Microsoft Releases Specs for Binary Formats 205
skolima writes "In response to requests for even easier access to the Binary Formats, Microsoft has agreed to remove any intermediate steps necessary to get the documentation. They're going to just post it, making it directly available as a download on the Microsoft web site. Microsoft will also make the Binary Formats subject to its Open Specification Promise by February 15, 2008. They're even planning to include an Open Source converter implementation."
The important stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The important stuff (Score:5, Funny)
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Which format of notepad file do you want?
(You jest, but Notepad supposedly can open ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16 (big and little endian) and documents. It can't comprehend the oddball UTF-7 format, though. It helps though if your Unicode documents have a header (BOM) so Notepad can choose the right format.)
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The UTF-8 BOM, 2 bytes signifying nothing that have caused myself and many others to waste countless hours arguing over nothing. I'm to angry to go verify that the UTF-8 bom is indeed 2 bytes.
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The UTF-16 BOM is 2 bytes, the UTF-8 BOM is 3 bytes.
Somebody set up us the BOM (Score:2, Informative)
.LOG file format... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The important stuff (Score:5, Funny)
Not to fear. I'm 9eveloping my own open so4rce reverse-engineere9 implementation of the NotePa9 format, calle9 OpenPa9. I estimate that I've got abo4t 96% of the format fig4re9 o4t. As a matter of fact, my post here was compose9 originally in OpenPa9 then copie9 an9 paste9 into the Slash9ot comment s4bmission page.
* * * * *
Oh, squi9beaks!
Re:The important stuff (Score:5, Funny)
"Decoding MS binary formats - it's better than death!"
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Oh wait, are you talking about something else?
Re:No, they want to influence the ISO meeting (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaning there won't be enough time to fully investigate whether these specs are actually useful or just PR BS like every other "Open" thing MS has done. Forgive me for preemptively assuming the latter.
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One thing I'd like to know is if ISO c
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3rd party word decoders have been at ~90% compatibility for an age now, but it's always getting the last 10% right that's been just out of reach thanks to obfuscation and the rest of it.
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Re:The important stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
But then there is probably a document or two inside Microsoft which shows the many paths to limit and/or destroy ODF support and to gain back any lost market due to MS-OOXML spec acceptance. For over 20 years Microsofts business model has been to beat the competition by attacking their revenue stream(s) by leveraging the 100's of millions of systems sold annually with pre-loaded Windows. Seldom has it ever used superior product attributes to win the market. I see no reason to think some switch has magically been thrown and now Microsoft wants to compete for customers in an open and level playing field. I don't think they would even know how to do this because without a complete management replacement, it's in their blood to go after the business and not the customers. Destroy the business and the customers will go to the shinny light that is Microsoft. IMO.
Regarding those new formats, there is a nice 6,000 page document that tells you how simple the new formats are so it should be very easy to implement an application which can read and display everything the spec covers. Why would you ever need code from Microsoft to help you access files based on that spec? If they can do it, anybody can. FYI, so far, there is one vendor who has applications with high levels of support of the spec and that is Microsoft.
Just look at how many apps now have a high level of support for the ODF spec:
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications [opendocume...owship.com]
LoB
I CALL FUCKING BULLSHIT!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Look, we can idealize society all we want, but putting on blinders and not seeing reality is just foolish.
If you come up in a fight against Tito Ortiz, you sure as hell want a baseball bat. You might call that leveling the playing field, but that's only the case because Tito has an advantage in the first place. *HE* doesn't want to give up his strength, size and experience to your baseball bat just because you want
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Re:I CALL FUCKING BULLSHIT!! (Score:5, Interesting)
As you said, there is no level playing field and businesses need to understand this. Microsoft has for 20 something years prevented many many other companies from providing solutions to businesses using these monster crushing tactics. Unfortunately most don't even know this. They just think that Microsoft got where it is because it had/has the best product(s). Regardless of how it got its size, its use of that size has destroyed many companies who attempted to get products into the desktop computer market place. Same goes for handhelds.
Oh, and if Goliath was in a race to the moon with someone else, they'd just make sure the others in the race couldn't get the parts for their rocket or materials to build the launch pad. Goliath would probably not make it to the moon either. Instead, he would build something which couldn't even escape out atmosphere but since he was the only one in the race, all observers think he is an amazing genius and vastly skilled.
So if the whining somehow opens someones eyes to how bad for everyone Goliath is, then the whining is being productive. People need to know the beast they are funding, the beast they are enabling, the beast they are almost glued to because of their choices in a partnership.
I do agree that there is way too much time wasted in discussions when it would be better spent supporting valid opposition. Talking with fresh college graduates exposed me to the naivety(?) of Microsofts business tactics and what it means to dictating how businesses leverage the IT toolbox. Since showing off better technology seldom gets accepted because of the "everyone else is using Windows" mentality, explaining why their success is limited by Microsoft's market control sometimes opens them up to what all these other tools are and the 'other' value they bring to the table.
LoB
Re:I CALL FUCKING BULLSHIT!! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not Microsoft's competitors who want open document formats.
It's their customers.
Microsoft is bitterly fighting the entire world's demands to adopt formats that will allow businesses, governments and private individuals choice in their software. Customers want to be able to choose lower priced tools or tools which are more focused on their specific needs, not just one bulky, expensive, rarely updated suite.
Microsoft is fighting to keep them locked in to high prices and minimal improvement.
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Re:The important stuff (Score:4, Funny)
You don't seriously think that what MS Office 2007 puts out in
One month to reconfigure firewalls (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One month to reconfigure firewalls (Score:5, Insightful)
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It relies on Visual studio being present though, Nullsofts nSis (which I use) cares not for such restrictions.
Re:One month to reconfigure firewalls (Score:5, Informative)
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Tutorials & info are maintained here: http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/ [tramontana.co.hu]
Sourceforge link: http://wix.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Just thought of correcting the name. By the way, thanks for the info, WK2.
Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I'm they will!
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LoB
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
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very funny (Score:2)
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Sure, in this moment in time, it seems like a good thing but instants in time are too short a window into reality. So I agree, that for an isolated moment, this looks like a positive thing for all of mankind. Outside of that, it will likely be very bad if it does anything to slow down the ODF ISO standard. ISO ODF i
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I'll believe that it's a positive move AFTER it has achieved results that *I* consider positive. And which legal authorities that I trust concur are irreversible. There's too much history here for me the trust MS on any other basis.
Re:in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
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Pigs? (Score:3, Funny)
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Intermediate steps (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope these intermediate steps that they're eliminating include packaging the documents in an .exe file, and requiring MS Office to be installed. I'm looking at you, Word format!
--Rob
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EXE packing, however is annoying (Although, many archiver apps can actually open the EXE formatted archives - you just have to figure out which app it use, zip, cab, rar, other?)
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last sentence of summary (Score:4, Funny)
i find myself doing this all the time at work now, and it's embarrassing. I leave entire words out of emails, IMs, etc. I never used to do that. I must be getting old.
Many times, I'll leave out a negating word, like "not", causing me to communicate the wrong idea.
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Re:last sentence of summary (Score:5, Funny)
LoB
This has to be good. Right ? (Score:3, Insightful)
footnotes like Word 95... (Score:4, Interesting)
As covered in this link [xmlguru.cz], it appears that most of these specifications have either been removed or documented. What this does mean is that perhaps it will be possible to truly understand what these formatting hooks refer to, not what MS have documented them as referring to...
(Thanks to zmotula [slashdot.org] for the link)
Re:This has to be good. Right ? (Score:5, Insightful)
How will this work with specifications that say "render text like Word 98?" Will Microsoft now document how Word 98 renders ?"
I'm sure there'll be some nice documents to tell you exactly how each of these statements work. You know, things like:
1)open file
2)scan for 0x06660666
3)take the next 128 bytes and pass them to winRulesAll(*DWORD) in
4)take the resulting array of 8bit vectors and sequentially call winConvertToBlob[0-255](LoByte(DWORD)) in
5)concatenate the results from those calls and send to sysDecryptWord95Text(URL,*DWORD) in mplayer.dll with URL=http://microsoft.com/secretdoor.asp
6)replace those 128 bytes with the results from the call or, if failed, render text like Word 95.
Easy as pie.
LoB
carrot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:carrot (Score:5, Funny)
Woohoo! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Funny)
This is a VERY good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Now they just need to open up VBA so that all those applications won't be rendered useless by their choice to do away with them, starting with future Office versions. Oh wait, that was their point... To force people to upgrade.
So they open up one way and close up another. Anything to keep their anti^H^H^H^Hcompetitive behavior moving!
They used to publish Word/Excel formats (Score:2)
I think the time window might need to be reduced a bit. Back in the 90s Microsoft used to publish the Word and Excel document formats. I recall that the specs/formats were downloadable from their website.
APRIL FOOL! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or maybe a chair bounced off the wall and hit Ballmer in the head. Who knows?
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If it helps your sense of cynicism any, the headline is a lie.
Microsoft hasn't actually released anything more than an announcement that they are going to, at some point in the future, release some information regarding certain file formats. They haven't done it yet, so I'll just wait for the other shoe to drop before getting excited.
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I seem to recall that their last promise not to sue over patents only covered "fully compliant applications". I'm not sure this promise is the same as the last one, but I don't have any reason to doubt it. In which case, guess what the promise not to sue is worth...
OSP: Might ba a trap for GPL license software (Score:5, Insightful)
The docs are released under MS' own "Open Specification Promise" *cringes*
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx [microsoft.com]
If you do a search on GPL you get:
Q: Is this Promise consistent with open source licensing, namely the GPL? And can anyone implement the specification(s) without any concerns about Microsoft patents?
A: The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement the covered specification(s). We leave it to those implementing these technologies to understand the legal environments in which they operate. This includes people operating in a GPL environment. Because the General Public License (GPL) is not universally interpreted the same way by everyone, we can't give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from the open source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can implement the specification(s).
I don't get warm and fuzzy feelings reading this and I think that's the idea...
Re:OSP: Might ba a trap for GPL license software (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get warm and fuzzy feelings reading this and I think that's the idea...
Because never in all its history has a geek's interpretation of the GPL ignited a flamewar on Slashdot
Re:OSP: Might ba a trap for GPL license software (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, first post on /. and it's actually defending Microsoft. As someone stated above, satan _must_ be freezing.
Enough of that and to my point:
I'm quite fond of the GPL and open source licenses in general. But actually, the open source licenses that microsoft has created (Ms-PL [opensource.org] and Ms-RL) are a lot less restrictive then the GPL and a great deal easier to read. If Microsoft will use theese licenses then there should be no problem with GPL-compatability as far as I can tell. [opensource.org]
The "disclaimer" in that FAQ is just saying that they wont promise anything, and it is probably the smartest thing to do so that they won't get sued.
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heh? (Score:2)
If all their stuff is just 'they won't sue you if you use this specification', then it is compatible with the GPL
I'm definitely trolling this time (Score:5, Funny)
1. refunded all money earned through use of these formats
2. allow people to fork them and then demand that their idiot-forks get recombined into the trunk and incorporated into MS Office 09
3. #2 isn't good enough, Microsoft must even make sure that they are in the next release of OO even though they have nothing to do with that product
4. Clipart of Steve Ballmer throwing chairs is included
5. it is released under the GPLv3 license
6. the EU gets to fine them another trillion euros (with a lower-case e) for every day since 1980 that the formats have not been open
7. none of the above points matter because Microsoft sucks anyway and no one @ slashdot uses MS Office, they all use OO (yea, right!)
so go ahead, mod me down you fuckers.
Re:I'm definitely trolling this time (Score:4, Funny)
?????
Profit!
Re:I'm definitely trolling this time (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm definitely trolling this time (Score:5, Funny)
I would mod you down, but then you would become more powerful than I could possibly imagine.
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Last office in my house was 97, bundled with the new mac, uninstalled as instability was too irritating for the standards of a mac user. So, yeah, right.
Free to use as in beer? (Score:2)
I.e. can I use it in an open source program, or is it hindered by a license that prevents me from distributing it because I can not re-license them?
so humor is now reality? (Score:3, Funny)
Useful if you're a programmer and can't send e-mai (Score:4, Informative)
The only interesting thing here is the converter they're proposing, assuming nobody beats them to it with a better one.
A gift from Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
ODF must be some kind of threat (Score:5, Insightful)
But what is really probably happening here is that ODF is getting adopted around the world by governments and once you go ODF, it's going to be a tough sell back to the pull-the-rug-out-from-under-your-feet Microsoft way. Anyways, if Microsoft really sees ODF as a credible threat, getting MS Office OXML through ISO is important, very important. But, once they can do that and gain back credibility, there is NOTHING to stop them from releasing software which others are not privy too. ie, change the format and keep everyone else chasing them.
Remember, ISO will not be in control of the changes to the spec, Microsoft will be.
So watch out for this good-guy mask being applied. We've seen nothing to say there isn't anything but the same old Microsoft hiding behind it. And no, I would not accept this as a first step and something to trust. ODF and open access to your own created data is too important to let a simple trick undermine it all. IMO.
LoB
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I guess the fact that they took back control of MS OOXML from ISO means that they could, for a short period, do everything to really show MS OOXML is an open spec. And after that period, as ODF withers away, they can start changing the format and only release the changes afte
Exchange (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Exchange (Score:4, Informative)
Bad tagging... (Score:2)
In another news... (Score:4, Informative)
hoops (Score:2, Insightful)
you may be eligible to participate in a Royalty-Free File Format Program and to receive technical documentation for certain Microsoft Office binary file formats.
Er, why not just put um on a website.
Be open or not.
I... (Score:2)
Microsoft loses either way (Score:2, Interesting)
Pointy haired morons demanding the use of a $500 office suite cannot prevail forever. Commoditization is a very strong force but sometimes it takes a while to do its thing.
Binary Format spoiler (Score:3, Funny)
Binary Spec? (Score:3, Funny)
No, "Microsoft Says They Will Release Spec" (Score:2)
The headline is wrong. Microsoft has not openly released the specs. They've said they are going to do so. Not the same thing.
Remember when they released some specifications in copy-protected Office documents?
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Re:seeing as its all binary formats (Score:5, Funny)
Even plain ini/text/xml etc. is eventually stored as ones and zeros. And I think I saw a 2...
Re:seeing as its all binary formats (Score:5, Funny)
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Then the User created 1 and there was l1ght
And it was g00d.
TRON 11:01
Re:seeing as its all binary formats (Score:5, Informative)
I've had an occasion or two where a word document got corrupted and office wouldn't fix it. Out of curiosity, I opened it in notepad. I cut out all the formatting bytes, and cleaned up some areas where spaces were added between characters in a section of text (WTF?), and saved the plain text. Nothing of my document was missing (since I didn't have pictures in it or anything like that).
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Not that I'm putting these guys down. OO.org does a damn impressive job with Word 97-2003 documents.