Skip to main content

Home/ OpenDocument/ Group items tagged IT

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Jesper Lund Stocholm

Alex Brown on the ODF Zero Interop problem: The discussion to limit the use of Foreign ... - 0 views

lists.oasis-open.org/...msg00009.html

odf interop alex-brown

shared by Jesper Lund Stocholm on 09 Mar 09 - Cached
  • So I think users need to understand, very clearly, that an ODF document/app of *either* conformance class has an EXTREMELY WEAK CLAIM TO INTEROPERABILITY. The "pure ODF conformance" sticker would be at best valueless and at worst positively misleading. So what I'd like to see is some real effort from the TC going into resolving this problem ...
    • Jesper Lund Stocholm
      Jesper Lund Stocholm on 22 Mar 09
       
      The sad thing is that with the agreement between JTC1 and OASIS regarding ODF, it seems that SC34 has been completely cut out of the loop in terms of "fixing ODF", as you put it. I cannot see how SC34 will be able to play any part in this - besides rubber-stamping ODF 1.2 when it comes our way.
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Mar 09
     
    So I think users need to understand, very clearly, that an ODF document/app of *either* conformance class has an EXTREMELY WEAK CLAIM TO INTEROPERABILITY. The "pure ODF conformance" sticker would be at best valueless and at worst positively misleading. So what I'd like to see is some real effort from the TC going into resolving this problem ... Alex Brown What Alex fails to mention is that the "foreign elements and alien attributes" components in the ODF Section 1.5 "Compliance and Conformance" clause was originally put there in early 2003 to provide a compatibility layer for MSOffice binary documents. Without this clause, it would be impossible to convert the billions of legacy MSOffice binary documents to ODF without breaking the fidelity. Now th OASIS ODF TC wants to limit the use of the compatiblity clause. An action that would seriously cripple Microsoft's efforts to implement ODF in MSOffice 14. No surprises here. It was only a matter of time until IBM and Sun ganged up on the newest TC member, Microsoft.
  • Jesper Lund Stocholm on 22 Mar 09
     
    So I think users need to understand, very clearly, that an ODF document/app of *either* conformance class has an EXTREMELY WEAK CLAIM TO INTEROPERABILITY. The "pure ODF conformance" sticker would be at best valueless and at worst positively misleading. So what I'd like to see is some real effort from the TC going into resolving this problem ... Alex Brown What Alex fails to mention is that the "foreign elements and alien attributes" components in the ODF Section 1.5 "Compliance and Conformance" clause was originally put there in early 2003 to provide a compatibility layer for MSOffice binary documents. Without this clause, it would be impossible to convert the billions of legacy MSOffice binary documents to ODF without breaking the fidelity. Now th OASIS ODF TC wants to limit the use of the compatiblity clause. An action that would seriously cripple Microsoft's efforts to implement ODF in MSOffice 14. No surprises here. It was only a matter of time until IBM and Sun ganged up on the newest TC member, Microsoft.
Paul Merrell

OpenOffice.org business manager John McCresh on ODF support in MS Office - 0 views

www.mealldubh.org

interop microsoft msoffice odf

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 08 - Cached
  • There was a certain inevitability that Microsoft would be forced to bow to market pressures and announce its acceptance of ODF. However, Microsoft’s traditional approach to standards has been characterised as Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - i.e. attempt to claim ownership and take control of a standard through abuse of its near monopoly position. Proponents of ODF need to defend against this by setting up independent testing for software conformance with the standard. The testing needs to be accessible not just to the Suns and IBMs of this world - but also the KOffices. While proponents of ODF are celebrating that a victory has been won, it is more likely that the real battle is only just beginning.
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 23 May 08
       
      One might reasonably wonder how one would go about building further tools to test for conformance with a standard that has almost no mandatory conformance requirements other than validation against the schema after all foreign elements and attributes (application-specific extensions) are removed. The validation tool specified pre-existed ODF. Methinks that the world verges on learning that ODF is a standard in name only and that ODF interoperability is a complete and utter myth no more accurate than the corresponding myth of OOXML interoperability that was thoroughly debunked long before OOXML became an international standard.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 May 08
     
    There was a certain inevitability that Microsoft would be forced to bow to market pressures and announce its acceptance of ODF. However, Microsoft's traditional approach to standards has been characterised as Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - i.e. attempt to claim ownership and take control of a standard through abuse of its near monopoly position. Proponents of ODF need to defend against this by setting up independent testing for software conformance with the standard. The testing needs to be accessible not just to the Suns and IBMs of this world - but also the KOffices. While proponents of ODF are celebrating that a victory has been won, it is more likely that the real battle is only just beginning.
Gary Edwards

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Mapping documents in the binary format (.doc; .xls; .pp... - 0 views

blogs.msdn.com/...pt-to-the-open-xml-format.aspx

burtongroup cdf css ibm iso microsoft odf okelly ooxml opendocument openxml sun w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • The second issue we had feedback on was an interest in the mapping from the binary formats into the Open XML formats. The thought here was that the most effective way to help people with this was to create an open source translation project to allow binary documents (.doc; .xls; .ppt) to be translated into Open XML. So we proposed the creation of a new open source project that would map a document written using the legacy binary formats to the Open XML formats. TC45 liked this suggestion, and here was the TC45 response to the national body comments: We believe that Interoperability between applications conforming to DIS 29500 is established at the Office Open XML-to- Office Open XML file construct level only.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
       
      And here i was betting that the blueprints to the secret binaries would be released the weekend before the September 2nd, 2007 ISO vote on OOXML! Looks like Microsoft saved the move for when they really had to use it; jus tweeks before the February ISO Ballot Resolution Meetings set to resolve the Sept 2nd issues. The truth is that years of reverse engineering have depleted the value of keeping the binary blueprints secret. It's true that interoperability with MSOffice in the past was near entirely dependent on understanding the secret binaries. Today however, with the rapid emergence of the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaught, interop with MSOffice is no longer the core issue. Now we have to compete with E/S, and it is the E/S interfaces, protocols and document API's and dependencies tha tmust be reverse engineered. The E/S juggernaught is now surging to 70% or more of the market. These near monopoly levels of market penetration is game changing. One must reverse engineer or license the .NET libraries to crack the interop problem. And this time it's not just MSOffice. Today one must crack into the MS Stack whose core is tha tof MSOffice <> E/S. So why not release the secret binary blueprints? If that's the cost of getting the application, platform and vendor specific OOXML through ISO, then it's a small price to pay for your own international standard.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
     
    Well well well. We knew that IBM had access to the secret binary blueprints back in 2006. Now we know that Sun ALSO had access!
    And why is this important? In June of 2006, Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez asked the OpenDocument Foundation's da Vinci Group to work with IBM on developing the da Vinci ODF plug-in clone of Microsoft's OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in. When we met with IBM they were insistent that the only way OASIS ODF could establish sufficient compatibility with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents would be to have the secret blueprints open.
    Even after we explained to IBM that da Vinci uses the same internal conversion process that the OOXML plug-in used to convert binaries, IBM continued to insist that opening up the secret binaries was a primary objective of the OASIS ODF community.
    For sure this was important to IBM and Sun, but the secret binaries were of no use to us. da Vinci didn't need them. What da Vinci needed instead was a subset of ODF designed for the conversion of those billions of binary documents! A need opposed by Sun.
    Sun of course would spend the next year developing their own ODF plug-in for MSOffice. But here's the thing: it turns out that Sun had complete access to the secret binary blueprints dating back to 2006!!!!!!
    So even though IBM and Sun have had access to the blueprints since 2006, they have been unable to provide effective conversions to ODF!
    This validates a point the da Vinci group has been trying to make since June of 2006: the problem of perfecting a high fidelity conversion between the billions of binaries and ODF has nothing to do with access to the secret binary blueprints. The real issue is that ODF was NOT designed for the conversion of those binary documents.
    It is true that one could eXtend ODF to achieve the needed compatibility. But one has to be very careful before taking this ro
Gary Edwards

Harmonization Wars : Is it jetlag? | Brian Jones: Open XML- Open Document Formats - 0 views

blogs.msdn.com/...is-it-jetlag.aspx

harmonization jones odf ooxml opendocument openxml weir

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Feb 08 - Cached
  • if you actually read the Ecma response, you'll see that TC45's position is actually quite the opposite. Harmonization is not as simple as just adding a few tags here and there. It's going to be a lot of hard work, and the German Standard Body (DIN) is already working on the first step, which is to identify the differences. This isn't something to take lightly. Here is Ecma's full response to this issue (emphasis added): There are currently several XML-based document formats in use, each designed to address a different set of goals or requirements. These include ISO/IEC IS 26300 (ODF), China's UOF, and ECMA-376 (DIS 29500 – Open XML). All these formats have numerous implementations in multiple tools and multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac OS, hand-held devices). The Ecma Response Document from the Fast Track 30-Day contradiction phase for DIS29500 addressed the question of harmonization by explaining the differences between the ODF and Open XML formats as follows:
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Feb 08
     
    Brian Jones responds to Rob Weir's very strange demand that he be put in charge of any harmonization effort involving ODF and OOXML.
    In his response, Brian points to the Ecma official statement in support of harmonization provided in February of 2007. The harmonization response was directed at ISO National Body members objecting to the proposed fast tracking of OOXML.
    In late February -early March of 2007, the EU held an "interoeprability Workshop" in Berlin, Germany.The session was attended by IBM, Sun and Microsoft, as well as Ecma and OASIS.
    The EU took a very hard line position on "harmonization", embracing a position put forward by the French ISO NB group known as AFNOR. The WorkShop was followed by the EU establishment of DIN Workgroup NIA-01-34, headed by the Fraunhoffer Fokus Institute.
    The DIN WG sent out invites to all the major players, with Microsoft and Novell accepting the invitation to particpate in the harmonizatioon effort. IBM and Sun refused the invitation.
    Recently DIN invited the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to join the harmonization effort. The OASIS TC responded by asking Novell developer (and DIN participant) Florian Reuter to act as liaison to DIN. ODF grand puba Rob Weir himself put forward this request.
    Here's the thread: http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200801/msg00040.html
    Now it looks like the grand puba is backtracking! Rob Weir wants to put himself in charge of harmonization. And we all know where that would lead.
    Harmonization will be difficult. It might even be impossible. As indicated by the Ecma statement Brian copiies in his post.
    The dynamics of harmonization are fairly simple to understand; you can't harmonize two application specific formats without also harmonizing the applications. This problem is further complicated by the fact that the presentation layers (styles) of both ODF
Gary Edwards

ODF and OOXML - The Final Act - 0 views

www.idm.net.au/story.asp

din fraunhofer harmonization iso odf ooxml opendocument openxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08 - Cached
  • 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.
  • “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.
  • 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.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
       
      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
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
       
      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
  • ...1 more annotation...
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
       
      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.
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
     
    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.
Gary Edwards

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

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

burtongorup cdf css garyedwards maryjo odf okelly ooxml w3c xhtml

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

OOXML: MSOffice Open XML - Where The Rubber Meets The Road | Matusow's Blog - 0 views

blogs.msdn.com/...the-rubber-meets-the-road.aspx

iso matusow msoffice ooxml open-standards

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Apr 08 - Cached
  • There can be no doubt that OOXML, as a standard, has severe flaws. &nbsp; It is incomplete, platform specific, application specific, full of contradictions, fails to adhere to existing standards, untestable, and presents a moving target for any IT worker. &nbsp;There is not an organization in existence, including Microsoft, that promises to actually implement the full standard. &nbsp;Much of this is due to the fact the final version doesn't actually exist on paper yet, but a large fraction is also do to the patchwork nature of the product. The reason governments and companies wanted a 'office apps' standard in the first place was to release an avalanche of data from aging applications. &nbsp;OOXML shows every appearance of being created to prevent this escape, not enable it. &nbsp; The immaturity of the standard means that it remains a gamble to see if older documents will remain readable or not. &nbsp;The lack of testing means there is no way to determine what docs actually adhere to it or not. &nbsp;The ignoring of existing standards guarantees compatibility problems. &nbsp;All of these factors are handy for the owner of the biggest share of existing documents, as it forces users to continue to use only _their_ application or risk danger from every other quarter.
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Apr 08
     
    Perhaps the single best comment i've ever read concerning OOXML and the value of standards. Very concise and too the point. Thanks you Scott B!
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Apr 08
     
    ISO NB's approved MS-OOXML not because it meets ISO Interoperability Requirements. It doesn't. OOXML doesn't even come close. They approved OOXML because it's the best deal they can get given the MSOffice predicament their governments are caught in. Governments got the binary blueprints they have been insisting on, but didn't get the mapping of those binaries to OOXML. Governemnts also took control of OOXML, with Patrick Durusau and the JTC-1 now in copmplete control of the specifications future. Sadly though, Durusau and company will not be able to make the interop changes they know are required by ISO and related World Trade Agreements. The OOXML charter prevents any changes that would degrade in any way compatibility with MSOffice! This charter lock was on full display in the Microsoft - Ecma response to Geneva BRM comment resolutions, with Microsoft refusing to address any comments that would alter compliance with MSOffice. Durusau has always believed that a one to one mapping between OOXML and ODF is possible. Just prior to the Geneva BRM though, the EU DIN Workgroup released their preliminary report on harmonization, which they found to be a next to impossible task given the applicaiton specific nature of both ODF and OOXML. The DIN Report no doubt left the mapping-harmonization crowd (lead by Durusau) with few choices other than to take control of OOXML and figure out the binary to OOXML mappings for themselves, wih the hope that somewhere down the road OpenOffice will provide OOXML documents. Meaning, governments are not looking at open standards for XML documents as much as they are looking to crack the economic hammer lock Microsoft has on the desktop.
Gary Edwards

CDF: The common format you've never heard of - O'Reilly XML Blog - Flock - 0 views

www.oreillynet.com/...he_common_format_youve_ne.html

cdf odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Quick! Do you use the Compound Document Format?! You, know, CDF … surely you use CDF, right? Chances are pretty good that you have no idea about what I’m talking about. Everyone knows Microsoft’s word document format and Adobe’s PDF, chances are pretty good that if you’re reading this on XML.com you’ve heard of ODF and OOXML, especially after the fairly rancorous discussions about ISO status for these two formats. Yet CDF, hmmmm … that’s a rough one. Didn’t it belong to Corel, once upon a time?
  • CDF was in the news recently with the implosion of the Open Document Foundation, originally established to endorse ODF, though in its death throes it briefly highlighted the CDF format as perhaps a better format for documents than either OOXML or ODF. This is admittedly one of those areas where it may be justified in looking at XHTML especially and going “huh”? How can that be a full document format - it’s used for web pages, after all - you wouldn’t want to use it to mark up a full book, would you? Document formats are a lot like religions - people are ready to defend them to the death if need be, yet at the same time it becomes easy to dismiss certain religions that don’t even seem to be religions at all (such as my personal favorite, the rather philosophical Tao). Could you mock up a brochure in XHTML and CSS? Actually, it turns out that its surprisingly easy to do just that - especially if you throw a little SVG into the mix and allow the possibility of embedding XHTML within SVG (for all those odd little bits of rotation and other special effects).
Gary Edwards

Behind Putting the OpenDocument Foundation to Bed (without its supper) : Updegroove | L... - 0 views

linux-foundation.org/...tion-to-bed-without-its-supper

cdf foundation marbux odf ooxml updegrove

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 May 08 - Cached
  • CDF is one of the very many useful projects that W3C has been laboring on, but not one that you would have been likely to have heard much about. Until recently, that is, when Gary Edwards, Sam Hiser and Marbux, the management (and perhaps sole remaining members) of the OpenDocument Foundation decided that CDF was the answer to all of the problems that ODF was designed to address. This announcement gave rise to a flurry of press attention that Sam Hiser has collected here. As others (such as Rob Weir) have already documented, these articles gave the OpenDocument Foundation’s position far more attention than it deserved. The most astonishing piece was written by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. Early on in her article she stated that, “the ODF camp might unravel before Microsoft’s rival Office Open XML (OOXML) comes up for final international standardization vote early next year.” All because Gary, Sam and Marbux have decided that ODF does not meet their needs. Astonishing indeed, given that there is no available evidence to support such a prediction.
  • Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
     
    Uh?  The ODF failure in Massachusetts doesn't count as evidence that ODF was not designed to be compatible with existing MS documents or interoperable with existing MSOffice applications?

    And it's not just the da Vinci plug-in that failed to implement ODF in Massachusetts!  Nine months later Sun delivered their ODF plug-in for MSOffice to Massachusetts.  The next day, Massachusetts threw in the towel, officially recognizing MS-OOXML (and the MS-OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in) as a standard format for the future.

    Worse, the Massachusetts recognition of MS-OOXML came just weeks before the September 2nd ISO vote on MS-OOXML.  Why not wait a few more weeks?  After all, Massachusetts had conducted a year long pilot study to implement ODF using ODF desktop office sutie alternatives to MSOffice.  Not only did the rip out and replace approach fail, but they were also unable to integrate OpenOffice ODF desktops into existing MSOffice bound workgroups.

    The year long pilot study was followed by another year long effort trying to implement ODF using the plug-in approach.  That too failed with Sun's ODF plug-in the final candidate to prove the difficulty of implementing ODF in situations where MSOffice workgroups dominate.

    California and the EU-IDABC were closely watching the events in Massachusetts, as was most every CIO in government and private enterprise.  Reasoning that if Massachusetts was unable to implement ODF, California CIO's totally refused IBM and Sun's effort to get a pilot study underway.

    Across the pond, in the aftermath of Massachusetts CIO Louis Guiterrez resignation on October 4th, 2006, the EU-IDABC set about developing their own file format, ODEF.  The Open Document Exchange Format splashed into the public discussion on February 28th, 2007 at the "Open Document Exchange Workshop" held in Berlin, Germany.

    Meanwhile, the Sun ODF plug-in is fl
  • Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
     
    Marbux sets the record straight. These are the facts: Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper) ..... http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/4
  • Gary Edwards on 30 May 08
     
    Response from the OpenDocument Foundation setting the record straight. See "copmments" with this bookmark
Gary Edwards

Govt on ODF: Looks good, is bad « the spike - 0 views

ivo.co.za/...government-odf-standard

odf

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 07 - Cached
  • This strikes me as a very badly misguided definition. Not even Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, believes software must be “free” as in “free beer” (though if it is, all the better, of course). Yet the government’s specification is full of references to “non-commercial”, “free of cost” and “without any royalties”. It is, of course, perfectly within its rights to specify a functional requirement for an open standard. But demanding that it is free, that it is maintained by a non-commercial organisation, that all intellectual property is given away for free, is going way beyond any reasonable, functional definition of “open standard”. It excludes any supplier that provides software conforming to perfectly open, accessible, and functionally satisfactory standards, but does so for a fee. It might even end up excluding all those open source developers who spent their twenties toiling away for free in the vain hope that one day, they’d get to pay for their sports cars and luxury homes from support revenue.
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 07
     
    Interesting observation about South Africa and their "free as in beer" software requirements.  This governement attitude towards open source is far more wide spread than commonly thought.  One would have hoped that interoperability and open standards were also part of the FOSS equation, but it looks like zero cost is the primary driver.
Gary Edwards

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

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07 - Cached
  • "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.
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07
     
    "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!
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07
     
    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.
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07
     
    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".
Gary Edwards

Is ODF the new RTF or the new .DOC? Can it be both? Do we need either? - O'Reilly Broad... - 0 views

broadcast.oreilly.com/...ocument-file-format-lands.html

odf ooxml html-css-svg

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Unless governments and other stakeholders can get beyond the narrow view of documents and interoperability as merely being exchanging data from one similar application to another, and move towards the view that documents and web resources need to be end points on the same interoperable spectrum, we are selling ourselves short. It is here that standards bodies should be more help: but I don't know that they can be unless there is a stronger commitment to supporting each others' visions better. W3C's mission statement is concerned with bringing the web to its full potential, and W3C have traditionally used this to justify shying away from old-fashioned compound file-based issues: the lack of standards for the *SP (JSP, ASP, PHP) class of documents is a symptom of this, and it is notable that much of XML's uptake came because it did take care of practical production issues (i.e. issues pertaining to the document as it existed before being made available as a resource —PIs and entities—and after it had been retrieved—character encodings.) The industry consortia such as ECMA and OASIS are organized around interest groups on particular standards, which makes it easy to fob off discussion of interoperability. And even ISO, where the availability are topic-based working groups with very broad interests should provide a more workable home for this kind of effort, have a strong disinclination to seek out work that involves liaison with other standards groups: satisfying two sets of procedures and fitting in with two sets of deadlines and timetables can be impractical and disenfranchising for volunteers and small-business/academic experts.
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Oct 08
     
    Jon Bosak, who founded the XML and ODF efforts among many other achievements, recently wrote an article concerning the position of ODF, Open XML and PDF Jon's public writings are rare, well-considered and always of interest. As with other Sun-affiliated people in recent times, Jon has been exemplary in that even though he has a side, he does not take sides. I think I can agree with much of what he says, though I would note Don't forget about HTML.
Gary Edwards

OOXML is defective by design: Follow up on Microsoft latest bullshit announcement - 1 views

ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/...microsoft-latest-bullshit.html

iso odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 08 - Cached
  • Microsoft has won. They wanted the ISO timestamp. They got it. They needed it since governments (and the EU) want such thing for documents now.
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 08
     
    Stephane Rodriquez sums it up: Microsoft has won ... "Future of OOXML? There are two answers. Frankly, who freaking cares the paper? This paper will ALWAYS be at odds with the actual Office implementation. We have a good example for the time being, but it has always been the case. What about the actual file format then? It will be the subject of reverse engineering from implementers whose only recourse is to catch up all the undocumented stuff. Make no mistake though, now it's about applications, not documents anymore." "Conclusion : if you are still in the OOXML conspiracy game, about time to move on guys. "
Gary Edwards

EU's Kroes says further technology antitrust abuse cases pending UPDATE - Forbes.com - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...afx5098515.html

antitrust eu interop kroes odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Jun 08 - Cached
  • The commission said that as part of its antitrust investigation into interoperability with Microsoft Office it will investigate whether the announced support of ODF in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice. Kroes said on Tuesday that the commission keeps a close eye on interoperability and said the market should have the right balance of non-propriety and propriety standards. 'Standards are the foundation of interoperability'. 'Standards may, of course, be proprietary or non-proprietary. Much excellent technical development has been driven by non-proprietary standards - the internet is awash with acronyms for non-proprietary standards: HTTP, HTML and XML'.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Jun 08
     
    I wonder if the EU is aware that there is no such thing as ODF Interoperability? After more than five years of working side by side with Sun on the OASIS ODF TC, there is zero interop between KOffice ODF and OpenOffice ODF! How is it that Microsoft's joining the ODF TC somehow results in a level of application interop that has eluded and defied the efforts of two supposedly open source applications? The truth is that OpenOffice-ODF and MSOffice-OOXMl are both based on an XML encoding of the application specific binary dump. The content layers are easily exchanged with other applications, but presentation continues to defy any kind of interop. Especially what the EU expects. Check out the quotes: " The commission said that as part of its antitrust investigation into interoperability with Microsoft Office it will investigate whether the announced support of ODF in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice. "Kroes said on Tuesday that the commission keeps a close eye on interoperability and said the market should have the right balance of non-propriety and propriety standards. 'Standards are the foundation of interoperability'. 'Standards may, of course, be proprietary or non-proprietary. Much excellent technical development has been driven by non-proprietary standards - the internet is awash with acronyms for non-proprietary standards: HTTP, HTML and XML'.
Paul Merrell

What is Boxcryptor | Easy to use encryption for cloud storage | boxcryptor.com - 1 views

www.boxcryptor.com/boxcryptor

cloud security end-to-end-encryption

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Boxcryptor is an easy-to-use encryption software optimized for the cloud. It allows the secure use of cloud storage services without sacrificing comfort. Boxcryptor supports all major cloud storage providers (such as&nbsp;Dropbox,&nbsp;Google Drive,&nbsp;Microsoft OneDrive,&nbsp;SugarSync)&nbsp;and supports all the clouds that use the WebDAV standard (such as Cubby, Strato HiDrive, and ownCloud). With Boxcryptor your files go protected to your cloud provider and you can enjoy peace of mind knowing that your information cannot fall into the wrong hands. Here is how it works: Boxcryptor creates a virtual drive on your computer that allows you to encrypt your files locally before uploading them to your cloud or clouds of choice. It encrypts individual files - and does not create containers. Any file dropped into an encrypted folder within the Boxcryptor drive will get automatically encrypted before it is synced to the cloud. To protect your files, Boxcryptor uses the AES-256 and RSA encryption algorithms.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15
     
    Free for personal use. I haven't tried this yet, but the need for it has been near the top of my head since I first tried Dropbox and then realized how insecure it was. I tried a lot of sync services, but am now using Wuala, which features end-to-end encryption baked into the client software. But I also use MEGAsync for remote backup so I'[ll probably be trying this out with that service. I hope there's a way to sync the two programs.
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: Operation Tomahawk The Caliph - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...MID-01-240914.html

war & peace Syria ISIL al-Nusra Israel U.S.-foreign-policy Khorasan

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • The Tomahawks are finally flying again - propelled by newspeak. 42 Tomahawks fired from a Sixth Fleet destroyer parked in Mare Nostrum, plus F-22s raising hell and Hellfires spouted by drones, that's a neat mini-Shock and Awe to honor Caliph Ibrahim, aka Abu Bakr al -Baghdadi, self-declared leader of Islamic State. It's all so surgical. All targets - from "suspected" weapons depots to the mayor's mansion in Raqqah (the HQ of The Caliph's goons) and assorted checkpoints - were duly obliterated, along with "dozens of", perhaps 120, jihadis. And praise those "over 40" (Samantha Power) or "over 50" (John Kerry) international allies in the coalition of the unwilling; America is never alone, although in this case mightily escorted, de facto, only by the usual Gulf petrodollar dictatorships and the realm of &lt;a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&amp;amp;cb=%n' target='_blank'&gt;&lt;img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&amp;amp;cb=%n&amp;amp;n=a9473bc7&amp;amp;ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' &gt;&lt;/a&gt; King Playstation, Jordan, all none too keen to engage in "kinetic activities".
  • Aseptic newspeak aside, no one has seen or heard a mighty Gulf Cooperation Council air force deployed to bomb Syria. After all the vassals are scared as hell to tell their own populations they are - once again - bombing a fellow Arab nation. As for Damascus, it meekly said it was "notified" by the Pentagon its own territory would be bombed. Nobody really knows what the Pentagon is exactly telling Damascus. The Pentagon calls it just the beginning of a "sustained campaign" - code for Long War, which is one of the original denominations of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) anyway. And yes, for all practical purposes this is a coalition of one. Let's call it Operation Tomahawk The Caliph.
  • Hold your F-22s. Not really. The tomahawking had barely begun when an Israeli, made in USA Patriot missile shot a Syrian Su-24 which had allegedly "violated" Israeli air space over the Golan Heights. How about that in terms of sending a graphic message in close coordination with the Pentagon? So this is not only about bombing The Caliph. It is a back-door preamble to bombing Bashar al-Assad and his forces. And also about bombing - with eight strikes west of Aleppo - a ghost; an al-Qaeda cell of the mysterious Khorasan group. No wonder global fans of the Marvel Comics school of geopolitics are puzzled. Two simultaneous villains? Yep. And the other bad guy is even more evil than The Caliph.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Astonishing mediocrity Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, has defined Khorasan as "a group of extremists that is comprised of a number of individuals who we've been tracking for a long time." The Obama administration's unison newspeak is that Khorasan includes former al-Qaeda assets not only from across the Middle East - including al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra - but also Pakistan, as in an ultra-hardcore extension of the Pakistani Taliban.
  • What a mess. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the embryo of ISIS, which turned into IS. Jabhat al-Nusra is the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, approved by CEO Ayman al-Zawahiri. Both despise each other, and yet Khorasan holds the merit of bundling Caliph's goons and al-Qaeda goons together. Additionally, for Washington Jabhat al-Nusra tend to qualify as "moderate" jihadis - almost like "our bastards". Too messy? No problem; when in doubt, bomb everybody. The Caliph, then, is old news. Those ghostly Khorasan goons are the real deal - so evil that the Pentagon is convinced their "plotting was imminent" leading to a new 9/11.
  • Khorasan is the perfect ghost in the GWOT machine; the target of a war within a war. Because Obama in fact launched two wars - as he sent two different notifications to Congress under the War Powers Resolution to cover both The Caliph and Khorasan. And what's in a name? Well, a thinly disguised extra demonization of Iran, why not - as historic Khorasan, the previous Parthia, stretched from mainly Iran towards Afghanistan. Khorasan is theoretically led by The Joker, sorry, al-Qaeda honcho Muhsin al-Fadhli, born in Kuwait in 1981, a "senior facilitator and financier" to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, in the priceless assessment of the State Department. Although Ayman al-Zawahiri, ever PR-conscious, has not claimed the credit, the Pentagon is convinced he sent al-Fadhli to the Syrian part of the Caliphate to attract Western jihadis with EU passports capable of evading airport security and plant bombs on commercial jets.
  • The Treasury Department is convinced al-Fadhli even led an al-Qaeda cell in Iran - demonization habits die hard -, "facilitating" jihadi travel to Afghanistan or Iraq. And what a neat contrast to the Society of the Spectacle-addicted Caliph. Khorasan is pure darkness. Nobody knows how many; how long they've existed; what do they really want. By contrast, there are about 190,000 live human beings left in bombed out Raqqa. Nobody is talking about collateral damage - although the body count is already on, and The Caliph's slick PR operation will be certainly advertising them on YouTube. As for The Caliph's goons, they will predictably use Mao tactics and dissolve like fish in the sea. The Pentagon will soon be bombing vast tracts of desert for nothing - if that's not the case already. There is no "Free Syrian Army" - that Qatari myth - anymore. There are no "moderate" jihadis left in Syria. They are all fighting for The Caliph or for al-Zawahiri. And still the Obama administration extracted a Congressional OK to train and weaponize "moderate rebels".
  • US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power - Undisputed Queen of Batshit Craziness - at least got one thing right. Their "training" will "service these troops in the same struggle that they've been in since the beginning of this conflict against the Assad regime." So yes - this "sustained campaign" is the back door to "Assad must go" remixed. People who are really capable of defeating The Caliph's goons don't tomahawk. They are the Syrian Arab Army (roughly 35,000 dead so far killed in action against ISIS/ISIL/IS and/or al-Qaeda); Hezbollah; Iranian Revolutionary Guards advisers/operatives; and Kurdish militias. It won't happen. This season's blockbuster is the Empire of Chaos bombing The Caliph and the ghost in the GWOT machine. Two tickets for the price of one. Because we protect you even from "unknown unknown" evil.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14
     
    Pepe Escobar at his finest. 
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 24 Aug 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 24 Aug 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

Microsoft Will Support ODF! But Only If ISO Doesn't 'Restrict Choice Among Formats' - 0 views

www.betanews.com/...1181922127

ecma-376 iso microsoft odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 07 - Cached
  • By Marbux posted Jun 19, 2007 - 3:16 PM Asellus sez: "I will not say OOXML is easy to implement, but saying ODF is easier to implement just by looking at the ISO specification is a fallacy." I shouldn't respond to trolls, but I will this time. Asellus is simply wrong. Large hunks of Ecma 376 are simply undocumented. And what's more, absolutely no vendor has a featureful app that writes to that format. Not even Microsoft. There's a myth that Ecma 376 is the same as the Office Open XML used by Microsoft. It is not. I've spend a few hundred hours comparing the Ecma 376 specification (the version of OOXML being considered at ISO) to the information about the undocumented APIs used by MS Office 2007 that recently sprung loose in litigation. See http://www.groklaw.net/p...Rpt_Andrew_Schulman.pdf Each of those APIs *should* have corresponding metadata in the formats, but are not in the Ecma 376 specification.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 07
     
    Incredible comment by Marbux!  With one swipe he takes out both Ecma 376 and ODF. 

    Microsoft has written a letter claiming that they will support ODF in MSOffice, but only if ISO approves Ecma 376 as a second office suite XML file format standard.  ODF was approved by ISO nearly a year ago.

    Criticizing Ecma 376 is easy.  It was designed to meet the needs of  a proprietary application, MSOffice, and, to meet the needs of the emerging MS Vista Stack of applications that spans desktop to server to device to web platforms.  It's filled with MS platform dependencies that make it impossibly non interoperable with anything not fully compliant with Microsoft owned API's.

    Criticizing ODF however is another matter entirely.  Marbux points to the extremely poor ODF interoperability record.  If MOOXML (not Ecma 376 - since that is a read only file format) is tied to vendor-application specific MSOffice, then ODF is similarly tied to the many vendor versions of OpenOffice/StarOffice.

    The "many vendor" aspect of OpenOffice is somewhat of a scam.  The interoperability that ODF shares across Novell Office, StarOffice, IBM WorkPlace, Red Office, and NeoOffice is entirely based on the fact that these iterations of OpenOffice are based on a single code base controlled 100% by Sun.  Which is exactly the case with MSOffice.  With this important exception - MOOXML (not Ecma 376) is interoperable across the entire Vista Stack!

    The Vista Stack is comprised of Exchange/SharePoint, MS Live, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, MS Internet Server, MS Grove, MS Collaboration Server, and MS Active Directory.   Behind these applications sits a an important foundation of shared assets: MOOXML, Smart Documents, XAML and .NET 3.0.  All of which can be worked into third party, Stack dependent applications through the Visual Studio .NET IDE.

    Here are some thoughts i wou
Gary Edwards

Office generations 1.0 - 4.0| Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: - 0 views

www.roughtype.com/...office_generati.php

carr office office20 web

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07 - Cached
  • The key is to extend both functionality and interoperability without taking away any of the capabilities that users currently rely on or expect. Reducing interoperability or functionality is a non-starter, for the end user as well as the IT departments that want to avoid annoying the end user. You screw with PowerPoint at your own risk.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
       
      Exactly! This is also the reason why ODF failed in Massachusetts! Reducing the interoperability or functionality of of any workgroup related business process is unacceptable. Which is why IBM's rip out and replace MSOffice approach as the means of transitioning to ODF is doomed. The Office 2.0 (er 3.0) crowd is at a similar disadvantage. They offer web based productivity services that leverage the incredible value of web collaboration. The problem is that these collaboration services are not interoperable with MSOffice. This disconnection greatly reduces and totally neutralizes the collaboration value promise. Microsoft of course will be able to deliver that same web based collaborative comp[uting value in an integrated package. They and they alone are able to integrate web collaboration services into existing MSOffice workgroups. In many ways this should be an anti trust issue. If governments allow Microsoft to control the interop channels into MSOffice, then Microsoft web collaboration systems will be the only choice for 550 million MSOffice workgroup users. The interop layer is today an impossible barrier for Office 2.0, Web 2.0, SaaS and SOA competitors. This is the reasoning behind our da Vinci CDF+ plug-in for MSOffice. Rather than continue banging the wall of IBM's transition to ODF through government legislated rip out and replace mandates, we think the way forward is to exploit the MSOffice plug-in architecture, using it to neutralize and re purpose existing MSOffice workgroups. The key is getting MSOffice documents into a web ready format that is useful to non Microsoft web platform (cloud) alternatives. This requires a non disruptive transition. The workgroups will not tolerate any loss of interop or functionality. We believe this can be done using CDF+ (XHTML 2.0 + CSS). Think of it as cutting off the transition of existing workgroup business p
  • Microsoft sees this coming, and one of its biggest challenges in the years ahead will be figuring out how to replace the revenues and profits that get sucked out of the Office market.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
       
      Bingo!
  • The real problem that I see is the reduced functionality and integration. I don’t think there can be a Revolution until someone builds an entire suite of Revolutionary office products on the web. Office has had almost (or more than, don't quote me) 15 years of experience to build a tight cohesive relationship between it's products.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
       
      Rather than replace MSOffice, why not move the desktop bound business processes to the web? Re write them to take advantage of web collaboration, universal connectivity, and universal interop.
      Once the business processes are up in the cloud, you can actually start introducing desktop alternatives to MSOffice. The trick is to write these alternative business processes to something other than .NET 3.0, MS-OOXML, and the Exchange/SharePoint Hub.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • left standing in a few years will be limited to those who succeeded in getting their products adopted and imbedded into the customers 'workflow' (for lack of a better term) and who make money from it. A silo'ed PPA is not embedded in a company's workflow (this describes 95% of the Office 2.0 companies) thus their failure is predetermined. A Free PPA is not making money thus their failure is predetermined as well. For those companies who adapt to a traditional service and support model and make it through the flurry.....would they really qualify as Office 4.0?
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
       
      Spot on! Excellent comments that go right to the heart of the matter. The Office 2.0 crowd is creating a new market category that Microsoft will easily be able to seize and exploit when the time is right. Like when it becomes profitable :)
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
     
    In this 2006 article Nick Carr lays out the history of office productivity applications, arguing the Office 2.0 is really Office 3.0 - the generation where desktop productivity office suites mesh with the Web. This article is linked to The Office question, December 18, 2007
Gary Edwards

Barr: What's up at the OpenDocument Foundation? - Linux.com - 0 views

www.linux.com/121034

cdf odf ooxml w3c

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Nov 07 - Cached
  • The OpenDocument Foundation, founded five years ago by Gary Edwards, Sam Hiser, and Paul "Buck" Martin (marbux) with the express purpose of representing the OpenDocument format in the "open standards process," has reversed course. It now supports the W3C's Compound Document Format instead of its namesake ODF. Yet why this change of course has occurred is something of a mystery.
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Nov 07
     
    More bad information, accusations and smearing innuendo.  Wrong on the facts,  Emotionally spent on the conclussions.  But wow it's fun to see them with their panties in such a twist.

    The truth is that ODF is a far more "OPEN" standard than MS-OOXML could ever hope to be.  Sam's Open Standards arguments for the past five years remain as relevant today as when he first started makign them so many years ago.

    The thing is, the Open Standards requirements are quite different than the real world Implementation Requirements we tried to meet with ODF.

    The implementation requirements must deal with the reality of a world dominated by MSOffice.  The Open Standards arguments relate to a world as we wish it to be, but is not.

    It's been said by analyst advising real world CIO's that, "ODF is a fine open standards format for an alternative universe where MSOffice doesn't exist".

    If you live in that alternative universe, then ODF is the way to go.  Just download OpenOffice 2.3, and away you go.  Implementation is that easy.

    If however you live in this universe, and must deal with the impossibly difficult problem of converting existing MSOffice documents, applications and processes to ODF, then you're screwed. 

    All the grand Open Standards arguments Sam has made over the years will not change the facts of real world implmentation difficulities.

    The truth is that ODF was not designed to meet the real world implmentation requirements of compatibility with existing Microsoft documents (formats) and, interoperability with existing Microsoft Office applications.

    And then there are the problmes of ODF Interoperability with ODF applications.  At the base of this problem is the fact that compliance in ODF is optional.  ODF applications are allowed to routinely destroy metadata information needed (and placed into the markup) by other applications.<b
‹ Previous 21 - 40 of 314 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page