ODF Editor Says ODF Loses If OOXML Does 268
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.'"
3 questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
He invoques the need to have a formal definition of some features (formula definitions and legacy stuff) as benifiting ODF if OOXML pass, so this raises the questions:
1) Aren't these already included to some extend in what was submitted for iso acceptation?
2) Wasn't this specification part of what EU's justice were asking Microsoft anyways?
3) Is it that hard to reverse-ingeneer that kind of spec?
Asking in good faith, as I really hav no clue.
Re:3 questions... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:3 questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. His point seems to be that some features are not in ODF yet, so we might as well accept Microsoft's, and that way we have to support fewer different implementations of features. He's approaching this thing with a naivete that is stunning in an adult who has watched Microsoft's behavior with standards.
From the letter:
More importantly, what if ISO and Microsoft reach different definitions for the same OpenXML functions? After watching Java and Kerberos and CSS... We already have indications that Microsoft would ignore ISO on OOXML, too.
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I have no doubt that OOXML has a lot more features than ODF does. However, I suspect that there are a lot of features that are Microsoft specific based on the rhetoric I've heard about OOXML tainting from that interest.
That said, would it make more sense to back out all the contested elements of the OOXML and approve a version of the specification that is complete within itself although many might consider it inadequate for the advanced feature sets of currently released software, Microsoft and ODF alike?
Re:3 questions... (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh please, not the Kerberos thing again. Microsoft used the vendor specific fields for, shock horror, vendor specific data; it fully complied with RFC1964 and RFC1510 and interoped with MIT Kerberos versions 1.0.5, 1.0.6 and 1.1.1. 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. CSS, well, that's just bloody poor implementation. Mozilla have been happy to ignore parts of CSS and go their own way too, text wrapping immediately springs to mind where the MS extensions were on the road to being rolled up into the spec, but Mozilla decided to implement their own, so now, come CSS 3 we have two different methods of doing the same thing.
At least someone is admitting that ODF is lacking in a number of key areas and isn't the magic bullet everyone wants it to be.
Re:3 questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, I don't think people want ODF to be a magic bullet, and everyone knows that ODF is feature thin compared to OOXML. However, I think after decades of shifting vendor to vendor as corporate interests take turns in the gang-raping that has been the software industry for as long as I can remember, people have realised that open standards are better than extra features, provided that the basics are covered. That, to me sums up the ODF vs OOXML debate; format stability vs edge case features.
Re:3 questions... (Score:5, Interesting)
The best comparison would be S/MIME vs PGP. If you look at deployed base there is absolutely no question that S/MIME wins. We have over a billion email clients with embedded S/MIME support. But both are IETF standards and I was present when Burt Kaliski pitched handing S/MIME to Jeff Schiller, the Security area. Jeff was at the time probably the biggest PGP supporter, he was one of the main people who made the MIT distribution of PGP happen.
The popular perception is that the S/MIME and PGP camps are both at each other's throats. This is not the case at all. Neither product is exactly a deployment success in that virtually no email is secured with either. Jon Callas, CTO of PGP and I both worked on DKIM together. PGP Inc. makes an excellent S/MIME product. The perception that there is a division only hurts both standards. In my book [blogspot.com] I advocate that email clients implement at least PGP encryption so we can move forward to an interoperable message level confidentiality solution. There is not a big technical or even a market reason to do this, but there is a major political reason as PGP dominates in mindshare. We are going to make very sure that we do not have a similar schism when we move to the next generation technologies.
ODF vs OOXML is a very similar problem. The deployed base of applications is simply too great to make convergence on a single standard practical for this generation. It is only going to become practical when the market moves to the next generation.
The Microsoft Java namespace was entirely justified, Microsoft had bought into Java thinking that they could use it as their next generation programming language across the board. The only way to do that was to allow access to Windows APIs. Sun thought that Java was more than a programming language, it was a replacement platform that they had absolute control over and would sue anyone who tried to implement different ideas. The way I looked at it was 'OK Sun, you have an idea whose time might have come, but why should you get to control the entire future of the computing business on the basis of one idea'.
Standards are not about establishing a monoculture. The idea is to standardize what we agree on so that we can then innovate in areas that provide useful choices, i.e. benefits, for the customer and not in areas where it only causes problems.
ODF is not going to be the canonical archive format in perpetuity. It is rooted in the world of paper documents for a start.
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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
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The very fact that you are asking this question is a strong indicator that ISO's actions here are completely irrelevant - they serve only as marketing for Microsoft.
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Re:3 questions... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
His big beef is the ODF standard needs to have some formula definitions added??? So add them to the standard! Somehow I think the actual formulas, at least the financial ones, are already defined in some other standard, maybe not an ISO standard, but a standard somewhere. I just can't believe CPA's make up their own formulas. (OK, honest CPA's.) And since these formula's are standard somewhere else already, then OpenXML should have the same formulas.
"But what if there are different standards for the same financial function?" you ask. Well, then have a flag to pick which one is used as part of the function call. If OpenXML doesn't do this then ODF can make claims that Excel is not suitable for financial calculations. Actually, from the comments above, I'd say that is already the case. "...output varies by version and service pack of MS Office." does not inspire confidence in me for one.
The author also seems to think having OpenXML as a standard will provide anyone and everyone the complete specs to the standard. From what I've read, this isn't the case so far, and I doubt MS is anxious for that to happen. Get it approved, yes, but describe it in enough detail that anyone else could fully implement it, no.
As it is, Microsoft will not commit to supporting the standard. According to Brian Jones, a Microsoft manager who has worked on OOXML for six years: "It's hard for Microsoft to commit to what comes out of Ecma [the European standards group that has already OK'd OOXML] in the coming years, because we don't know what direction they will take the formats. We'll of course stay active and propose changes based on where we want to go with Office 14. At the end of the day, though, the other Ecma members could decide to take the spec in a completely different direction. ... Since it's not guaranteed, it would be hard for us to make any sort of official statement." [techworld.com]
Re:3 questions... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't fully understand his arguments (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't fully understand his arguments (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't fully understand his arguments (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't fully understand his arguments (Score:5, Funny)
Ahhhh young grasshopper, to understand his logic and arguments one must first understand the The Time Cube. [timecube.com]
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Seriously, did the guy just play too much Starcon2? He's one sentence away from saying "Time cube are not *many fingers*!"
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Re:Don't fully understand his arguments (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, now I'm'a *hafta* RTFA... (Score:5, Insightful)
... at least so I can find out what he's smokin' and get me some of that. I mean, whah??? If OOOXML is garbage, and not an open standard given the really big implementation holes, and not apparently implemented *anywhere* (nor, some might argue, implement*able*), why is it in anyone's interest to have it passed? Aside from Microsoft's, of course.
Confused,
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I ran it through Babel Fish a couple times, see if this helps:
Re:Okay, now I'm'a *hafta* RTFA... (Score:4, Insightful)
Governments increasingly demand software that supports open document standards. Because they finally realize the problems vendor lock-in can give them. That means that Microsoft's OOXML has at least to look like an open standard.
If it doesn't, MS is faced with two unpleasant alternatives:
1) Rework Office to support ODF. In this case, they would lose vendor lock-in and they would also have to catch up to the implementations of others. For a few years, I guess Open Office would look a lot better than MS office because they have a head start with ODF.
2) Lose the government business, leading to companies who work a lot with the authorities also switching for compatibility. Another great way to erase the dominant position of MS Office
We failed already (Score:4, Funny)
Re:We failed already (Score:5, Insightful)
Acrobat, on the other hand, is a bloated pile of garbage.
Have YOU used acrobat? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We failed already (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course, this won't stop people cut-and-pasting, or even just re-typing the document. At that stage you're getting into DRM which is, as many have pointed out here, futile. Someone could copy your document - but they couldn't re-encrypt it with your pr
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Of course, anyone can copy it and distribute it in a non-authenticated file format. So it would still depend on people actually checking that the file is properly authent
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Yes, there is. It's called public key cryptography. You generate something, sign it with your private key, and send it along with your public key. Anyone can read it. Nobody can change it, because they'd need your private key to sign it. Yes, they can rip it and stuff it into another format, but they can't sign it with your private key, so it's immediately obvious that it isn't your original
Ka Ching (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't say that I understand him (Score:5, Interesting)
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And the other 95% use OOXML, in that case, OpenDocument is a total waste of time.
I believe those numbers are optimistic. Most home users I know are using OpenOffice and saving ODF at home. It might be because I help them install it. At work, we now have been allowed to use it. And enough commitment to ODF that it will survive and if MS pushes MOOXML down peoples throats, might go with ODF. Why get caught into lock in and associated vender quirks if you do not need to?
But this editor is a whacko and
Rob Weir's response to Patrick's sudden flip flop (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rob Weir's response to Patrick's sudden flip fl (Score:5, Informative)
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].
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Read Contra Durusau by Rob Weir (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Well, I disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Interesting angle on Durusau's behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
This is conjecture, obviously, but I find it plausible, FWIW, especially since there is now a follow-up.
From the Horse's mouth (Score:5, Informative)
Wanna know how much Microsoft has reformed this sort of thing?
You can get it all here http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958 [groklaw.net]Even at their worst, they are good (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about ODF (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing is, 500 pages of ODF spec may not be much better for small businesses. What we need is a specification with multiple levels of fallback for simplier generators and consumers. For example, one part of a document zip file can be plain text contained in the document, with reasonable efforts to convert document structure to a human and machine readable plain text representation. For producers, it will be valid to generate a document bundle with only the text file and nothing else.
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Wouldn't it make more sense to just add new properties to CSS3 and just use XHTML?
I've never entirely understood the need for either format.
If we can specify every aspect of page layout with CSS3, then we can do everything with HTML that we can do with word processor docs. If we add page transition style definitions, we've got presentation docs covered. Add MathML and we have spreads
Re:I don't know about ODF (Score:4, Insightful)
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While sed, awk, and grep are sufficient for very basic transformations and I use them freque
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A partial implementation is different - just implement the features you need or use an SDK.
Wow (Score:2)
Despair (Score:3, Insightful)
I despair at the behaviour and apparent quality of technical expertise of some of my peers.
How this kind of thing works - Soft Bribery (Score:5, Interesting)
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I want to tell you Slashdot people something about how this kind of thing works. I don't really know the name for it, but I call it "soft bribery". You might also call it "economic alignment" or whatever. Here's what happens.
A large, rich stakeholder wants a particular outcome - in this case, MS wants OOXML to be ratified. They have some adversaries - respected leaders of the OSS movement or ODF foundation, in this case. Note that there are always certain people with disproportionate voices - these people are really hurting them. How can they turn them around?
They can't outright bribe them. That's illegal and probably wouldn't work anyway - people would feel insulted. So what they need to do is ensure that the "thought leader"'s economic interest is aligned with their own.
We see this happen all the time - a previous strong advocate against something, in this case pro ODF and against OOXML, will suddenly get more concilatory. See Durusau's change of tone for an example. Now I don't know him, but I'm pretty sure here's what happened.
He would be in constant contact with the OOXML team in MS just as a matter of course. One day, though, they'll tell him to expect a call from a VP or higher - big guns. He's excited to be able to reach higher up in the company. Finally, they're taking him seriously. He might be talking to a billionaire!
He'll get the call. "Wow, we're really impressed with your work on this. My team is always telling me what a smart, together guy you are", says the VP or Partner or whatever. "I just wanted to tell you that we really appreciate the work you're doing and we can learn a lot from you. Say, when this is all over, if OOXML finally gets accepted - we'd love to get you in for some interoperability training and consulting, our staff could really use your insight. We pay pretty well, $500 an hour, and we estimate the contract would last for a year fulltime, but we're flexible with your current work - we just need you on call. What do you think?"
There you go. That's it. A year's worth at $500/hr is close enough to a million bucks, the guy's got a mortgage, game over. Of course MS wants it kept quiet or the deal's off - that's their "standard business practise", and the contract has an NDA clause.
Game over. I'm sure this is what happened to Durusau. I'm pretty sure it's what happened to Miguel. Unless you're independently wealthy, not many people can say no to a few hundred thousand in "consulting". Needless to say, he'll never step foot in any Microsoft building. Hell, maybe it's a lot less than a million - it was for someone I know.
I am going to be very vague here - sorry if you think I lose credibility, but I don't want to burn my friend. He was the CEO/CTO (same guy) at a small systems integrator in the educational sector "somewhere in Asia". A largish school deal was in the works, his company advised decision makers in favour of linux. A respected company, had a lot of sway with the local suits, it was looking like going their way. One day he gets a call to the cell phone - wow, one of the big guns!
"We really like the work you're doing. Say, it looks like this deal isn't going to go our way - but if it does, we'll need a partner to help us interoperate with the existing infrastructure - you installed a lot of it, so you're first in line and we'd like to book you in advance just to make sure we can get you. What are your rates? Well, we'd like to make sure we have you for at least six months and we actually pay a set rate in this area of $$$
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It's even worse for people who have done the Right Thing(tm) in the past and watched others walk away with all the money to say no to something like this. If you've seen what you could have had if only you bent slightly, you'd also be tempted by something like this.
Fortunately for everyone, I'm unlikely to ever be in this position again, so I'll keep doing the Right Thing
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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 workin
Tenacious (Score:3, Interesting)
It's important to keep in mind the reasons we oppose the OpenXML format..
* It'll let Microsoft extend the blight of their ".doc" format for years to come.
* As with doc, hard to reverse engineer, if it becomes a standard and gets widely used, especially in government, we'll be stuck implementing it in OSS apps while they change it to be different (Bourne out with
* Binary blobs that could be anything, stuck into the code at Microsoft's request, obtainable only from Microsoft.
Lately there have been even better reasons.
* Allegations of corruption and mishandled votes.
In order to ensure the public good, we have to stand against that sort of thing. Being stuck reverse engineering a broken format is LESS of a problem than being in a situation where your votes get messed with. It wasn't a public vote I'll grant but it still matters. After the mess with the standard voting, they have to become an example to others.
While in the pro-camp, we have what?
* Better spreadsheet handling with Excel
* Legacy features of Microsoft formats
Handy sure, but it's not as if we can't transfer from
Basically, the benefits aren't as important as stopping vote rigging or the problems of being blighted with Microsoft lock-in and binary blobs.
Great Shades of Miguel! (Score:3, Funny)
Can ISO de-recognise standards? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can the ISO then meet again and de-recognise the DIS29500 standard?
If yes, what is the procedure for this process?
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see it. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, literally, I don't see TFA. I see TFBE -- The Fine Blog Entry -- which quotes the letter, but doesn't link to it.
But I'll work with what I have:
Then OpenDocument is the correct, standard definition, and OpenXML will be even further from standardization.
The fact that Excel output varies by version and service pack, and is sometimes downright wrong, is all the more reason to ignore it. Approximate it, maybe, to make porting easier. Write a compatibility layer, even. But don't push through an entire second document spec, which is so deeply flawed in so many ways, just to make us match one particular iteration of Excel output.
Oh, and Excel output varies by version and service pack. WTF makes this tool think Microsoft will even try to adhere to a standard, even if it's their own?
It certainly would, wouldn't it?
Except for the fact that the OOXML spec doesn't include them. In all its six thousand fucking pages, not one mention of how, exactly, to implement LineSpacingLikeWord95. And what's he proposing -- delay OOXML until this can be included in the spec, and thus make it, what, twelve thousand pages? Or push it through in the faith (hah!) that Microsoft will add it to the next version of OOXML?
Consider, also, that there is a right way to do this: Styles. Extend the style system to support this quirky behavior. Support quirky behavior in an abstract way. Then, put the actual definition of LineSpacingLikeWord95 in the document itself, as a style. Translating back is easy, too -- just look for styles flagged that way, or just styles that happen to match the original format's quirk.
It would take some work, sure. But it would be pushing the work back to Microsoft and Office, not to ISO and any potential other implementations. And it would mean we don't have to carry this legacy crap with the format forever -- eventually, there will be no more Word95 documents, and no implementation will have to care that LineSpacingLikeWord95 corresponds to an actual way of saving a Word95 .doc -- just that it should look a particular way.
no "co-evolution" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an office format, not nuclear fusion reactor design. ODF is already the better format, and there's nothing that ODF can learn from OOXML. Whatever expertise might flow from other standards into ODF already does because ODF (unlike OOXML) builds on existing standards.
But there's another reason why ODF won't benefit: OOXML "standardization" is just a trophy to Microsoft, a check-list item for buyers who want a standardized, open document format. Microsoft is going to keep adding proprietary extensions as they see fit, without bothering going through standardization or documenting them.
(The guy also grossly misuses the term "co-evolution", but let's not dwell on that.)
That may be true, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
* There are some serious technical issues with the current proposal that have to be resolved
* There are some very serious problems with the way the process has evolved
* There is no guarantee that Microsoft will follow their own standards -- since, if there are big changes to the standard, it would require them to change their current file format.
The first two problems indicate that, perhaps, the fast-track-to-ISO was not a good idea for this standard, and that some more time and work is required before the standard is approved, no matter how beneficial an eventual approval would be for anyone.
Affordable losses? (Score:2)
I have a hard time feeling
oh dear. (Score:2)
That is - if the votes were free and fair and based purely on technical merit I would have no problem with OOXML at all. In the spirit of free competition let the best format win to the benefit of all.
But the vote ARE NOT fair. Clearly and demonstrably so, see the past history on this subject. There is the stench of political and commercial interference in decisions
I still don't get it... (Score:2)
Someone care to explain that to me in words of one syllable?
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Hmmm. Man attends conference in Seattle first. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, Seattle and Redmond are fairly close, geographically speaking. I wonder if Mr. Durusau received some sort of persuasion from a company based in Redmond. I think we should be told.
If OOXML wins then ODF loses (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Mystery Men and PDF (Score:2, Funny)
What's the point of a superhero if there is no evil overlord?
One should point out that a significant majority of documentation out there is already final and should be non-editable.
PDF is already the defacto standard for this. So presently, OO can easily produce a PDF of a document which can be read by almost anyone. Any MS doc could be converted to PDF by proprietary software. So PDF is the common document format.
It's only when a document has to be edited by a number of collaborat
Has an "incentive" been offered you think? (Score:2, Interesting)
When I lived in Malaysia last year (very nice, warm people with a really dodgy government), whenever a major project is stalled or changes direction, or when a prominant politican flips on a seemingly heartfelt poisition overnight (happens more regularly that you think) we all nod our heads and know that he probably got a new Porsche.
Why can't I shake the feeling that this guy has been bought off? Heck, Microsoft has shown it's willing to pay off Swedish votors for OOXML and a slew of other shady dealings
I still want to see what happens if MS Bunkers. (Score:2)
I can see MS Going... "You know, it doesn't really matter if you make us an ISO standard or not, we are entrenched in 90% of your infrastructure. Good luck replacing that infrastructure. It will be over out dead bodies ODF is supported by MS-Office, and you are about to find some very unfriendly code in the next service pack that breaks Linux Dual Boot loaders, Breaks existing ODF Plugins, and adds a DRM Key to all documents opened."
Who loses if M$OOXML loses? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the thread on Groklaw [groklaw.net]
I reproduce here the response from grokker59 [groklaw.net] and below Ron Weir's [groklaw.net] response.
Authored by: grokker59 on Tuesday, March 25 2008 @ 08:27 AM EDT
Item 1: If DIS29500 is not approved, *national bodies* will loose a forum to work on DIS29500 - circular reasoning. If DIS29500 is not approved, NBs won't *NEED* a forum to work on DIS29500 !
Item 2: Microsoft-only vendors may lose contracts because Microsoft failed to get "their" format approved. Circular reasoning. By not standardizing on a proprietary, lock-in document format, those companies that only sell proprietary lock-in document software no longer have a guarantee of continuing sales to locked-in customers. They might need to support an additional product or two to continue getting contract awards.
Item 3: If OOXML is disapproved, then ODF loses because it has no ISO-based formula definitions to insure compatibility between ODF and the complete lack of formula documentation in OOXML ? How is this a comparison and why do I care whether ODF shares formulas with OpenXML ? Microsoft's Office 2007 does not use OpenXML. Neither are Excel formulas documented in OOXML to the extent that translation can take place. What's important is that ODF interoperate to the greatest extent possible with Office 2007 and future versions - not that it interoperate with a format that Microsoft has already abandoned and/or never implemented.
Item 4: OOXML/OpenXML does not define legacy features, nor does OOXML/OpenXML provide a mapping for legacy features. Furthermore, all legacy features were moved to 'deprecated' status in the BRM, so there is no requirement to support them in either OOXML or ODF. OpenOffice already supports MS legacy features better than MS products, so I fail to see the gain of supporting DIS29500 to provide something that ODF products (OpenOffice.org) already does better than MS products.
Item 5: "ODF has no ISO-based definition of the current MS format for mapping purposes." Since MS products do not implement DIS29500, this is is a non-issue. MS has already stated they do not feel bound to support future DIS29500 versions in future products, so ODF MSOffice mappings are never going to be ISO-based. Nor should we expect MS to open their file format protocols in future versions.
There is *certainly* no reason to expect that MS will "offer a seat at the table" to any public organization during the planning/implementation of their next version of MSOffice since they've already stated that they do not feel bound by DIS29500 or its successors in ISO.
Another view from the ODF TC
Authored by: rcweir on Tuesday, March 25 2008 @ 06:38 PM EDT
As Co-Chair of the ODF TC, let me say that Mr. Durusau's views in no way represent the position of OASIS or the ODF TC.
Of course, he is entitled to his personal views, and so am I.
Patrick makes 5 assertions in his latest letter, and these are easily rebutted:
1) National bodies lose an open and international forum for further work on DIS 29500.
*Is Patrick implying that Ecma is not open and international? That would be a good thing to to know in those places where Microsoft is currently pushing for adoption of OOXML, arguing that it is an open standard.
One does not approve a standard in ISO in order to be more open. Openness should be there from the beginning. Patrick's argument appears to be "Let's give OOXML the highest level of approval and then it will be a better standard". But ISO standardization is not done
follow the money? (Score:2)
In this case, how much did he get paid? (and in what currency, it's not always cash.)
I mean, seriously, with every other company that would be paranoia, but MS has been caught with both hands in the cookie jar actually buying ISO votes. It is very, very likely that they are buying good press and "expert opinion" as well. With enough money, you can buy friendship. Not the real one, but good enough that few will notice the difference.
MS Office file are wierd (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Another view from the OASIS ODF TC (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, he is entitled to express his personal views. And so am I.
Let us begin.
Patrick makes 5 assertions in his letter, and these are easily rebutted:
1) National bodies lose an open and international forum for further work on DIS 29500.
*Is Patrick implying that Ecma is not open and international? That would be a good thing to to know in those places where Microsoft is currently pushing for adoption of OOXML, arguing that it is an open standard.
One does not approve a standard in ISO in order to be more open. Openness should be there from the beginning. Patrick's argument appears to be
"Let's give OOXML the highest level of approval and then it will be a better standard". But ISO standardization is not done with sacramental
oils. There is not transmutation. OOXML does not become a good standard because it is approved. A standard is approved because it is good.
2) Microsoft based third-party vendors may be excluded from contracts because Microsoft has no ISO approved format.
*Microsoft could always add support for ODF to their product. Then they would be supporting an ISO standard. Similarly, I assume they are now seriously thinking of adding Blu-ray support to the XBox now that HD DVD failed. We should not be propping up Microsoft and giving them a free ticket to ISO because of their bad business decision in ignoring ODF and delaying their own standardization activities. The market rewards those who guess right, and punishes those that guess wrong. Microsoft was on the wrong side of open standards. We should not be looking to avoid the natural outcome of that.
3) ODF has no ISO-based formula definitions to insure compatibility between OpenDocument and OpenXML.
*And OOXML has no ISO-based formula definitions either, because OOXML has not been approved by ISO!
4) ODF has no ISO-based definition of MS legacy features for an ODF extension.
*And OOXML has no ISO-based definition of MS legacy features either, because OOXML has not been approved by ISO!
5) ODF has no ISO-based definition of the current MS format for mapping purposes
*And OOXML has no ISO-based definition of the current MS format either, because OOXML has not been approved by ISO!
These last three points by Patrick are rather poor. The fact that portions of the Ecma-376 specification are interesting as technical disclosures of proprietary Microsoft Office interfaces does not automatically recommend the entire 6,045 page specification for approval as an ISO standard. If the ODF TC desires any information on these three topics, we already have access to all of this material via the Ecma-376 text and the Ecma's Disposition of Comments report, both of which will exist regardless of whether DIS 29500 is approved. There is absolutely nothing we cannot do now, given the materials we have now.
Whether things like the spreadsheet definitions in OOXML are "ISO-approved" or not is immaterial. We know the ISO review was shallow. We cannot assume that Excel compatibility information in OOXML is correct. We need to test and verify everything. Slapping an "ISO" label on OOXML doesn't make it more useful or more accurate for ODF.
In no way whatsoever is ODF hurt, harmed or even annoyed by the imminent demise of Microsoft's ill-conceived and reckless experiment in ISO.
Patrick Who? (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of ODF editor is that then? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't learn the lesson from... HIS... MASTERS
ahaha mind control
Re: (Score:2)
Re:ODF editor on OOXML (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's what we call "not documenting the format."
Oh, and yeah, great, they documented the format. But it is NOT something that should be accepted as a standard. BF is a documented programming language, but if you had to pick a standard language, would you pick BF, if there was, oh, any other alternative?
What is so difficult about the two words "open" and "standard"? A proprietary trade secret is antithetical to that. Relying on proprietary trade secrets in a proposed "open standard" makes it neither.
Which in no way mandates that these legacy attributes also be completely opaque to every implementation except one.
Oh, by the way, we have a way to store odd formatting, and maintain backwards translateability -- styles. Extend the style system to where it can support weird shit like adjusting the "justify" algorithm, and store a SpacingLikeWordPerfectForDos (or whatever) style, in the document, with some special flag to indicate how it translates back into legacy formats (like Word 95 binary .doc).
Except that, as you say, the cryptic legacy stuff is a trade secret. Which is why we really don't want it ratified as any kind of open standard, as it is, quite simply, not open.
I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Either you've got trade secrets based on your file format, or you have an open standard. Not both.
Re:ODF editor on OOXML (Score:4, Funny)
Sure you can. It just costs extra to get it approved.
OOXML, the standard the best money can buy.
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Re: (Score:2)
This isn't about personal use it's about a standard that everyone uses internationally to share documents. You have no choice in the matter as people will send you these documents. Government will be forced to use an ISO standard as well as any companies that do business with a government.
A standard is open and implementable by everyone. This is impossible with Microsoft's current solution and we already
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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?
How well does that hold up, legally? Especially the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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: (Score:2, Funny)
1) This guy works for a company that sold its soul to Microsoft in exchange for a useless patent agreement
2) This guy got a large quantity of money from Microsoft in the recent past
3) This guy got a large quantity of crack from Microsoft in the recent past and consumed it
4) Going by the date in the letter (March 24) they released the letter 8 days early
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