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Gary Edwards

The French AFNOR Proposal to Merge ODF and MS-OOXML - 0 views

docs.google.com/Doc

cdf ecma florian-reuter interop iso oasis odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • 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 ........
Gary Edwards

Odf - Converters & the ODF Zero Interop problem - 0 views

odf-converter.sourceforge.net/features.html

microsoft mooxml oasis odf officeopenxml opendocument openxml sun

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • The ODF-Converter translates OpenXML documents (.DOCX) to Open Document Format (.Open Document Format) (and conversely) for Open XML processing applications. You will find below the list of unsupported features which may be due to standard compatibility issues, or to the translator itself (see rendering issues as discussed in the blog)...
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Explosive compatibility - interoperability study concerning ODF and MOOXL!  This has Florian's signature written all over it, and it goes right to the heart of the matter.

    David A. Wheeler submitted a comment to the OASIS ODF TC outlining his concerns with this publication.  He suggests that a few minor changes to ODF could greatly improve compatibility - interop issues.  He also figures out that OpenOffice - ODF has more features than MSOffice - MOOXML.  Wha the doesn't ge is that it is these new and innovative features that continue to increase the difficulties of implementing ODF in real world business process workgroups!

    David also ignores the fact that the TC jus tvoted down the Novell "LIt Enhancement Proposal" which was specifically designed to address the compatibility - interop issues outlined in this odf-converter blog!  Given a choice, the ODF TC members chose the new and innovative features of the interop breaking Sun-KOffice "List Enhancement Proposal".   

    The List Enhancement Proposal discussion was so contentious and focused on personal destruction as to represent a total break down of the ODF concensus process.  There is no way that either the Foundation or Novell will ever contribute another compatibility - interop enhancement proposal given the personal assault and determined oppostion of Sun to compatibility - interoperability initiatives.

    The hard lesson the Foundation learned is that if you oppose Sun, you'll get booted out of OASIS!

    The lesson Novell learned is that they are better off working through Ecma 376 to resolve these issues that the public demands be addressed.

    Notice the last line in David's comment, "In any case, the MUCH, MUCH longer list of problems with Microsoft XML format isn't our problem." 

    During the contentious List Enhancement Proposal and the compatibility - interop related Metadata RDF/XML discussions, ODF members freque
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    These are the same guys who just voted against the Novell List Enhancement Proposal that did exactly what the odf-converter blog claims needs to be done if the compatibility-interop problems are to be resolved!
Gary Edwards

Plan B: The NO ViSTA Mandates, and the failure of ISO/IEC - 0 views

docs.google.com/View

government iso microsoft odf ooxml vista xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • 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.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    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.
Gary Edwards

Billions of Legacy Binary Documents -- Linux leaders plot hapless counterattack on Micr... - 0 views

talkback.zdnet.com/5208-3513-0.html

ecma-376 iso microsoft odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • The point is that ODF has to be flexible enough so that the demand side of the equation can successfully convert their MSOffice documents to ODF. More important than simple one-way conversion is the need for high fidelity round trip conversion.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    This is a follow up comment to a question cocerning my previous post, "commercialization of interoperability".  The question from "mosborne" is as follows:

    A different viewI'm not on the ODF TC, but I have followed its evolution through the information publicly available at Oasis.

    My outside view of some of the various interoperability discussions you mention is different than yours. I saw a resistance to adoption of features if the sole reason was because OOXML did it that way. The dissenting members wanted a more substantial reason, not simply to add OOXML "features" to ODF.

    If the goal is to simply make ODF like OOXML, then what is the point? You would have conceded all control to Microsoft since they have effective control of OOXML.It's an interesting question, but not well informed.  The threads at OASIS ODF having to do with interoperability are focused on efforts to have our cake and eat it too. 

    The List Enhancement Proposal thread played out over a six month period.  And yes, it is true that Sun fought the Novell proposal because they felt new and innovative features for OpenOffice/StarOffice were more important than the interoperability CIO's and IT departments are demanding.   But that misses the more important point that Novell was able to craft their interoperability proposal exactly so that the precious advanced feature sets of applications that command les sthan 1% marketshare would be accommodated.

    What Sun and most others on the ODF TC don't get is that the markets have no use for these new and innovative feature sets unless and until they can transition their documents and business processes out of MSOffice.  If workgroup bound end users can't do that first, it won't matter how
Gary Edwards

Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

burtongorup cdf css garyedwards maryjo odf okelly ooxml w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • “ODF represents laudable design and standards work. It’s a clean and useful design, but it’s appropriate mostly for relatively unusual scenarios in which full Microsoft Office file format fidelity isn’t a requirement. Overall, ODF addresses only a subset of what most organizations do with productivity applications today.” The report continues: “ODF is insufficient for complex real-world enterprise requirements, and it is indirectly controlled by Sun Microsystems, despite also being an ISO standard. It’s possible that IBM, Novell, and other vendors may be able to put ODF on a more customer-oriented trajectory in the future and more completely integrate it with the W3C content model, but for now ODF should be seen as more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
       
      Mary Jo takes on the recently released Burton Group Report comparing OOXML and ODF. Peter O'Kelly, one of the Burton Group authors, once famously said, "ODF is a great format if you live in an alternative universe where MSOffice doesn't exist!" This observation speaks to the core problem facing ODF and those who seek to implement the ODF standard: ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents. Nor was ODF designed to work with MSOffice applications. Another way of saying this is to state that ODF was not designed to be interoperable with MSOffice documents, applications and bound processes. The truth is that ODF was designed for OpenOffice/StarOffice. It is an application specific format. Both OOXML and ODF do a good job of separating content from presentation (style). The problem is that the presentation - layout layers of both ODF and OOXML remains bound to specific applications producing it. While the content layers are entirely portable and can be exchanged without information loss, the presentation layers can not. Microsoft makes no bones about the application specific design and purpose of OOXML. It's stated right in the Ecma 376 charter that OOXML was designed to be compatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents in MSOffice specific binary formats. The situation however is much more confusing with ODF. ODF is often promoted as being application, platform and vendor independent. After five years of development though, the OASIS ODF TC has been unable to strip ODF of it's OpenOffice/StarOffice specific aspects. ODF 1.0 - ISO 26300 had three areas that were under specified; meaning these areas were described in syntax only, and lacked the full semantics demanded by interoperable implementations. Only OpenOffice and StarOffice code base applications are able to exchange documents with an acceptable fidelity. The three under specified areas of ODF are: Lists (numbered), F
Gary Edwards

Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog: Free Report on ODF/OOXML Available - 0 views

ccsblog.burtongroup.com/...blogger-guy-cre.html

burtongroup cdf desmond odf okelly ooxml opendocument xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08 - Cached
  • The overall document summary: Industry debate about the relative merits of OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Ecma 376 Office Open XML (OOXML) highlights the significance of the productivity application market shift from binary and proprietary file formats to vendor- and product-independent Extensible Markup Language (XML) models. The competitive stakes are huge, and the related political posturing is sometimes perplexing. In this overview, Research Directors Guy Creese and Peter O’Kelly introduce ODF, OOXML, and related World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, and project their implications for future productivity applications.
Gary Edwards

IBM's Stance Against OpenXML Is Increasingly Confusing : Oliver Bell's weblog - 0 views

osrin.net/...nxml-is-increasingly-confusing

cdf heintzman ibm odf ooxml opendocument openxml symphony weir

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Events have played out in the media and in the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks that represent a breakdown of some of those anti-OpenXML arguments that have been played back so frequently over the last year. Arguments that there is a lack of demand for Open XML, the specification is too complex to implement, the specification can’t be deployed cross platform and the long running but baseless claim that the Ecma-376 specification might be encumbered by IPR and patent threats all appear to have been cast aside as big blue steps up to meet the demands of their own customers and the market in general. Here is a blow by blow review of the relevant activity over the last two weeks…
Gary Edwards

BetaNews | ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack - 0 views

www.betanews.com/...1169824569

dirtytricks iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Nonetheless, from ECIS' perspective, the lone enemy is at the gate: "With XAML and OOXML," stated ECIS attorney Thomas Vinje, "Microsoft seeks to impose its own Windows-dependent standards and displace existing open cross-platform standards which have wide industry acceptance, permit open competition and promote competition-driven innovation. The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve - or even debug - its monopoly products, and of course high prices."
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    There you go!  The Micrsoft plot to take over the Internet in a nutshell, with XAML and EOXML at the point of the spear.

    Funny how everyone knows what Micrsoft's intentions are, even having identified the tehcnoliges to be used, but still no one can stop them.  How did this recidivist reprobate get so outside the rule of law and beyond the reach of good men?

    EOXML (MS Ecma 376) must be stopped at ISO/IEC, if only to slow down this worldwide train wreck they plan for our beloved and open Internet.

Gary Edwards

Opportunity Knocks - 0 views

lnxwalt.wordpress.com

iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • With the news that another state–California–is considering adopting open standard XML-based file formats for office documents (which could be interpreted to mandate ODF), and the continued march of governments around the world to ODF (ISO/IEC 26300:2006), their poorly-done translator is not likely to meet the standard. For one thing, it “bolts” ODF capability on, rather than building it in as a fully-native peer format. It also uses XSLT to attempt the translation when OOXML’s design is not fully usable with XSLT. I cannot see how they could have created a more error-prone method to do the conversions. This could potentially cause Microsoft’s office applications suite to be expelled from government agencies and their employees and contractors.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Count on Walt Hucks to nail it every time.  Once again he comes through with another gem, commenting on the Mary Jo Foley interview with the slippery Tom Robertson, General Manager of laugh out loud "Interoperabiltiy and Standards" for Microsoft.  I kid you not. 

    Microsoft describes their highly proprietary and self serving implementation of interoperbiltiy as, "Interoperability by design".  Which means, only those applications, systems and services designed by Microsoft will have the needed interoperability consumers must have to make sense of the many volumes of information and information processes that drive critical day to day workflows.

    Now with Ecma 376, we have a clear example of Microsoft "Standards by Design".  Very sad, but it's our lot in life.

    Thanks Walt, once again a great commentary,
    ~ge~

Jesper Lund Stocholm

Front-page: What is the definition of an "existing document"? - 0 views

www.noooxml.org/...nition-of-an-existing-document

shared by Jesper Lund Stocholm on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Can you provide a definition of what an "existing documents" means?
    • Jesper Lund Stocholm
      Jesper Lund Stocholm on 20 Apr 09
       
      "Existing documents" refer to both binary Microsoft Office documents as well as ECMA-376 1st Ed. documents.
  • Alex Brown on 20 Apr 09
     
    This is defined in the scope of OOXML: ISO/IEC 29500 defines a set of XML vocabularies for representing word-processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. On the one hand, the goal of ISO/IEC 29500 is to be capable of faithfully representing the pre-existing corpus of word-processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations that had been produced by the Microsoft Office applications (from Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008, inclusive) at the date of the creation of ISO/IEC 29500.
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