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The future of XML - 0 views

  • Of course, the most important conversion isn't from OpenDoc to OOXML or vice versa: it's a down conversion from either OpenDoc or OOXML to XHTML. The HTML exporters in OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are uniformly atrocious. Look for third-party developers to pick up the slack. Most important, look for individual corporate developers and webmasters to begin publishing custom templates for their sites. This will enable regular folks to write in Microsoft Word as they're accustomed to doing and then upload their musings straight into the local content-management system. Editing and reviewing tools can be built right in. Because machines generate all the markup (the humans see the GUI interface they're used to), well-formedness will be a freebie. The majority of the Web won't be well-formed by the end of 2008, but a larger percentage will be than today.
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OOXML-ODF: The Harmonization Hope Chest | Orcmid's Lair - 0 views

  • 4. The Reality in the Punchbowl Meanwhile, Sam Hiser offers a different impression of the DIN effort [4]: "The ODF-to-OOXML harmonization effort being hosted by the German standards group, DIN, is Europe's best effort to resolve our Mexican Standoff between Microsoft, Sun and IBM. Even though harmonization is laughably complex and will not work unless the applications are harmonized too, the best and brightest of Germany are left to hope for success."  [emphasis mine: dh] Although the mission of the German effort is translation (Übersetzung), not harmonization, I find there is a very important point that is not made often enough:  People write, read, and edit office documents with little, if any, understanding of the particular format that makes them persistent in digital form.  The XML-based open formats do not change that.   People adapt to the software/device they are using by trial and error.  We train ourselves to obtain the visible results that we want.  Different people obtain superficially similar results by quite different means.   Even when someone has gone to the trouble to create style sheets, forms, macros, templates and other format-impacting aids, it is very loosey-goosey in practice.  And it still does not require paying attention to the file format.  
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Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper) | Universal Interoperability Council - 0 views

  • 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.
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Open XML trumps ODF in document format fight, consulting firm says - 0 views

  • 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.
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CIO Wakeup Call: Burton Group ODF/OOXML report | The CIO Weblog - 0 views

  • Although most of the ruckus over the paper has focused on the prediction that OOXML will beat out ODF, the more intriguing and meaningful conclusion is in fact that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) model, built on open and broadly accepted web standards already in broad use, will in fact "...be more influential and pervasive than ODF and OOXML." This implicit acknowledgment that the SaaS delivery model will dominate productivity and document storage applications is less supportive of Microsoft's approaches than many of the documents detractors care to acknowledge and suggests the entire debate is essentially a sideshow.
  • CIOs who are truly concerned with data preservation and open standards need to take a hard look at Microsoft's historical business practices and the remaining questions hanging over OOXML and ask themselves if it's worth making such a major transition to a format that is fraught with the same potential for vendor (rather than consumer) control in the future. SaaS options, it's worth noting, hardly escape this issue, so regardless of the very real potential that SaaS will eclipse any of the stand-alone office applications that are currently involved in this debate, it's still going to be necessary to pick a format for long-term, corporate control of vital data and documents.
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Bluster keeps the ODF / OOXML debate afloat | BetaNews - 0 views

  • the Group went one step further, if only that far: It advised clients to steer clear of the whole format superiority debate, in order to avoid getting dragged down into what could be called "Office politics.""ODF is insufficient for complex real-world enterprise requirements, and it is indirectly controlled by Sun Microsystems, despite also being an ISO standard," the Burton Group's Guy Creese and Peter O'Kelly wrote. "It's possible that IBM, Novell, and other vendors may be able to put ODF on a more customer-oriented trajectory in the future and more completely integrate it with the W3C content model, but for now ODF should be seen as more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection."
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Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views

  • “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
       
      Mary Jo takes on the recently released Burton Group Report comparing OOXML and ODF. Peter O'Kelly, one of the Burton Group authors, once famously said, "ODF is a great format if you live in an alternative universe where MSOffice doesn't exist!" This observation speaks to the core problem facing ODF and those who seek to implement the ODF standard: ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents. Nor was ODF designed to work with MSOffice applications. Another way of saying this is to state that ODF was not designed to be interoperable with MSOffice documents, applications and bound processes. The truth is that ODF was designed for OpenOffice/StarOffice. It is an application specific format. Both OOXML and ODF do a good job of separating content from presentation (style). The problem is that the presentation - layout layers of both ODF and OOXML remains bound to specific applications producing it. While the content layers are entirely portable and can be exchanged without information loss, the presentation layers can not. Microsoft makes no bones about the application specific design and purpose of OOXML. It's stated right in the Ecma 376 charter that OOXML was designed to be compatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents in MSOffice specific binary formats. The situation however is much more confusing with ODF. ODF is often promoted as being application, platform and vendor independent. After five years of development though, the OASIS ODF TC has been unable to strip ODF of it's OpenOffice/StarOffice specific aspects. ODF 1.0 - ISO 26300 had three areas that were under specified; meaning these areas were described in syntax only, and lacked the full semantics demanded by interoperable implementations. Only OpenOffice and StarOffice code base applications are able to exchange documents with an acceptable fidelity. The three under specified areas of ODF are: Lists (numbered), F
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South Africa, Netherlands and Korea striding toward ODF - 0 views

  • In Belgium, for instance, the government is using plug-ins to enable Microsoft Office to read and save files in ODF, Marcich said. The same plug-ins are being used in Massachusetts, which was the first governmental body to move to ODF. One prominent ODF backer, the unrelated Open Document Foundation, said in late October that it would stop backing ODF in favor of a more viable universal format called the Compound Document Format (CDF). Marcich said that "won't have any effect on the alliance or on ODF" adoption. Moreover, CDF, which is a World Wide Web Consortium format, differs greatly in features and goals than ODF. "We're talking about apples and oranges here," he said.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      This ComputerWorld article is referenced by the State of New York in their request for information
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What's Up Doc? Report on ODF / OOXML / W3C Document Wars |Collaboration and Content St... - 0 views

  • The overall document summary: Industry debate about the relative merits of OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Ecma 376 Office Open XML (OOXML) highlights the significance of the productivity application market shift from binary and proprietary file formats to vendor- and product-independent Extensible Markup Language (XML) models. The competitive stakes are huge, and the related political posturing is sometimes perplexing. In this overview, Research Directors Guy Creese and Peter O’Kelly introduce ODF, OOXML, and related World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, and project their implications for future productivity applications.
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5 Things Microsoft Must Do To Reclaim Its Mojo In 2008 -- InformationWeek - 0 views

  • Instead of fighting standards, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) needs to get on board now more than ever. With open, Web-based office software backed by the likes of IBM (NYSE: IBM) (think Lotus Symphony) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) now a viable option, users—especially businesses frustrated by Microsoft's format follies (many are discovering that OOXML is not even fully backwards-compatible with previous versions of Microsoft Word)--can now easily switch to an online product without having to rip and replace their entire desktop infrastructure.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      This article discusses how Microsoft might change their ways and save the company. This particular quote concerns Microsoft support for standards, and their fight to push MS OOXML through ISO as an alternative to ISO approved ODF 1.0.
      The thing is, ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents, of which there are billions. Nor was ODF designed to be implemented by MSOffice. ODF was designed exactly for OpenOffice, which has a differnet model for impementing basic docuemnt structures than MSOffice.
      So a couple of points regardign this highlight:
      The first is that IBM's Lotus Symphony is NOT Open Source. IBM ripped off the OpenOffice 1.1.4 code base back when it was dual licensed under both SSSL and LGPL. IBM then closed the source code adding a wealth of proprietary eXtensions (think XForms and Lotus Notes connections). Then IBM released the proprietary Symphony as a free alternative to the original Open Source Community "OpenOffice.org".
      If Microsoft had similarly ripped off an open source community, there would be hell to pay.
      Another point here is the mistaken assumption that users can easily switch from MSOffice to an on-line product like Google Docs or ZOHO "without having to rip our and replace their entire desktop infrastructure."
      This is a ridiculous assumption defied by the facts on the ground. Massqchusetts spent two years trying to migrate to ODF and couldn't do it. Every other pilot study known has experienced the same difficulties!
      The thing about Web 2.0 alternatives is that these services can not be integrated into existing business processes and MSOffice workgroup bound activities. The collaborative advantages of Web 2.0 alternatives are disruptive and outside existing workflows, greatly marginalizing their usefulness. IF, and that's a big IF, MSOffice plug-ins were successful in the high fidelity round trip conversion of wor
  • Microsoft in 2008 could make a bold statement in support of standards by admitting that its attempt to force OOXML on the industry was a mistake and that it will work to develop cross-platform compatibility between that format and the Open Document Format
    • Gary Edwards
       
      It's impossible to harmonize two application specific file formats. The only way to establish an effective compatibility between ODF and OOXML would be to establish a compatibility between OpenOffice and MSOffice.
      The problem is that neither ODF or OOXML were developed as generirc file formats. They are both application specific, directly reflecting the particular implementation models of OOo and MSOffice.
      Sun and the OASIS ODF TC are not about to compromise OpenOffice feature sets and implmentation methods to improve interop with MSOffice. Sun in particular will protect the innovative features of OpenOffice that are reflected in ODF and stubbornly incompatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents. This fact can easily be proven be any review of the infamous "List Enhancement Proposal" that dominated discussions at the OASIS ODF TC from November of 2006 through May of 2007.
      So if Sun and the OASIS ODF TC refuse to make any efforts towards compatibility and imporved interop with MSOffice and the billions of binary docuemnts seekign conversion to ODF, then it falls to Microsoft to alter MSOffice. With 550 million MSOffice desktops involved in workgroup bound business processes, any changes would be costly and disruptive. (Much to the glee of Sun and IBM).
      IBM in particular has committed a good amount of resources and money lobbying for government mandates establishing ODF as the accepted format. this would of course result in a massively disruptive and costly rip out and replace of MSOffice.
      Such are the politics of ODF.
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Wizard of ODF: OASIS invited to join Microsoft in the DIN technical report - harmoniz... - 0 views

  • the WG is busy working on a first draft. This'll include mainly work in Wordprocessing. Spreadsheet and Presentation is still in the very early work. So help from the ODF TC would be great --- and a liaison would make sense IMHO. To give you an idea why help from the ÓDF TC would be needed I'll briefly outline some questions which arose: * Need for more use-cases, i.e. feasable interop scenarios * Discussions of unspecified behaviour (e.g numbering in 1.0, spreadsheet formulas, compatibilty options, etc.) and their impact on interop scenarios * Questions regaring generic settings like e.eg. form:control-implementation="ooo:com.sun.star.form.component.Form", or tweaking a la http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=51726. * Possible interop problems not handled by the specs (e.g. graphics, WMF, EMF, SVM, etc.) or e.g. font metrics and font embedding. As you see there are a lot of overlapping areas with eg. the "ODF interop" we dealt with in the workshop in Barcelona. [This issue is hosted in the Adoption TC, right? Maybe this TC is also suited as a liaison partner?]
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Uh Oh. Microsoft and Novell joined the EU's call to harmonize ODF and OOXML, but Sun and IBM refused the invite. Now we have the invite in front of the OASIS ODF TC!. Is there any rock big enough for them to hide under if they also refuse?
      And if the OASIS ODF does join the EU-DIN-ISO effort, where doe stha tleave IBM, Sun and their inistance on a politically mandated "rip out and replace" as the only acceptable solution?
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OOXML: MSOffice Open XML - Where The Rubber Meets The Road | Matusow's Blog - 0 views

  • There can be no doubt that OOXML, as a standard, has severe flaws.   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.  There is not an organization in existence, including Microsoft, that promises to actually implement the full standard.  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.  OOXML shows every appearance of being created to prevent this escape, not enable it.   The immaturity of the standard means that it remains a gamble to see if older documents will remain readable or not.  The lack of testing means there is no way to determine what docs actually adhere to it or not.  The ignoring of existing standards guarantees compatibility problems.  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.
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    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!
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    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.
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XML.com: Standard Data Vocabularies Unquestionably Harmful - 0 views

  • At the onset of XML four long years ago, I commenced a jeremiad against Standard Data Vocabularies (SDVs), to little effect. Almost immediately after the light bulb moment -- you mean, I can get all the cool benefits of web in HTML and create my own tags? I can call the price of my crullers <PricePerCruller>, right beside beside <PricePerDonutHole> in my menu? -- new users realized the problem: a browser knows how to display a heading marked as <h1> bigger and more prominently than a lowlier <h3>. Yet there are no standard display expectations or semantics for the XML tags which users themselves create. That there is no specific display for <Cruller> and, especially, not as distinct from <DonutHole> has been readily understood to demonstrate the separation of data structure expressed in XML from its display, which requires the application of styling to accomodate the fixed expectations of the browser. What has not been so readily accepted is that there should not be a standard expectation for how a data element, as identified by its markup, should be processed by programs doing something other than simple display.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      ODF and OOXML are contending to become the Standard Data Vocabulary for desktop office suite XML markup. Sun and Microsoft are proposing the standardization of OpenOffice and MSOffice custom defined XML tags for which there are no standard display expectations. The display expectations must therefore be very carefully described: i.e. the semantics of display fully provided.
      In this article Walter Perry is pointing out the dangers of SDV's being standardized for specific purposes without also having well thought out and fully specified display semantics. In ODF - OOXML speak, we would call display presentation, or layout, or "styles".
      The separation of content and presentation layer of each is woefully underspecified!
      Given that the presnetation layers of both ODF and OOXML is directly related to how OpenOffice and MSOffice layout engines work, the semantics of display become even more important. For MSOffice to implement an "interoperable" version of OpenOffice ODF, MSOffice must be able to mimic the OpenOffice layout engine methods. Methods which are of course quite differeent from the internal layout model of MSOffice. This differential results in a break down of conversion fidelity, And therein lies the core of the ODF interoeprability dilemma!
  • There have also emerged a few "horizontal" data vocabularies, intended for expressing business communication in more general terms. One of these is the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), about which more below. Most recently, governments and governmental organizations have begun to suggest and eventually mandate particular SDVs for required filings, a development which expands what troubles me about these vocabularies by an order of magnitude.
  • ...5 more annotations...
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Exactly! When governments mandate a specific SDV, they also are mandating inherent concepts and methods unique to the provider of the SDV. In the case of ODF and OOXML, where the presentation layers are application specific and woefully underspecified, interoperability becomes an insurmountable challenge. Interop remains stubbornly application bound.
      Furthermore, there is no way to "harmonize" or "map" from one format to another without somehow resolving the application specific presentation differences.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      "in the nature of the SDV's themselves is the problem of misstatement, of misdirection of naive interpretation, and potential for fraud.
      Semantics matter! The presentation apsects of a document are just as important as the content.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Walter: "I have argued for years that, on the basis of their mechanism for elaborating semantics, SDVs are inherently unreliable for the transmission or repository of information. They become geometrically less reliable when the types or roles of either the sources or consumers of that information increase, ending at a nightmarish worst case of a third-order diminution of the reliability of information. And what is the means by which SDVs convey meaning? By simple assertion against the expected semantic interpretations hard-coded into a process consuming the data in question.
      At this point in the article i'm hopign Walter has a solution. How do we demand, insist and then verify that SDV's have fully specifed the semantics, and not jus tpassed along the syntax?
      With ODF and OOXML, this is the core of the interoperability problem. Yet, there really is no way to separate the presentation layers from the uniquely different OpenOffice and MSOffice layout engine models.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Interesting concept here: "the bulk of expertise is in understanding the detail of connections between data and the processes which produced it or must consume it ........ it is these expert connections which SDV's are intended to sever.
      Not quite sure what to make of that statement? When an SDV is standardized by ISO, the expectation is that the connections between data and processes would be fully understood, and implementations consistent across the board.
      Sadly, ODF is ISO approved, but doesn't come close to meeting these expectations. ODF interop might as well be ZERO. And the only way to fix it is to go into the presentation layer of ODF, strip out all the application specific bindings, and fully specifiy the ssemantics of layout.
  • In short, the bulk of expertise is in understanding the detail of connections between data and the processes which produced it or must consume it. It is precisely these expert connections which standard data vocabularies are intended to sever.
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OOXML vs ODF: where next for interoperability? | Reg Developer - 0 views

  • 'A diversion from the real end game – the taking of the internet' Gary Edwards of the Open Document Foundation has a fascinating post on the important of Microsoft Office compatibility to the success of the ISO-approved Open Document formats. It is in places a rare voice of sanity: People continue to insist that if only Microsoft would implement ODF natively in MSOffice, we could all hop on down the yellow brick road, hand in hand, singing kumbaya to beat the band. Sadly, life doesn’t work that way. Wish it did. Sure, Microsoft could implement ODF - but only with the addition of application specific extensions to the current ODF specification … Sun has already made it clear at the OASIS ODF TC that they are not going to compromise (or degrade) the new and innovative features and implementation model of OpenOffice just to be compatible with the existing 550 million MSOffice desktops.
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Open Malaysia: Geneva, Day Five - 0 views

  • We eventually found out that if any changes affected current implementations it would certainly be rejected. This seriously compromised any elegant solutions, and it forced us to be mindful of the "existing corpus of documents" in the wild. I personally don't believe that that should be our problem, but there was a large and vocal voting bloc which would oppose any changes to the spec which would 'break' Ecma 376. This was why appeasing Ecma had to happen. Even though they rushed their Ecma International Standard, and Microsoft took the risk in shipping Microsoft Office 2007 last year, we now have to bear the burden of having to support its limitations. This also means that future maintenance changes would get harder and harder.
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ODF useless for Microsoft needs - Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary' - Talkba... - 0 views

  • ODF's limited spec can't support all MS Office features unless Microsoft goes on a major entending trip.
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Denmark: OOXML vote won't affect public sector. ODF is too costly! | InfoWorld - 0 views

  • Lebech said Denmark considers OOXML an open standard, regardless whether it is approved by the ISO. "It would be impossible for us to use only ISO standards if we want to fulfill the goal of creating interoperability in the government sector," he said. The Danish Parliament also mandated that public agencies consider the cost of using open formats. One of the main reasons OOXML was included is because Denmark is heavily dependent on document management systems that are integrated with Microsoft's Office products, Lebech said. Denmark also found that requiring agencies to only use ODF would have been too expensive, mostly because of the cost of converting documents into ODF, Lebech said. "We wouldn't have been able to only support ODF," Lebech said. "It wouldn't have been cost neutral."
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Plan B: The NO ViSTA Mandates, and the failure of ISO/IEC - 0 views

  • Plan B: The "NO ViSTA" Mandates:  the failure of Anti Trust Laws and International Trade Agreements to Stop The Great Monopolist, Microsoft A series of surprising government mandate announcements rolled out in the immediate aftermath of the ISO/IEC decision to fast track Ecma 376 otherwise known as Microsoft Office Open XML (MOOX).  The three articles commented on here are all from Information Week, who has done yeoman work concerning the OpenDocument - MOOX controversy that has so upset Microsoft.  Now the mighty monopolist can taste victory, with fast track approval of MOOX certain, and ISO/IEC in the bag.  Incredibly the company that escaped a Court ordered death sentence by purchasing what amounts to a presidential pardon.  They even avoided the stink of their own lobbyist and henchman Jack Abramoff, and his motley crew of Ralph Reed and Grover Nyquist operatives.  Now they are well on their way towards purchasing an International Standard.  So much for Plan A.  Time for Plan B, the "NO ViSTA" mandate.
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    Okay.  I've combined my three comments into a single page.  Sadly Diigo does not offer spell checking.  My apologies to all.  Hoepfully this will be a better read.
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