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Gary Edwards

But can they implement ODF? South African Government Adopts ODF (and not OOXML) - 0 views

www.consortiuminfo.org/...article.php

cdf ms-ooxml odf opendocument

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • That said, it goes on to acknowledge that “there are standards which we are obliged to adopt for pragmatic reasons which do not necessarily fully conform to being open in all respects.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    So, South Africa was watching closely the failed effort in Massachusetts to implement ODF?  And now they are determined to make it work? Good thing they left themselves a "pragmatic" out; "there are standards which we are obliged to adopt for pragmatic reasons which do not necessarily fully conform to being open in all respects."

    Massachusetts spent a full year on an ODF implementation Pilot Study only to come to the inescapable conclusion that they couldn't implement ODF without a high fidelity "round trip" capable ODF plug-in for MSOffice.  In May of 2006, Pilot Study in hand, Massachusetts issued their now infamous RFi, "the Request for Information" concerning the feasibility of an ODF plug-in clone of the MS-OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in for MSOffice applications. At the time there was much gnashing of teeth and grinding of knuckles in the ODf Community, but the facts were clear. The lead dog hauling the ODf legislative mandate sleigh could not make it without ODf interoperability with MSOffice. Meaning, the rip out and replace of MSOffice was no longer an option. For Massachusetts to successfully implement ODf, there had to be a high level of ODf compatibility with existing MS documents, and ODf application interoperability with existing MS applications. Although ODf was not designed to meet these requirements, the challenge could not have been any more clear. Changes in ODf would have to be made. So what happened?

    Over a year later,
Gary Edwards

Microsoft playing three card monte with XML conversion, with Sun as the "outside man" w... - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/open-source

backwards-compatibility iso microsoft odf ooxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • In a highly informative post to his Open Stack blog Wednesday, Edwards explains how three key features are necessary for organizations to convert to open formats. These are: Conversion Fidelity - the billions of binaries problem Round Trip Fidelity - the MSOffice bound business processes, line of business integrated apps, and assistive technology type add-ons Application Interop - the cross platform, inter application, cross information domain problem
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Dana Blankenhorn posted this article back in March of 2007.  It was right at the time when the OASIS ODF TC and Metadata XML/RDF SC (Sub Committee) were going at it hammer and tong concerning three very important file format characteristics needed to fulfill a real world interoperability expectation:

    .... Compatibility - file format level interop -
    :::  backwards compatibility / compatibility with existing file formats, including the legacy of billions of binary Microsoft documents

    ....... Interoperability - application level interop-
    ::::::  application interoperability including interop with all Microsoft applications

Gary Edwards

Slamming the door shut on MS OOXML - 0 views

lists.oasis-open.org/...msg00033.html

cdf interoperability iso odf odf-tc officeopenxml ooxml opendocument xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • So your goal is a networked world where metadata is routinely trashed by apps developed by those who are too dumb or otherwise disabled to preserve metadata and only the big boys get to do interoperability, right? So if I send you a document for your editing, I can't count on getting it back with xml:id attributes intact. No thanks, Patrick. That sounds way too much like how things have worked ever since office productivity software first came on the market. In your world, interoperability belongs only to those who can map features 1:1 with the most featureful apps. And that is precisely why OpenDocument never should have been approved as a standard. Your kind of interoperability makes ODF a de facto Sun Microsystems standard wearing the clothing of a de jure standard. Why not just standardize the whole world on Microsoft apps and be done with it? Are two monopolies maintained by an interoperability barrier between them better than one? Fortunately, we don't have to debate the issue because the Directives resolve the issue. You lose under the rules of the game.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Marbux on metadata and the language of universal interoperability: Few people are aware of the raging debate that has pushed ODF to the edge. The OASIS ODF TC is split between those who support Universal Interoperability, and those who insist on continuing with limited ODF interoperability.

    ODF (OpenDocument), formally known as Open Office XML, began it's standards life in the fall of 2002 when Sun submitted the OpenOffice file format to OASIS for consideration as a office suite XML fiel format standard. The work on ODF did not start off as a clean slate in that there were near 600 pages of application specific specification from day one of the standards work. The forces of universal interop have sought for years to separate ODF from the application specific features and implementation model of OpenOffice that began with those early specification volumes, and continues through the undue influence Sun continues to have over the ODF specification work.

    Many mistakenly believed that submission of ODF to ISO and subsequent approval as an international standard would provide an effective separation, putting ODF on the track of a truly universal file format.

    Marbux is one of those Universal Interop soldiers who has dug in his heels, cried to the heavens that enough is enough, and demanded the necessary changes to ODF interoperability language.

    This post he recently submitted to the OASIS ODF Metadata SC is a devastating rebuttal to the arguments of those who support the status quo of limited interoperability.

    In prior posts, marbux argues that ISO directives demand without compromise universal interoperability. This demand is also shared by the World Trade Organization directives regarding international trade laws and agreements. Here he brings those arguments together with the technical issues for achieving universal interop.

    It's a devastating argument.

Gary Edwards

Can't We All Just Get Along? - 0 views

www.gcn.com/...45014-1.html

ecma iso microsoft ms-ooxml oasis odf officeopenxml opendocument openxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Another call for the "convergence" of ODF and MS-OOXML, this time from the government technology magazine, GCN.com.

    IMHO, there is a very steep technical barrier to both the harmonization and/or convergence of ODF and OOXML. The problem is that these file formats are application specific and bound respectively to OpenOffice and MSOffice feature sets and implementation models. The only way to perfect a harmonization or convergence file format effort is to dramatically change the reference applications.

    With over 500 million MSOffice workgroup bound desktops in the world, changing that suite of applications is likely to break business processes with a global disruption factor that is simply unacceptable. OpenOffice on the other hand could better sustain such the needed layout engine changes, but estimates it will take 3-5 years to accomplish this.

    Sun has often stated at the OASIS ODF TC (technical committee) that OpenOffice will not be bound and limited by having to mirror MSOffice features and implementation models. These arguments are often called application innovation rights.

    In the past year alone, there have been no less than five ODF iX "interoperability enhancement" proposals submitted to the OASIS ODF TC members for discussion. The iX proposals are designed to solve the problem of high fidelity "round trip" conversion of MSOffice binary and xml documents with OpenOffice ODF documents.

    Sadly, Sun and the other ODF application vendors fought and thoroughly defeated every aspect of these proposals even though the first three iX proposals were signed off on by Massachusetts ITD, and considered vital to the successful implementation of ODF there. ODF of course proved impossible to implement in Massachusetts. And without the iX interoperability enhancements, it is impossible for ODF plug-ins for MSOffice to perfect the high fidelity "round trip" conversion of existing doc
Gary Edwards

LOL :: Microsoft's Jean Paoli on the XML document debate - 0 views

www.itwriting.com/blog

cdf microsoft mooxml odf odf-ix officeopenxml opendocument paoli

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • 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.”
  • “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.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      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.
  • 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.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      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.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Another benefit Paoli claims for OOXML is performance. “A lot of things are designed differently because we believe it will work faster. The spreadsheet format has been designed for very big spreadsheets because we know our users, especially in the finance industry, use very large spreadsheets.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Wrong. The da Vinci plug-in prototype we demonstrated to Massachusetts on June 19th, 2006 proved that there is little or no difference in spreadsheet performance between a OOXML file, and an ODF file.

      In fact, ODF version of the extremely large test file beat the OOXML load by 12 seconds.

      Where the performance difference comes in is at the application level. MS Excel can load a OOXML version of a large spreadsheet faster than OpenOffice can load an ODF version of that same spreadsheet.

      If you eliminate the application differential, and load the OOXML file and the ODF version of that same spreadsheet into a plug-in enabled Excel, the performance differences are negligible.

      The reason for this is that the OOXML plug-in for Excel has a conversion overhead identical to the da Vinci plug-in for Excel. It has nothing to do with the file format, and everythign to do with the application.

      ~ge~
  • Paoli points to the conversion errors as evidence of how poorly ODF can represent legacy Office documents. My hunch is that this has more to do with the poor quality of the converter.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Note that these OASIS ODF TC November 20th iX "interoperability enhancement" suggestions were submitted by Novell as part of their effort to perfect a OOXML plug-in for OpenOffice!!!!

      "Lists" were th first of these iX items to be submitted as formal proposal. And Sun fought that list proposal viciously for the next four months. The donnybrook resulted i a total breakdown of the ODF consensus process. But, it ensured that never again would anyone be stupid enough to challenge Sun's authority and control of the OASIS ODF TC.

      Sun made it clear that they would viciously oppose any other efforts to establish interoperability with existing Microsoft documents, applications, processes effort.

      Point taken.

      ~ge~
  • the idea that Sun is preparing a reference implementation of OOXML is laughable.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Sorry Tim. It's true. Sun and Novell are working together to develop native OOXML file support in OpenOffice. You can find this clearly stated in the Gullfoss Planet OpenOffice blogs.

      The funny thing is that Sun will have to implement and support the November 20th iX enhancements submitted by Novell!! (Or, the interoperability frameworks also submitted by Novell in February of 2007). There is simply no other way for OpenOffice to implement OOXML with the needed fidelity.

      ~ge~
  • One of new scenarios enabled by the “custom xml parts” (again, if you read their blogs, you must have heard of this stuff) is the ability to bind xml sources and a control+layout so that it enables the equivalent of data queries (we’ve had in Excel for many years already), just with a source which is part of the package, contrary to the typical external data source connection. Well this stuff, besides the declaration (which includes, big surprise, GUIDs and stuff like that) requires the actual Office 2007 run-time to work. So whenever MS says this stuff is interoperable, they cannot mean you can take this stuff away in another application. Because you can’t. This binding is more or less the same than the embedding of VBA macros. It’s all application-specific, and only Microsoft’s own suite knows how to instantiate this stuff.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Stephan whacks this one out of the park! Smart Documents will replace VBa scripts, macros and OLE functionality going forward. It's also the data binding - workflow and metadata model of the future. And it's all proprietary!

      It's the combination of OOXML plus the MSOffice- Vista Stack specific Smart Documents that will lock end users into the Vista Stack for years to come.

      Watch out Google!

      ~ge~
  • Has Microsoft published the .doc spec publicly? Then why should ODF worry about the past? It’s not ODF’s concern to worry about Microsoft’s past formats. (Understand that the .doc format alone changed six times in the last eight versions of Office!) That’s Microsoft’s legacy problem, not ODF’s.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      There really is no need to access the secret binary blueprints. The ACME 376 plug-in demonstration proves this conclusively. The only thing the ACME 376 demo lacks is that we didn't throw the switch on the magic key to release all VBa scripts, macros and OLE bindings to ACME. But that can be done if someone is serious about converting the whole shebang of documents, applications and processes.

      The real problem is that although ACME 376 proves we can hit the high fidelity required, it is impossible to effectively capture that fidelity in ODF without the iX interoperability enhancements. The world expects ODF interoperability. But as long as Sun opposes iX, we can't pipe from ACME 376 to ODF.

      ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    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
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Great interview. Tim can obviously run circles around poor Jean Paoli.
Gary Edwards

ODF Civil War: Bulll Run - Suggested Changes on the Metadata proposal - OASIS ODF - 0 views

www.oasis-open.org/...msg00072.html

metadata odf odf-civil-war ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • From our perspective it would be better to aim for doing the job in ODF 1.2, even if that requires delay. We will oppose ODF 1.2 at ISO unless the interoperability warts are cleaned up. What the market requires is no longer in doubt. See the slides linked above and further presentations linked from this page, < http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/6474/5935>. Substantial progress toward those goals would seem to be mandatory to maintain Europe's preference for a harmonized set of file formats that uses ODF to provide the common functionality. Delaying commencement of such work enhances the likelihood that governments will tire of waiting for ODF to become interoperable with MS Office and simply go with MOOXML. We may not be able to force Microsoft to participate in the harmonization work, but we will be in a far better position if we have done everything we can in aid of that interoperability without Microsoft's assistance. As the situation stands, we have what is known in the U.S. as a "Mexican stand-off," where neither side has taken a solitary step toward what Europe has requested. We have decided to do that work via a fork of ODF; it is up to this TC whether it wishes to cooperate in that effort.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    This is the famous marbux response to Sun regarding Sun's attempt to partially implement ODF 1.2 XML-RDF metadata.  It's a treasure.

    There is one problem with marbux's statement though.  We had decided long ago not to fork ODF even if the five iX "interoperability enhancement" proposals were refused by the OASIS ODF TC.   This assurance was provided to Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez witht he the first ODF iX proposal submitted on July 12th, 2006.  Louis ended up signing off on three iX proposals before his resignation October 4th, 2006.

    The ODF iX enhancements were essential to saving ODF in Massachusetts.  Without them, there was no way our da Vinci plug-in could convert existing MSOffice documents and processes to ODF with the needed round trip fidelity.

    For nearly a year we tried to push through some semblance of the needed iX enhancements.  We also tried to push through a much needed Interoperability Framework, which will be critical to any ISO approval of ODF 1.2.

    Our critics are correct in that every iX effort was defeated, with Sun providing the primary opposition. 

    Still rather than fork ODF, we are simply going to move on. 

    On October 4th, 2006, all work on ODF da Vinci ended - not to be resumed unless and until we had the ODF iX enhancements we needed to crack the MSOffice bound workgroup-workflow business process barrier.

    In April of 2007, with our OASIS membership officially shredded by OASIS management, bleeding from the List Enhancement Proposal doonybrook, and totally defeated with our hope - the metadata XML-RDF work, we threw in the towel.

    Since then we've moved on to CDF, the W3C Compound Document format.  Incredibly, CDF is able to do what ODF can not.  With CDF we can solve the three primary problems confronting governments and MSOffice bound workgroups everywhere. 

    The challenge for these g
Gary Edwards

ODF and OOXML must converge!! AFNOR, the French Standards Body, announces proposals for... - 0 views

www.infotechfrance.com/...affichage_signets.pl

cdf interoperability iso odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocment standards

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Here's the meat of the French convergence proposal.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    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
Gary Edwards

But can money buy love? :: Another Microsoft Sponsored OOXML Study - 0 views

www.microsoft-watch.com/...fts_sponsored_ooxml_study.html

cdf interoperability ms-xml odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument vista-stack

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Joe Wilson of Microsoft Watch knocks another one out of the park. Why is it that so few in the media get it? Or anyone else for that matter? Matt Assay gets it. But few understand the Vista Stack and the importance of OOXML in the transition of the monopoly base from MSOffice to the Vista Stack. No doubt the arrogance of those who dare challenge Microsoft is both a necessary blessing and guaranteed curse. Take for instance the widely held assumption that Microsoft invented MS-XML (OfficeOpenXML) in response to OpenDocument (ODf). This is false, misleading and will inevitably result in a FOSS death spiral in the face of a Vista Stack juggernaut. But it sure does feel good.

    Joe Wilson at Microsoft Watch points out the real reason for MS-XML, and why ISO approval of OOXML is so important. Microsoft needs OOXML approved as an international standard because OOXML is the binding model for the emerging Vista Stack of loosely coupled but information integrated applications.

    The Vista Stack model converges desktop, server, device and web information systems using OOXML-Smart Documents, .NET 3.0 and the XAML presentation layer as the binding components.

    The challenge for Microsoft is to migrate existing MSOffice bound business processes, line of business integrated apps, and advanced add-ons to the Exchange/SharePoint Hub. Once the existing documents, applications (MSOffice) and processes are migrated to the E/S Hub, they can be bound tightly to the rest of the Vista Stack.

    Others see OOXML as some sort of surrender or late recognition that the salad days of MSOffice are over. They jubilantly point to Web 2.0, Office 2.0 and rise of the LiNUX Desktop as having ushered in this end of monopoly for MSOffice. Like the ODf champions, these people are similarly sadly mistaken!

    While they celebrate, Microsoft is quie
Gary Edwards

Interoperability Enhancement Proposal: Suggested ODF1.2 items - 0 views

lists.oasis-open.org/...msg00048.html

foundation interop ix odf odfix opendocument subset

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Subject: Suggested ODF1.2 items From: "Florian Reuter" <freuter@novell.com> To: <office@lists.oasis-open.org> Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:03:24 +0100
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
     
    This is the fifth of the six major iX - interoperability enhancement proposals submitted to the OASIS ODF TC - SC between July 2006 and February of 2007. This particular iX proposal lead to the "List Enhancement Proposal" donnybrook that consumed the OASIS ODF TC for the next six months, ending with the OpenDocument Foundation being booted out of OASIS in May of 2007. The six iX proposals were all different approaches to the same basic problem: ODF was not desinged to be interoperable with MSOffice documents, applications or bound processes. The proposals come out of the OpenDocument' Foundation's efforts to save ODF in Massachusetts. ODF iX repressents a subset of ODF designed to grealty improve compatibility with MS binary and XML formats. With the ODF iX subset, the da Vinci plug-in would be able to convert the billions of MSOffice binary and xml documents with a very high level of fidelity, and do so within the bounds of "round trip" business processes. The most basic iX approach was to add five generic elements to the existing ODF specification. The five generic elements would cover lists, tables, fields, sections, and page dynamics (breaks). It is a well known fact that these five areas of incompatibility between OpenOffice ODF and MSOffice binaries represent 95% of all conversion fidelity problems. MSOffice has one way of implementing lists, and, OpenOffice has another. These application specific implementation models are irreconcilably different. It's also true that the applicaiton specific implementation models are directly reflected in each file format. So applications implementing ODF must also implement the OpenOffice model for lists, fields, tables, sections and page dynamics-page positioning if they are to have any meaningful measure of exchange fidelity. Perhaps the best of the iX approaches was that based on the innovative use of metadata to describe presentation-layout attributes.
Gary Edwards

Gmail - [office] Clarification for frame formatting property style:flow-with-text - Flock - 0 views

mail.google.com/mail

foundation imported:del.icio.us oasis odf opendocument

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Some notes on the history of this feature in OpenOffice.org Writer:Prior to OpenOffice.org 2.0, text frames, embedded object and graphicsare clipped/captured inside its layout environment and flow with thetext flow, if possible. The reason for this was, that the contentstructure also determines the layout structure - e.g. a paragraph insidea page header have to stay inside the page header.Shapes (drawing objects in OpenOffice.org) unfortunately doesn't followthis rule.For OpenOffice.org 2.0, we needed to unify text frames, embeddedobjects, graphics and shapes. Thus, this frame formatting property hasbeen proposed. This need was also influenced by interoperabilityrequests for the binary Microsoft Word file format and the MicrosoftWord layout.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Aha!  I mentioned in an earlier bookmark that Sun was involved in the Belgium ODF - OOXML Pilot Study.  It was disclosed by Peter V. (Belgium Consultant to Peter Strick's group) that Sun was proposing changes to the ODF 1.2 specification, after the close date, to improve the conversion fidelity problem their plug-in is having in the trials.  We tried to do the same thing to save ODF in Massachusetts.  Sun didn't have a plug-in for the Massachusetts trials, and opposed our iX interop enhancements and extensions.  I guess they are beginning to understand why the iX proposals are so important? 

    If you can't convert MS binaries and xml to ODF, then there is no use in the real world for ODF.  It's that simple.   In California, the CIO's routinely refer to this problem as, "ODF is impossible to implement".

    ~ge~

  • ...1 more comment...
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Summary of First ODF Summit held in Armonk, organized by IBM and Sun. List of names for all attendees
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Summary of First ODF Summit held in Armonk, organized by IBM and Sun. List of names for all attendees
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Summary of First ODF Summit held in Armonk, organized by IBM and Sun. List of names for all attendees
Gary Edwards

Does ODF Have a Future? - 0 views

ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl

acme cdf davinci odef odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    This section of the Slashdot discussion of the LinuxWorld "Game Over" article concerns itself with RTF and Microsoft. ACME 376 "decodes" and converts MS RTF to XML encoded RTF. The full da Vinci process follows this chain: imbr<>MS RTF<>ACME 376<>InfoSet = output target file format MS RTF is the internal structuring stage that all in-memory-binary-representation are sent through with any conversion. Including the conversion of imbr to OOXML The OOXML plugin process looks like this: imbr<>MS RTF<>OOXML The da Vinci ODF process looks like this: imbr<>MS RTF<>ACME<>InfoSet<>ODF The da Vinci CDF process outputs to CDF instead of ODFThe reason we need to output to something other than ODF is that the OASIS ODF TC has no interest in provisioning the ODF specification with much needed iX "interoperability eXtensions". the iX eXtensions were designed to accomodate the high fidelity "round trip" conversion of existing MS documents to ODF while establishing a high level of interoperability with existing MS applications and workgroup processes.
Gary Edwards

Indecision in Redmond as Web apps charge : Office 2.0 and Google Apps - 0 views

weblog.infoworld.com/...013777.html

cdf html odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • the fact is that Redmond could own this new space if it wanted to. All it would need to do is push interoperability and integration between lightweight Web versions of Office applications and its desktop fatware. Advanced features would be absent from the lightweight versions, but the company could ensure any Office doc would load on the Web -- whatever new desktop service packs and upgrades might appear -- and online document management could be integrated with Windows for offline access.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Great quote from Eric Knorr.  He hits the nail on the head here, pointing out the problem Office 2.0  Web Apps and SaaS apps face:  If these Web wonders have interoperability and high fidelity document exchange with MSOffice, their collaborative features are value added wonders for existing business processes and workgroup-workflow scenarios.  If, on the other hand they lack this level of interop - integration with MSOffice documents and processes, the value add becomes a problematic split in a business process.  The only way to overcome that kind of a split is to take the entire process.  Which is difficult for lightweight mashup happy web wonders to do.

    Which leaves each and every one of these Office 2.0 - Web 2.0 - Saas Apps vulnerable to Microsoft.  As long as Micrsoft owns the interop-integration keys to MSOffice, the web wonders live a precarious life.  At any time Microsoft can swoop in and take it all.

    Today, the MSOffice OOXML file format displays perfectly in a browser.  It's 100% web ready, but only the MS Stack of applications gets to play.  Web wonders are not likely to recieve a Redmond invite now or ever.

    Which brings us to the issue of the da Vinci plug-in for MSOffice.  da Vinci is a clone of the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice, and fully leverages the same internal conversion process that OOXML enjoys.  It can achieve the same high fidelity "round trip" conversion that OOXML is capable of.  Maybe even better. 

    The problem for da Vinci isn't conversion fidlelity.  Nor is it capturing  business process important VBa scripts, macros, OLE, and security settings.  da Vinci can do that just fine.  The problem is that da Vinci cannot pipe MSOffice developer platform documents into ODF!!  For the love of five generic eXtensions, called the iX "interoperability enhancements", which the OASIS ODF TC blew off, ODF
Gary Edwards

Novell CEO confirms that Microsoft is a reality | The Register - 0 views

www.theregister.co.uk/...novell_ceo_certification

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  • It was a performance that saw Hovsepian call Microsoft a reality the community must work with
  • Skimming over the details of Microsoft's support, Hovespian said such deals are critical if Linux is going to give customers running mixed environments what they need, by delivering interoperability in the data center and on the desktop.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      No Kidding! The marketplace knows this full well. It's the FOSS and ODF Communities that are clueless. Interoperability with Microsoft bound documents, applications and processes must be dealt with before Linux and ODF systems can begin to penetrate the growing Microsoft Stack. This is why the ODF iX proposals, five of which were submitted to the ODF TC for discussion in the past year alone, were critical to the success of ODF in California, Massachusetts, Denmark, Belgium and the EU-IDABC. Too bad the ODF TC doesn't understand this importance and the need to accomodate the marketplace.
Gary Edwards

Ripped Off by Rob Weir - Again - 0 views

www.robweir.com/...nd-and-monicas-blue-dress.html

cdf da-vinci hamlet ibm massachusetts odf ooxml opendocument pdf pilot rfi weir

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  • An intriguing idea is whether we can have it both ways. Suppose you are in an ODF editor and you have a "Save for archiving..." option that would save your ODF document as normal, but also generate a PDF version of it and store it in the zip archive along with ODF's XML streams. Then digitally sign the archive along with a time stamp to make it tamper-proof. You would need to define some additional access conventions, but you could end up with a single document that could be loaded in an ODF editor (in read-only mode) to allow examination of the details of spreadsheet formulas, etc., as well as loaded in a PDF reader to show exactly how it was formated.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Intriguing?  Rob Weir knows full well that the Foundation proposed this exact same feature set as part of the da Vinci Plug-in design for Massachusetts, July of 2006!!!!!!!!!

    The Complete Feature list of the da Vinci plug-in for MSOffice that was proposed and signed off on by CIO Louis Gutierrez in early August of 2006 was well known by IBM's representatives who were working hand in hand with us at the time: Rob Weir, Don Harbison and Doug Heintzman. 

    Louis Gutierrez had asked IBM and Oracle to create a "benefactors Group" to overcome the challenge that Massachusetts ITD did not have a budget.  IBM and Oracle selected Google, Sun, Novell, Intel, and Nokia as key benefactors.  The group was provided with the complete feature set and roadmap for da Vinci development. 

    The da Vinci roadmap was the schedule announced by Louis Gutierrez in his mid year report, August 17th, 2006.

    The da Vinci plug-in feature set, in order of priority, consisted of:
    ODF iX Approval at OASISPlug-in for MS WORDAccessibility Interface for all ODF documents in MS WordPDF - ODF iX Digital Signature containerPlug-in for MS ExcelInteroperability Wizard for OpenOfficePlug-in for PowerPointXForms InterfaceThe roadmap we provided Louis and the "benefactors" was sceduled out with deliverables, test periods, and cost per deliverable.  The buy-in per "benefactor" was set at $350,000, and i
Gary Edwards

OpenDocument Foundation folds; will Microsoft benefit? - Mary Jo ZDNet - 0 views

talkback.zdnet.com/5206-12558-0.html

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  • +1 gary.edwards - 11/16/07 Thanks for the consideration Anton. You might want to follow an emerging discussion now taking place at the OpenDocument Fellowship: Interop between multiple standards and multiple applications Check on the follow up post and understand that this is the same problem the da Vinci group tried to overcome in Massachusetts, when ODF hung by a thread in the summer of 2006; with the sole hope being a plug-in conversion process capable of very high "round trip" fidelity. To assist Massachusetts and the da Vinci Group, the OpenDocument Foundation introduced to the OASIS ODF TC a series of discussions and proposals collectively known as the ODF iX interoperability enhancements. A total of six comprehensive iX enhancements were introduced between July of 2006 and March of 2007. The first three sets of iX enhancements were signed off on by CIO Louis Gutierrez, with the full knowledge and awareness of IBM (they participated directly in those discussions and i do have the emails and conference schedules to verify this . Also, if you're interested in other issues surrounding the da Vinci groups use of CDF WICD Full as an in-process conversion target for MSOffice documents, there is a series of recent responses posted in the comments section of this blog, "Going to Bed (without my supper). One last note; I do have a response to AlphaDog sitting in the blog que, where i try to put the MSOffice to CDF WICD Full conversion, and the OpenOffice ODF to CDF WICD Full conversion into the larger context of the web platform and universal interoperability. This post will also briefly explain the events immediately preceding the decision to shut the Foundation down. Hope this helps, ~ge~
Gary Edwards

OOXML in Norway: The haywire process | Geir Isene : Straight talk on IT - 0 views

blogs.freecode.no/isene

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  • I had read the essay by Jon Bosak (SUN Microsystems) on why SUN voted as it did in the US. He lays out a very different strategy. His view is that the battle is lost to completely reject OOXML as an ISO standard. ISO can only reject it with comments, and that is equivalent to giving Microsoft a todo-list on how to fix the draft so as to get it approved. Microsoft has sufficient manpower to easily tackle that. Most of us had missed what Mr. Bosak saw: OOXML promises interoperability with earlier closed binary formats (the Word Doc, older Excel file formats etc.). But it doesn’t deliver. How on earth could someone be able to convert old binary files to the new format without having the specification of the old formats and a mapping to OOXML. If you are to translate some text from Chinese to English, it doesn’t much help to only know English.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      A "Yes with comments" is a yes for the ISO approval of MS-OOMXL. If ISO approves MS-OOXML, it won't matter what Bosak's "comments" strategy is. Microsoft and the Vista Stack will be off to the races. The full disclosure of the MS binary document secret blueprint won't matter much at that point.
  • “Ah c’mon Bosak, you are chickening out, we must stop this dead in the track”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      There you go Geir!

      Sun and Bosak have held the door open for MS-OOXML since 2002, when Sun blocked an effort to write the ODF Charter to include as a priority, "compatibility with existing file formats". This of course would include the billions of legacy MS binary documents.

      The thing is that those who work in the conversion-translation field will tell you that it is currently impossible to pipe converted legacy binary documents and OOXMl docs for that matter into ODF. Just as Microsoft claims, ODF in it's current state is insufficient and unable to handle the rich feature set of the MSOffice developers platform.

      The problem could of course be easily fixed by the inclusion in ODF of five structural generics. In the past year, there have been no less than five iX "interoperability enhancement" proposals submitted to the OASIS ODF TC for discussion and consideration. As uber universal interop expert Florian Reuter points out in his blog, these iX proposals did not fare so well.

      What Florian doesn't point out is that it was Sun who opposed any and all efforts to improve compatibility with existing Microsoft binary and OOXML documents. Just as they have done for nearly five years now.

      Sort of puts the Sun-Bosak support for ISO approval of MS-OOXML in a different light. ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    see the sticky notes on this one
Gary Edwards

The Age of OOXML Computing - thanks a pant load Sun! - 0 views

www.cxotoday.com/...551-82889-906.html

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  • Why does Microsoft want another standard, what's the rationale? There are at least 4 good reasons why: *ODF started out and was completed as an XML format, specifically supporting OpenOffice with a tight scope around that product. *It wasn't until 2005 that the spec was offered up as a general XML office document format and consequently renamed to ODF. *No opportunity existed for Microsoft to actually participate in this full process - given the original scope, the 6 months between the re-naming of the spec to ODF, and its subsequent approval by OASIS as a standard. *The scope of the ODF spec never included even the basic requirements that Microsoft required to support a fully open format, and nor did the OASIS technical committee want to include these requirements.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Erwin's StarOffice Tango has an exhaustive response to this Microsoft Q&A. Correcting false statements by Microsoft
Gary Edwards

Why Can't We All Just Get Along? - 0 views

docs.google.com/View

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  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    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~
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