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Gary Edwards

Office 2007 won't support ISO's OOXML - SD Times On The Web - 0 views

www.sdtimes.com/...article.aspx

iso oasis odf ooxml pdf

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 May 08 - Cached
  • In a surprise move, the company also announced that it intends to participate in the OASIS ODF working group and the corresponding ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 34 working groups for ODF, as well as the ISO Technical Committee 171 working group for PDF, said Doug Mahugh, senior product manager for Microsoft Office.He added that Microsoft would also introduce an API to allow developers to plug their own converters for formats, such as ODF, into Office to make it the default conversion path. ODF 1.1 was chosen over the ISO-standard ODF 1.0 as a practical decision based upon interoperability with existing implementations, Mahugh explained.
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 22 May 08
       
      The announcement of the new API for others to use for plug-ins is not new news. It was originally made when Microsoft claimed to have gotten religion on interoperability a few months ago. The wookie is that the only conceivable reason for a new API for use by others is that Microsoft does not want to disclose the specs for its existing API. That in turn suggests that the API for use by others will have functionality different from the API used by Microsoft itself, almost certainly far less.
  • “Customers that are expecting true document fidelity from XML-based, ISO-standard document formats will continue to be disappointed,” said Michael Silver, a Gartner Research vice president. Silver observed that the most compatible formats to use today are Microsoft’s legacy binaries, and he believes that Microsoft will be unlikely to convince customers to move to OOXML in the foreseeable future.
  • Gary Edwards on 21 May 08
     
    Microsoft to support PDF, ODF 1.1 and ISO OOXML in MSOffice 14. The company will also join the OASIS ODF TC and working group for ISO PDF.
Gary Edwards

okay ... seriously now ... what is this supposed to be? - 229 views

Gary Thank you for the insightful (and exhaustive) overview. Question. Would you allow me to publish all or part of your response on my practice management blog at http://dcbalpm.wordpress.com? Or...

OpenDocument

started by mazyar hedayat on 01 Sep 07 3 follow-ups, last by Gary Edwards on 16 Apr 08
Gary Edwards

V1 committee gives thumbs down to Open XML doc spec - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...article.do

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jul 07 - No Cached
  • Sun Microsystems Inc., largely considered an avowed opponent of Open XML because of its own development and support for the competing, ODF-based StarOffice suite, found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying Open XML -- albeit after some changes in the proposal are made.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jul 07
     
    Quote: Sun Microsystems Inc., largely considered an avowed opponent of Open XML because of its own development and support for the competing, ODF-based StarOffice suite, found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying Open XML -- albeit after some changes in the proposal are made. "We wish to make it completely clear that we support DIS 29500 becoming an ISO Standard and are in complete agreement with its stated purposes of enabling interoperability among different implementations and providing interoperable access to the legacy of Microsoft Office documents," Jon Bosak, a Sun representative to V1, wrote in an e-mail to other committee members over the weekend. "Sun voted No on Approval because it is our expert finding, based on the analysis so far accomplished in V1, that DIS 29500 as presently written is technically incapable of achieving those goals, not because we disagree with the goals or are opposed to an ISO Standard that would enable them." Sun "found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying OOXML"?  What???? This is the official position of Sun?

    For the near five years that i have been a member of the OASIS ODF TC, Sun has opposed
Gary Edwards

Microsoft sets July 1 as Office 2003 OEM drop-dead date - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...article.do

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 07 - Cached
  • Microsoft Corp. announced today that it will pull the plug on Office 2003 the last day of June, after which it won't ship the suite to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and system builders.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 07
     
    Microsoft is closing off the exits!  MSOffice 2003 is the only application suite capable of producing Ecma 376 documents, and now it's getting EOL'd. 

    The ISO vote on Ecma 376 isn't scheduled until September. 
Gary Edwards

Groklaw - Microsoft, antitrust and innovation, by Georg Greve - 0 views

www.groklaw.net/article.php

antitrust interoperability microsoft odf

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Sep 07 - Cached
  • Interoperability: The second abusive practice the Commission found Microsoft guilty of is the deliberate obstruction of interoperability, generally achieved through arbitrary and willful modification of Open Standards. This makes it impossible for competitors to write interoperable software. This is to the detriment of customers, who find themselves locked into the products of one vendor, the antithesis of competition.
  • It might look much worse in the light of public statements that Microsoft will not even commit to standards that it has proposed itself, such as the recent Microsoft OfficeOpenXML (OOXML) format it wants approved by ISO. The less people talk about the interoperability side of the case, the better for Microsoft. Otherwise people might connect MS-OOXML to the fact that Microsoft initiated the standardisation effort in the workgroup server area to open the market and later started obstruction of interoperability on its own standard to drive the innovator out of the market.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 27 Sep 07
       
      Great point. I think tha tanytime a big vendor embraces an open standard they should committ to full public documentation and explanation of any eXtensions to their implementaiton of that standard. Interoperability matters!
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Sep 07
     
    Excellent explanation of Microsoft's problems in Europe.  One can only hope that the successor to the Bush Administration is paying attention. 
Gary Edwards

Whoops?! IBM products support Microsoft's Open XML doc format! Lotushpere - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...article.do

cdf ibm iso oasis odf ooxml opendocument openoffice sun symphony

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Nobody has invested more to defeat Microsoft Corp.'s Open XML document format than IBM Corp. So why is IBM supporting Open XML in a handful of its products? According to technical documentation on IBM's own Web sites, Big Blue already supports Open XML, the native file format of Microsoft Office 2007, in at least four of its software. However, Microsoft Office users interested in testing or switching to Lotus Symphony, IBM's upcoming challenger to Office, may be disheartened by signs that IBM won't budge from its stance that it will only support documents created in Office 2003 and prior versions.
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

Apache POI - Java API To Access Microsoft Format Files - 0 views

poi.apache.org

apache-poi ooxml interop DII

shared by Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 03 Dec 08
     
    POI 3.5 beta 3, and Office Open XML Support (2008-07-18) now supported by Microsoft through the Document Interoperability Initiative Project (DII) The Apache POI Project is currently working to support the new Office Open XML file formats, such as XLSX and PPTX, which were introduced in Office 2007. The POI project consists of APIs for manipulating various file formats based upon Microsoft's OLE 2 Compound Document format, and Office OpenXML format, using pure Java. In short, you can read and write MS Excel files using Java. In addition, you can read and write MS Word and MS PowerPoint files using Java. POI is your Java Excel solution (for Excel 97-2007). However, we have a complete API for porting other OLE 2 Compound Document formats and welcome others to participate. OLE 2 Compound Document Format based files include most Microsoft Office files such as XLS and DOC as well as MFC serialization API based file formats. Office OpenXML Format based files include the new (2007+) xml based file formats, including Microsoft office files such as XLSX, DOCX and PPTX.
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
Paul Merrell

Rapid - Press Releases - EUROPA - 0 views

europa.eu/...pressReleasesAction.do

antitrust microsoft odf

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 May 08 - Cached
  • The European Commission has taken note of Microsoft's announcement on 21st May concerning supporting ODF in Office. The Commission would welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more consumer choice and less vendor lock-in. In its ongoing antitrust investigation concerning interoperability with Microsoft Office (see MEMO/08/19), the Commission will investigate whether the announced support of ODF (OpenDocument format) in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 May 08
     
    The European Commission has taken note of Microsoft's announcement on 21st May concerning supporting ODF in Office. The Commission would welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more consumer choice and less vendor lock-in. In its ongoing antitrust investigation concerning interoperability with Microsoft Office (see MEMO/08/19), the Commission will investigate whether the announced support of ODF (OpenDocument format) in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice.
Paul Merrell

Technology News: Applications: What's Holding OpenOffice Back? - 0 views

www.technewsworld.com/...63684.html

lotus symphony msoffice myths odf ooxml open source open standards openoffice

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 08 - Cached
  • Most folks see data formats as an inside-baseball issue, because they work in all-Microsoft organizations where incompatibilities are rare. The only hangup, in that case, comes when Microsoft releases new software (Office 2007 being the latest example). Invariably, the data format's been upgraded as well.
  • The data format wars have been going on for years and have provoked a substantial backlash. The anti-Microsoft crowd has an alternate data format, OpenDocument, that anyone can freely incorporate into any program, just as everyone uses the same old free, non-proprietary HTML to build Web sites.
  • Is Open XML an open standard? The arguments are pretty technical but boil down to this: Microsoft says OpenDocument is not good and that anyone will be able to implement its far more enlightened Open Office XML. Opponents say Microsoft has built into Open XML all manner of snares, deadfalls and booby traps to defend its monopoly.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • And I'm auditioning the latest open source goodie, IBM Lotus Symphony, which looks like a sweet suite. More on that next time.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 08
     
    The myths that ODF is an open standard, that Lotus Symphony is open source, and that Microsoft is the only company that manipulates "open" standards for unlawful competitive advantage continue to propagate.
Gary Edwards

Forget file formats. The battle is Sharepoint | The Open Road - The Business and Politi... - 0 views

www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9949736-16.html

microsoft oasis odf ooxml sharepoint

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 May 08 - Cached
  • People are agog that Microsoft has announced support for Open Document Format (ODF), but I'm not sure why. This was a foregone conclusion once Microsoft figured out how to move lock-in above the file level to the content network. In other words, to Sharepoint. Microsoft has been hell-bent on getting enterprises to dump content into its proprietary Sharepoint repository, calling it the next Windows operating system. I call it the future of Microsoft lock-in.
Gary Edwards

Q&A: Calif. CIO Steers Clear of Ideology on File Formats - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...article.do

california iso microsoft mooxml msoffice odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Mar 07 - Cached
  • We’re trying to view it as a straight business decision. What are the costs associated with one approach over another? Does it serve all of our business needs? If it doesn’t serve a business need, how do we satisfy that business need? We’re trying to view this just as a plain-vanilla, nonpartisan, nonideological issue.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Mar 07
     
    A mus tread.  Carol Sliwa of ComputerWorld intervies Clark Kelso, California CIO.  ODF is the main issue, with clark casting all his answers in the context of business decisions.  Carol o fcourse is asking the best questions of any journalist alive.

    Keep in mind that ComputerWorld and the Boston globe filed for the Freedom of Information Act to be invoked in Massachusetts.  They got access to all the eMail, documnetation, and conferencing notes concerning ODF  and Microsoft.  Carol's interview with Louis Gutierrez last week was filled with the same hard questions Clark Kelso fielded so deftly.

    The "committee" Clark Kelso has set up to look at these issues is headed by Bill Welty, the CIO of the California Air Resources Board.  Bill is a long time opensource - Linux guy, but will be the firs tto admit that Microsoft is the only vendor providing a means of getting everything inot XML.  And that's the heart of any SOA strategy, "First, get everything into XML".

    With a 500 million MSOffice desktop bound business process headstart, Microsoft has the extreme advantage in this much needed migration to XML. 

    They now have their own proprietary application and platform bound version of XML; MOOXML (Microsoft OfficeOpenXML) heading for international standardization at ISO. 

    They now have their XML Hub in place; the Exchange4/SharePoint Hub.  This is also an essential part of any SOA strategy.  You've got to have an XML Hub where the XML information streams and service connection to legacy black box systems can be piped into, managed and resolved.  The XML must also provide an end user interface to these information flows.  One that converges and integrates information, documents, data, and workflows into an easy to manage and participate in interface.  The E/S Hub excells at this because it covers the fundamentals of eMail, messaging, portal, calendar, scheduling, c
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Microsoft's Stunning Court Defeat - 0 views

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

anti-trust cdf interoperability microsoft odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 Sep 07 - Cached
  • "The Court considers that the Commission was correct to conclude that the work group server operating systems of Microsoft's competitors must be able to interoperate with Windows domain architecture on an equal footing with Windows operating systems if they are to be capable of being marketed viably. The absence of such interoperability has the effect of reinforcing Microsoft's competitive position on the market and creates a risk that competition will be eliminated."
  • Here, U.S. oversight of Microsoft will continue until at least November 2009, largely because of server protocol licensing. The so-called "California group" of states—those that didn't settle the U.S. antitrust case—and other parties will likely ask the court here to align the two disclosure programs, extending the ruling's impact well beyond Europe.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 17 Sep 07
       
      I wonder if this is correct? My understanding is that the California Group will be brushed aside by the Feds?
  • Gary Edwards on 17 Sep 07
     
    Microsoft Watch Joe Wilcox is on the job.  This particular hgihlighted quote speaks volumes.  The USA anti trust settlement famously allowed Microsoft to commercialize interoperability through expensive licenses -  $8 Million per year for just the basic package.

    It looks like the EU would force those interoperability API's out into the open.  I wonder how this position will impact the November 12 th hearing on lifting the USA anti trust oversight?  We have the EU saying the monopolist is illegally maintaining their monopoly through various interop barricades.  And, the USA about to declare that the interop barricades no longer exists, therefore, the monopolist should be free to wreck havoc. 

    The stage looks set for a vey dramatic final act.

Gary Edwards

INTERVIEW: Craig Mundie -- Microsoft's technology chief, taking over from Bill Gates - 0 views

www.apcmag.com/...logy_chief_taking_over_from_bi

cdf odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Sep 07 - Cached
  • In this exclusive interview with APC, Mundie says the notion of all software delivered entirely through the web browser is now widely recognised as being 'popular mythology'. He also stakes the claim that Google's existence and success was contingent on Microsoft creating Windows. He talks about what's coming down the pipeline for future versions of Windows, and his belief that Windows can get still more market share than it has today. He also discusses the issues around the recent controversy over the Office Open XML file format.
  • So Vista is in its diffusion cycle and until there is enough of it out there, you won't really see the developer community come across.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Sep 07
       
      Uh, the diffusion we really should be focused on involves the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice, IE 7.0, MSOffice 2007, and the Exchange/SharePoint Hub. 

      The Exchange/SahrePoint juggernaught is now at 65% marketshare, with Apache servers in noticeable decline.

      So it seems the improtant "diffusion" is going forward nicely.  The exploitation of the E/S Hub has also started, and here the Microsoft deelopers have an uncahllenged advantage.  Most of the business processes being migrated to the E/S Hub are coming off the MSOffice bound desktop.  Outsiders to the MS Stack do not have the requisite access to the internals that drive these MSOffice bound business processes, so they have little hope of getting into the "exploitation" cycle.

      This aspect was on full display at the recent Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.  The only way a O2 provider can position their service as a collaborative addon to existing business processes is to have some higher level of interop-integration into those processes beyond basic conversion to HTML.

      Most O2 operatives struggle to convince the market that an existing business process can be enhanced by stepping outside the process and putting the collaboration value elsewhere.  While this approach is disruptive and unfriendly, it tends to work until a more integrated, more interoperable coolaboration value becomes available.

      And that's the problem with O2.  Everyone is excited over the new collaboration possibilities, but the money is with the integration of collaborative computing into existing business processes.  This is a near impossible barrier for non Microsoft shops and would be competitors.  If you're Microsoft though, and you control existing formats, applications and processes, the collaboration stuff is simple value added on.  It's all low hanging fruit that Microsoft can get paid to deliver while O2 players struggle to f
  • So far, we have delivered about 60 million copies. That would represent about six per cent of the global Windows install base. So it has probably got to get up another few percentage points before you will start to see a big migration of the developer community.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Sep 07
       
      What is he talking about? Does a developer write to Vista? Or do they write to MS Stack ready .NET - OOXML-Smart Documents, XAML, Silverlight stuff?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Rather, what will happen is that you'll have, a seamless integration of locally running software in increasingly powerful client devices (not just desktops) and a set of services that work in conjunction with that. A lot of what we are doing with the Live platform not only allows us to provide the service component for our parts, but also gives the abilities for the developer community to perfect their composite applications and get them deployed at scale.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Sep 07
       
      Bear in mind that these "service components" are proprietary, and represent the only way to connect MS clients to the rest of the MS STack of applications.
  • Microsoft's business is not to control the platform per se, but in fact to allow it to be exploited by the world's developers. The fact that we have it out there gives us a good business, but in some ways it doesn't give us an advantage over any of the other developers in terms of being able to utilise it.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Sep 07
       
      Oh right! The anti trust restrictions will not be lifted until November. Have to be careful here. But how is it Craig that non Microsoft devlopers and service providers will be albe to access and interoperate with important "service components"?
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Sep 07
     
    Great inteview, i'll comment as i make my way down the page.  Hopefully others will do the same.
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

Microsoft Suffers Latest Blow As NIST Bans Windows Vista - Technology News by Informati... - 0 views

www.informationweek.com/...showArticle.jhtml

iso microsoft odf ooxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Mar 07 - Cached
  • In a new setback to Microsoft's public sector business, the influential National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the software maker's Windows Vista operating system from its internal computing networks, according to an agency document obtained by InformationWeek.
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Mar 07
     
    Excuse me!  Excuse me!  Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

    NiST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is authorized by the USA Department of Commerce. 

    Years ago, in conjunction with the Department of Defense (WWI), the Dept of Commerce joined with two manufacturing consortia to form ANSI.  Int eh aftemath of WWII and the formation of ISO/IEC, the US Congress, at the behest of the Department of Commerce, authorized the NiST subdiary.  NiST then authorized (and continues to oversee) ANSI to take on the USA representation at ISO/IEC.

    ANSI in turn authorized INCITS to take on the ISO/IEC document processing specific standardization issues.  It is INCiTS that represents the citizens on the ISO/IE SCT 1 workgroups (wk1) responsible for both ISO 26300 (OpenDocument - ODF) and Ecma 376 (MOOX).

    Okay, so now we have the technical staffers at NiST refusing to allow purchases of Vista, MSOffice 2007 and IE 7.0.  What's going on?  And why is this happenign near everywhere at this exact same moment in time?

    The answer is that this is clearly plan B. 

    Plan A was to force Microsoft to enable MSOffice native use of ODF.  The reasoning here is that governments could force Microsoft to implement ODF, the monopolist control over desktops would be broken, and the the threat of MS leveraging that monnopoly into servers, devices and Internet systems be averted.

    The key to this plan A was to mandate purchase requirements comply with Open Standards.  And not just any "Open Standards".  Microsoft had previously demonstrated how easy it was to use ECMA as rubber stamp for standards proposals that were anything but open.  This is why in August of 2004 the EU asked the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to submit ODF to ISO/IEC.  ISO had not yet been corrupted in the same way as the hapless money hungry ECMA.

    Plan A was going along
Gary Edwards

Three Stages of XML Migration: The OpenDocument Challenge - 0 views

docs.google.com/View

iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07 - Cached
  • "Open document formats: I get it! But how do I get there? Discuss."
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07
     
    Eventually i suspect the truth will come out concerning ODF and the events in Massachusetts.  Migration is difficult and our friends in Redmond are not about to lend a hand.  The problem is the starting point, the MSOffice desktop productivity environment.  A starting point owned and controlled entirely by Microsoft.  The challenge is to get from the overwhelming dominance of proprietary Microsoft binary documents and into an open XML universal file format that any application, running on any platform can interactively read, render and write to.

    Microsoft has decided to keep secret the blueprint to these billions of binary documents, reserving exclusively for themselves the right to convert then to XML.  Of course, the only version of XML Microsoft will convert them to is the wholly owned and controlled OOXML file format. 

    Microsoft refuses to cooperate in any way with the conversion of these legacy binary documents to the only truly open XML universal file format, OASIS OpenDocument.  Which leaves the world with a near insolvable problem; how to get from where we are today, with the boot of a ruthless monopolist on the neck of our information and information processes, to where we really desire to be -  with our digital civilization in the hands of open standards, and out of the control of proprietary applications and platform vendors.

    This document describes what the OpenDocument Foundation learned in Massachusetts about the challenge of migrating to ODF. 

Gary Edwards

ongoing · Life Is Complicated - 0 views

www.tbray.org/...Mixup

iso microsoft oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07 - Cached
  • Fortunately for Microsoft, the DaVinci plugin is coming, which will enable Microsoft office applications to comply with ISO 26300. We all understand the financial issues that prompted the push to make OOXML a standard (see Tim's comment above and http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/whose-finances-are-on-the-line/ for more on this) and ensure continued vendor lock-in. However, OOXML is not the answer.
  • ODF can handle everything and anything Microsoft Office can throw at it. Including the legacy billions of binary documents, years of MSOffice bound business processes, and even tricky low level reaching add-ons represented by assistive technologies.
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07
     
    Yes!  It's Da Vinci time.  I wonder if W^ has downloaded ACME 376 and taken the Da Vinci conversion engine out for a test run?  Belgium and Adobe took a look, and have expressed an interest in getting their hands on the ODF 1.2 version of Da Vinci.  California and Massachusetts have yet to comment about ACME 376, but of course they are also waiting for Da Vinci.

    I'll thank W^ for his kind comments, and make sure he knows about the ACME 376 proof of concept.  If DaVinci can hit perfect conversion fidelity with those billions of binary documents using XML encoded RTF, there is no reason why Da Vinci can't do the same with ODF.  We do however need ODF 1.2 to insure that perfect interoperability with other ODF ready applications.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07
     
    Yes!  It's Da Vinci time.  I wonder if W^ has downloaded ACME 376 and taken the Da Vinci conversion engine out for a test run?  Belgium and Adobe took a look, and have expressed an interest in getting their hands on the ODF 1.2 version of Da Vinci.  California and Massachusetts have yet to comment about ACME 376, but of course they are also waiting for Da Vinci.

    I'll thank W^ for his kind comments, and make sure he knows about the ACME 376 proof of concept.  If DaVinci can hit perfect conversion fidelity with those billions of binary documents using XML encoded RTF, there is no reason why Da Vinci can't do the same with ODF.  We do however need ODF 1.2 to insure that perfect interoperability with other ODF ready applications.
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07
     
    Yes!  It's Da Vinci time.  I wonder if W^ has downloaded ACME 376 and taken the Da Vinci conversion engine out for a test run?  Belgium and Adobe took a look, and have expressed an interest in getting their hands on the ODF 1.2 version of Da Vinci.  California and Massachusetts have yet to comment about ACME 376, but of course they are also waiting for Da Vinci.

    I'll thank W^ for his kind comments, and make sure he knows about the ACME 376 proof of concept.  If DaVinci can hit perfect conversion fidelity with those billions of binary documents using XML encoded RTF, there is no reason why Da Vinci can't do the same with ODF.  We do however need ODF 1.2 to insure that perfect interoperability with other ODF ready applications.
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07
     
    Hi guys,

    There is an interesting discussion triggered by Tim Bray's "ongoing · Life Is Complicated" blog piece.  Our good friend Mike Champion has some interesting comments defending ISO/IEC approval of MS Ecma 376 based on many arguments.  But this one seems to be the bottom line;

    <mike> "there is not an official standard for one that (in the opinion of the people who actually dug deeply into the question, and I have not) represents all the features supported in the MS Office binary formats and can be efficiently loaded and processed without major redesign of MS Office.

    ..... So, if you want a clean XML format that represents mainstream office document use cases, use ODF. If you want a usable XML foormat that handles existing Word documents with full fidelity and optimal performance in MS Office, use OOXML. If you think this fidelity/performance argument is all FUD, try it with your documents in Open Office / ODF and MS Office 2007 / OOXML and tell the world what you learn." </mike>

    Mike's not alone in this.  This seems to be the company line for Microsoft's justification that ISO/IEC should have two conflicting file formats each pomising to do the same thing, becaus eonly one of those formats can handle the bilions of binary documents conversion to XML with an acceptable fidelity. 

    This is not true, and we can prove it.  And if we're right  that you can convert the billions of binaries to ODF without loss of fidelity, then there was no "technology" argument for Microsoft not implementing ODF natively and becoming active in the OASIS ODF TC process to improve application interoperability.

    <diigo_
Gary Edwards

Flow Document Overview - 0 views

msdn2.microsoft.com/...aa970909.aspx

cdf flash flow-document ms-ooxml pdf silverlight svg winforms xforms xps xslfo

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
     
    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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