First, what if Microsoft really is
doing the right thing? Second, how can we avoid having two incompatible
file formats?
[Update: There’s been a lot of reaction to this piece, and I addressed some
of those points
here.]
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Harmonizing ODF and OOXML using NameSpaces | Tim Bray's Thought Experiment - 0 views
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On the technology side, the two formats are really more alike than they are different. But, there are differences: O12X’s design center, Microsoft has said repeatedly, is capturing the exact semantics of the billions of existing Microsoft Office documents. ODF’s design center is general-purpose reusability, and leveraging existing standards like SVG and MathML and so on.
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OOXML, or to put it more accurately "O12X" as Tim suggests, is designed to capture the exact semantics of MSOffice 12. In fact, OOXML is an XML encoding of the MSOffice 12 in-memory-binary-representation dump. When it comes to representing older versions of MSOffice documents, OOXML must use legacy compatibility settings" to capture the semantics. And it's not an exacting science to say the least. The thing is, OpenOffice ODF uses the same technique resulting in application specific ODF documents with over 150 un docuemnted, unspecified "compatibility settings". After years of requests from the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to document these application specific settings, Sun has yet to provide any kind of response. And this kills ODF interoperability. Especially concerning KOffice. There is also the issue of OASIS ODF high-jacked namespaces. When ODF applications reference a namespace, the actual URL is high-jacked with http://oasis-open.org/???? replacing the proper namespace of http://W3C.org/???? This high-jacking impacts the oDF reuse of important W3C technologies such as XForms, SVG, MathML, and SMiL. So where's the problem you ask? Well, when a developer imports or tries to process an OpenOffice ODF document, they rely on say the W3C XForms specification for their understanding. OpenOffice however seriously constrains the implementation of XForms, SVG, MathML, RDFa and RDF/XML. This should be reflected in the new namespace. However, if you follow the high-jacked URL, you'll find that there is nothing there. There is no specification describing how OpenOffice implements XForms in ODF! This breaks developer libraries, breaks ODF interoperability between ODF applications, and, offends the W3C to no end. So i think it might be fair to say that at this point, neither ODF or OOXML have come close to fulfilling their design objectives.
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The capabilities of ODF and O12X are essentially identical for all this basic stuff. So why in the flaming hell does the world need two incompatible formats to express it? The answer, obviously, is, “it doesn’t”.
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Exactly!! Except for one thing that Tim misses: the presentation layers of both ODF and OOXML are application specific. It is also the application specific nature of OpenOffice ODF presnetation layer that prevents interoperability with KOffice ODF! There is near zero interop between OpenOffice and KOffice, and KOffice has been a contributing member of the OASIS ODF TC for FIVE YEARS! It's the presentation layer Tim. ODF and OOXML are application specific formats because their presentation layers are woefully applicaiton specific and entirely reflective of each applications layout engine and feature set implementation model. I often imagine what ODF would be like if back in 2001, Sun had chosen to implement CSS as the OpenOffice presentation layer instead of the quirky but innovative, and 100% application specific automatic-styles presentation layer we now see in ODF. Unlike ODF's "automatic-styles", CSS is a totally application independent presentation model prized exactly for it's universal interoperability!
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The ideal outcome would be a common shared office-XML dialect for the basics—and it should be ODF (or a subset), since that’s been designed and debugged—then another extended vocabulary to support Microsoft features , whether they’re cool new whizzy features or mouldy old legacy features (XML Namespaces are designed to support exactly this kind of thing). That way, if you stayed with the basic stuff you’d never need to worry about software lock-in; the difference between portable and proprietary would be crystal-clear. And, for the basic stuff that everybody uses, there’d be only one set of tags. This outcome is technically feasible. Who could possibly be against it?
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Bingo! ODF and OOXML should strip off the application specific complexities and seek a neutral generic XML representation of basic document structures common to ALL documents. Then, use the XML NameSpace mechanism to extend (with proper descriptions) the generic to include the volumes of application specific features that now fill each format. One thing i disagree with Tim about. And that's that the interop of ODF and OOXML is hopelessly broken. The OpenDocument Foundation tried for over a year to close the compatibility gap between ODF and MSOffice binary - xml documents. The OASIS ODF TC would have none of it. IBM and Sun are set on a harsh course of highly disruptive and costly rip-out-and-replace of MSOffice based on government mandates for ODF. There is no offer of compromise to be had. On the Microsoft side, even if they did want to compromise (a big IF), there is that problem of over 550 million MSOffice workgroup-workflow desktops to contend with. The thing is, the only way to harmonize, merge, convert or translate between two application specific formats is to actually harmonize the applications themselves. While the generic subset is a worthy goal, the process would be fraught with real world concerns that the existing application workflows are not disrupted. My proposal? Demand that ODF and OOXML application vendors provide format options for PDF, and the W3C's family of formats: (X)HTML5, (X)HTML - CSS, and CDF (XHTML-CSS-XForms-SVG-SMil-MathML). That will do it. We might never see the quality of interoperability we had hoped for in a desktop application to application scenario. But we can and should fully expect high quality interop at the higher level of the Web. You can convert an application specific format to a generic like CDF. By setting up conversion channels to the same CDF profile within MSOffice, OpenOffice, KOffice, Symphony, and Google Docs, we can achieve the universal interoperabil
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Home - Berkman Center for Internet & Society - 0 views
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There were 5 successive Roundtables. Each roundtable was led by 5 short presentations before the topic was opened to the floor for general discussion. The first roundtable focused on "What is ODF, and why are open document standards important". There were many questions regarding how open standards affect competition and innovation, whether ODF is in fact the best standard, issues of archiving and interoperability with ODF as well as how ODF addresses/will address concerns of accessibility for disabled persons. The second Roundtable discussed how various software developers were responding to ODF and the third roundtable focused on whether governments or non-governmental and consumer organizations should systematically use procurement policy to promote ODF. The following roundtable was a lively discussion on whether national or global "agreements" can play a role in promoting ODF and how. During that roundtable as well as the last one on "Reflections and next steps", there were discussions of future work and strategies on ODF in a new international forum, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be held in Athens, Greece, October 30 - November 3, 2006.
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The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School held an Open Document Conference, October 23rd, 2006. Just a few weeks after the October 4th, 2006 resignation of Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez. This is the summary report of organizer Manon Ress. Sam Hiser represented the OpenDocument Foundation. The ZERO Interop problems that plague ODF implementation were not discussed. Strangely :) Another point not discussed is the fact that ODF is not an Internet file format. It's a desktop office suite only format. This constraint is written into the ODF charter. Interestingly, one of the problems of making ODF Web ready is that of highjacked W3C standards. Highjacking occurs when a specification or application takes existing W3C standards and changes the namespace reference to it's own. This is what ODF does. The reason for doing this is to constrain and limit the W3C standard to just those aspects implemented by the ODF reference application, OpenOffice. XForms, SVG, SMiL, XHTML, RDF/XML and RDFa are problematic examples of W3C namespaces that have been highjacked by ODF to meet the specific implementation constraints of OpenOffice. This impacts developers who rely on standard libraires to do conversions and processing. The libraries are built to the proper W3C namespace, and unfortunately assume that ODF complies. It doesn't, So developers have to investigate how OpenOffic eimplements XForms and SVG, and build special ODF libraries before they can use ODF on the Web. It can be done, i think. But it's a train wreck of a mess guaranteed to destroy the high level of web interoperability users and developers expect.
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CDI WICD 2.0 - 0 views
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This document defines a generic language-independent processing model for combining arbitrary document formats. The Compound Document Framework is language-independent. While it is clearly meant to serve as the basis for integrating W3C's family of XML formats within its Interaction Domain (e.g., MathML, SMIL, SVG, VoiceXML, XForms, XHTML, XSL) with each other, together with CSS and the DOM; it can also be used to integrate non-W3C formats with W3C formats or integrate non-W3C formats with other non-W3C formats. 1.1. Conformance Everying in this specification is normative except for diagrams, examples, notes and sections marked non-normative. The key words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommended, may and optional in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. This specification defines the following classes of products: conforming implementation A user agent that implements all interfaces described in this specification and follows all must-, required- and shall-level of critera in this specification. conforming document A document that follows all must-, required- and shall-level of critera in this specification that apply to document authors. conforming authoring tool One that produces conforming documents.
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Notes on Breaking the Web to Ride the Fifth Wave - 1 views
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garyedwards's Discussions Breaking the Web Talkback: Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'
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Somehow i got involved in this discussion and ended up posting a number of comments explaining the how and why behind Microsoft's push for ISO approval of MS-OOXML. I have been working on a paper titled, "Breaking the Web to Ride the Great Wave". Breaking the Web is what will happen once ISO approves MS-OOXML. The MIcrosoft Stack of Web Servers (Exchange, SharePoint, MS-SQL Server) are integrated into the MSOffice-Outlook desktop. The MS desktop dominates much of the document workflows and business processes of the commercial world. ISO approval of the MSOffice specific MS-OOXML will legitamize MSOffice as an editor of standardized web ready docuemnts. But how MS-OOXML docuemnts become "Web REady" is tricky. In the December 2007 MSOffice SDK beta, we see how this is done. The SDK provides a conversion component for the quick high fidelity conversion of MS-OOXML documents to XAML. XAML is a proprietary part of the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) layer of the .NET framework, and is easily paried with Silverlight. Sometimes XAML is referred to as "fixed/flow". XAML is an MS proprietary replacement for the W3C's (X)HTML. Billions of MSOffice docuemnts will make their way to the Web using this SDK converter. The path for transitioning the monopolist hold on desktop business processes to the monopolist stack of web servers is set with this converter. ISO approval of MS-OOXML will enable Microsoft to dodge brining their desktop editor into compliance with advancing W3C standards such as (X)HTML, CSS 3, XForms, SVG and RDF. Instead of these open standards, transitioning business processes will be locked into MS only dependencies; XAML, Silverlight, WinForms, and Smart Tags. The breaking of the web results in a consumer/business cloud dependent on MS proprietary technologies that are out of the reach of Firefox, Apache, Java, and Adobe technologies. Google won't be able to penetrate the business stack, and will be kept very busy trying to defen
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FAA May Ditch Microsoft's Windows Vista And Office For Google And Linux Combo - Technol... - 0 views
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Bowen's compatibility concerns, combined with the potential cost of upgrading the FAA's 45,000 workers to Microsoft's next-generation desktop environment, could make the moratorium permanent. "We're considering the cost to deploy [Windows Vista] in our organization. But when you consider the incompatibilities, and the fact that we haven't seen much in the way of documented business value, we felt that we needed to do a lot more study," said Bowen. Because of Google Apps' sudden entry into the desktop productivity market
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The FAA issues their "NO ViSTA" mandate, hinting that it might be permanent if they can come up with MSOffice alternatives. They are looking at Google Apps!
Okay, so plan B does have legs. The recent failure of ISO/IEC to stand up to the recidivist reprobate from Redmond is having repercussions. Who would have ever thought ISO would fold so quickly without ceremony? One day there are 20 out of 30 JTCS1 national bodies (NB's) objecting to Micrsoft's proprietary XML proposal, the MOOX Ecma 376 specfication, and the next ISO is approving without comment the placing of MOOX into the ISO fast track where approval is near certain. With fast track, the technical objections and contradictions are assumed to be the provence of Ecma, and not the JTCS1 experts group.
Apparently the USA Federal Government divisions had a plan B contingency for just such a case. And why not? Microsoft was able to purchase a presidential pardon for their illegal anti trust violations. If they can do that, what's to stop them from purchasing an International Standard? Piece of cake!
But Google Apps? And i say that as one who uses Google Docs every day.
The problem of migrating away from MSOffice and MOOX to ODF or some other "open" XML portable file format is that there are two barriers one must cross.
The first barrier is that of converting the billions of MS binary docuemnts into ODF XML.
The second is that of replacing the MSOffice bound business processes that drive critical day to day business operabions.
Google Apps is fine for documents that benefit from collaborative computing activities. But there is no way one can migrate MSOffice bound business processes - the workgroup-worflow documents to Google Apps. For one thing Google Apps is unable to facillitate important issues like XForms. Nor can they round trip an ODF document with the needed fidelity a
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Microsoft Watch Finally Gets it - It's the Business Applications!- Obla De OBA Da - 0 views
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To be fair, Microsoft seeks to solve real world problems with respect to helping customers glean more value from their information. But the approach depends on enterprises adopting an end-to-end Microsoft stack—vertically from desktop to server and horizontally across desktop and server products. The development glue is .NET Framework, while the informational glue is OOXML.
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OOXML is the transport - a portable XML document model where the "document" is the interface into content/data/ and media streaming.
The binding model for OOXML is "Smart Documents", and it is proprietary!
Smart Documents is how data, streaming media, scripting-routing-workflow intelligence and metadata is added to any document object.
Think of the ODF binding model using XForms, XML/RDF and RDFA metadata. One could even use Jabber XMP as a binding model, which is how we did the Comcast SOA based Sales and Inventory Management System prototype.
Interestingly, Smart Documents is based on pre written widgets that can simply be dragged, dropped and bound to any document object. The Infopath applicaiton provides a highly visual means for end users to build intelligent self routing forms. But Visual Studio .NET, which was released with MSOffice 2007 in December of 2006. makes it very easy for application and line of business integration developers to implement very advanced data binding using the Smart Document widgets.
I would also go as far to say that what separates MSOOXML from Ecma 376 is going to be primarily Smart Documents.
Yes, there are .NET Framework Libraries and Vista Stack dependencies like XAML that will also provide a proprietary "Vista Stack" only barrier to interoperability, but Smart Documents is a killer.
One company that will be particularly hurt by Smart Documents is Google. The reason is that the business value of Google Search is based on using advanced and closely held proprietary algorithms to provide metadata structure for unstrucutred documents.
This was great for a world awash in unstructured documents. By moving the "XML" structuring of documents down to the author - workgroup - workflow application level though, the world will soon enough be awash in highly structured documents that have end user metadata defining document objects and
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Microsoft seeks to create sales pull along the vertical stack between the desktop and server.
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The vertical stack is actually desktop - server - device - web based. The idea of a portable XML document is that it must be able to transition across the converged application space of this sweeping stack model.
Note that ODF is intentionally limited to the desktop by it's OASIS Charter statement. One of the primary failings of ODF is that it is not able to be fully implemented in this converged space. OOXML on the other hand was created exactly for this purpose!
So ODF is limited to the desktop, and remains tightly bound to OpenOffice feature sets. OOXML differs in that it is tightly bound to the Vista Stack.
So where is an Open Stack model to turn to?
Good question, and one that will come to haunt us for years to come. Because ODF cannot move into the converged space of desktop to server to device to the web information systems connected through portable docuemnt/data transport, it is unfit as a candidate for Universal File Format.
OOXML is unfi as a UFF becuase it is application - platform and vendor bound.
For those of us who believe in an open and unencumbered universal file format, it's back to the drawing board.
XHTML+ (XHTML + CSS3 + RDF) is looking very good. The challenge is proving that we can build plugins for MSOffice and OpenOffice that can fully implement XHTML+. Can we conver the billions of binary legacy documents and existing MSOffice bound business processes to XHTML+?
I think so. But we can't be sure until the da Vinci proves this conclusively.
One thign to keep in mind though. The internal plugins have already shown that it is possible to do multiple file formats. OOXML, ODF, and XML encoded RTF all have been shown to work, and do so with a level of two way conversion fidelity demanded by existing business processes.
So why not try it with XHTML+, or ODEF (the eXtended version of ODF en
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Microsoft's major XML-based format development priority was backward compatibility with its proprietary Office binary file formats.
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This backwards compatibility with the existing binary file formats isn't the big deal Micrsoft makes it out to be. ODF 1.0 includes a "Conformance Clause", (Section 1.5) that was designed and included in the specification exactly so that the billions of binary legacy documents could be converted into ODF XML.
The problem with the ODF Conformance Clause is that the leading ODF application, OpenOffice, does not fully support and implement the Conformance Clause.
The only foreign elements supported by OpenOffice are paragraphs and text spans. Critically important structural document characteristics such as lists, fields, tables, sections and page breaks are not supported!
This leads to a serious drop in conversion fidelity wherever MS binaries are converted to OpenOffice ODF.
Note that OpenOffice ODF is very different from MSOffice ODF, as implemented by internal conversion plugins like da Vinci. KOffice ODF and Googel Docs ODF are all different ODF implementations. Because there are so many different ways to implement ODF, and still have "conforming" ODF documents, there is much truth to the statement that ODF has zero interoperabiltiy.
It's also true that OOXML has optional implementation areas. With ODF we call these "optional" implementation areas "interoperabiltiy break points" because this is exactly where the document exchange presentation fidelity breaks down, leaving the dominant market ODF applicaiton as the only means of sustaining interoperabiltiy.
With OOXML, the entire Vista Stack - Win32 dependency layer is "optional". No doubt, all MSOffice - Exchange/SharePoint Hub applications will implement the full sweep of proprietary dependencies. This includes the legacy Win32 API dependencies (like VML, EMF, EMF +), and the emerging Vista Stack dependencies that include Smart Documents, XAML, .NET 3.0 Libraries, and DrawingML.
MSOffice 2007 i
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Microsoft's backwards compatibility priority means the company made XML-based format decisions that compromise the open objectives of XML. Open Office XML is neither open nor XML.
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True, but a tricky statement given that the proprietary OOXML implementation is "optional". It is theoretically possible to implement Ecma 376 without the prorpietary dependencies of MSOffice - Exchange/SharePoint Hub - Vista Stack "OOXML".
In fact, this was first demonstrated by the legendary document processing - plugin architecture expert, Florian Reuter.
Florian has the unique distinction of being the primary architect for two major plugins: the da Vinci ODF plugin for MSOffice, and, the Novell OOXML Translator plugin for OpenOffice!
It is the Novell OOXML Translator Plugin for OpenOffice that first demonstrated that Ecma 376 could be cleanly implemented without the MSOffice application-platform-vendor specific dependencies we find in every MSOffice OOXML document.
So while Joe is technically correct here, that OOXML is neither open nor XML, there is a caveat. For 95% of all desktops and near 100% of all desktops in a workgroup, Joe's statment holds true. For all practical concerns, that's enough. For Microsoft's vaunted marketing spin machine though, they will make it sound as though OOXML is actually open and application-platform-vendor independent.
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Microsoft got there first to protect Office.
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No. I disagree. Microsoft needs to move to XML structured documents regardless of what others are doing. The binary document model is simply unable to be useful to any desktop- to server- to device- to the web- transport!
Many wonder what Microsoft's SOA strategy is. Well, it's this: the Vista Stack based on OOXML-Smart Documents-.NET.
The thing is, Microsoft could not afford to market a SOA solution until all the proprietary solutions of the Vista Stack were in place.
The Vista Stack looks like this:
..... The core :: MSOffice <> OOXML <> IE <> The Exchange/SharePoint Hub
..... The services :: E/S HUb <> MS SQL Server <> MS Dynamics <> MS Live <> MS Active Directory Server <> MSOffice RC Front End
The key to the stack is the OOXML-Smart Documents capture of EXISTING MSOffice bound business processes and documents.
The trick for Microsoft is to migrate these existing business processes and documents to the E/S Hub where line of business developers can re engineer aging desktop LOB apps.
The productivity gains that can be had through this migration to the E/S Hub are extraordinary.
A little over a year ago an E/S Hub verticle market application called "Agent Achieve" came out for the real estate industry. AA competed against a legacy of twenty years of contact management based - MLS data connected desktop shrinkware applications. (MLS-Multiple Listing Service)
These traditional desktop client/server productivity apps defined the real estate business process as far as it could be said to be "digital". For the most part, the real estate transaction industry remains a paper driven process. The desktop stuff was only useful for managing clients and lead prospecting. No one could crack the electronic documents - electonic business transaction model. This will no doubt change with the emer
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Microsoft can offer businesses many of the informational sharing and mining benefits associated with the markup language while leveraging Office and supporting desktop and server products as the primary consumption conduit.
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Okay, now Joe has the Micrsoft SOA bull by the horns. Why doesn't he wrestle the monster down?
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By adapting XML
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The requirements of these E/S Hub systems are XP, XP MSOffice 2003 Professional, Exchange Server with OWL (Outlook on the Web) , SharePoint Server, Active Directory Server, and at least four MS SQL Servers!
In Arpil of 2006, Microsoft issued a harsh and sudden End-of-Life for all Windows 2000 - MSOffice 2000 systems in the real estate industry (although many industries were similarly impacted). What happened is that on a Friday afternoon, just prior to a big open house weekend, Microsoft issued a security patch for all Exchange systems. Once the patch was installed, end users needed IE 7.0 to connect to the Exchange Server Systems.
Since there is no IE 7.0 made for Windows 2000, those users relying on E/S Hub applications, which was the entire industry, suddenly found themselves disconnected and near out of business.
Amazingly, not a single user complained! Rather than getting pissed at Microsoft for the sudden and very disruptive EOL, the real estate users simply ran out to buy new XP-MSOffice 2003 systems. It was all done under the rational that to be competitive, you have to keep up with technology systems.
Amazing. But it also goes to show how powerfully productive the E/S Hub applications can be. This wouldn't have happened if the E/S Hub applications didn't have a very high productivity value.
When we visited Massachusetts in June of 2006, to demonstrate and test the da Vinci ODF plugin for MSOffice, we found them purchasing en mass E/S Hubs! These are ODF killers! Yet Microsoft sales people had convinced Massachusetts ITD that Exchange/SahrePoint was a simple to use eMail-calendar-portal system. Not a threat to anyone!
The truth is that in the E/S Hub ecosystem, OOXML is THE TRANSPORT. ODF is a poor, second class attachment of no use at the application - document processing chain level.
Even if Massachusetts had mandated ODF, they were only one E/S Hub Court Doc
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Microsoft will vie for the whole business software stack, a strategy that I believe will be indisputable by early 2009 at the latest.
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Finally, someone who understands the grand strategy of levergaing the desktop monopoly into the converged space of server, device and web information systems.
What Joe isn't watching is the way the Exchange/SharePoint Server connects to MS SQL Server, Active Directory Server, MS LIve and MS Dynamics.
Also, Joe does not see the connection between OOXML as the portable XML document/data transport, and the insidiously proprietary Smart Documents metadata - data binding system that totally separates MSOOXML from Ecma 376 OOXML!
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I'm convinced that Office as a platform is an eventual dead end. But Microsoft is going to lead lots of customers and partners down that platform path.
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Yes, but the new platform for busines process development is that of MSOffice <> Exchange/SharePoint Hub.
The OOXML-Smart Docs transport replaces the old binary document with OLE and VBA Scripts and Macros functionality. Which, for the sake of brevity we can call the lead Win32 API dependencies.
One substantial difference is that OOXML-Smart Docs is Vista Stack ready, while the Win32 API dependencies were desktop bound.
Another way of looking at this is to see that the old MSOffice platform was great for desktop application integration. As long as the complete Win32 API was available (Windows + MSOffice + VBA run times), this platform was great for workgroups. The Line of Business integrated apps were among the most brittle of all client/server efforts, bu they were the best for that generation.
The Internet offers everyone a new way of integrating data, content and streaming media. Web applications are capable of loosly coupled serving and consuming of other application services. Back end systems can serve up data in a number of ways: web services as SOAP, web services as AJAX/REST, or XML data streams as in HTTPXMLRequest or Jabber P2P model.
On the web services consumption side, it looks like AJAX/REST will be the block buster choice, if the governance and security issues can be managed.
Into this SOA mash Microsoft will push with a sweeping integrated stack model. Since the Smart Docs part of the OOXML-Samrt Docs transport equation is totally proprietary, but used throughout the Vista Stack, it will provide Microsoft with an effective customer lockin - OSS lockout point.
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The MSOffice 2007 XML Extension Pack :: Business Process binding on steroids - 0 views
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This is a screen shot of the new business process interface for MSOffice 2007. Writing add-ons, scripts, and line of business integration apps was never so easy. This is also how Smart Document based metadate, data binding, services binding, and workflow binding can quickly be added to any document object. Very cool. The ODF alternative to the highly proprietary Smart Documents functionality is the open XForms implementation model and, the new Metadata RDF/XML RDFa enhancements. True to form, ODF has chosen to reuse existing W3C standards. Smart Documents is proprietary, and it is set to be a Lotus Notes "intelligent document" killer. It's also the way Microsoft will slam the door on Google search. The Smart Documents metadata model will provide Microsoft network share croppers with the kind of search, re-use and re-purpose tools Googlers only dream about.
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Ripped Off by Rob Weir - Again - 0 views
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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.
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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
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Continuing Intermittent Incoherency » The W3C Cannot Save Us - 0 views
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It signals the effective end of the CSS WG as we (don’t) know it. Rebuilding credibility in the WG is going to be much, much harder now that Mozilla’s representative has effectively given up on the closed-door process. The working group’s secret cabal style of operation is imploding. It was inevitable, but the timing is still a surprise. But why was it inevitable? And should we take Andy’s suggestion seriously and expect a re-chartered WG to do better? After thinking about it for a while, I think the answer is that we can’t expect any standards body to do what is being asked of the CSS WG; namely to invent the future by committee.
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Alex Russel of Dojo fame is calling for a break from the W3C Standards work, and a return to browser led innovation. His reasoning is that the W3C committees are unable to keep up with the innovative needs of Web Developers. W3C Standards are holging us back.
So, do we listen to Alex and trade standards based interoperability for vendor based "innovation"? I think not. There is an error in Alex's logic i think.
The error is in mot fully recognizing the power and influence vendors have at the W3C. It's not that the W3C lags. It's that the vendors who sponsor much of the W3C standards work desire to hold back standards in order to provide for marketplace innovation differentials. Teh sad truth is that vendors have learned how to work both open standards and open source communities to protect their applications.
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Uh OH! Look what Microsoft has put into the new .NET 3.0 SDK! Flow Documents is a Microsoft specific version of HTML that is part of the Windows Presentation Foundation Browser Developers Framework. XAML - XPS-XABL. It also looks as though Microsoft has reserved MS-OOXML MSOffice level integration for themselves. Another thought is that MSOffice is being positioned as a developers framework for Web 2.0 development. This docuemnt is goign to take some serious study. Bad news for IBM and Adobe for sure. PDF, Flash and AJAX are all going to be in the fight of their lives. The conversion tools are going to become of critical importance. Some initial thoughts are that we could convert MSOffice documents to CDF+; convert OpenOffice documents to CDF+; and convert Flow Documents to CDF+, using the same XHTML 2.0 - CSS desktop profile (WICD Full). Converting MS-OOXML to Flow Documents however appears to be next to impossible by design. The easy approach would be to let the da Vinci plug-in perfect an internal conversion to either CDF+ or Flow. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft provides a Flow plug-in for MSOffice. I doubt it, but perhaps there will be a demand from Flow developers. da Vinci could of course be configured to produce Flow Documents. At first glance, my assumption would be that the ability to convert native MSOffice documents and allication genrated Flow Documents to CDF+ would be the most important course to take. We''ll see. This is no doubt explosive stuff. Microsoft is truly challenging the W3C for the Web.
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Uh OH! Look what Microsoft has put into the new .NET 3.0 SDK! Flow Documents is a Microsoft specific version of HTML that is part of the Windows Presentation Foundation Browser Developers Framework. XAML - XPS-XABL. It also looks as though Microsoft has reserved MS-OOXML MSOffice level integration for themselves. Another thought is that MSOffice is being positioned as a developers framework for Web 2.0 development. This docuemnt is goign to take some serious study. Bad news for IBM and Adobe for sure. PDF, Flash and AJAX are all going to be in the fight of their lives. The conversion tools are going to become of critical importance. Some initial thoughts are that we could convert MSOffice documents to CDF+; convert OpenOffice documents to CDF+; and convert Flow Documents to CDF+, using the same XHTML 2.0 - CSS desktop profile (WICD Full). Converting MS-OOXML to Flow Documents however appears to be next to impossible by design. The easy approach would be to let the da Vinci plug-in perfect an internal conversion to either CDF+ or Flow. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft provides a Flow plug-in for MSOffice. I doubt it, but perhaps there will be a demand from Flow developers. da Vinci could of course be configured to produce Flow Documents. At first glance, my assumption would be that the ability to convert native MSOffice documents and allication genrated Flow Documents to CDF+ would be the most important course to take. We''ll see. This is no doubt explosive stuff. Microsoft is truly challenging the W3C for the Web.
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Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views
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“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.”
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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
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5 Things Microsoft Must Do To Reclaim Its Mojo In 2008 -- InformationWeek - 0 views
www.informationweek.com/...showArticle.jhtml
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Instead of fighting standards, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) needs to get on board now more than ever. With open, Web-based office software backed by the likes of IBM (NYSE: IBM) (think Lotus Symphony) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) now a viable option, users—especially businesses frustrated by Microsoft's format follies (many are discovering that OOXML is not even fully backwards-compatible with previous versions of Microsoft Word)--can now easily switch to an online product without having to rip and replace their entire desktop infrastructure.
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This article discusses how Microsoft might change their ways and save the company. This particular quote concerns Microsoft support for standards, and their fight to push MS OOXML through ISO as an alternative to ISO approved ODF 1.0.
The thing is, ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents, of which there are billions. Nor was ODF designed to be implemented by MSOffice. ODF was designed exactly for OpenOffice, which has a differnet model for impementing basic docuemnt structures than MSOffice.
So a couple of points regardign this highlight:
The first is that IBM's Lotus Symphony is NOT Open Source. IBM ripped off the OpenOffice 1.1.4 code base back when it was dual licensed under both SSSL and LGPL. IBM then closed the source code adding a wealth of proprietary eXtensions (think XForms and Lotus Notes connections). Then IBM released the proprietary Symphony as a free alternative to the original Open Source Community "OpenOffice.org".
If Microsoft had similarly ripped off an open source community, there would be hell to pay.
Another point here is the mistaken assumption that users can easily switch from MSOffice to an on-line product like Google Docs or ZOHO "without having to rip our and replace their entire desktop infrastructure."
This is a ridiculous assumption defied by the facts on the ground. Massqchusetts spent two years trying to migrate to ODF and couldn't do it. Every other pilot study known has experienced the same difficulties!
The thing about Web 2.0 alternatives is that these services can not be integrated into existing business processes and MSOffice workgroup bound activities. The collaborative advantages of Web 2.0 alternatives are disruptive and outside existing workflows, greatly marginalizing their usefulness. IF, and that's a big IF, MSOffice plug-ins were successful in the high fidelity round trip conversion of wor
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Microsoft in 2008 could make a bold statement in support of standards by admitting that its attempt to force OOXML on the industry was a mistake and that it will work to develop cross-platform compatibility between that format and the Open Document Format
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It's impossible to harmonize two application specific file formats. The only way to establish an effective compatibility between ODF and OOXML would be to establish a compatibility between OpenOffice and MSOffice.
The problem is that neither ODF or OOXML were developed as generirc file formats. They are both application specific, directly reflecting the particular implementation models of OOo and MSOffice.
Sun and the OASIS ODF TC are not about to compromise OpenOffice feature sets and implmentation methods to improve interop with MSOffice. Sun in particular will protect the innovative features of OpenOffice that are reflected in ODF and stubbornly incompatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents. This fact can easily be proven be any review of the infamous "List Enhancement Proposal" that dominated discussions at the OASIS ODF TC from November of 2006 through May of 2007.
So if Sun and the OASIS ODF TC refuse to make any efforts towards compatibility and imporved interop with MSOffice and the billions of binary docuemnts seekign conversion to ODF, then it falls to Microsoft to alter MSOffice. With 550 million MSOffice desktops involved in workgroup bound business processes, any changes would be costly and disruptive. (Much to the glee of Sun and IBM).
IBM in particular has committed a good amount of resources and money lobbying for government mandates establishing ODF as the accepted format. this would of course result in a massively disruptive and costly rip out and replace of MSOffice.
Such are the politics of ODF.
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OOXML/ODF: Just One Battlefield in a Much Bigger War | Linux Today - 2 views
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If the OOXML format in its current form cannot get made into a true ISO standard, it could lock Microsoft out of any future plays in what could be the biggest IT revolution to date. Here are the pieces of the puzzle that fit together for me:
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"Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time."
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"Structured data." And what's a good way to contain such data? In well-built structured data file format of course. Like, for instance, the Open Document Format (ODF). And who has a vested interest in ODF? IBM certainly does. And so does Sun. And these two companies, along with Google, Microsoft, and I'm sure many others, realize that if cloud computing does indeed take off, then it will be the file format that makes the whole thing work. Which is why Microsoft feels it must get their format standardized. Even with tactics that ironically have started to attract the attention of the EU again. How else can they get a piece of the cloud pie?
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Partly right. The MS plan is actually much bigger than Brian Profitt suggests. The MSOffice 2007 SDK is fille dwith new API's, the most interesting of which are the ones connecting MSOffice to XAML and the Windows Presentation Foundation layer. The killer component though is the OOXML <> fixed/flow translator component with related API's. fixed/flow is a new web format that is 100% proprietary. It's at the heart of the Microsoft cloud, enabling developers to easily transition between OOXML and IE browsers able to serve fixed/flow pages to devices, desktops and just about any kind re purposing publication - content management system imaginable. If ISO approves OOXML, then they've standardized MSOffice as a legitamate Web editor - enterprise publication, content management, archive management front end. Instead of producing W3C compliant (X)HTML - CSS web pages though, the MSOffice Web editor will produce the proprietary fixed/flow format via the OOXML translation component we can now see in the SDK. What we don't see in the MSOffice SDK is the use of W3C technologies such as (X)HTML, CSS, SVG, XForms, SMiL, XSL, XSL-FO. Instead of Mozilla XUL or Adobe Flex, we find XAML and Silverlight. IMHO, Microsoft is making their run for the Web. Key to this run is ISO approval of OOXML. Once that happens, there will be no need for MS product compliance with W3C standards. The break will be complete. The We forever split into the Windows Web, and the Firefox - Apache Tomcat Web. And never the twain shall meet.
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War rages on over Microsoft's OOXML plans: Insight - Software - ZDNet Australia - 0 views
www.zdnet.com.au/...0,139023769,339284737,00.htm
australia cdf interop iso microsoft odf ooxml opendocument
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"We feel that the best standards are open standards," technology industry commentator Colin Jackson, a member of the Technical Advisory committee convened by StandardsNZ to consider OOXML, said at the event. "In that respect Microsoft is to be applauded, as previously this was a secret binary format." Microsoft's opponents suggest, among a host of other concerns, that making Open XML an ISO standard would lock the world's document future to Microsoft. They argue that a standard should only be necessary when there is a "market requirement" for it. IBM spokesperson Paul Robinson thus describes OOXML as a "redundant replacement for other standards". Quoting from the ISO guide, Robinson said that a standard "is a document by a recognised body established by consensus which is aimed at achieving an optimum degree of order and aimed at the promotion of optimum community benefits". It can be argued that rather than provide community benefit, supporting multiple standards actually comes at an economic cost to the user community. "We do not believe OOXML meets these objectives of an international standard," Robinson said.
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"aimed at achieving an optimum degree of order .... and .... aimed at the promotion of optimum community benefits:. Uh, excuse me Mr. Robinson, tha tsecond part of your statement, the one concerning optimum community benefits - that would also disqualify ODF!! ODF was not designed to be compatible with the 550 million MSOffice desktops and their billions of binary docuemnts. Menaing, these 550 million users will suffer considerable loss of information if they try to convert their existing documents to ODF. It is also next to impossible for MSOffice applications to implement ODF as a fiel format due to this incompatbility. ODF was designed for OpenOffice, and directly reflects the way OpenOffice implements specific document structures. The problem areas involve large differences between how OpenOffice implments these structures and how MSOffice implements these same structures. The structures in question are lists, fields, tables, sections and page dynamics. It seems to me that "optimum community benefits" would include the conversion and exchange of docuemnts with some 550 million users!!!! And ODF was clearly not designed for that purpose!
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I don't agree with this statement from Microsoft's Oliver Bell. As someone who served on the OASIS ODF Technical Committee from it's inception in November of 2002 through the next five years, i have to disagree. It's not that Microsoft wasn't welcome. They were. It's that the "welcome" came with some serious strings. Fo rMicrosoft to join OASIS would have meant strolling into the camp of their most erstwhile and determined competitors, and having to ammend an existing standard to accomodate the implementation needs of MSOffice. There is simply no way for the layout differences between OpenOffice and MSOffice to be negotiated short of putting both methodologies into the spec. Meaning, the spec would provide two ways of implementing lists, tables, fields, sections and page dynamics. A true welcome would have been for ODF to have been written to accomodate these diferences. Rather than writing ODF to meet the implementation model used by OepnOffice, it would have been infinitely better to wrtite ODF as a totally application independent file format using generic docuemnt structures tha tcould be adapted by any application. It turns out that this is exactly the way the W3C goes about the business of writing their fiel format specifications (HTML, XHTML, CSS, XFORMS, and CDF). The results are highly interoperable formats that any applciation can implement.
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You can harmonize an application specific format with a generic, applicaiton independent format. But you can't harmonize two application specific formats!!!!
The easy way to solve the document exchange problem is to leave the legacy applications alone, and work on the conversion of OOXML and ODF docuemnts to a single, application independent generic format. The best candidate for this role is that of the W3C's CDF.
CDF is a desription of how to combine existing W3C format standards into a single container. It is meant to succeed HTML on the Web, but has been designed as a universal file format.
The most exciting combination is that of XHTML 2.0 and CSS in that it is capable of handling the complete range of desktop productivity office suite documents. Even though it's slightly outside the W3C reach, the most popular CDF compound is that of XHTML, CSS and JavaScript. A combination otherwise known as "AJAX".
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ODF and OOXML - The Final Act - 0 views
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The format war between Microsoft’s Open Office XML (OOXML) and the open source OpenDocument Format (ODF) has flared up again, right before the looming second OOXML ISO vote in March.
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“ISO has a policy that, wherever possible, there should only be one standard to maximise interoperability and functionality. We have an international standard for digital documentation, ODF,” IBM’s local government programs executive Kaaren Koomen told AustralianIT.
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ODF has garnered some criticism for being a touch limited in scope, however, one of its strengths is that it has already been accepted as a worldwide ISO standard. Microsoft’s format on the other hand, has been criticised for being partially proprietary, and even a sly attempt by the software giant to hedge its bets and get in on open standards while keeping as many customers locked into its solutions as possible.
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A "touch limited in scope"? Youv'e got to be kidding. ODF was not defined to be compatible with the billions of MSOffice binary (BIN) documents. Nor was it designed to further interoperability with MSOffice.
Given that there are over 550 million MSOffice desktops, representing upwards of 95% of all desktop productivity environments, this discrepancy of design would seem to be a bit more than a touch limited in scope!
Many would claim that this limitation was due to to factors: first that Microsoft refused to join the OASIS ODF TC, which would have resulted in an expanded ODF designed to meet the interoperability needs of the great herd of 550 million users; and second, that Microsoft refused to release the secret binary blueprints.
Since it turns out that both IBM and Sun have had access to the secret binary blueprints since early 2006, and in the two years since have done nothing to imptove ODF interop and conversion fidelity, this second claim doesn't seem to hold much water.
The first claim that Microsoft didn't participate in the OASIS ODF process is a bit more interesting. If you go back to the first OASIS ODF Technical Committee meeting, December 16th, 2002, you'll find that there was a proposal to ammend the proposed charter to include the statemnt that ODF (then known as Open Office XML) be compatible with existing file formats, including those of MSOffice. The "MSOffice" reference was of course not included because ODF sought to be application, platform and vendor independent. But make no mistake, the discussion that day in 2002 was about compatibility and the conversion of the legacy BIN's into ODF.
The proposal to ammend the charter was tabled. Sun objected, claiming that people would interpret the statement as a direct reference to the BIN's, clouding the charter's purpose of application, platform and vendor independence. They proposed that the charter ammendment b -
Will harmonization work? I don't think so. The problem is that the DIN group is trying to harmonize two application specific formats. OpenOffice has one way of implementing basic document structures, and MSOffice another. These differences are directly reflected in the related formats, ODF and OOXML. Any attempts to harmonize ODF and OOXML will require that the applications, OpenOffice and MSOffice, be harmonized! There is no other way of doing this unless the harmonized spec has two different methods for implementing basic structures like lists, tables, fields, sections and page dynamics. Not to mention the problems of feature disparities. If the harmonized spec has two different implementation models for basic structures, interoeprability will suffer enormously. And interoperability is after all the prupose of the standardization effort. That brings us to a difficult compromise. Should OpenOffice compromise it's "innovative" features and methods in favor of greater interoperability with MSOffice and billions of binary documents? Let me see, 100 million OpenOffice installs vs. 550 MSOffice installs bound to workgroup-workflow business processes - many of which are critical to day to day business operations? Sun and IBM have provided the anser to this question. They are not about to compromise on OpenOffice innovation! They believe that since their applications are free, the cost of ODF mandated "rip out and replace" is adequately offset. Events in Massachusetts prove otherwise! On July 2nd, 2007, Sun delivered to Massachusetts the final version of their ODF plug-in for MSOffice. That night, after reviewing and testing the 135 critical documents, Massachusetts made a major change to their ETRM web site. They ammended the ETRM to fully recognize OOXML as an acceptable format standard going forward. The Massachusetts decision to overturn th
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The Burton Group did not recommend that ISO recognize OOXML as a standard! They pointed out that the marketplace is going to implement OOXML by default simply because it's impossible to implement ODF in situations where MSOffice dominates. ISO should not go down the slippery slope of recognizing application-platform-vendor specific standards. They already made that mistake with ODF, and recognizing OOXML is hardly the fix. What ISO should be doign is demanding that ODF fully conform with ISO Interoeprability Requirements, as identified in the May 2006 directive! Forget OOXML. Clean up ODF first.
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Correcto mundo! There should be only one standard to maximise interoeprability and functionality. But ODF is application specific to the way OpenOffice works. It was not designed from a clean slate. Nor was the original 2002 OpenOffice XML spec designed as an open source effort! Check the OOo source code if you doubt this claim. The ONLY contributors to Open Office XML were Sun employees! What the world needs is in fact a format standard designed to maximise interoperability and functionality. This requires a total application-platofrm-vendor independence that neither ODF or OOXML can claim. The only format that meets these requirements is the W3C's family of HTML-XML formats. These include advancing Compound Docuemnt Framework format components such as (X)HTML-5, CSS-3, XForms, SVG and SMiL.. The W3C's CDF does in fact meet the markeplace needs of a universal format that is open, unencumbered and totally application, platform and vendor independent. The only trick left for CDF is proving that legacy desktop applications can actually implement conversions from existing in-memory-binary-representations to CDF without loss of information.
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Vista and Office 2007 spin tales from the Underground | Channel Register - 0 views
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Firstly it is a back end to what most people would traditionally think of as "Microsoft Office", i.e. the suite of desktop tools (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and so on). In this respect, it acts as a hub for collaboration, document storage/sharing, search and a range of other functions. However, SharePoint can also be used independently of the Office desktop components as a very respectable and capable portal environment for serving up either native .Net or composite applications to users through a browser.
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Excellent article about Vista and MSOffice "System" 2007 as development platforms. The author provides one of the better explanations of how MSOffice 2007 and SharePoint "Hub" are connected and joined at the hip. Hey, i invented tha tterm "Hub"! Or so i thought. I guess some things are just obvious.
My use of the term "Hub" to describe an XML turnstile where backend information meges with portal interfaces, email, messaging, and document storage/collaboration goes back to the 2003 "Sales and Inventory" management system prototype we built for Comcast. Desktops connect to the hub through XML documents, XForms and Jabber XMPP data binding, and browsers. Great stuff - the way SOA should be done!
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Is ODF designed to be not implementable without source code? - Wouter - 0 views
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How come I am the one to notice how deficient ODF really is?
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Exactly! It's not that ODF is under-specified. It's that ODF can't be fully specified until OpenOffice is completely documented and capable of supporting expected features. There is this famous quote from Sun's Svante Schubert that pretty much says it all; "Nothing goes into the ODF specification unless it's supported by OpenOffice". The statement was made at a meeting of the OASIS ODF Metadata SC while discussing the controversial use of "XML ID". IBM's Elias Torres, of RDFa fame, was passionately arguing that use of the XML ID should be left open to all developers. Sun had taken the position that XML ID should be limited to only a handful of elements supported by OpenOffice. The discussion acutally got far worse than the quote would indicate. Elias compromised his arguments suggesting that we should allow developers to have at it with XML ID for at least one year, and then revisit the issue. This suggestion lead to a discussion of how developers implementing elements with metadata would notify the metadata sub committee of their use case. A discussion list was proposed. The idea being that developers would send in their use cases and the oligarchs on the sub c would approve or disprove. Incredibly, this suggestions was shot down by Bruce d'Arcus (OpenDocument Foundation). Bruce thought that any developer needing metadata support for particular elements should have to join the OASIS ODF Metadata SC like everyone else before their needs would be considered. ( i.e. - like the other oligarchs). At the next weeks meeting, Rob Weir showed up with a list of 14 spreadsheet related elements that IBM needed XML ID support for. Sun representatives Svante Schubert and Michael Brauer immediately approved the use, agreeing that OpenOffice would support that implementation. This how things work at OASIS ODF. Ever wonder why SVG or XForms support in ODF is so limited? It's because the specification directly reflects the limits of the OpenOffice implement
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Sorry. Diigo cut my comment off about half way through. I've complained to Wade and Maggie about this problem, especially how it impacts and cripples the "Group Auto-Blog Post" feature . Months have gone by. Yet still the issue remains.