'A diversion from the real end game – the taking of the internet'

The Case for Harmonization (that IBM will vote against anyway)

Subject: Suggested ODF1.2 items

• From: "Florian Reuter" <freuter@novell.com>


• To: <office@lists.oasis-open.org>


• Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:03:24 +0100

Open Document Format: The sad truth

David Berlind has posted a massive chronicle of who said what to whom about the supposed emergence of CDF as an alternative to Open Document Format (ODF) and OOXML. I played a minor role in this saga when I spoke with Gary Edwards for Opening Move, back in April. This was before Edwards proposed CDF in place of ODF. If you haven't listened to our conversation, please do so, because the concerns Edwards raised about ODF (and OOXML) remain just as valid today. While I'm sad to see Edwards' more recent direction and assertions debunked in the press and the blogosphere, the greater tragedy is of two competing document standards -- ODF and OOXML -- now on seemingly irreversible paths to immortality, meaning we'll have translation issues between them around for several lifetimes to come.

Along the way, both sides know that there is little margin for error. All it takes is for one slip-up in messaging, one missed appointment, one mistake or one technical snafu to create a hole that the other side will gladly drive a Mack truck through. The stakes are so high that both sides have done a remarkable if not awe-inspiring (though not always commendable) job in executing their global full court presses. For the ODF community, it’s relatively minor to have a few dissenters like Edwards and Hiser break ranks. But, should the W3C concur with Edwards and Hiser that CDF is the more sensible candidate (than ODF) to be the world’s international open standard for universal document interop and portability, solidarity around ODF could weaken. And any weakening of solidarity around ODF is exactly the sort of hole that Microsoft would look to drive a truck through.

If an indicator from the W3C that CDF is better-suited for ODF’s job than ODF could lead to such a hole, a similar indicator from IBM would be disastrous for the ODF community. Although it’s nothing more than a wild guess on my behalf, I’m willing to bet that IBM is probably responsible for more than 40 percent of the global resources being brought to bear on ODF’s behalf, if not 50 or 60 (percent). Microsoft wouldn’t need a Mack truck to take advantage of an IBM insinuation that ODF is non-strategic (or, “transitional” as Edwards said to me in an e-mail). Global support for ODF would very likely unravel because of how many people from governments to businesses to the ISO would feel betrayed and Microsoft’s OOXML would be left as the only format standing. The ODF coalition might live to see another day and another battle with CDF as their savior, but the damage would very likely be irreversible given the long memories of most of those who were betrayed.

Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of articles that examine why the ODF Foundation closed down.

The leaders of the recently shuttered OpenDocument Foundation have moved their attention and efforts away from the Open Document Format and towards the W3C's Compound Document Format, which they believe will be able to neutralize Microsoft Office by repurposing those documents.

This fight is a distraction. Recognize both formats as legacy defacto standards and move on. This is actually a very common precursor in a standards process.

CDF provides an opportunity to do the job right. People should not be translating OOXML into ODF, there simply isn't the value there. It is much more likely that OOXML will be a live format in twenty years time than ODF.

We have a common standards based document language today - HTML. OK so I have a bias here but there is much more HTML than anything else. HTML is just a document format and it is somewhat presentation oriented but modern XHTML is changing those problems.

I'm going OT here but seriously, Weir is just the cat's meow. Every single time Microsoft has challenged his hyperbolic rants and outright lies he's essentially ignored them or just penned some more. He thinks the OpenDocument Foundation is an irrelevant fly-by-night fanboy club (which I guess is possible), but he has no problem quoting obscure African groups [robweir.com] and his groupie bloggers to prop up his "Microsoft is evil and Office sucks and remember, IBM had nothing to do with this post" arguments. If the man spent 1/10th as much time writing some code or documentation as he does bitching about the Office toolbar buttons, ODF would have conquered the world by now.

With people like that at the helm it's not difficult to see why a document format controlled by a single company and an elite group of testy technorati has gotten to where it is now. Not that I think OOXML is a particularly good idea, but at least there's someone out there with the balls to point out that the emperor is buck naked. I guess they better get ready for the DoS attacks, hate mail and death threats.

Blame Sun for this.

Sounds like a populist position, or maybe troll flamebait. I'll be generous and assume the former, despite the fact your post seems like a digest from an anti-ODF briefing paper. Disclosure: My job [sun.com] includes the task of receiving complaints about Sun and trying to get Sun to fix whatever causes the problem. If you have proof of any of your accusations, let me know. I may have some of my facts wrong below as I'm working from memory; I'd welcome correction.

With a few small additions, ODF could have supported Office formats as well, but Sun would not allow this.

That is indeed the constant assertion that the three guys who comprise the Foundation make. However, I have personally asked members of the ODF working group at OASIS and they tell me its not so.

• The Foundation guys wanted to add structures to ODF to preserve untranslateable tags in translated documents so they could be regenerated on the reverse translation. Sounds OK at first glance, but in practice it results in very brittle software solutions that work well in demos but not in real life.


• The proposal was thus rejected by the whole working group (not just the Sun employees).


• Rejected, that is, in conversation. A complete solution was never proposed for voting.


• To say Sun would not allow it ignores the actual dynamic of the working group (see below).

Their policy is that ODF will support what is needed for StarOffice, and nothing more.

Naturally every member of a standards group in the traditional standards process is looking out for the code base where they implement a standard, and will have serious questions of any feature that they regard as unimplementable. The features actually put to a vote by the guys from the Foundation would have resulted in very brittle implementations, highly dependent on the version of MS Office with which they were coupled. It may have been possible to come up with a solution that reduced this problem, but the discussion was not sustained. The assertion you make is not true in the general case.

They control the ODF technical committee

Untrue. The ODF TC [oasis-open.org] can have no more than three members from any one organisation and is not under the control of any organisation. The Foundation guys actually flaunted that rule at one point and sent many, many more representatives - OASIS had to step in to fix it. That intervention is one of the issues they have with OASIS, in fact. Sun happens to employ the people who act as Chair and Secretary to the TC but the voting remains democratic.

and their patent license allows them to stop the ODF TC if the ODF TC goes in a direction Sun does not like.

I've heard that interpretation of the patent non-assert covenant [oasis-open.org] that Sun has made regarding ODF, but it's untrue. Sun covenants not to enforce any patents against ODF implementations based on any spec it participates in. To the extent that versions of the spec after Sun's departure are based on version in which Sun was involved, that covenant remains in effect even in the unlikely event of Sun leaving the TC. Sun can't stop the TC from continuing its work.

Are you relaying this all as hearsay, or do you actually have data to back up your accusations? If you have, I'd like to see it (genuinely).

Now, Sam Hiser, VP of the ODF, has said that he sees the W3C standard CDF (Compound Document Format) as a more viable universal format than ODF. He stated simply that, "ODF is not the open format with the open process we thought it was". Why is this significant?

First, I think it speaks to how important the W3C is and has become over the past several years. The number of web standards in particular that have been formalized by the W3C is remarkable, whether they have been successful or not. Second, it (CDF) addresses an issue that I see on a daily basis in my role here at Compendium Blogware.