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This is nonsense. Whether an organizations standardizes on ODF or OOXML, the "interoperability" they seek will still be based on every desktop running the same application. Neither format enables the interchange of documents between different applications - even if those applications properly implement the format standard. Anyone can prove this for themselves. Simply shuttle a few OpenOffice ODF documents between Symphony, Novell Office and Google Docs. Then weep. At least with MSOffice-OOXMLyou can exchange documents between different versions of MSOffice. Even though OpenOffice, Symphony and Novell Office are based on the same code base, interop might as well be zero. Besides; what end users really want from a modern desktop office suite is collaborative editing of web ready documents. This discussion is so last century - 1995!

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.

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.

An eMail went out today, October 24th, 2007, nominating IBM's Rob "Show me your garage!" Weir to be the new Co Chairman of OASIS ODF TC.  So it's looks like it's true; IBM is moving to take over ODF and OpenOffice.

Not that that's bad.  In the long run this is perhaps the best thing that ever happened to ODF and OpenOffice.  There is no way IBM's Lotus Notes business plan for ODF-OOo could be any worse than Sun's plan has turned out to be. 

~ge~

So, South Africa was watching closely the failed effort in Massachusetts to implement ODF?  And now they are determined to make it work? Good thing they left themselves a "pragmatic" out; "there are standards which we are obliged to adopt for pragmatic reasons which do not necessarily fully conform to being open in all respects."

Massachusetts spent a full year on an ODF implementation Pilot Study only to come to the inescapable conclusion that they couldn't implement ODF without a high fidelity "round trip" capable ODF plug-in for MSOffice.  In May of 2006, Pilot Study in hand, Massachusetts issued their now infamous RFi, "the Request for Information" concerning the feasibility of an ODF plug-in clone of the MS-OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in for MSOffice applications. At the time there was much gnashing of teeth and grinding of knuckles in the ODf Community, but the facts were clear. The lead dog hauling the ODf legislative mandate sleigh could not make it without ODf interoperability with MSOffice. Meaning, the rip out and replace of MSOffice was no longer an option. For Massachusetts to successfully implement ODf, there had to be a high level of ODf compatibility with existing MS documents, and ODf application interoperability with existing MS applications. Although ODf was not designed to meet these requirements, the challenge could not have been any more clear. Changes in ODf would have to be made. So what happened?

Over a year later,

Heintzman must be referring to the Rob Weir -OASIS ODF Adoption (cough marketing-lobbying) TC event called the "ODF Interoperability Workshop". This was a day long event demonstrating for all the world to see that there is no such thing as ODF interoperability. The exchange of documents between OpenOffice 2.0, KOffice and Lotus Symphony is pathetic. The results of the day long event were so discouraging that Rob Weir took to threatening developers who attended in his efforts to keep a lid on it. I think this is called damage control :). From what i hear, it was a very long day for Rob. but that's no excuse for his threatening anyone who might publicly talk about these horrific interop problems. The public expects these problems to be fixed. But how can they be fixed if the issues can't be discussed publicly?

Lotus Symphony is based on the OpenOffice 1.1.4 code base that IBM ripped off back when OpenOffice was under dual license - SSSL and LGPL.

MS-OOXML supporter Rick Jellife discusses the ODF Alliance response to Ecma's proposed disposition of ISO NB comments on OOXML. The Allaince response has recieved quite a bit of ink, wtih waves of ODF jihadists pointing to it as incontroverible evidence that they are right. Rick provides a lengthy response, most of which presents the ODF jihadis with some difficult issues they must now explain. More importantly though, RJ uncovers one of the more glaring examples proving that ODF is application specific to the core, and bound to OpenOffice. He points out that OpenOffice ODF could have chosen the W3C's highly portable and infinitely interoeprable CSS as the ODF presentation layer. This would have been a great reuse of existing standards. But that's not what happened! Instead of the widely used CSS, OpenOffice chose an incredibly application specific presentation model with the unique innovation of "automatic-styles". And with this choice came years of problematic zero interop as application after application try to exchange ODF documents with little success. Take for example KDE-KOffice. They've been a member of the OASIS ODF TC for near five years now, almost since the beginning. Yet it's impossible to exchange all but the most basic of documents with any of the OpenOffice derivaties (OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office, and Lotus Symphony - OOo 1.1.4). If after five years of active particpation and cooperative efforts, KOffice is unable to exchange ODF docuemnts with OpenOffice, how is it that somehow Microsoft Office would be able to implement ODF without similar zero interop results? Isn't the purpose of standardized formats that end users of different applications could effectively exchange documents? The truth is that both ODF and OOXML are application specific formats. And you can't harmonize, merge, map, or translate between two application specific formats without also having harmonized the appli

Want to know the real reason why IBM and Microsoft are going at it hammer and tong over document formats?  Here it is.  Lotus Notes is getting clobbered by the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaut. 

The article is old, but the point is well taken.  Today the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaut i sover 65% marketshare.  IBM is struggling to protect the Lotus Stack against an impossible foe.

The thing is, Microsoft E/S will ALWAYS have better integration with the MSOffice - Outlook desktop monopoly base (550 M and counting).  Most of this "integration" is due to the high fidelity exchange of documents in Microsoft's proprietary XML mode known as MS-OOXML.   Forget the charade that MS-OOXML is an open standard called Ecma 376.  MSOffice and infamous XML Compatibility Pack Plug-in do not implement Ecma 376.  The Pack implements MS-OOXML.

One key differnece between MS-OOXML and Ecma 376 us that MS-OOXML is infused with the Smart Tags components.  These are for metadata, data binding, data extraction, workflow, intelligent routing and on demand re purposing of docuemnt components.  In effect, MS-OOXML :: Smart Tags combines with proprietary .NET Libraries, XAML and soon enough Silverlight to replace the entire span of W3C Open Internet Technologies. 

Can you say "HTML"?

Okay, so why does this matter to IBM and the future of Lotus Notes?

The end game of the document format wars is that of a stack model that converges desktop, server, devices and web information systems.  The MS Stack uses MS-OOXML as the primary transport of accelerated content/data/multi media streams running across the MS Stack of desktop, server, device and web application systems.  It's the one point of extreme interoperability.

It's also a barrier that no non MS applicatio or service can penetrate or interoperate with except on terms Microsoft dictates. 

This quote from Chalres Schultz is ridiculous. Because Novell is not allowed to commit code to OpenOffice, they must maintain a separate code base of extensions and improvements. With each build of OpenOffice, Novell must reintegrate their changes into the code base, making for a managerial nightmare. When Novell does have improvements that Sun wants though, there is no end to the hoops of fire the Sun developers will jump through to get it. The Field Enhancement routine written by Novell's Florian Router is one of those improvements that Sun had to have. Sun even went so far as to arguing for changes in the way ODF implements fields to accomodate the Novell improvements! It's important to note however that Sun did not support the ODF Field Enhancements UNTIL Novell agreed to donate Florian's code to OpenOffice!!!!!! Proving conclusively what i have been arguing for years: Sun does not allow for any changes to ODF unless and until those changes can be implemented by OpenOffice. The ODF Field Enhancements needed by Florian's fix to OpenOffice were originally proposed on July 12th, 2006, when Florian was the CTO of the OpenDocument Foundation. These changes to the way ODF implements fields were needed by the da Vinci plug-in as part of our efforts to save ODF in Massachusetts. so here we have a rather direct example of Sun refusing improvements to ODF when needed by another application (da Vinci), but supporting those exact same changes when it is OpenOffice that can be improved!!! The arguments that the OpenOffice.org Community isn't open also apply to the OASIS ODF TC work!!!!!!

Good catch by Eric!
This link is to the infamous Sun statement of support for MS OOXML issued by Jon Bosak when ISO DIS 2900 was voted on by the US delegation to ISO.
The statement is important because it directly references the core issue: MS OOXML was written for MSOffice and the billions of binary docuemnts bound to that application suite. ODF on the other hand was written to OpenOffice.
Because ODF was not designed for the conversion of those billions of MSOffice documents, conversion is next to impossible. The implementation of ODF in MSOffice is next to impossible. The loss of information, especially the presentation-layout information, is so severe as to be intolerable in the real world.
This leaves the real world, where MSOffice dominates over 550 million desktops, unable to implement ODF. In light of this real world problem, Sun's Bosak urges support for MS OOXML as an ISO standard!!!
So we have this situation at OASIS ODF where Sun is in control of both ODF and OpenOffice, refusing in all cases to compromise the linkage or accomodate the much needed interoperability enhancemnts seeking to improve the conversion of billions of documents to ODF. And publicly supporting MS OOXML as the only pragmatic alternative to the situation Sun is responsible for!

Archives of all OASIS ODF TC disussions.  Does not include Metadata, Formula or Accessibility lists

Dragged through the mud

"Clearly the Press Announcement today from Microsoft will bring about another wave of discourse on the future of document formats. " Jason Matusow presents the long-term view of the announcement's significance.