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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

In response to a recent question posted to a rather old OpenStack blog, i posted this summary of my views on ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML and the impact it will have on the futrue of the open web.

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

Has Microsoft lost its way on desktop computing? | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:08:38 -0000

ZDNet's David Morgenstern must have missed ISO approval of OOXML! MS has a desktop strategy, but involves proprietary protocols, formats and API's as the protective barrier for transitioning desktop bound client/server business processes to MS Web Stack bound SaaS-SOA business processes. Welcome to the Microsoft Cloud!

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

OM MALIK: You outlined Microsoft’s software-plus-services strategy, but what I want to know about is the changing role of the desktop in this service’s future.

RAY OZZIE: I think the real question is (that) if you were going to design an OS today, what would it look like? The OS that we’re using today is kind of in the model of a ’70s or ’80s vintage workstation. It was designed for a LAN, it’s got this great display, and a mouse, and all this stuff, but it’s not inherently designed for the Internet. The Internet is this resource in the back end that you can design things to take advantage of. You can use it to synchronize stuff, and communicate stuff amongst these devices at the edge.

A student today or a web startup, they don’t actually start at the desktop. They start at the web, they start building web solutions, and immediately deploy that to a browser. So from that perspective, what programming models can I give these folks that they can extend that functionality out to the edge? In the cases where they want mobility, where they want a rich dynamic experience as a piece of their solution, how can I make it incremental for them to extend those things, as opposed to learning the desktop world from scratch?

Tags: msoffice ooxml saas soa xaml

Posted by: garyedwards

garyedwards's Discussions at ZDNet.co.uk Community

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:54:28 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

garyedwards's Discussions

Breaking the Web

Talkback: Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'

Tags: iso microsoft msoffice odf ooxml xaml

Posted by: garyedwards