is not like ODF is a good standard either, it is vastly superior to OOXML, but that's the same as saying a thief is vastly better for society than a serial rapist and killer.

Ask around. The Brazil delegation had written proof that ECMA screwed up royally when they accepted OOXML (even by ECMA's pathetic standards, which are *almost* down to "pay us enough"), but they were "worked around" and could not present it properly to everyone, and India refused to participate of the second half of the last meeting due to slights made against their delegation as well. You will find both teams had good reason to be extremely pissed.

OOXML can't be allowed to win, not after the stunts Microsoft and the corrupt people they bought have been doing. No matter the fallout. It is that simple.

Re:3 questions...

[shutdown -p now]

The java debacle was not that they changed the underlying java spec (and it was in no way an ISO spec), but that they added their own namespaces which didn't stand out enough.

This is incorrect. Visual J++ extended Java language with new constructs, namely, delegates. These did not compile to standard Java bytecodes, and so couldn't run on e.g. Sun's (or any other compliant) JDK. Then there was J/Direct, which also pointedly made it as easy as possible to write non-portable code. Of course, J++ never passed Sun's Java compliance tests, either, which is why Sun sued (Microsoft had a license from Sun to implement Java, but the condition of doing so was to be a fully compliant implementation, which was to be proved by successfully passing the tests).

Re:3 questions...

[man_of_mr_e]

You're forgetting, OpenOffice didn't conform to ODF either (in fact, it still doesn't). Microsoft hasn't released a product post-standard yet, so that's quite a strawman.

Re:ODF editor on OOXML

[SanityInAnarchy]

Maybe they should have put those up for ISO standardisation.

Because a format designed to be blitted in the days of Windows 3.1 is a great candidate for interoperability and durability! Can I have some of what you're smoking?

"Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification"

How well does that hold up, legally? Especially the part about "Microsoft Necessary Claims".

The law only covers the file format you send to the outside world and you can export to it using a converter. I seriously doubt many goverments are going to ban people using .doc internally. Maybe you can get the governments to force people to use your favourite OS and text editor too.

Funny you should mention it -- see, open standards are about forcing people to be able to use whatever OS or editor they want.

And if you can export to it using a converter, then why not write an OOXML->ODF converter and be done with it? You don't exactly need a rubber-stamped OOXML for that to work. Hell, if Microsoft had done this right, there would be a "save as ODT" option in Word! Think of that!

I hope you don't use USB mass storage devices, since that's another de facto standard that's a lot less documented than OOXML. Maybe the FSF should make

Make what?

Free Software Foundation. USB is not software.

Oh, and there is a competing standard -- FireWire -- and there's the ad-hominim -- whether I use something is irrelevant to the discussion of whether it should be considered a standard. Once again -- If USB mass storage devices are truly a de-facto standard, and not a certified standard, then they are no better off than OOXML is, right now. Why do you feel the need to get it certified?

Re: 3 questions...

[Dolda2000]

Of course it didn't help that Kerb was designed for the Unix UID/GID model

Would you mind expanding on that a bit? As far as I'm aware, a UID or GID is part of the Kerberos protocol in any way, shape or form. A Kerberos principal is a name and a domain, which I think should map pretty fine onto Windows' model.

The extended stuff was Windows domain membership and so on. If MS didn't require that in the client implementation it would have been useless as Windows logon mechanism, or at least it wouldn't be feature-equivalent to the old lanman one.

You may want to read this [usenix.org], by Microsoft's Peter Brundrett. A quote: "Using NTLM authentication, the user's SID and the group's SIDs are received directly from the server's DC, and any trusted domains, using the Netlogon secure channel. Using the Kerberos protocol, user and group SIDs are transmitted in the authorization data of the Kerberos session ticket."

Obviously, then, it should have been possible to fetch that data from the DC (probably using LDAP) with AD as well. Any way I look at it, it seems they did it to prevent non-Microsoft KDCs to work with Microsoft clients. Especially seeing how the authorization data in the ticket is something as simple as the Windows SIDs for the user.