Summary Statement: Hey, this is an excellent plan! We can fully support this effort, even though the ISO National Bodies still have to work their way through the treacherous big vendor consortia controlled channels of OASIS ODF and Ecma 376. Bringing the big vendor applications to heel is not going to be easy. Merging ODF and MS-OOXML however is a worthwhile effort - one that the conversion and translator plug-in communities have been working on for the past three years! It can be done! And all it takes is five generic elements added to the existing ODF 1.2 specification ........
Group items tagged
Is Sun Friend or Foe? - 0 views
-
Published May 22, 2007, this comment was written in the aftermath of List Enhancement Proposal donnybrook at the ODF OASIS TC.
It was at the height of our List Enhancement battle with Sun that OASIS stepped in their threat to boot the OpenDocument Foundation. OASIS carried out that threat in May. The lesson we learned is clear and unequivocal. Opposition to Sun, in either the marketplace (da Vinci) or in the OASIS ODF TC, can be quite hazzardous to your health.
Not that this comes as any surprise. Nearly five years ago in 2002, when i first joined OASIS to work on OpenDocument, it was clear that OASIS was a big vendor consortia. While OASIS does have an affordable "Lawn Jockey" program, Sun is clearly calling all the shots on the OASIS ODF TC. This is why ODF is bound so tightly to the OpenOffice feature set.
Still, we thought the "Lawn Jockey" loophole could be used to balance out the interests and control of the OASIS big vendors. We were wrong. And it took near five years for the obvious to finally sink. Well, "sink in" thanks to the OASIS hammer and boot.
~ge~
Microsoft Support for ODF - the Q&A - 0 views
-
Hi Gary,I am a technology journalist with Asia's ONLY Linux-focused magazine, LINUX For You. I am working on a story revolving the recent development of Microsoft supporting ODF Format. I want to understand the equation of the whole development, would you please help me understand: Q1. What do you think drove Microsoft to support the ODF format?
-
This is the full response to Swapnil's seven questions. It's long. But we hold back nothing! Thanks again to Marbux. He is a peach!
The Interoperability Wars :: ODF vs. OOXML - 0 views
-
This discussion is part of a much larger response to a series of questions from a LiNUX magazine in India. The mighty Marbux helped answer the questions, so please don't mistake his eloquence for my customary thundering.
5 Things Microsoft Must Do To Reclaim Its Mojo In 2008 -- InformationWeek - 0 views
-
Instead of fighting standards, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) needs to get on board now more than ever. With open, Web-based office software backed by the likes of IBM (NYSE: IBM) (think Lotus Symphony) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) now a viable option, users—especially businesses frustrated by Microsoft's format follies (many are discovering that OOXML is not even fully backwards-compatible with previous versions of Microsoft Word)--can now easily switch to an online product without having to rip and replace their entire desktop infrastructure.
-
This article discusses how Microsoft might change their ways and save the company. This particular quote concerns Microsoft support for standards, and their fight to push MS OOXML through ISO as an alternative to ISO approved ODF 1.0.
The thing is, ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents, of which there are billions. Nor was ODF designed to be implemented by MSOffice. ODF was designed exactly for OpenOffice, which has a differnet model for impementing basic docuemnt structures than MSOffice.
So a couple of points regardign this highlight:
The first is that IBM's Lotus Symphony is NOT Open Source. IBM ripped off the OpenOffice 1.1.4 code base back when it was dual licensed under both SSSL and LGPL. IBM then closed the source code adding a wealth of proprietary eXtensions (think XForms and Lotus Notes connections). Then IBM released the proprietary Symphony as a free alternative to the original Open Source Community "OpenOffice.org".
If Microsoft had similarly ripped off an open source community, there would be hell to pay.
Another point here is the mistaken assumption that users can easily switch from MSOffice to an on-line product like Google Docs or ZOHO "without having to rip our and replace their entire desktop infrastructure."
This is a ridiculous assumption defied by the facts on the ground. Massqchusetts spent two years trying to migrate to ODF and couldn't do it. Every other pilot study known has experienced the same difficulties!
The thing about Web 2.0 alternatives is that these services can not be integrated into existing business processes and MSOffice workgroup bound activities. The collaborative advantages of Web 2.0 alternatives are disruptive and outside existing workflows, greatly marginalizing their usefulness. IF, and that's a big IF, MSOffice plug-ins were successful in the high fidelity round trip conversion of wor
-
-
Microsoft in 2008 could make a bold statement in support of standards by admitting that its attempt to force OOXML on the industry was a mistake and that it will work to develop cross-platform compatibility between that format and the Open Document Format
-
It's impossible to harmonize two application specific file formats. The only way to establish an effective compatibility between ODF and OOXML would be to establish a compatibility between OpenOffice and MSOffice.
The problem is that neither ODF or OOXML were developed as generirc file formats. They are both application specific, directly reflecting the particular implementation models of OOo and MSOffice.
Sun and the OASIS ODF TC are not about to compromise OpenOffice feature sets and implmentation methods to improve interop with MSOffice. Sun in particular will protect the innovative features of OpenOffice that are reflected in ODF and stubbornly incompatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents. This fact can easily be proven be any review of the infamous "List Enhancement Proposal" that dominated discussions at the OASIS ODF TC from November of 2006 through May of 2007.
So if Sun and the OASIS ODF TC refuse to make any efforts towards compatibility and imporved interop with MSOffice and the billions of binary docuemnts seekign conversion to ODF, then it falls to Microsoft to alter MSOffice. With 550 million MSOffice desktops involved in workgroup bound business processes, any changes would be costly and disruptive. (Much to the glee of Sun and IBM).
IBM in particular has committed a good amount of resources and money lobbying for government mandates establishing ODF as the accepted format. this would of course result in a massively disruptive and costly rip out and replace of MSOffice.
Such are the politics of ODF.
-
Plan B: The NO ViSTA Mandates, and the failure of ISO/IEC - 0 views
-
Plan B: The "NO ViSTA" Mandates: the failure of Anti Trust Laws and International Trade Agreements to Stop The Great Monopolist, Microsoft A series of surprising government mandate announcements rolled out in the immediate aftermath of the ISO/IEC decision to fast track Ecma 376 otherwise known as Microsoft Office Open XML (MOOX). The three articles commented on here are all from Information Week, who has done yeoman work concerning the OpenDocument - MOOX controversy that has so upset Microsoft. Now the mighty monopolist can taste victory, with fast track approval of MOOX certain, and ISO/IEC in the bag. Incredibly the company that escaped a Court ordered death sentence by purchasing what amounts to a presidential pardon. They even avoided the stink of their own lobbyist and henchman Jack Abramoff, and his motley crew of Ralph Reed and Grover Nyquist operatives. Now they are well on their way towards purchasing an International Standard. So much for Plan A. Time for Plan B, the "NO ViSTA" mandate.
-
Okay. I've combined my three comments into a single page. Sadly Diigo does not offer spell checking. My apologies to all. Hoepfully this will be a better read.
Can a file be ODF and Open XML at the same time? (and HTML? and a Java servlet? and a P... - 0 views
-
The recent bomb in the ODF world from Gary Edward’s claims that Sun successfully blocked the addition of features to ODF that would be needed for full interchange with Office are explosive not only because they demonstrate how ODF was (properly, in my view) developed to cope with the particular features of the participants, not really as a universal format, but also because the prop up Microsoft’s position that Open XML is required because it exposes particular features that ISO ODF is not capable of exposing. Both because ODF is still in progress and because sometimes the features are simply incompatible in the details.
-
Actually, ODF is about to get a new manifest along with the new metadata stuff. Because we base that on RDF, the manifest will also be RDF-based. It gives us the extensibility we want to provide (extension developers, for example, can add extra metadata they may need), without having to worry about breaking compatibility. The primary addition we've made is a mechanism to bind a stable URI to in-document content node ids and files. This is conceptually not all that different than what I see in OPC; it's just that the unique IDs are in fact URIs. Among other things, in the RDF context that allows further statements to be bound to those URIs. Bruce D'Arcus | July 29, 2007 01:02 PM
Frankly Speaking: Microsoft's Cynicism - Flock - 0 views
-
In July, Jones was asked on his blog whether Microsoft would actually commit to conform to an officially standardized OOXML. His response: “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.”
-
Then why is Microsoft dragging us through this standardization nonsense? Is this nothing more than thinly veiled assault on open standards in general?
-
-
To at least some people at Microsoft, this isn’t about meeting the needs of customers who want a stable, solid, vendor-neutral format for storing and managing documents. It’s just another skirmish with the open-source crowd and rivals like IBM, and all that matters is winning.
-
The battle between OOXML and ODF is very much about two groups of big vendor alliances. Interestingly, both groups seek to limit ODF interoperability, but for different reasons.
See: The Plot To Limit ODF Interop
-
-
Good commentary from Frank Hayes of Computerworld concerning a very serious problem. Even if ISO somehow manages to approve MS-OOXML, Microsoft has reserved the right to implement whatever extension of Ecma-OOXML they feel like implementing. The whole purpose of this standardization exercise was to bring interoperability, document exchange and long term archive capability to digital information by separating the file formats from the traditions of application, platform and vendor dependence.
If Microsoft is determined to produce a variation of OOXML that meets the needs of their proprietary application-platform stack, including proprietary bindings and dependencies, any illusions we might have about open standards and interoeprability will be shattered. By 2008, Microsoft is expected to have over a billion MS-OOXML ready systems intertwined with their proprietary MS Stack of desktop, server, device and web applications.
How are we to interoperate/integrate non Microsoft applications and services into that MS Stack if the portable document/data/media transport is off limits? If you thought the MS Desktop monopoly posed an impossible barrier, wait until the world gets a load of the MS Stack!
Good article Frank.
~ge~
Why Can't We All Just Get Along? - 0 views
-
My response to Tiffany's eWEEK article, Office file formats fail to communicate, and the GCN article, Can't we just get along?. good articles both.
My comments are the first time i've responded directly to Sun's proprietary eXtensions allegation. The truth is that we refused to release the da Vinci plug-in with the must have iX "interoperability enhancements". Sun of course totally opposed our iX proposals, insuring that ODF would fail in Massachusetts, California, Denmark, Belgium and with the EU-IDABC.
Nice work Sun! Yeah, that's the ticket. Limit ODF's interoperability so much so that it is impossible to implement ODF, and the world willl beat a path to your door.
Right!
~ge~ ~ge~
Harmonizing ODF and OOXML using NameSpaces | Tim Bray's Thought Experiment - 0 views
-
First, what if Microsoft really is doing the right thing? Second, how can we avoid having two incompatible file formats? [Update: There’s been a lot of reaction to this piece, and I addressed some of those points here.]
-
On the technology side, the two formats are really more alike than they are different. But, there are differences: O12X’s design center, Microsoft has said repeatedly, is capturing the exact semantics of the billions of existing Microsoft Office documents. ODF’s design center is general-purpose reusability, and leveraging existing standards like SVG and MathML and so on.
-
OOXML, or to put it more accurately "O12X" as Tim suggests, is designed to capture the exact semantics of MSOffice 12. In fact, OOXML is an XML encoding of the MSOffice 12 in-memory-binary-representation dump. When it comes to representing older versions of MSOffice documents, OOXML must use legacy compatibility settings" to capture the semantics. And it's not an exacting science to say the least. The thing is, OpenOffice ODF uses the same technique resulting in application specific ODF documents with over 150 un docuemnted, unspecified "compatibility settings". After years of requests from the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to document these application specific settings, Sun has yet to provide any kind of response. And this kills ODF interoperability. Especially concerning KOffice. There is also the issue of OASIS ODF high-jacked namespaces. When ODF applications reference a namespace, the actual URL is high-jacked with http://oasis-open.org/???? replacing the proper namespace of http://W3C.org/???? This high-jacking impacts the oDF reuse of important W3C technologies such as XForms, SVG, MathML, and SMiL. So where's the problem you ask? Well, when a developer imports or tries to process an OpenOffice ODF document, they rely on say the W3C XForms specification for their understanding. OpenOffice however seriously constrains the implementation of XForms, SVG, MathML, RDFa and RDF/XML. This should be reflected in the new namespace. However, if you follow the high-jacked URL, you'll find that there is nothing there. There is no specification describing how OpenOffice implements XForms in ODF! This breaks developer libraries, breaks ODF interoperability between ODF applications, and, offends the W3C to no end. So i think it might be fair to say that at this point, neither ODF or OOXML have come close to fulfilling their design objectives.
-
-
The capabilities of ODF and O12X are essentially identical for all this basic stuff. So why in the flaming hell does the world need two incompatible formats to express it? The answer, obviously, is, “it doesn’t”.
-
Exactly!! Except for one thing that Tim misses: the presentation layers of both ODF and OOXML are application specific. It is also the application specific nature of OpenOffice ODF presnetation layer that prevents interoperability with KOffice ODF! There is near zero interop between OpenOffice and KOffice, and KOffice has been a contributing member of the OASIS ODF TC for FIVE YEARS! It's the presentation layer Tim. ODF and OOXML are application specific formats because their presentation layers are woefully applicaiton specific and entirely reflective of each applications layout engine and feature set implementation model. I often imagine what ODF would be like if back in 2001, Sun had chosen to implement CSS as the OpenOffice presentation layer instead of the quirky but innovative, and 100% application specific automatic-styles presentation layer we now see in ODF. Unlike ODF's "automatic-styles", CSS is a totally application independent presentation model prized exactly for it's universal interoperability!
-
- ...1 more annotation...
Microsoft Hit By U.S. DOT Ban On Windows Vista, Explorer 7, and Office 2007 - Technolog... - 0 views
-
» E-Mail » Print » Discuss » Write To Editor late last year -- can be resolved. "We have more confidence in Microsoft than we would have 10 years ago," says Schmidt. "But it always makes sense to look at the security implications, the value back to the customer, and those kind of issues." The DOT's ban on Vista, Internet Explorer 7, and Office 2007 applies to 15,000 computer users at DOT proper who are currently running the Windows XP Professional operating system. The memo indicates that a similar ban is in effect at the Federal Aviation Administration, which has 45,000 desktop users. Compatibility with existing applications appears to be the Transportation Department's major concern. According to a separate memo, a number of key software applications and utilities in use in various branches of the department aren't Vista compatible. Among them are Aspen 2.8.1, ISS 2.11, ProVu 3.1.1, and Capri 6.5, according to a memo issued by staffers at the DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Any prolonged ban on new Microsoft technologies by the federal government could have a significant impact on the software maker's bottom line, as Microsoft sells millions of dollars in software to the feds annually. http://as.cmpnet.com/event.ng/Type=count&ClientType=2&AdID=125682&FlightID=75634&TargetID=2625&SiteID=222&AffiliateID=283&EntityDefResetFlag=0&Segments=1411,3108,3448,11291,12119&Targets=2625,2878,7904,8579&Values=34,46,51,63,77,87,91,102,140,222,227,283,442,646,656,1184,1255,1311,1405,1431,1716,1767,1785,1798,1925,1945,1970,2217,2299,2310,2326,2352,2678,2727,2767,2862,2942,3140,3347,3632,3636,3638,3890,3904,4080,448
-
DOT chief technology officer Tim Schmidt DOT's CIO Daniel Mintz Federal Department of Transportation
-
-
Whoa, those government desktops add up quickly. This Vista ban will immediately effect over 50,000 desktops, with tens of thousands more possibly impacted by the IE 7.0 ban. The MS Exchange/SharePoint Hub juggernaut is based on IE 7.0, which is not available for Windows 2000 - MSOffice 2000 desktops.
Lack of Vista Stack compatibility with non Microsoft application is given as the reason for the ban. But notice the "alternatives" to Vista mentioned; Novel SuSE and Apple Mac. What kind of interop - compatibility do they offer? My guess is ZERO!
The reality is that the DOT is trapped. My advice would be stay exactly where they are, keeping the current MSOffice desktop installs running. Then, install the Foundation's daVinci ODF plugin for MSOffice.
This will insure that Windows OS and MSOffice bound business processes can continue to function without disruption. Win32 APi based applications like those mentioned in the article can continue. Critical day to day business processes, workgroup and workflow related activities can continue without disruption or costly re engineering demanded by a cross platform port.
What daVinci doe sdo is move the iron triangle that binds Windows-MSOffice applications to business processes and documents, to an ODF footing. Once on a ODF footing, the government can push forward with the same kind of workgroup - workflow - intelligent docuemnt - collaborative computing advnaces that the Vista Stack was designed to deliver. Only this push will involve the highly competitive "the customer is sovereign" environment of ODF ready desktop, server, device and Web 2.0 systems. End of Redmond lock-in. End of the costly iron triangle and the force march upgrade treadmill that so enriches Microsoft.
So what's not to like? We can do this.
~ge~
http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dghfk5w9_20d2x6rf&revi
Three Stages of XML Migration: The OpenDocument Challenge - 0 views
-
"Open document formats: I get it! But how do I get there? Discuss."
-
Eventually i suspect the truth will come out concerning ODF and the events in Massachusetts. Migration is difficult and our friends in Redmond are not about to lend a hand. The problem is the starting point, the MSOffice desktop productivity environment. A starting point owned and controlled entirely by Microsoft. The challenge is to get from the overwhelming dominance of proprietary Microsoft binary documents and into an open XML universal file format that any application, running on any platform can interactively read, render and write to.
Microsoft has decided to keep secret the blueprint to these billions of binary documents, reserving exclusively for themselves the right to convert then to XML. Of course, the only version of XML Microsoft will convert them to is the wholly owned and controlled OOXML file format.
Microsoft refuses to cooperate in any way with the conversion of these legacy binary documents to the only truly open XML universal file format, OASIS OpenDocument. Which leaves the world with a near insolvable problem; how to get from where we are today, with the boot of a ruthless monopolist on the neck of our information and information processes, to where we really desire to be - with our digital civilization in the hands of open standards, and out of the control of proprietary applications and platform vendors.
This document describes what the OpenDocument Foundation learned in Massachusetts about the challenge of migrating to ODF.
Game Time for OpenDocument: - 0 views
-
There are the technical arguments for ODf vs. EooXML. Then there are endless discussions concerning the discovery and disclosure of volumes of contradictions between ODF and EooXmL And how about all those legal-patent-licensing-DRM restrictions on EooXML which shatter in comparison to the truly open and un encumbered ODF. Even the comparison between ECMA the great rubber stamp standards for sale org vs OASIS, the everyman's consensus community standards mill where ODF flourishes. All interesting. but this blog is about the reality of migrating information and information processes to ODF. It's not easy!
- ...1 more comment...
-
There are the technical arguments for ODf vs. EooXML. Then there are endless discussions concerning the discovery and disclosure of volumes of contradictions between ODF and EooXmL And how about all those legal-patent-licensing-DRM restrictions on EooXM
-
There are the technical arguments for ODf vs. EooXML. Then there are endless discussions concerning the discovery and disclosure of volumes of contradictions between ODF and EooXmL And how about all those legal-patent-licensing-DRM restrictions on EooXM
Good-bye and Good Luck II | Part II - 0 views
-
Official Statement from the OpenDocument Foundation to OASIS
Good-bye and Good Luck I Part I - 0 views
-
Official statement from the OpenDocument Foundation on leaving OASIS
HTML5 data communications - 1 views
-
-
Sounds like the core of a 1992 Windows Desktop Productivity "Compound Document" model. Applications need to message, exchange and link data. In 1992, the key technologies embedded in a compound document were DDE, OLE, ODBC, scripts and macros. Later on, ActiveX and COM was added. Today the MSOffice desktop productivity environment links into the MS-Live Productivity Cloud or the BPOS - SharePoint private cloud with a raft of WPF-SilverlightX stuff. Good to see the Open Web fighting back with their own compound document model.
-
-
Cross-document messaging
‹ Previous
21 - 37 of 37
Showing 20▼ items per page