"ECMA 376" is a set of file formats subject to ECMA and now to ISO.
"Office 2007" is a set of file formats which extend "ECMA 376" file formats.
Office 2007 file formats are undocumented per se. ECMA 376 are.
ECMA 376 file formats are documented but only at a syntactic level. To realize the true meaning of every single attribute is to realize that the documentation is more like 600,000 pages, not 6,000. Of particular difficulty is to keep some kind of control over the virtually infinite combinations of such attributes.
Quick analysis of the underlying schemas reveals that simple concepts such as text formatting is expressed in no less than 6 different and incompatible ways. This leads to thinking that the file formats were only designed to comply with existing legacy formats that themselves are the result of 15 years of inside/outside library aggregation (some of the libraries were bought from non-Microsoft vendors). In fact, the truth is, ask any reverse engineer third-party who worked with legacy formats, they'll tell you Microsoft essentially added angle brackets around the binary serialization in legacy formats. This makes for a very cool XML-based file format, not an international standard.
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PlexNex: Achieving Openness - 0 views
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Whoa, Stepen Rodriguez knocks this one out of the park. What an impressive dissembling of MS OfficeOpenXML and it's poor sister subset, Ecma 376. Incredible.
Between a rock and a hard place: ODF & CIO's - Where's the Love? - 0 views
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So I'm disappointed. And not just on behalf of open documents, but on behalf of the CIOs of this country, who are now caught between a rock and a hard place, without a paddle to defend themselves with if they won't to do anything new, innovative and necessary, if a major vendor's ox might be gored in consequence. After the impressive lobbying assault mounted over the past six months against open document format legislation, I expect you won't be hearing of many state IT departments taking the baton back from their legislators. And who can blame them? If they tried, it wouldn't be likely to be anything as harmless as an open document format that would bite them in the butt.
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Andy Updegrove weighs in on the wave of ODF legislative failures first decribed by Eric Lai and Gregg Keizer compiled the grim data in a story they posted at ComputerWorld last week titled Microsoft trounces pro-ODF forces in state battles over open document formats.
Andy believes that it is the failure of state legislators to do their job that accounts for these failures. He provides three reasons for this being a a failure of legislative duty. The most interesting of which is claim that legislators should be protecting CIO's from the ravages of aggressve vendors.
The sad truth is that state CIO's are not going to put their careers on the line for a file format after what happened in Massachusetts.
Andy puts it this way, "
And second, in a situation like this, it is a cop out for legislatures to claim that they should defer to their IT departments to make decisions on open formats. You don't have to have that good a memory to recall why these bills were introduced in the first place: not because state IT departments aren't a good place to make such decisions, but because successive State CIOs in Massachusetts had been so roughly handled in trying to make these very decisions that no state CIO in his or her right mind was likely to volunteer to be the next sacrificial victim.
As both Peter Quinn and Louis Gutierrez both found out, trying to make responsible standards-related decisions whe
State's move to open document formats still not a mass migration - 0 views
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Only a tiny fraction of the PCs at Massachusetts government agencies are able to use the Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications, despite an initial deadline of this month for making sure that all state agencies could handle the file format.
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Eric Lai keesp pokign at that Massachusetts hornets nest. One of these days he's going to crack it open, and it will be back to square one for the ODF Community. Still missing from his research is the infoamous 300 page pilot study and accompanying web site where comments and professional observations document a year long study concernign the difficulties of implementing ODF solutions and making the migration. <br><br>
The study was focused on OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office, and a IBM WorkPlace prototype.<br><br>
The results of the year long pilot have never seen the public light of day. But ComputerWorld is one of the media orgs that successfully filed a court action to invoke the freedom of information act in Massachusetts. How come they can't find the Pilot Study?<br><br>
At the end of the pilot study period, Massachusetts issued their infamous RFi; the request for information regarding the possiblity of a ODF plugin for MSOffice! Meaning, the Pilot Study did not go well for the heroes of ODF - OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office and WorkPlace. Instead, Massachusetts sought an ODF plugin that would no doubt extend the life of MSOffice for years to come. No rip out and replace here folks!<br><br>
~ge~
Microsoft and Its Rivals Take 'Office' Politics Global - WSJ.com - 1 views
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Another article from Charles Forelle of WSJ on Microsoft's efforts to corrupt the international standards process
ODF tied to OpenOffice? Say it isn't so! -- gary.edwards's comment on "IBM Symphony fal... - 0 views
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Good discussion on IBM's recent release of OpenOffice as Lotus Symphony. OpenOffice Community Marketing Lead, John McCreesh, steps into it though with an errant quote. Sadly, i have to take him to task.
Microsoft Watch - Corporate - Microsoft's Stunning Court Defeat - 0 views
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"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."
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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.
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I wonder if this is correct? My understanding is that the California Group will be brushed aside by the Feds?
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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.
Jim King's PDF-XML presentations | Adobe - 0 views
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Presentations made by Jim King of Adobe Systems
www.odfalliance.org/resources/ - Google Search - 0 views
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Whoa! Jackpot
Antitrust: Commission imposes € 899 million penalty on Microsoft for non-comp... - 0 views
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Antitrust: Commission imposes € 899 million penalty on Microsoft for non-compliance with March 2004 Decision
Microsoft makes more code public - International Herald Tribune - 0 views
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"Today's announcement is still all about the rest of the world interoperating with Microsoft on Microsoft's own terms, not the other way around," said Thomas Vintje, a lawyer representing the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based group representing Microsoft competitors like Adobe, Nokia and Oracle, which brought one of the new complaints that led to the current EU commission investigations of the company. "The world needs a permanent change in Microsoft's behavior, not just another announcement," he said.
EC on Microsoft Interoperability Declaration: Is It April Fools' Day Already? | John Pa... - 0 views
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“We have heard high-profile commitments from Microsoft a half-dozen times over the past two years, but have yet to see any lasting change in Microsoft’s behavior in the marketplace,” ECIS Legal Counsel and Spokesman Thomas Vinje said in a statement.
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Thomas Vinge, the counsel for the ECIS, comments on Microsoft's most recent restatement of their enduring commitment to interoperability and transparency.
Wizard of ODF: Proposal to amend TC charter, re interoperability with non-conformant ap - 0 views
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7. it must provide all feasible functionality required to suppport full fidelity conversions from and to existing office document binary file formats.
Calling all black helicopters! This is a red alert. The OpenDocument Foundation suspe... - 0 views
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Be aware that Gary Edwards and Marbux (of the organisation formerly known as “The OpenDocument Foundation” [1, 2]) have begun submitting links to their new site. They use Digg where they post elaborate comments about a decoy, a distraction. They comment on each other’s submissions, which are barely receiving any attention at all. The OpenDocument Foundation’s Web site has meanwhile become a link farm (inactive) with many inbound links. This is not very ordinary. “At times, however, new people are introduced to intervene and create tensions, misunderstandings, and civil wars.”
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Yo Marbux! Fire up the Black Hawk! They want us. They need us. Without the big bad bogey man, lurkign in the shadows, secretly conspiring against them, who will they blame their failures on?
Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper) | Universal Interoperability Council - 0 views
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In late 2007, an article by OASIS attorney Andy Updegrove claimed that W3C Compound Document Formats: [i] are non-editable formats; [ii] are not designed for conversions to other formats; and [iii] are therefore unsuitable as office formats. Updegrove could not have been more wrong. But unfortunately, the erroneous Updegrove article was widely publicized by the usual occupants of the IBM cheering section (1) in the stadium where the latest big vendor game for the Incompatible File Format Cup is being played, IFFC Games Stadium.
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Great article from the Universal Interoperability Council arguing the case for CDF as a universally interoperable format capable of fully representing desktop productivity environment documents. The UIC arguments are of course opposed by IBM and the lawyer for OASIS, Andy Updegrove.
Open XML trumps ODF in document format fight, consulting firm says - 0 views
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The OpenDocument Format (ODF) remains "more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection" by users, according to a report released Monday by analysts at Burton Group, who recommend that companies adopt Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format whether or not it is approved as an ISO standard next month.
Whoops?! IBM products support Microsoft's Open XML doc format! Lotushpere - 0 views
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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.
Microsoft: IBM masterminded OOXML failure - ZDNet UK - 0 views
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"It's a new way to compete," Tsilas said. "They are using government intervention as a way to compete. It's competing through regulation, because you couldn't compete technically."
Microsoft: IBM masterminded OOXML failure - ZDNet UK - 0 views
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"IBM have asked governments to have an open-source, exclusive purchasing policy," Tsilas said. "Our competitors have targeted this one product — mandating one document format over others to harm Microsoft's profit stream." "It's a new way to compete," Tsilas said. "They are using government intervention as a way to compete. It's competing through regulation, because you couldn't compete technically."
Griffin Brown Weblog - ODF validation for the cognoscenti - 0 views
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ODF validation for the cognoscenti Just when it seemed like nobody was interested in the ODF conformance smoke test posted a few days ago, IBM's Rob Weir weighs in with a lengthy piece in response.
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Rob Weir gets royally spanked. And so does the notion that ODF is somehow "interoperable". Big Time.
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