Massachusetts last week officially confirmed that its executive agencies for now will continue using Microsoft Office instead of switching to alternative desktop applications. But by Jan. 1, in keeping with a controversial policy announced last year, the state plans to start adding plug-in software that will let its Office users create and save files in the industry-standard OpenDocument format.
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Microsoft's Quest for Interoperability and Open Standards - 0 views
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Interesting article discussing the many ways Microsoft is using to improve the public perception that they are serious about interoperability and open formats, protocols and interfaces. Rocketman attended the recent ISO SC34 meeting in Prague and agrees that Microsoft has indeed put on a new public face filled with cooperation, compliance and unheard of sincerity.
He also says, "Don't be fooled!!!"
There is a big difference between participation in vendor consortia and government sponsored public standards efforts, and, actual implementation at the product level. Looking at how Microsoft products implement open standards, my take is that they have decided on a policy of end user choice. Their applications offer on the one hand the choice of aging, near irrelevant and often crippled open standards. And on the other, the option of very rich and feature filled but proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces that integrate across the entire Microsoft platform of desktop, devices and servers. For instance; IE8 supports 1998 HTML-CSS, but not the advanced ACiD-3 "HTML+" used by WebKit, Firefox, Opera and near every device or smartphone operating at the edge of the Web. (HTML+ = HTML5, CSS4, SVG/Canvas, JS, JS Libs).
But they do offer advanced .NET-WPF proprietary alternative to Open Web HTML+. These include XAML, Silverlight, XPS, LINQ, Smart Tags, and OOXML. Very nice.
"When an open source advocate, open standards advocate, or, well, pretty much anyone that competes with Microsoft (news, site) sees an extended hand from the software giant toward better interoperability, they tend to look and see if the other hand's holding a spiked club.
Even so, the Redmond, WA company continues to push the message that it has seen the light regarding open standards and interoperability...."
HyperOffice - Collaboration Software: Online Task, Document Management, Cloud Email , M... - 0 views
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Web - Browser based desktop productivity suite.
"A Strategy For Openness" : Report to the NYS Governor and Legislature (CIO/OFT) - 0 views
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This is the report John Cody worked on. I spent four months answering his questions but was unable to adequately explain to him the difference between an "Office Suite" and a workgroup-workflow centric "Productivity Environment". John insists that it's entirely possible to rip-out-and-replace the MSOffice editors with the free OpenOffice Suite without disrupting important workflows and business processes. I explained to him what happened in Massachussetts, including the 300 page pilot study report Sam wrote. What he needs to do i think is pay close attention to the Burton Group coverage of what is now known as the SharePoint Foundation platform; SharePoint 2010 having totally swallowed the MSOffice 2010, leaving the venerable desktop productivity office suite as an important end user interface into information rich business systems centered on the SharePoint "Unified Productivity" platform.
An interesting offer: get paid to contribute to Wikipedia - Rick Jelliffe - 1 views
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Classic argument about ODF vs OOXML. Need to send Rick an explanation about how the da Vinci plug-in works. It is entirely possible to capture everythign MSOffice editors do in ODF using namespace extensions compliant with ODF 1.1 standard. What was impossible was to round-trip those MSOffice ODF documents to OpenOffice.org. And as it turns out, replacing MSOffice/Windows on new workgroup desktops with OpenOffice/Linux was one of the primary objectives behind the Massachussetts effort to standardize on ODF. They believed the hype that ODF was cross platform interoperable. It wasn't then, and it still isn't five years later. As for capturing all the complexities and nuances of the very robust MSOffice productivity environment and authoring system? Sure, ODf could easily be extended for that. What an incredible discussion!
The End of ODF & OpenXML - Hello ODEF! - 0 views
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Short slide deck of Barbara Held's February 28th, 2007 EU IDABC presentation. She introduces ODEF, the "Open Document Exchange Format" which is designed to replace both ODF and OpenOfficeXML. ComputerWorld recently ran a story about the end of ODF, as they covered the failure of six "legislative" initiatives designed to mandate ODF as the official file format. While the political treachery surrounding these initiatives is a story in and of itself, the larger story, the one that has world wide reverberations, wasn't mentioned. The larger ODF story is that ODF vendors are losing the political battles because they are unable to provide government CIO's with real world solutions. Here are three quotes from the California discussion that really say it all: "Interoperability isn't just a feature. It's the basic requirement for getting your XML file format and applications considered"..... "The challenge is that of migrating our existing documents and business processes to XML. The question is which XML? OpenDocument or OpenXML?" ....... "Under those conditions, is it even possible to implement OpenDocument?" ....... Bill Welty, CIO California Air Resource Board wondering if there was a way to support California legislative proposal AB-1668. This is hardly the first time the compatibility-interoperability issue has challenged ODf. Massachusetts spent a full year on a pilot study testing the top tier of ODF solutions: OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office and IBM's WorkPlace (prototype). The results were a disaster for ODF. So much so that the 300 page pilot study report and accompanying comments wiki have never seen the light of day. In response to the disastrous pilot study, Massachusetts issued their now infamous RFi; a "request for information" about whether it's possible or not to write an ODF plugin for MSOffice applications. The OpenDocument Foundation responded to the RFi with our da Vinci plugin. The quick descriptio
Mass. Set to Mix Office With ODF - 0 views
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The August 28th, 2006 article about Massachusetts decision to use addon plugins. ComputerWorld - Caarol Sliwa
LOL :: Microsoft's Jean Paoli on the XML document debate - 0 views
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What’s distinctive about the goals of OOXML? Primarily, to have full fidelity with pre-existing binary documents created in Microsoft Office. “What people want is to make sure that their billions of important documents can be saved in a format where they don’t lose any information. As a design goal, we said that those formats have to represent all the information that enables high-fidelity migration from the binary formats”, says Paoli. He mentions work with institutions including the British Library and the US Library of Congress, concerned to preserve the information in their electronic archive. I asked Paoli if such users could get equally good fidelity by converting their documents to ODF. “Absolutely not,” he says. “I am very clear on that. Those two formats are done for different reasons.” What can go wrong? Paoli gives as an example the myriad ways borders can be drawn round tables in Microsoft Office and all its legacy versions. “There are 100 ways to draw the lines around a table,” he says. “The Open XML format has them all, but ODF which has not been designed for backward compatibility, does not have them. It’s really the tip of the iceberg. So if someone translates a binary document with a table to ODF, you will lose the framing details. That is just a very small example.”
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“Open Document Format and Office Open XML have very different goals”, says Paoli, responding to the claim that the world needs only one standard XML format for office documents. “Both of them are formats for documents … both are good.”
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The door should have been slammed shut on OOXML near five years ago when, on December 14th, 2006, at the very first OASIS ODF TC meeting, Stellent's Phil Boutros proposed that the charter include, "compatibility with existing file formats and interoperability with existing applications" as a priority objective.
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I put it to Paoli that OOXML is hard to implement because of all its legacy support, some of which is currently not well documented. “I don’t believe that at all. It’s actually the opposite,” he says. He make the point that third parties like Corel, which have previously implemented support for binary formats like .doc and .xls, should find it easy to transition to OOXML. “We believe Open XML adoption by vendors like Corel will be very easy because they have already been doing 90% of the work, doing the binary formats. The features are already there.”
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WordPerfect does an excellent import of MSWord .doc documents. But there is no conversion! It's a read only rendering. Once you start editing the document in WP, all kinds of funny things happen, and the perfect fidelity melts away like the wicked witch of west in a bucket full of water.
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Tim Anderson interviews Microsoft's Jean Paoli about MOOXML and ODF. Jean Paoli of course has the predictable set of answers. But Tim anderson provides us with some interesting insights and comments of his own. There is also a gem of a comment from Stephane Rodriquez, the reknown spreadsheet expert.
The bottom line for Microsoft has not changed. MOOXML exists because of the need for an XML file format compatible with the legacy of existing MSOffic ebinary documents. He claims that ODF is not compatible, and offers the "page borders" issue as an example.
Page borders? What's that got to do with the ODF file format? These are application specific, application bound proprietary graphics that can not be ported to any other application - like OpenOffice. The reason has nothign whatsoever to do with ODF and everything to do with the fact that the page border library is bound to MSOffice and not available to other applications like OpenOffice.
So here is an application specific feature tha tJean Paoli claims can not be expressed in ODF, but can in MOOXML. But when are running the da Vinci ODF plugin in MSWord, there is no problem whatsoever in capturing the page borders in ODF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No problem!!!!!!!!!!
The problem is opening up that same da Vinci MSWord document in OpenOffice. That's where the page borders are dropped. The issue is based entirely on the fact that OpenOffice is unable to render these MSWord specific graphics bound to an MSOffice only library.
If however we take that same page border loaded da Vinci MSWord document, and send it half way across the world to another MSWord desktop running da Vinci, the da Vinci plugin easily loads the ODF document into MSWord where it is perfectly rendered, page borders and all!!!!!!!!
Now i will admit that this is one very difficult issue to understand. If not f -
Great interview. Tim can obviously run circles around poor Jean Paoli.
OpenForum Europe - EU Conclusions from Open Document Exchange Formats Workshop - 0 views
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here was strong consensus among Member State administrations on the necessity to use ODEF on "openness" being the basic criteria of ODEF and resulting requirements towards industry players / consequences for public administrations There is a general dissatisfaction with the perspective of having competing standards; One format for one purpose: Administrations should be able to standardize (internally) on a minimal set of formats; No incomplete implementations, no proprietary extensions; Products should support all relevant standards and standards used should be supported by multiple products; Conformance testing and document validation possibilities are needed -> in order to facilitate mapping / conversion; Handle the legacy / safeguard accessibility
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There must be something in the air. The end user inspired idea that applications should be able to exchange documents perfectly preserving the presentation (man percieved appearance as opposed to machine interpreted layout-rendering) is gaining a rabid momentum.
Yesterday it was the Intel ODF Test Suite results falling into the hands of Microsoft, who is now using the results to argue that OpenOffice doesn't fully support - implement ODF. The Intel ODF Test Suite is notable in that the test is near 100% about comparative "presentation" :: an object to object ocmparison of a KOffice document to an OpenOffice rendering of that document and vice versa.
Today we have the EU IDABC hosting a continent wide conference discussing the same issue :: the "exchange" of ODF documents. They've even gone so far as to coin a new term; ODEF - OpenDocument Exchange Format!
This morning i also recieved an invite to join a new OASIS discussion list, "The DocStandards Interoperability List". The issue? The converision and exchange of documents between different standards.
And then there is the cry for help from Sophie Gautier. This is an eMail that has worked it's way up to both the OASIS ODF Adoption TC and OASIS ODF Mainline TC discussion lists. The problem is that Microsoft is presenting the Intel ODF Test Results to EU govenrments. Sophie needs a response, and finds the truth hard to fathom.
Last week the legendary document processing expert Patrick Durusau jumped into the ODF "Lists" embroglio with his concern that the public has a different idea about document exchange - interoperability than the ODF TC. A very different idea. The public expects a visual preservation of the documents presentation qual
Microsoft Suffers Latest Blow As NIST Bans Windows Vista - Technology News by Informati... - 0 views
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In a new setback to Microsoft's public sector business, the influential National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the software maker's Windows Vista operating system from its internal computing networks, according to an agency document obtained by InformationWeek.
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Excuse me! Excuse me! Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?
NiST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is authorized by the USA Department of Commerce.
Years ago, in conjunction with the Department of Defense (WWI), the Dept of Commerce joined with two manufacturing consortia to form ANSI. Int eh aftemath of WWII and the formation of ISO/IEC, the US Congress, at the behest of the Department of Commerce, authorized the NiST subdiary. NiST then authorized (and continues to oversee) ANSI to take on the USA representation at ISO/IEC.
ANSI in turn authorized INCITS to take on the ISO/IEC document processing specific standardization issues. It is INCiTS that represents the citizens on the ISO/IE SCT 1 workgroups (wk1) responsible for both ISO 26300 (OpenDocument - ODF) and Ecma 376 (MOOX).
Okay, so now we have the technical staffers at NiST refusing to allow purchases of Vista, MSOffice 2007 and IE 7.0. What's going on? And why is this happenign near everywhere at this exact same moment in time?
The answer is that this is clearly plan B.
Plan A was to force Microsoft to enable MSOffice native use of ODF. The reasoning here is that governments could force Microsoft to implement ODF, the monopolist control over desktops would be broken, and the the threat of MS leveraging that monnopoly into servers, devices and Internet systems be averted.
The key to this plan A was to mandate purchase requirements comply with Open Standards. And not just any "Open Standards". Microsoft had previously demonstrated how easy it was to use ECMA as rubber stamp for standards proposals that were anything but open. This is why in August of 2004 the EU asked the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to submit ODF to ISO/IEC. ISO had not yet been corrupted in the same way as the hapless money hungry ECMA.
Plan A was going along
Sun Inner Circle: Sun and Microsoft: Interoperability Now - 0 views
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Sun waxes eloquent on the $2 Billion 2004 interoperability deal with Microsoft. Desktop and Server interop on steroids!
Sun Supports OOXML as an ISO Standard? - 0 views
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Sun Microsystems Inc., largely considered an avowed opponent of Open XML because of its own development and support for the competing, ODF-based StarOffice suite, found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying Open XML -- albeit after some changes in the proposal are made.
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Quote: Sun Microsystems Inc., largely considered an avowed opponent of Open XML because of its own development and support for the competing, ODF-based StarOffice suite, found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying Open XML -- albeit after some changes in the proposal are made. "We wish to make it completely clear that we support DIS 29500 becoming an ISO Standard and are in complete agreement with its stated purposes of enabling interoperability among different implementations and providing interoperable access to the legacy of Microsoft Office documents," Jon Bosak, a Sun representative to V1, wrote in an e-mail to other committee members over the weekend. "Sun voted No on Approval because it is our expert finding, based on the analysis so far accomplished in V1, that DIS 29500 as presently written is technically incapable of achieving those goals, not because we disagree with the goals or are opposed to an ISO Standard that would enable them." Sun "found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying OOXML"? What???? This is the official position of Sun?
For the near five years that i have been a member of the OASIS ODF TC, Sun has opposed
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Fat Guy in Salesforce hell - Flock - 0 views
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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.
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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~
ODF and OOXML must converge!! AFNOR, the French Standards Body, announces proposals for... - 0 views
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AFNOR has recommended to ISO adopting an approach enabling it to guarantee – using ISO processes – mid-term convergence between Open Document Format (ODF) and OfficeOpen XML (OOXML), as well as the stabilisation of OOXML on a short-term basis.
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Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions. Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality. Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years. Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players.
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Here's the meat of the French convergence proposal.
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French experts have determined that it is technically possible to converge ODF and MS-OOXML, into a single, revisable document format standard?
The plan has four parts:
"Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions."
"Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality."
"Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years."
Fourth, "Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players."
So there you go. A solution that removes ODF and OOXML from the clam
Fighting Wal-Mart - Even if OpenDocument wins at ISO, ODF will lose in the marketplace ... - 0 views
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The point being -- it doesn't matter if the folks backing ODF are right. It doesn't matter that ODF is a more-credible, streamlined, logical and transparent spec than OOXML. What matters is that Microsoft is giving corporate developers what they want -- an XML-paved road directly into the Microsoft Office suite found on 90 percent of corporate desktops. And what's more, the company is upping the ante, with Visual Studio Tools for Office, new Office Business Applications and innovations like the Office 2007 Fluent UI. So the challenge for ODF proponents is a steep one. Even if they win the battle, and somehow deny Microsoft ISO approval, they can still lose the war. Because in the end, it doesn't really matter who is right. What matters is who can deliver the most compelling value to IT organizations married to the Microsoft Office suite.
Yahoo Adds Flash, HTML to Widgets Platform - Flock - 0 views
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Yahoo Widgets Version 4.5, which delivers an updated widget platform for developers and a new Widget Gallery for consumers, said Scott Derringer, director of product management at Yahoo. Widgets are mini-applications that live on a desktop and deliver personalized, up-to-date information to help users.
Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator - SharePoint Goes Web 2.0 - Flock - 0 views
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4) Linking; Within Confluence, users can access SharePoint document facilities. By including SharePoint lists and content within Confluence, users can (in a single click) edit Microsoft Office documents.
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Pay close attention here boys and girls because here it is. Wonder why Microsoft is wealing, dealing and ready to shell out billions for Web 20 collaboration software? It's to tie them into the MS Stack of MSOffice, IE, Exchange/SharePoint, MS LIve, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, etc.
Grand convergence is the convergence of desktop, server, device and web systems. It increasing looks like were going to have to live with the MS Stack and the Open Stack of grand convergence interoperability. One will be able to have perfect interop within it's walls, with all applications able to handle the same compound XML document. The other will be totally unable to implement an inteoperable version of MS-OOXML.
Members of the MS Stack will be able to access everything in the Open Stacks, but outside systems will have limited (crippled) access into the MS Stack. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Here we go again.
~ge~
Jeremy Allison: Einstein's definition of insanity... - 0 views
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But standards don't rule the computing world. Today, ninety-two per cent of desktops and seventy per cent of servers run the proprietary and non-standardized Microsoft Windows OS.
Adobe's Latest Acquisition Creates Buzz Around Office Docs - Flock - 0 views
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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.
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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~
Home - Berkman Center for Internet & Society - 0 views
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There were 5 successive Roundtables. Each roundtable was led by 5 short presentations before the topic was opened to the floor for general discussion. The first roundtable focused on "What is ODF, and why are open document standards important". There were many questions regarding how open standards affect competition and innovation, whether ODF is in fact the best standard, issues of archiving and interoperability with ODF as well as how ODF addresses/will address concerns of accessibility for disabled persons. The second Roundtable discussed how various software developers were responding to ODF and the third roundtable focused on whether governments or non-governmental and consumer organizations should systematically use procurement policy to promote ODF. The following roundtable was a lively discussion on whether national or global "agreements" can play a role in promoting ODF and how. During that roundtable as well as the last one on "Reflections and next steps", there were discussions of future work and strategies on ODF in a new international forum, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be held in Athens, Greece, October 30 - November 3, 2006.
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The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School held an Open Document Conference, October 23rd, 2006. Just a few weeks after the October 4th, 2006 resignation of Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez. This is the summary report of organizer Manon Ress. Sam Hiser represented the OpenDocument Foundation. The ZERO Interop problems that plague ODF implementation were not discussed. Strangely :) Another point not discussed is the fact that ODF is not an Internet file format. It's a desktop office suite only format. This constraint is written into the ODF charter. Interestingly, one of the problems of making ODF Web ready is that of highjacked W3C standards. Highjacking occurs when a specification or application takes existing W3C standards and changes the namespace reference to it's own. This is what ODF does. The reason for doing this is to constrain and limit the W3C standard to just those aspects implemented by the ODF reference application, OpenOffice. XForms, SVG, SMiL, XHTML, RDF/XML and RDFa are problematic examples of W3C namespaces that have been highjacked by ODF to meet the specific implementation constraints of OpenOffice. This impacts developers who rely on standard libraires to do conversions and processing. The libraries are built to the proper W3C namespace, and unfortunately assume that ODF complies. It doesn't, So developers have to investigate how OpenOffic eimplements XForms and SVG, and build special ODF libraries before they can use ODF on the Web. It can be done, i think. But it's a train wreck of a mess guaranteed to destroy the high level of web interoperability users and developers expect.
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"....One of the more interesting characters in the recent standards battles has been Gary Edwards: he was a member of the original ODF TC in 2002 which oversaw the creation of ODF 1.0 in 2005, but gradually became more concerned about large vendor dominance of the ODF TC frustrating what he saw as critical improvements in the area of interoperability. This compromised the ability of ODF to act as a universal format."
"....Edwards increasingly came to believe that the battleground had shifted, with the SharePoint threat increasingly needing to be the focus of open standards and FOSS attention, not just the standalone desktop applications: I think Edwards tends to see Office Open XML as a stalking horse for Microsoft to get its foot back in the door for back-end systems....."
"....Edwards and some colleagues split with some acrimony from the ODF effort in 2007, and subsequently see W3C's Compound Document Formats (CDF) as holding the best promise for interoperability. Edwards' public comments are an interesting reflection of an person evolving their opinion in the light of experience, events and changing opportunities...."
".... I have put together some interesting quotes from him which, I hope, fairly bring out some of the themes I see. As always, read the source to get more info: ..... "