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Open Stack: ISO Does The Unthinkable. How ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML will break the Web

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:16:23 -0000

Comments:

A summary of my views on ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML and the impact it will have on the futrue of the open web. posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

In August of 2007 we dropped ODF as the da Vinci target conversion format, and moved to the W3C's Compound Document Format (CDF) with an ePUB wrapper.

The reason for this move is that we could not establish a reasonable degree of interoperability with OpenOffice ODF unless Sun supported the five generic eXtensions to ODF needed to hit the high fidelity conversion the da Vinci process is capable of.

Since da Vinci is a clone of the MSOffice OOXML compatibility Kit, we use the same internal conversion process where imbr (in-memory-binary-representation) is converted to another format: imbr <> OOXML or, imbr <> RTF.

While it's entirely compliant to eXtend ODF, without Sun's changes to OpenOffice ODF the application-platform-vendor independent interoperability end users expect would be meaningless.

The problem as we see it is this; it is impossible to do a high fidelity conversion between two application specific XML formats.

It is however quite possible to do a conversion between an application specific format and a generic (application-platform-vendor independent) format.

Tags: css davinci interoperability msoffice odf ooxml xaml xhtml

Posted by: garyedwards

OOXML and ODF: The next step | [odf-discuss] Marbux Responds!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:22:53 -0000

Comments:

Outstanding analysis and research by the legendary marbux posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The issue we were discussing -- and what I believe the ODEF conference was very much concerned with -- was whether ODF plus vendor-specific extensions will be classified as conformant ODF. The market requirement is for "Exchange Formats" and document-level interoperability. I could repose my question as whether ODF v. 1.2 will "clearly and unambiguously specify interoperability requirements essential to achieve the interoperability," as required by JTC 1 Directives. As you noted in an earlier post in this thread, you can't do interoperability if you use vendor extensions. > I see a standard as providing a shared vocabulary for buyers and sellers > to express their requirements. You are in error. This is a matter controlled by law rather than by personal opinion. Standards are all about the substitutability of goods, weights, and measures. A standard specifies all characteristics of a product, weight, or measure in mandatory terms so there is uniformity. Standards are the antithesis of product differentiation. Their very purpose is to eliminate product differentiation.

Tags: interop interoperability iso marbux odf ooxml opendocument-fellowship

Posted by: garyedwards

Once More unto the Breach: Microsoft Discusses Open Standards (versus Open Source Software)

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:56:26 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

So here are some "Key Messages" from Microsoft's standards team circa 2003 (doing battle with the Australian parliament no doubt) [Emphasis added]:

An open standard is a publicly available specification which details certain technical functionality that may be implemented in different products and services. It is adopted in an open, consensus-based process and must satisfy other criteria for transparency, ease of access, and broad implementation as described below.
Open standards exist to facilitate interoperability and data exchange across various products and services in a marketplace of multiple, competing implementations, while ensuring that certain minimum requirements are met.
Other types of standards (e.g., “proprietary standards”) and market-based mechanisms exist and are currently used to facilitate interoperability. However, open standards ensure the highest level of interoperability across the widest range of competing products and services.

Tags: brm geneva interoperability iso microsoft odf ooxml open standards

Posted by: garyedwards

Wizard of ODF: Proposal to amend TC charter, re interoperability with non-conformant ap

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:51:09 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

7. it must provide all feasible functionality required to suppport full fidelity conversions from and to existing office document binary file formats.

Tags: harmonization interop interoperability oasis odf ooxml opendocument

Posted by: garyedwards

EC on Microsoft Interoperability Declaration: Is It April Fools’ Day Already? | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:26:35 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

“We have heard high-profile commitments from Microsoft a half-dozen times over the past two years, but have yet to see any lasting change in Microsoft’s behavior in the marketplace,” ECIS Legal Counsel and Spokesman Thomas Vinje said in a statement.

Tags: ecis interoperability microsoft odf ooxml

Posted by: garyedwards

IT set to 'take their heads out of the sand' and embrace Web 2.0

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:33:15 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

IT managers and CIOs in large companies who have actively resisted embracing Web 2.0 technologies like wikis, RSS, blogs and social networks will likely begin adding them to their priority lists in 2008, according to a report released Friday by Forrester Research Inc.

Tags: interop interoperability open soa standards xml

Posted by: garyedwards

The Office question 2007 | Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog:

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:31:55 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

As I argued in my post Office Generations last year, we're in the early stages of the "hybrid phase" of personal productivity applications, when most people will use web apps to extend rather than replace their old Office apps. This phase will play out over a number of years as the web technologies mature, at which point it will become natural to use purely web-based apps (with, probably, continued local caching of data and program code).

What this means is that Microsoft has a good opportunity to maintain Office's dominance during the switchover by pursuing what it calls its "software plus services" strategy. But Microsoft should be anything but complacent right now. Maintaining market dominance does not necessarily mean maintaining traditional levels of profitability. The biggest threat posed by online alternatives may well be to undermine Microsoft's pricing power - a trend we're already seeing in the student market.

It's all about interoperability and functionality without disruption to existing business processes. posted by garyedwards

Tags: collaboration interoperability office office20 w3c web

Posted by: garyedwards

Is this valid? - ODF List Archives

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:18:13 -0000

Comments:

Archives of all OASIS ODF TC disussions. Does not include Metadata, Formula or Accessibility lists
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

just played a little with other ODF applications. Looks like Lotus Symphony can handle input fields with paragraphs breaks in it. The XML it produces is:

Tags: interoperability odf

Posted by: garyedwards

Government Open Source Conference to Feature Open Document Debate - Government Technology - GOSCON

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:56:21 -0000

Comments:

The press coverage on GOSCON is outstanding. Kudos to Debra Bryant and Andy Stein for stoking the fire here.
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The Executive Panel on Open Document Formats, moderated by Andy Stein, director of information technology at the city of Newport News, Va., will focus on how the user community can get involved in this issue, have influence over its outcome and knowledge for implementations. Panelists are expected to address the practical differences between competing standards OOXML, ODF and CDF to determine which one(s) truly provide a single file format that is open, universally interoperable and application- and platform-independent. About half of the session will be set aside for audience questions, providing an opportunity for GOSCON attendees to gain direct access to the debate.

Tags: cdf goscon interoperability odf ooxml

Posted by: garyedwards

Adobe's Latest Acquisition Creates Buzz Around Office Docs - Flock

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:52:25 -0000

Comments:

For a Web 2.0 application, Buzzword is very slick. It's more sophisticated and feature rich than Glide Writer, which is also written on Adobe Flex. Glide however offers an incredible array of portable office 2.0 features. It's the whole enchilada. And, Glide runs on iPhone!

Another interesting plus for Glide is that Google uses Glide Presentations for their on line PowerPoint alternative. Which is to say, Google is likely to purchase Glide while Adobe tries to build on Buzzword.

One of the disturbing things for me is that Buzzword uses a proprietary file format! In the future they will provide conversion to ODF, but that will probably be based on the OpenOffice conversion engine. Which everyone in the Web 2.0, Office 2.0, enterprise 2.0 space uses. Including Google.

The thing is, the OpenOffice conversion engine lacks the conversion fidelity to crack into existing MSOffice bound business processes.

Because they can't crack into these existing MSOffice bound business processes, the entire Office 2.0 sector is at risk. All it takes is a competing entry from Microsoft, and the entire sector will ge twiped out by the superior interoperability - integration advantage to the MSOffice - Outlook desktop that Microsoft owns and carefully guards.

Oh wait. That just happened today with the announcement of MSOffice Live! Suspiciously timed to take the oxygen out of Adobe's announcement too.

~ge~

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Adobe's foray into online productivity is unlikely to keep Microsoft's Steve Ballmer awake at night. But document sharing and collaboration features are central to Google's web-based office suite.

Tags: interoperability msoffice msoffice-live office20

Posted by: garyedwards

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Fat Guy in Salesforce hell - Flock

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:58:49 -0000

Comments:

Wow! Another great quote from Nick. When we were at the Office 2.0 Conference a few weeks ago, this was the problem every single collaborative computing initiative was facing. Sure they had great collaborative efforts. But these efforts were outside exisitng businesss processes and applications! That's fine for kids and consumers. But it's the kiss of death for enterprise, smb, and organizations with workgroup busines sprocesses based on MSOffice and Outlook.

So no matter how innovative the WEb 2.0 - Office 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 applications and services are, they are setting the marketplace for Microsoft to come in and take everything. Because Microsoft and Microsoft alone ownes the interoperability - integration interfaces into MSOffice and Outlook, they are in a position to destroy any of the 2.0 players at will. It's simply a matter of entering the space with their own 2.0 application or service.

The more i see of this, the more convinced i am that the governemnts of the world are going to have to step in stop Microsoft's push to move from the desktop into server, device and web systems.

~ge~

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Second, don't underestimate the lock-in power that programs like Outlook and Excel and Quickbooks and Peachtree and their associated files still hold, particularly in smaller businesses. Someday we may have standard document formats and easily transportable data, but we don't yet. The competitive battle for the future of software is going to be fought out at the level of the Little Picture as much as at the level of the Big Picture. Lose sight of either one, and you'll be in trouble. In other words: It ain't over till the Fat Guy rants.

Tags: anti-trust integration interop interoperability

Posted by: garyedwards

Taking an incremental approach to SOA | Avoiding costly "rip out an dreplace"

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:04:16 -0000

Comments:

Excellent article from NetManage's Archie Roboostoff. He lays out all the difficulties and mistakes experienced with SOA efforts.
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Current implementation issues
One of the biggest hurdles to implementing a realistic SOA is understanding what the business units and end users are doing today. This understanding is critical to the success of any SOA project since the new services must match exactly what each business unit is doing today. Neglecting these business processes and replacing them with individual services will most likely lead to hundreds of non-used services and frustrated business units.

Tags: cdf convergence davinci interoperability soa

Posted by: garyedwards

Universal Interoperability Framework for OpenDocument

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:46:14 -0000

Comments:

The OpenDocument Foundation "Universal Interoperability Framework" Proposal has not been submitted to the OASIS ODF TC as of this bookmarking. But this version is complete except for a closing summation.
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

SUMMARY: The OpenDocument Foundation proposes that the OASIS Office TC begin now to create an interoperability framework for inclusion in OpenDocument v. 1.2. This document, one of a series of planned proposals, proposes first steps towards a comprehensive interoperability framework and OpenDocument conformance requirements. This proposal is designed to bring ODF v. 1.2 into compliance with current ISO Interoperability Requirements.

Tags: cdf interop interoperability iso odef odf opendocument

Posted by: garyedwards

antitrust_eu_us.pdf (application/pdf Object) - Flock

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:25:16 -0000

Comments:

posted by garyedwards

Tags: anti-trust eu interoperability microsoft

Posted by: garyedwards

Groklaw - Microsoft, antitrust and innovation, by Georg Greve

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:00:32 -0000

Comments:

Excellent explanation of Microsoft's problems in Europe. One can only hope that the successor to the Bush Administration is paying attention.
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Interoperability:

The second abusive practice the Commission found Microsoft guilty of is the deliberate obstruction of interoperability, generally achieved through arbitrary and willful modification of Open Standards. This makes it impossible for competitors to write interoperable software. This is to the detriment of customers, who find themselves locked into the products of one vendor, the antithesis of competition.

It might look much worse in the light of public statements that Microsoft will not even commit to standards that it has proposed itself, such as the recent Microsoft OfficeOpenXML (OOXML) format it wants approved by ISO.

The less people talk about the interoperability side of the case, the better for Microsoft. Otherwise people might connect MS-OOXML to the fact that Microsoft initiated the standardisation effort in the workgroup server area to open the market and later started obstruction of interoperability on its own standard to drive the innovator out of the market.

Great point. I think tha tanytime a big vendor embraces an open standard they should committ to full public documentation and explanation of any eXtensions to their implementaiton of that standard. Interoperability matters! posted by garyedwards

Tags: antitrust interoperability microsoft odf

Posted by: garyedwards

Commercial Software Will Include Open Source, Gartner Says - Flock

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:28:57 -0000

Comments:

Gartner report on OSS - now in the "third wave". Comment posted
posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

According to Driver, open-source software is now in its third wave, which is a phase of leverage as it is really good enough to use, provides alternatives throughout the stack, and is becoming far more pragmatic than idealistic. "Open source is not being hijacked; it is evolving along with the rest of the software industry," he said.

Tags: floss interoperability

Posted by: garyedwards

Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Microsoft's Stunning Court Defeat

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:06:07 -0000

Comments:

Microsoft Watch Joe Wilcox is on the job. This particular hgihlighted quote speaks volumes. The USA anti trust settlement famously allowed Microsoft to commercialize interoperability through expensive licenses - $8 Million per year for just the basic package.

It looks like the EU would force those interoperability API's out into the open. I wonder how this position will impact the November 12 th hearing on lifting the USA anti trust oversight? We have the EU saying the monopolist is illegally maintaining their monopoly through various interop barricades. And, the USA about to declare that the interop barricades no longer exists, therefore, the monopolist should be free to wreck havoc.

The stage looks set for a vey dramatic final act.

posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

"The Court considers that the Commission was correct to conclude that the work group server operating systems of Microsoft's competitors must be able to interoperate with Windows domain architecture on an equal footing with Windows operating systems if they are to be capable of being marketed viably. The absence of such interoperability has the effect of reinforcing Microsoft's competitive position on the market and creates a risk that competition will be eliminated."

Here, U.S. oversight of Microsoft will continue until at least November 2009, largely because of server protocol licensing. The so-called "California group" of states—those that didn't settle the U.S. antitrust case—and other parties will likely ask the court here to align the two disclosure programs, extending the ruling's impact well beyond Europe.

I wonder if this is correct? My understanding is that the California Group will be brushed aside by the Feds? posted by garyedwards

Tags: anti-trust cdf interoperability microsoft odf ooxml

Posted by: garyedwards

OOXML in Norway: The haywire process | Geir Isene : Straight talk on IT

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:58:57 -0000

Comments:

see the sticky notes on this one posted by garyedwards

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

I had read the essay by Jon Bosak (SUN Microsystems) on why SUN voted as it did in the US. He lays out a very different strategy. His view is that the battle is lost to completely reject OOXML as an ISO standard. ISO can only reject it with comments, and that is equivalent to giving Microsoft a todo-list on how to fix the draft so as to get it approved. Microsoft has sufficient manpower to easily tackle that.

Most of us had missed what Mr. Bosak saw: OOXML promises interoperability with earlier closed binary formats (the Word Doc, older Excel file formats etc.). But it doesn’t deliver. How on earth could someone be able to convert old binary files to the new format without having the specification of the old formats and a mapping to OOXML. If you are to translate some text from Chinese to English, it doesn’t much help to only know English.

A "Yes with comments" is a yes for the ISO approval of MS-OOMXL. If ISO approves MS-OOXML, it won't matter what Bosak's "comments" strategy is. Microsoft and the Vista Stack will be off to the races. The full disclosure of the MS binary document secret blueprint won't matter much at that point. posted by garyedwards

“Ah c’mon Bosak, you are chickening out, we must stop this dead in the track”

There you go Geir!

Sun and Bosak have held the door open for MS-OOXML since 2002, when Sun blocked an effort to write the ODF Charter to include as a priority, "compatibility with existing file formats". This of course would include the billions of legacy MS binary documents.

The thing is that those who work in the conversion-translation field will tell you that it is currently impossible to pipe converted legacy binary documents and OOXMl docs for that matter into ODF. Just as Microsoft claims, ODF in it's current state is insufficient and unable to handle the rich feature set of the MSOffice developers platform.

The problem could of course be easily fixed by the inclusion in ODF of five structural generics. In the past year, there have been no less than five iX "interoperability enhancement" proposals submitted to the OASIS ODF TC for discussion and consideration. As uber universal interop expert Florian Reuter points out in his blog, these iX proposals did not fare so well.

What Florian doesn't point out is that it was Sun who opposed any and all efforts to improve compatibility with existing Microsoft binary and OOXML documents. Just as they have done for nearly five years now.

Sort of puts the Sun-Bosak support for ISO approval of MS-OOXML in a different light. ~ge~ posted by garyedwards

Tags: interoperability iso odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument

Posted by: garyedwards

Microsoft bashed in OOXML shens (and comparing loos) - Computerworld Blogs

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:03:13 -0000

Comments:

Collection of clips from the blogosphere concerning the pending Sep 2nd ISO vote on MS OOXML posted by garyedwards

Tags: cdf interoperability odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument

Posted by: garyedwards

Open Sources | InfoWorld | While you were sleeping... (The Sharepoint Trojan Horse) | April 24, 2007 05:17 AM | By Matt Asay

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:40:08 -0000

Comments:

Matt Asay's commentary pointing out that the Microsoft monopoly is moving from the desktop to the SharePoint Server. Matt's cites a recent Wall Street Journal article as his reference. And both have it right except that i would have called this the Exchange/SharePoint Hub juggernaut.

The idea is to migrate existing MSOffice bound business processes to the E/S Hub. From there, end user documents, collaboration and workflow interfaces are wired into Microsoft backends and web fronts (MS SQL Server, MS IIS, MS Active Directory, MS Dynamics, MS Communications Server, etc.) posted by garyedwards

Tags: cdf interoperability odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument sharepoint

Posted by: garyedwards