Group items tagged

The Case for Harmonization (that IBM will vote against anyway) In my recent post, I discussed the case for harmonization, mainly due to trying to portray a more kindly, conciliatory face in the “standards krieg” that I was enjoying so much. I have been forced to take a different tack, in light of being hung out to dry by my more business-focused IBM comrades and the work that the enemy has done in sprucing up the spec. However, as my closest friends know, for me, there are no half-victories, so you can rest assured that I will not settle for this weak “harmonization” compromise. I set out my (and IBM’s) stall some time ago on this, and as those on the Open Document Foundation know, any attempt at harmonization shall be met with swift and final retribution.  They were ejected from the odf-coven just days after their impudence. I have baited my trap, inviting this “harmonization” in my lair (the OASIS ODF TC) where I can bog them down in a morass of incompetence, bickering and politicking, so no new standard is ever ratified.  I have already been practicing for this, as you can see, by the ODF 1.1 and 1.2 specs.

In e-mailed comments, Heintzman said his criticisms about the situation have been made openly. "We think that Open Office has quite a bit of potential and would love to see it move to the independent foundation that was promised in the press release back when Sun originally announced OpenOffice," he said. "We think that there are plenty of existing models of communities, [such as] Apache and Eclipse, that we can look to as models of open governance, copyright aggregation and licensing regimes that would make the code much more relevant to a much larger set of potential contributors and implementers of the technology.... "Obviously, by joining we do believe that the organization is important and has potential," he wrote. "I think that new voices at the table, including IBM's, will help the organization become more efficient and relevant to a greater audience.... Our primary reason for joining was to contribute to the community and leverage the work that the community produces.... I think it is true there are many areas worthy of improvement and I sincerely hope we can work on those.... I hope the story coming out of Barcelona isn't a dysfunctional community story, but rather a [story about a] potentially significant and meaningful community with considerable potential that has lots of room for improvement...."

The OpenDocument Foundation was formed in 2005, with the mission "to provide a conduit for funding and support for individual contributors to participate in ODF development" at the standards body OASIS. So, at a time when backing for the ODF format seems to be gaining in strength around the world, eyebrows were naturally raised when Sam Hiser, the Foundation's Vice President and Director of Business Affairs, wrote on October 16 that it was no longer supporting ODF:

A week or so ago, I published a podcast at IT Conversation with Scott Mace interviewing Gary Edwards about OpenDocument. Edwards is the president of the OpenDocument Foundation. OpenDocument Foundation is a non-profit that works to promote the OpenDocument file format–an XML file format for office documents. There’s no question that businesses want an XML-based file format for office data. The question, naturally, is which XML-based file format. Microsoft has it’s own XML-based file format called OpenXML.

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.

In Belgium, for instance, the government is using plug-ins to enable Microsoft Office to read and save files in ODF, Marcich said. The same plug-ins are being used in Massachusetts, which was the first governmental body to move to ODF. One prominent ODF backer, the unrelated Open Document Foundation, said in late October that it would stop backing ODF in favor of a more viable universal format called the Compound Document Format (CDF). Marcich said that "won't have any effect on the alliance or on ODF" adoption. Moreover, CDF, which is a World Wide Web Consortium format, differs greatly in features and goals than ODF. "We're talking about apples and oranges here," he said.

However, a recent blog posting by Sam Hiser, vice president and director of business affairs at the OpenDocument Foundation, outlines why the W3C's (World Wide Web Consortium's) CDF (Compound Document Format) is a more viable universal format than ODF.

ODF group abandons file format in favor of W3C alternativeComputerworld, MA - Oct 30, 2007October 30, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- A group that was set up to promote the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) is abandoning its support ...

New OpenOffice.org target.Many of you probaly know the “WONT FIX” target in the OpenOffice.org issue tracker.What about introducing a new target: “HELPS MICROSOFT”.But why do we need this? These days many people --- especially from the file formats camps --- are extremely sensitive of anything related to compatiblity 'cause they believe it helps Microsoft.So lets give the ODF warriors an opportinity to clearly communicate with the users. Give them the “HELPS MICROSOFT” target to publicly exposing the issuer of the bug and the people working on it.

One prominent ODF backer, the unrelated Open Document Foundation, said in late October that it would stop backing ODF in favor of a more viable universal format called the Compound Document Format (CDF). Marcich said that "won't have any effect on the alliance or on ODF" adoption. Moreover, CDF, which is a World Wide Web Consortium format, differs greatly in features and goals than ODF. "We're talking about apples and oranges here," he said.

ODF was dead-on-arrival not because it's a better or worse choice than OOXML (I have no idea which is better, really) but because the nature of those with UNIX DNA never allows these kinds of "open" agreements to succeed. They all just splinter. Every time.

Oh, Tell Me the Truth About...the ODF Bust-Up The recent decision by the OpenDocument Foundation to shift its energies away from ODF to CDF has naturally provoked a lot of rather exaggerated comment. I wrote a piece for LWN.net (now out from behind the paywall) exploring what exactly was going on, and found out that there are bigger issues than simply document interoperability at play.It turns out to be all about Microsoft's Sharepoint - software that I am beginning to see as one of the most serious threats to open source today. Read it and be very afraid.

The ongoing file format battle between proponents of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) took a surprising turn lthis week, when a key ODF proponent announced that it intended to abandon the ISO-approved specification. The move by the OpenDocument Foundation comes less than two months after Microsoft lost a key ISO vote to approve OOXML as a standard.

The OpenDocument Foundation Inc. doesn't have any control over ODF. But its embrace of the W3C's Compound Document Formats (CDF) adds a new twist to the already acrimonious debate over the possible creation of a universal file format for desktop applications.

Gary Edwards, former president of the Open Document Foundation, an industry group that promoted ODF but then rejected both approaches and closed itself down in November 2007, said: "Ecma and Oasis are vendor consortia where the rules governing standards specification work favour vendor innovation over the open and transparent interoperability consumers, governments and FLOSS efforts demand... Shutting that door on Ecma OOXML is proving very difficult exactly because the primary and fundamental rule of ISO interoperability requirements has been breached."

Did the OpenDocument Foundation recently shutter its doors for good because it was unable to convince Oasis to support its converter, known as Da Vinci? Or was it because OpenDocument Format was simply not designed for the conversion of Microsoft Office documents, applications, and processes?