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Microsoft Spokesman Says ODF "Clearly Won" Standard War

Posted by kdawson on Friday June 20, @09:36AM
from the it's-just-better dept.
Software Microsoft
Elektroschock writes "At a Red Hat retrospective panel on the ODF vs. OOXML struggle panel, a Microsoft representative, Stuart McKee, admitted that ODF had 'clearly won.' The Redmond company is going to add native support of ODF 1.1 with its Office 2007 service pack 2. Its yet unpublished format ISO OOXML will not be supported before the release of the next Office generation. Whether or not OOXML ever gets published is an open question after four national bodies appealed the ISO decision."

Related Stories

[+] Microsoft Office 2007 to Support ODF - But Not OOXML 377 comments
Andy Updegrove writes "About two hours ago, Microsoft announced that it will update Office 2007 to natively support ODF 1.1, but not to implement its own OOXML format. Not until Office 14 is released (no date given so far for that) will anyone be able to buy an OOXML ISO-compliant version. Why will Microsoft do this after so many years of refusal? Perhaps because the only way it can deliver a product to government customers that meets an ISO/IEC document format standard is by finally taking the plunge, and supporting 'that other format.' Still, many questions remain, such as when this upgrade will actually be released, how good a job it will do, and whether the API Microsoft has said it will make available to permit developers to supply 'save to ODF' default plugins will be supported by a patent non-assertion promise allowing implementations under the GPL (the upgrade supplied by Microsoft will not allow ODF as the default setting)."
[+] ISO Puts OOXML On Hold 138 comments
schliz alerts us that ISO, in response to the four appeals (Venezuela, India, Brazil, South Africa) filed in recent weeks, has put the OOXML standardization process on hold. Here is ISO's press release, which says that ISO/IEC DIS 29500 will not be published for at least "several months" while the appeals process goes forward.
Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations.
Firehose:Microsoft: Open Document won standard war by Elektroschock (659467)
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  • Sadly, no, this is not the end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft. I guarantee that ODF will not be the default format and that Microsoft's implementation of ODF will clearly be some variation of 'embrace, extend, extinguish,' just like everything else they do.

    Still, it feels good to hear a Microsoft employee admit that OOXML lost.

  • Ice-capades grand opening in hell marred by dive-bombing pigs.

  • Wait and See (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Friday June 20, @09:40AM (#23872253)

    Now we shall all have to wait and see if MS plays nice with ODF because they are scared of the EU, or if they try to extend and break the standard to prevent true interoperability, as they have done with HTML, CSS, etc. since being late to the Web standards game.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by oodaloop (1229816) on Friday June 20, @09:41AM (#23872275) Homepage
    Porcine aviatrixes were spotted across the country.

  • Ok, this is the "embrace"-part... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sique (173459) on Friday June 20, @09:42AM (#23872287) Homepage

    ... wait for the next phase!

  • Consumer vs Professional (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon (813062) on Friday June 20, @09:43AM (#23872317)
    Microsoft is trying to position ODF as a "consumer" format, and OOXML as the more capable "professional" format.

    The question is whether Microsoft is going to really support ODF or just give lip-service token support. For example, how fast are bugs in the ODF support going to be fixed? Remember how Micorsoft "supported" Java with their non-compliant, buggy implementation?

  • Let's not get too excited! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mlwmohawk (801821) on Friday June 20, @09:58AM (#23872553)

    OK, this is the first shoe to drop. (Sorry British Columbia, no offense)

    The is the "embrace" part. Once they start using the format, just you watch, like Java, HTML, CSS, SQL, C++, C, etc. they will add features that break compatibility, because of, wait for it, "customer demand." As we all know "customer demand" will be asking a room full of carefully collected idiots a set of loaded questions.

    I have worked closely, in the past, with Microsoft and they view any real standard as a threat. They wield their monopoly power and "defaco" status like a sledge hammer. They've done it in the past, and they'll do it with ODF.

    The computing community has to monitor the situation and fight incompatibility as the run of the mill consumer has absolutely no idea what is going on.

  • And in fact asked the question "Is this just Microsoft doing the first stage of embrace, extend, extinguish?" I was not happy with his response. He floated the idea of merging the two standards, which really concerns me, and also seemed to acknowledge that there was going to be some extension.

    From the impression I got, we got thrown a bone, and ODF and OOXML are going to be merged in the next couple of years, and MS will have de facto control because OOXML allows for proprietary extensions.

    MS is not going to take this lying down.

    I did shake Stuart's hand afterwards, however. He deserves props for showing up and taking a little abuse, although I was not near as hard on him as I would have liked to be, just because other people also deserved a chance to ask questions.

    One thing that struck me is that one of the Singapore standards guys was there, and he was NOT happy. He was pretty pissed off that they could not provide even one reference implementation.

    But... like I said. Props for showing up, MS. Now you just have many years of monopolistic behavior to live down, and I'll never trust anything you say again.

  • ODF Compatibility test utility (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mlwmohawk (801821) on Friday June 20, @10:14AM (#23872731)

    We are in a very important phase. We (someone) needs to create an ODF compatibility test utility, like an HTML validator, that will test the compliance of an ODF file.

    It can be used to catch Microsoft's crap. Remember, a word processing document is unlike HTML. HTML is likely to be seen by a multitude of people where as a document is probably only going to be seen by a specifically targeted group. Microsoft will be able to add incompatibility and almost no one will be able to notice until they wish to open THEIR document with a non-microsoft word processor or spread sheet. At that point it will be too late.

    We also have to make sure that Microsoft's products render ODF compliant documents correctly when they are created by non microsoft applications.

    The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

  • standard business tactics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom (822) on Friday June 20, @10:18AM (#23872793) Homepage Journal

    Of course, they will support ODF. It's too big a thing to ignore.

    Also of course, their implementation will have a few... quirks. You know, implementation bugs that happen symmetrical on both import and export, so they never show up to you, as long as you stay within the MS world. Meanwhile, everything someone with a different ODF implementation sends you will show up buggy, and everything you send them will not quite properly work.

    Details, of course. Like footnotes misaligned, or small formation differences. Just enough that nobody calls it bugs, just "quirks", but enough to make sure nobody within a corporation, for example, uses something different.

    • Re:That's It???! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Friday June 20, @09:48AM (#23872393)

      So after all of the time and money and arm twisting MS engaged in because they had to have THE open standard, they're just going to say 'Oh well, ODF was better anyway'?

      Well, yes. But that's just what they say in public. In private they're probably saying, "oh shit, we were way too obvious and public about our criminal behavior and the EU looks ready to stomp on us hard for this one. Maybe if we pretend to roll over and pretend to support ODF for a while, the EU will not make this a priority and use the courts to force us to play nice, with real consequences and oversight. At least if we look like we're willing to be open, we can subtly break compatibility with others and try to extend it with proprietary DRM or something. Really anything that stops us from being declared to have monopoly influence in the office suite market and doesn't make us compete purely on our software's merits is workable."

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