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Gary Edwards

OOXML-ODF: The Harmonization Hope Chest | Orcmid's Lair - 0 views

orcmid.com/...f-harmonization-hope-chest.asp

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Feb 08 - Cached
  • 4. The Reality in the Punchbowl Meanwhile, Sam Hiser offers a different impression of the DIN effort [4]: "The ODF-to-OOXML harmonization effort being hosted by the German standards group, DIN, is Europe's best effort to resolve our Mexican Standoff between Microsoft, Sun and IBM. Even though harmonization is laughably complex and will not work unless the applications are harmonized too, the best and brightest of Germany are left to hope for success."  [emphasis mine: dh] Although the mission of the German effort is translation (Übersetzung), not harmonization, I find there is a very important point that is not made often enough:  People write, read, and edit office documents with little, if any, understanding of the particular format that makes them persistent in digital form.  The XML-based open formats do not change that.   People adapt to the software/device they are using by trial and error.  We train ourselves to obtain the visible results that we want.  Different people obtain superficially similar results by quite different means.   Even when someone has gone to the trouble to create style sheets, forms, macros, templates and other format-impacting aids, it is very loosey-goosey in practice.  And it still does not require paying attention to the file format.  
Gary Edwards

OOXML vs ODF: where next for interoperability? | Reg Developer - 0 views

www.regdeveloper.co.uk/...ooxml_vs_odf

foundation iso microsoft odf ooxml w3c

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Mar 08 - Cached
  • 'A diversion from the real end game – the taking of the internet' Gary Edwards of the Open Document Foundation has a fascinating post on the important of Microsoft Office compatibility to the success of the ISO-approved Open Document formats. It is in places a rare voice of sanity: People continue to insist that if only Microsoft would implement ODF natively in MSOffice, we could all hop on down the yellow brick road, hand in hand, singing kumbaya to beat the band. Sadly, life doesn’t work that way. Wish it did. Sure, Microsoft could implement ODF - but only with the addition of application specific extensions to the current ODF specification … Sun has already made it clear at the OASIS ODF TC that they are not going to compromise (or degrade) the new and innovative features and implementation model of OpenOffice just to be compatible with the existing 550 million MSOffice desktops.
Gary Edwards

IBM to take Lotus Symphony apps 'Beyond Office' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com - 0 views

www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9857384-7.html

cdf ibm iso oasis odf ooxml opendocument openoffice sun symphony

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Under a strategy called "Beyond Office," IBM is developing several technologies to make Symphony an extensible development platform for business applications and Web-based document editors. Rather than compete head-to-head with Microsoft Office, IBM's strategy is to make documents act like "containers" for information within workflow and collaboration applications, according to IBM executives. The plan also calls for IBM to make documents based on the Open Document standard available through Web browsers using Adobe Flash or HTML. On Wednesday, IBM opened a Web site called Bluehouse where small business people can access hosted Web applications for sharing documents.
Gary Edwards

A gadfly's take on IBM's 'support' for Open XML | Computerworld Blogs - 0 views

blogs.computerworld.com/gadfly_ibm_open_xml_support

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jan 08 - Cached
  • On the revelation that some of IBM's products would support a document format that it officially, adamantly opposes, Hiser is not surprised one bit. IBM and Sun have both had "the magic blueprints" to Microsoft's document formats, including Open XML, for the past several years, Hiser said. With that key technical interoperability information, "how could you not expect IBM to start coding around OOXML?" he asked.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 23 Jan 08
       
      Right on Sam!
Gary Edwards

XML.com: Standard Data Vocabularies Unquestionably Harmful - 0 views

www.xml.com/...perry.html

odf ooxml presentation semantics xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Jan 08 - Cached
  • At the onset of XML four long years ago, I commenced a jeremiad against Standard Data Vocabularies (SDVs), to little effect. Almost immediately after the light bulb moment -- you mean, I can get all the cool benefits of web in HTML and create my own tags? I can call the price of my crullers <PricePerCruller>, right beside beside <PricePerDonutHole> in my menu? -- new users realized the problem: a browser knows how to display a heading marked as <h1> bigger and more prominently than a lowlier <h3>. Yet there are no standard display expectations or semantics for the XML tags which users themselves create. That there is no specific display for <Cruller> and, especially, not as distinct from <DonutHole> has been readily understood to demonstrate the separation of data structure expressed in XML from its display, which requires the application of styling to accomodate the fixed expectations of the browser. What has not been so readily accepted is that there should not be a standard expectation for how a data element, as identified by its markup, should be processed by programs doing something other than simple display.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 21 Jan 08
       
      ODF and OOXML are contending to become the Standard Data Vocabulary for desktop office suite XML markup. Sun and Microsoft are proposing the standardization of OpenOffice and MSOffice custom defined XML tags for which there are no standard display expectations. The display expectations must therefore be very carefully described: i.e. the semantics of display fully provided.
      In this article Walter Perry is pointing out the dangers of SDV's being standardized for specific purposes without also having well thought out and fully specified display semantics. In ODF - OOXML speak, we would call display presentation, or layout, or "styles".
      The separation of content and presentation layer of each is woefully underspecified!
      Given that the presnetation layers of both ODF and OOXML is directly related to how OpenOffice and MSOffice layout engines work, the semantics of display become even more important. For MSOffice to implement an "interoperable" version of OpenOffice ODF, MSOffice must be able to mimic the OpenOffice layout engine methods. Methods which are of course quite differeent from the internal layout model of MSOffice. This differential results in a break down of conversion fidelity, And therein lies the core of the ODF interoeprability dilemma!
  • There have also emerged a few "horizontal" data vocabularies, intended for expressing business communication in more general terms. One of these is the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), about which more below. Most recently, governments and governmental organizations have begun to suggest and eventually mandate particular SDVs for required filings, a development which expands what troubles me about these vocabularies by an order of magnitude.
  • ...5 more annotations...
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 21 Jan 08
       
      Exactly! When governments mandate a specific SDV, they also are mandating inherent concepts and methods unique to the provider of the SDV. In the case of ODF and OOXML, where the presentation layers are application specific and woefully underspecified, interoperability becomes an insurmountable challenge. Interop remains stubbornly application bound.
      Furthermore, there is no way to "harmonize" or "map" from one format to another without somehow resolving the application specific presentation differences.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 21 Jan 08
       
      "in the nature of the SDV's themselves is the problem of misstatement, of misdirection of naive interpretation, and potential for fraud.
      Semantics matter! The presentation apsects of a document are just as important as the content.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 21 Jan 08
       
      Walter: "I have argued for years that, on the basis of their mechanism for elaborating semantics, SDVs are inherently unreliable for the transmission or repository of information. They become geometrically less reliable when the types or roles of either the sources or consumers of that information increase, ending at a nightmarish worst case of a third-order diminution of the reliability of information. And what is the means by which SDVs convey meaning? By simple assertion against the expected semantic interpretations hard-coded into a process consuming the data in question.
      At this point in the article i'm hopign Walter has a solution. How do we demand, insist and then verify that SDV's have fully specifed the semantics, and not jus tpassed along the syntax?
      With ODF and OOXML, this is the core of the interoperability problem. Yet, there really is no way to separate the presentation layers from the uniquely different OpenOffice and MSOffice layout engine models.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 21 Jan 08
       
      Interesting concept here: "the bulk of expertise is in understanding the detail of connections between data and the processes which produced it or must consume it ........ it is these expert connections which SDV's are intended to sever.
      Not quite sure what to make of that statement? When an SDV is standardized by ISO, the expectation is that the connections between data and processes would be fully understood, and implementations consistent across the board.
      Sadly, ODF is ISO approved, but doesn't come close to meeting these expectations. ODF interop might as well be ZERO. And the only way to fix it is to go into the presentation layer of ODF, strip out all the application specific bindings, and fully specifiy the ssemantics of layout.
  • In short, the bulk of expertise is in understanding the detail of connections between data and the processes which produced it or must consume it. It is precisely these expert connections which standard data vocabularies are intended to sever.
Gary Edwards

Jonathan Schwartz: Today We Love the GPL! Live for the moment because it may not last - 0 views

blogs.sun.com/jonathan

gpl iso linux odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • It's driven competition into a market which historically had none - and it's created an opportunity for the world to standardize on an open, royalty and patent free file format for exchanging documents.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Public posturing in overdrive.  Warp speed overdrive. 
Gary Edwards

What's So Bad About Microsoft? - 0 views

www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html

backwards-compatibility iso microsoft odf ooxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Backward Incompatibility Also contributing to Microsoft's goal of putting everybody on a perpetual upgrade cycle is the backward incompatibility in Microsoft's products. Once a small number of users adopt a new version of a Microsoft product all other users are pressured to upgrade lest they are unable to interact with files produced by the newer program. Dan Martinez summed up the situation created with the incompatibility in subsequent versions of Word when he said "while we're on the subject of file formats, let's pause for a moment in frank admiration of the way in which Microsoft brazenly built backward-incompatibility into its product. By initially making it virtually impossible to maintain a heterogenous environment of Word 95 and Word 97 systems, Microsoft offered its customers that most eloquent of arguments for upgrading: the delicate sound of a revolver being cocked somewhere just out of sight." (cited from the quote file) For a more detailed lament of how Microsoft likes to pressure its customers to keep buying the same product over and over by using backward incompatibility, see Zeid Nasser's page on 'Forced upgrading,' in the World of Word.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    The "Backwards Compatibility" issue is all the rage at ISO, with the September vote on MS OOXML just a month away.

    Microsoft and Sun (We've Been Had!) are arguing that ISO should approve MS OOXML (Microsoft OfficeOpenXML) because OOXML offers a backwards compatibility with the legacy of existing billions of binary documents.

    This oft sighted history of Microsoft's reprehensible business practices is worth citing once again before the nations of the world go down that treacherous path towards ratifying Microsoft's proprietary systems and products as international standards.



Gary Edwards

From Open Source to Open Standard: The OASIS OpenDocument Format - 0 views

idealliance.org/...03-02-02

imported:del.icio.us michaelbrauer odf opendocument openoffice sun

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    The history of OpenDocument by Michael Brauer,
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    The history of OpenDocument by Michael Brauer,
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    The history of OpenDocument by Michael Brauer,
Graham Perrin

ODF Alliance Weblog: Microsoft's ODF Support Falls Short - 0 views

www.odfalliance.org/...osofts_odf_support_falls_short

shared by Graham Perrin on 19 May 09 - Cached
Graham Perrin liked it
  • “Unfortunately, serious shortcomings have been identified in Microsoft’s support for ODF. Putting potentially millions of ODF files into circulation that are non-interoperable and incompatible with the ODF support provided by other vendors is a recipe for fragmentation.”
    • Alex Brown
      Alex Brown on 19 May 09
       
      I think Mr Marcich forgot to put inverted commas round his particular use of "ODF" to denote its special meaning ...
  • plug-ins for Microsoft Office written by third parties were revealed to provide better support for ODF than the recently released Microsoft Office 2007 SP2
  • some of the so-called ‘plug-ins’ were revealed to provide better support for ODF than the recently released Microsoft Office 2007 SP2
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Microsoft’s ODF Support Falls Short
  • SourceForge “OpenXML/ODF Translator Add-in for Office
  • Sun Plug-In 3.0
  • fail when using the “built-in” support provided by Office 2007 SP2
Alex Brown

RE: [office] ODF 1.2 drafts/Committee Draft Ballot - 0 views

lists.oasis-open.org/...msg00051.html

shared by Alex Brown on 21 Apr 09 - Cached
  • I'm running the version we'll be releasing shortly, which has ODF 1.1 support, and it identifies the problem and offers to repair it
    • Alex Brown
      Alex Brown on 21 Apr 09
       
      This (slughtly cheeky) posting foreshadows what I suspect is going to be a heated debated about which implementation of ODF is more conformant and whether that matters. Despite the potential for lots of silliness in the sort term, in the long term I think this is going to be healthy for implementations, and for ODF itself (assuming the Oracle takeover of Sun doesn't unduly impact that effort).
Alex Brown

Is There Life After Office? | BNET Technology Blog | BNET - 0 views

industry.bnet.com/...is-there-life-after-office

shared by Alex Brown on 02 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Kafkaesque joke exemplifying vendor ambition, inexperience and stupidity
    • Alex Brown
      Alex Brown on 02 Jul 09
       
      Sounds familiar
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Jul 09
     
    Glynn Moody, who is quoted in the article, obviously does not understand what was involved in Massachusetts. Sam Hiser, also quoted, was deeply and personally involved. OOXML wasn't even on the horizon then. Microsoft Office 2003 wrote to a flat XML format that was irrelevant in any event. What Massachusetts wanted --- and deserved from the ODF community --- was an ability to integrate OpenOffice.org with business processes that were already thoroughly bound to Microsoft Office. The problem was in fact solved by the OpenDocument Foundation's ODF plug-ins for Microsoft Office, but the project had to be ditched because Sun would neither adapt OOo nor allow ODF to be adapted for the purpose. Gary Edwards and I wrote an in-depth and heavily-referenced article on why ODF failed in Massachusetts. http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/072307-opendocuments-grounded.html (.) Those who do not comprehend that integration of data created by end point solutions and stored in legacy data silos is a fundamental requirement in service oriented architectures will never comprehend why interoperability is so vitally important. They wind up being unwitting advocates of incredibly expensive rip out and replace solutions. Good luck, particularly in the current economic climate. The wonderment is why anyone believes that Microsoft Office can be toppled by ODF from its monopoly position without ultra-high fidelity interoperability with Microsoft Office. Too much "what works well enough for me works well enough for anyone" mindset, I suspect.
Alex Brown

Blogger: An Antic Disposition - Post a Comment - 0 views

www.blogger.com/comment.g

shared by Alex Brown on 28 Oct 09 - No Cached
    • Alex Brown
      Alex Brown on 28 Oct 09
       
      "practical purposes", "reference implementation" - guys, why not just cut the crap and state you want to use OpenOffice (or MS Office) or whatever? Could it be that's ... not allowed?
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 09
     
    The New York State "OASIS approval is good enough for us" position has considerable tension with the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade ("ATBT") ratified by the U.S. pursuant to the Uruguay Round Agremeents Act, 19 U.S.C. 2503 and Presidential signature, and are therefore "the law of this land." Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U.S. 217, 226 (1996). Relevant ATBT provisions are Article 2.4 (member nations must use appropriate international standards where they exist or parts of them as their technical regulations; I don't see an applicable exception); and 3.1 (member nations required to take such reasonable measures as may be available to them to ensure compliance by "local government and non-governmental bodies within their territories" with the provisions of Article 2). http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm New York State is a "local government" within the meaning of the ATBT. Likewise, a New York State decision to adopt a standard for its internal use is a technical regulation. See definition 1 in ATBT Annex 1 and the holding in regard to the term's meaning by the WTO Appellate Council in the case of EC Asbestos, http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds135_e.htm (para. 66-70 in the HTML version). Given that we have two relevant international standards, ISO/IEC:26300 and ISO/IEC:29500, it would seem that legally, mere "OASIS approval is [NOT] good enough" for New York State. Some people just don't get that the ATBT was intended to force government action to remove unnecessary obstacles to international trade (such as interoperability barriers) rather than just to rubber-stamp the status quo ante. The Feds have the enforcement responsibility here.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Oct 09
     
    Re "reference implementation," if you check this video of a Rob Weir presentation, at about 44 minutes, he states: " "ISO doesn't have the concept of a reference implementation." http://ooocon-kiberpipa.kiberpipa.org/media/index-2007.html#ODF_Interoperability_Robert_Weir But if you check his slides from the same presentation, at slide 22 we find, "Let's work to make OpenOffice.org be the full reference implementation for ODF!" http://www.robweir.com/blog/publications/Interoperability-Barcelona.pdf An ODF "reference implementation" controlled by a single vendor, Sun Microsystems, through its padlock on the code commit rights? Sounds like a moving interoperability target to me that a standards development organization has no control of. Not ISO. Not OASIS. The implementation tail should wag the standard dog according to Weir. Too bad New York State fell for that piece of baloney.
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