Group items tagged

What makes the Internet so extraordinary is the interoperability of web ready data, content, media and the incredible sprawl of web applications servicing the volumes of information. The network of networks has become the information system connecting and converging all information systems. The Web is the universal platform of access, exchange and now, collaborative computing. This survey exammines the key issue of future interoperability; Web Document Formats.

Excellent link from marbux.

The IOWA Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust suit evidence is now publicly available. This ZDNet Talkback posts an extraordinary eMail from Bill Gates concerning the need to control MSOffice formats and protocols as Microsoft pushes onto the Web. The key point is that Chairman Bill understands that the real threat to Microsoft is that of Open Web formats and protocols outside of Microsoft's control. It's 1998, and the effort to "embrace and eXtend" W3C HTML, XHTML, SVG and CSS isn't working well. The good Chairman notifies the troops that MSOffice must come up with another plan. Interestingly, it's not until 2001, when OpenOffice releases an XML encoding of the OpenOffice/StarOffice imbr that Microsoft finally sees a solution! (imbr = in-memory-binary-representation) The MSOffice crew immediately sets to work creating a similar XML encoding of the MSOffice binary (imbr) dump. The first result is released in the MSOffice 2003 beta as "WordprocessingML and SpreadsheetML". XML was designed as a structured language for creating specific structured languages. OpenOffice saw the potential of using XML to create an OpenOffice specific XML language. MSOffice seized the innovation and the rest is history. Problem solved! So what was the "problem" the good Chairman identified in this secret eMail? It's that the Web is the future, and Microsoft needed to find a way of leveraging their existing desktop document "editor" monopoly share into owning and controlling the Web formats produced by Microsoft applications. MSOffice OOXML is the result. ISO approval of MSOffice OOXML is beyond important to Microsoft. It establishes MSOffice "editors" as standards compliant. It also establishes the application, platform and vendor specific MSOffice OOXML as an international "open" standard. Many will ask why this isn't a case of Microsoft actually opening up the MSOffice formats in compliance with government antitrust demands. It is "compliance", but not in the sense of what

I saw Live-Mesh today at the Web 2.0 Expo. It's still flashware, but very cool flashware. (Or is that "silverware" :) If they get this right the web will belong to Microsoft. I disagree with John that mesh will be standards base. Yes, mesh will work with HTML/CSS amd MAYBE JavaScript. But it will also work with the prorietary XAML, Silverlight, Smart Tags - LINQ. All of which are proprietary alternatives to what mesh won't support :: the advanced format standards from the W3C - XHTML, CSS3, SVG, XForms, CDF, RDF, RDFa and SPARQL. Live-Mesh will break the open web just s surely as the MSOffice SDK OOXML <> XAML conversion component will break the open web future into a Google consumer web, and a Microsoft business web.

Aaron Miller writes about the limitations and difficulties with ePUB. He suggests a new format, "BOOK" based on ePUB but web ready. BOOK is an AJAX format in that it includes (X)HTML, CSS and JavaScript! Excellent stuff! The discussion on this page is one of the best on the Web. ePUB gets thrashed, but with arguments very difficult to contest. The web is everything, and Aaron's friends fully understand this. Sadly, the ePUB crowd does not. I found this site looking to solve the problem of numbered lists in ePUB.

IBM) today announced it is creating an alliance program for independent hardware and software vendors to support industry standards for new enterprise data centers, which are dramatically more energy efficient, virtualized, and resilient. The new alliance with top IT companies around the world will enable clients to evolve to new enterprise data centers while offering the widest possible choice of open technologies. The importance of interoperability and open standards for new enterprise data centers -- including those for energy management, virtualization, networking, security, and service management, among others -- is a focal point of this program.

More confusion about the MS announcement of native support for ODF, with delayed support for whatever ISO finally determines to be ISO 29500; "OOXML". Damn but these guys are all twisted up about this. The truth is, ISO National Bodies traded their vote in favor of OOXML for MSOffice support for ODF and Microsoft's joining the OASIS ODF TC. It's not complicated. MS wants ISO approval of OOXML because it established MSOffice as a "standards" editor. The rest of this kurfufull is all about anti trust concerns and Microsoft's need to put htose concerns to bed before the world figures out that they are leveraging the MS desktop monopoly into an MS Web monopoly. ISO approval of OOXML is the final piece of very complex puzzle. The harmonization of OOXML-ODF is impossible. MS knows this. So why not join OASIS ODF TC if it means putting aside the anti trust claims from ISO NB's and getting that all important standardization of OOXML? Both ODF and OOXML are both XML encodings of entirely application specific binary formats. There is no possible to way to reconcile the file formats without also reconciling the applications! Incuding feature sets and layout engines!!!! Impossible!! The real game is the transition from client/server to the emerging client/Web-Stack/server model. MS is the "client" in client/server. No way were they about to give that up without a plan to control the transition of MSOffice documents to the emerging client/Web-Stack/server model. They sought to fully control the formats, protocols and API's of this new model. ISO handed it to them. The thing to watch is the MSOffice SDK where one can find a very cool OOXML <> XAML converter. XAML is totally proprietary, but "web ready". Meaning, MSOffice is a "web ready" application. It's just that the web readiness is 100% MS .NET-Silverlight. The great transition to client/Web-Stack/server is now on. Thanks to ISO. All this ODF stuff is just background noise designed to quiet the anti t

Silverlight Wikipedia description

I don't think Dan Farber gets it. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML establishes MSOffice as a standards compliant web/cloud/WOA "editor" for client/Web-Stack/server systems. No need to try to squeeze all tha tcomplexity into a browser. Just use the MSOffice SDK OOXML <> XAML conversion component to convert rich, business process loaded, documents to a web ready format. OH my, XAML is proprietary and IE-8 does not support XHTML2, CSS3, SVG, XForms, RDF, SPARQL, SWF, PDF or JavaScript. Bummer. ISO has done the unthinkable and Microsoft can now break the web without worry of anti trust retribution. They are after all, simply implementing an open standard.

"A new microformat for online news has been developed by the Media standards Trust and the Web Science Reaseach Initiative: it's called hNews. The goal is to make relevant elements of news articles machine-readable, and at the same time, to disply these metadata in a user-friendly format. ....."

This commentary follows the Stockholm Syndrom post, which is itself in the thread based on Yoon Kit's Open Malaysia comments concerning the dilemma Patrick Durusau is in; the JTC-1 is now filled with Microsoft OOXML supporters!

"Washington, D.C., May 14, 2008 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted unanimously to formally propose using new technology to get important information to investors faster, more reliably, and at a lower cost. At the center of the SEC proposal is "interactive data" - computer "tags" similar in function to bar codes used to identify groceries and shipped packages. The interactive data tags uniquely identify individual items in a company's financial statement so they can be easily searched on the Internet, downloaded into spreadsheets, reorganized in databases, and put to any number of other comparative and analytical uses by investors, analysts, and journalists. The proposed rule would require all U.S. companies to provide financial information using interactive data beginning next year for the largest companies, and within three years for all public companies." Note that reports must currently be submitted in the Edgar format, with WordPerfect the only major word processor writing directly to Edgar. See also http://www.xbrl.org/faq.aspx (.) The proposal is potentially susceptible to legal challenge at the WTO per terms of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and the Agrement on Government Procurement. If approved, XBRL would constitute a "technical regulation" within the meaning of the ATBT and a "technical specification" within the meaning of the AGP. That raises the issue of whether XBRL constitutes an unnecessary obstacle to international trade within the meaning of those treaties. This is the kind of stuff that is supposed to get sorted out by joint creation of an international standard by ATBT member nations. But both treaties are very poorly implemented in the U.S.

Tomorrow's Web Despite differences in approach between AIR and Gears, Adobe and Google actually share a common vision. Both companies aim to extend the current Web browsing experience with new features that allow developers to deliver RIAs more easily. And, because Web developers, too, have diverse goals and methods, the traditional browser is unlikely to disappear as an application-delivery platform, even as desktop-based Web apps proliferate.

CellNode M100 is a unique WiFi device which enables providers to securely deploy wireless mesh networks. Every CellNode features two radio transceivers that support the 802.11a/g/b standards. The first radio usually serves local wireless subscribers (downlink) at 2.4Ghz, while the second radio is used to connect to the infrastructure backbone (uplink) at 5Ghz.

"CellNode M100 is designed for deployment in wireless mesh infrastructure. In such infrastructure, each CellNode M100 communicates with an uplink relay (bridge) or access controller and with other wireless clients within its reach. If one CellNode device becomes temporarily unavailable, traffic is transparently redirected to other CellNodes located within physical proximity." I'm not a hardware expert by any means, but the sniff here is sprinkling these things around town, managing centrally including firmware update rollouts, built in UPS for keeping the network up during power outages, automagic switching to other nodes if one goes down, on and on and on. Could I cope with a mere 54 Mbs 802.11/n connection instead of Comcast's ~ 11 Mpbs just to save $50 a month? Gee, that's a hard one. I'll have to think about that. No wonder the cable and telco providers are fighting municipal networks hair, tooth, and nail.

New Diigo group with overlapping subject matter, more focused on the web.

IBM's Arnaud La Hors on why Microsoft should be blamed for what is inevitable given that ODF is not designed for interoperability and is not application-neutral. One might rationally fault Microsoft for not having joined the ODF TC earlier, but the ODF TC studiously avoided enabling interoperability even among ODF implementations and ODF has almost no mandatory conformity requirements, with application-specific extensions classified as conformant. The real ODF standard is the OOo code base controlled by Sun Microsystems. IBM played along with that game and cloned the OOo code base instead of fighting on the TC to make the myth of ODF interoperability come true. I don't see a lot of moral high ground for IBM here.

Perpetuating current data silos by continuing to "give your data to a site" was, Berners-Lee asserted, "not ideal." He argued instead for wider adoption of new or existing Web specifications such as OAuth and RDFAuth, enabling the individual to store data relevant to themselves wherever they felt fit, and assemble it at will within one or more Web and local applications of their choosing at the point of need. "Acquaintance-based social networks," Berners-Lee suggested, were "the tip of the iceberg," with his notion of the emerging Giant Global Graph "exist[ing] above the Web" and creating opportunities for far richer functional and role-based interconnections. Turning to consideration of the Web itself, Berners-Lee remarked that "Openness tends to be an inexorable movement through time" He juxtaposed the 'Web Application Platform' with proprietary solutions to parts of the problem such as Flash, AIR and Silverlight. This Web Application Platform, he argued, relies upon W3C specifications and other open standards, and it is increasingly moving toward specifications that are small, modular, and interoperable. Moving toward his conclusion, Berners-Lee reiterated the importance of Linked Data again saying "Linked Open Data is the Web done as it should be." Returning to his earlier discussion of modularity, he suggested that existing specifications such as those for JavaScript be reworked, carving JavaScript's functionality up into a series of modular packages. Each of those packages should then be assigned a URI, and the Semantic Web should be used to describe the packages, their dependencies, and their interrelationships. Used in conjunction with the resulting applications, Linked Data would provide, "elements of an ability to do things [with data] that cross application boundaries." Turning to Q&A, Berners-Lee was first asked to comment on the concept of 'Web 2.0′, which he did; "Web 2.0 sites a

And of course it is the incredible variety in data formats used by Web 2.0 apps that forces the creation of new data silos on the Web. Web 2.0 is bringing us the same kinds of incompatible data format issues forced on software users since the beginning of the proprietary software industry.

Brian figures out that the document wars are really about Cloud Computing. Big vendors IBM, Sun, Google and Microsoft are jockeyign for position in our cloud computing future. And this is why Microsoft MUSt get ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML! What Brian misses is the key to a Microsoft Cloud that can be found int he MSOffice SDK; the OOXML<>XAML conversion component. XAML, Silverlight and Smart Tags replace W3C XHTML-CSS, SVG-Flash, and RDF. Makign the MS Cloud one where Microsoft owned protocols, formats and .NET components dominate all processes. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML establishes MSOffice as a standards "editor", thus masking the cloud computing shift to XAML. A shift that will lock out all other Web 2.0 - Cloud providers dependent on Open Web - W3C protocols and formats!

Note that Brian posted this article in February, on the eve of the Geneva BRM. Since then ISO has gone on to approve MSOffice-OOXML. Note also that, a week prior to this publication, i had sent Brian a lengthy discussion entitled "Windows can't do Cloud Computing", where all of these issues were discussed except for the IBM motivations. Not wanting to interfere with the upcoming Geneva BRM and vote, I had declined Brian's request to publish.

A browser plug-in for JavaFX will be featured in the Java SE (Standard Edition) 6 Update 10 release due this fall. Both Adobe, with its Flash platform, and Microsoft, with Silverlight, are offering plug-in platforms for rich Internet applications. But Sun plans to provide the industry-leading rich client with JavaFX, said Param Singh, Sun senior director of Java marketing. The Java runtime helps make this possible, he stressed during an interview at the JavaOne conference on Thursday afternoon. "The Java runtime is on over 900 million desktops today," Singh said. Every month, there are 40 million downloads of updates to the Java runtime, he said. Additionally, there are more than 2.2 mobile phones with Java on them, not to mention Java's presence in 100 percent of Blu-ray devices, said Singh. "The notion is, we will take JavaFX where the Java runtime is available," Singh said. Sun's JavaFX plug-in will enable deployment of applications that can work either in or outside of the browser, Singh said. This ability to run applications inside or outside of a browser is similar to what Adobe is offering with its AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) software.

Response to Yoon Kit's comments that Patrick Durusau is caught between a rock and hard place. His ISO JTC-1 group is now overwhelmed with MS OOXML supporters!

The Apache CFX "Interoperability Framework" for SOA Project is ready. We really could have used CFX in the 2003 Comcast project where a Tomcat/MYSQL Web-Stack connected to many disparate blackboxes. The blackboxes were standalone "Inventory and Billing" transaction processing data centers aquired by Comcast during a five year burst of acquisitions. Of course, none of these blackboxes could talk to any other! Enter SOA with XMLHTTPRequest streams. 2002-2003. We needed CFX to scale!