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Gary Edwards

A Savage Journey … ODF at the OOXML BRM « A Frantic Opposition - 0 views

  • A Savage Journey … ‘Erupting from my vivid nightmares into the retro 80s faded luxury of a five-star hotel in Geneva, the pictures of the first victim reappeared on the wall.  The head of the Brazilian delegation-it’s only a matter of time now. My mind thrashes to disentangle the thrown spaghetti threads of blurred reasoning; who’s next, is it just the heads of delegation they are after, any NB member, P-members only? The fog lifts and it’s worse.  Who is behind this, them or us?  We outnumber them, but maybe their plan is more devious.  Must find Bonky Bob, he’ll know what to do.’ Enough levity for now.  The BRM has held few surprises, other than the rather galling situation where I was forced to publicly toe the INCITS line by the temporary head of delegation, a Microsoft employee, against my better judgement.
Gary Edwards

Word of recognition from an unexpected side: ODF editor Patrick Durusau supports OOXML... - 0 views

  • The OpenXML project has made a large amount of progress in terms of the openness of its evelopment. Objections that do not recognize that are focusing on what they want to see and not what is actually happening with OpenXML
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    Patrick Durusau, the OASIS ODF editor has written an open letter praising the OOXML standardization effort at Ecma and ISO. Patrick is a long time member of ISO JTCS1, currently serving as the ODF editor for both ISO and OASIS ODF efforts. That his endorsement of OOXML comes on the eve of the critically important February BRM is beyond incredible. Jesper offers this quote which i think adequately summarizes Patrick's endorsement: The OpenXML project has made a large amount of progress in terms of the openness of its evelopment. Objections that do not recognize that are focusing on what they want to see and not what is actually happening with OpenXML"
Gary Edwards

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.
Gary Edwards

Harmonization and Interop: The dizzying dance of ODF, OOXML, and CDF - 0 views

  • With the ISO BRM fast approaching, the harmonization of ODF and OOXML is all the rage. The legendary marbux takes on this discussion arguing that ODF and OOXML both lack the interoperability framework needed to meet ISO directives describing interop requirements. He argues that interop between MSOffice and OpenOffice can be achieved using CDF.
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    Will the real universal document format please stand up! Comments on the recent article posted by the Universal Interoperability Council: "Putting Andy Updegrove to bed without his supper". The UIC article is well worth your time. It is extremely well referenced and researched. The arguments put forth counter claims by IBM and OASIS that the W3C's CDF format can not be used to represent desktop productivity environment documents. Not surprisingly, IBM and OASIS argue that the OpenOffice specific ODF is the only alternative to Microsoft Office specific OOXML. The UIC argues that the full range of MSOffice legacy binary documents and emerging XML documents can fully be represented in CDF - something that not even the most ardent of ODF jihadists would claim as an ODF capabilitiy. The truth is that ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice binary and xml documents.
Gary Edwards

ODF Alliance on the Microsoft Disposition of ISO Comments on OOXML - 0 views

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    The ever audacious and prevaricating lobbyist group known as the ODF Alliance has posted their critique of Ecma's (Microsoft's) proposed disposition of ISO comments rejecting OOXML. The critique's appeal to ignorance is breath-taking in scope. E.g., whilst slamming DIS-29500 on the subject of interoperability, the same document pushes for harmonization using the following argument: "Harmonization starts from looking at where the two formats overlap - and there is a significant, perhaps 90 percent or more, area where OOXML and ODF do overlap - and expressing this functional overlap identically. This common functionality between ODF and OOXML would also include a common extensibility mechanism. The remaining 10 percent of the functionality, where these standards do not overlap, would represent the focus of the harmonization effort. That portion of it which represents a widespread need could be brought into the core of ODF. That remaining portion which only serves one vendor's needs, such as flags for deprecated legacy formatting options, could be represented using the common extensibility mechanism." And precisely how do vendor-specific extensions aid interoperability, particularly when the proposed "harmonization" does not require profiles and an interoperability framework?
Gary Edwards

OOXML OPS and the GPL: A disappointing surprise from the SFLC | Gray Matter - 0 views

  • I view the spec as confusing, obtuse, error-ridden, x86-centric, incomplete, and redundant.  Microsoft sat on the board of ODF for _years_ without offering any help on the minor items ODF didn't provide that they wanted.  Now that governments start pressing for permanent standards on document storage, MS throws out this half-baked item and expects a reward for good behavior.  Maybe somebody on the board of directors at our company likes it, but the technical folks having to add more work are less than happy about this beast. If they had to go with XML, couldn't they at least have allowed standard XML with attributes and the like instead of x86 specific, binary incompatible, past-version deprecating, standard-avoiding, crash on normal XML.. ... mess... that they have offered for consumption?  Oh.. but wait, I'm sure the BRM fixed that in the week given.  I'm sure the pretty version will show up any day now.
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    Scott B comment on the OOXML OPS and GPL controversy. Great comments from Bruce Perens also.
Gary Edwards

Once More unto the Breach: Microsoft Discusses Open Standards (versus Open Source Softw... - 0 views

  • So here are some "Key Messages" from Microsoft's standards team circa 2003 (doing battle with the Australian parliament no doubt) [Emphasis added]: An open standard is a publicly available specification which details certain technical functionality that may be implemented in different products and services.  It is adopted in an open, consensus-based process and must satisfy other criteria for transparency, ease of access, and broad implementation as described below. Open standards exist to facilitate interoperability and data exchange across various products and services in a marketplace of multiple, competing implementations, while ensuring that certain minimum requirements are met. Other types of standards (e.g., “proprietary standards”) and market-based mechanisms exist and are currently used to facilitate interoperability.  However, open standards ensure the highest level of interoperability across the widest range of competing products and services.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft's OOXML limps through ISO meeting - ZDNet UK - 0 views

  • Gary Edwards, former president of the Open Document Foundation, an industry group that promoted ODF but then rejected both approaches and closed itself down in November 2007, said: "Ecma and Oasis are vendor consortia where the rules governing standards specification work favour vendor innovation over the open and transparent interoperability consumers, governments and FLOSS efforts demand... Shutting that door on Ecma OOXML is proving very difficult exactly because the primary and fundamental rule of ISO interoperability requirements has been breached."
Gary Edwards

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.
Gary Edwards

ODF and OOXML are standards in name only - Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'... - 0 views

  • Both ODF and OOXML flunk that test badly. Their interoperable implementation neither has nor can be demonstrated. Both are designed for the waging of feature wars, not for interoperability. Both attempt to legitimize market-leading companies embracing and extending their own formats. They are standards in name only. What we are watching is a contest to decide which big vendor formats will be allowed to undeservedly claim the title of "international standard."
Gary Edwards

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."
Paul Merrell

Gray Matter : Microsoft adds "Save as ODF" to Office 2007 Service Pack 2 - 0 views

  • There are really two central catalysts for these actions. One of these is the feedback we have received from the regulatory environment. There is a high degree of interest in our working with other software vendors to improve information exchange through the use of standardized technologies.
  • In our early testing we are observing that every product implementing these standards has some level of variation from the written spec. If you've been around standards for a while, you'll know this is common, and requires dialog to establish best practices & patterns. This is our reason for joining the OASIS, AIIM and ISO committees,
  • Because ODF side-stepped the compatibility question, we were left to solve (continue solving) that challenge elsewhere; the aversion to dealing with legacy content created a real problem for customers who want to transition to more open file formats.
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  • Office 14 will update our support for IS29500. The timing for this might seem strange, but I do hope the rationale is clear. ODF 1.1 is a completed specification. The final version of IS29500 is not published today. While we do support a significant portion of IS29500 already, the BRM changes and other issues raised in public forums will inform us on how to best move forward with IS29500… and it gives me a little time to address the compatibility considerations that will be an important part of any file format related changes in Office.
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    Microsoft's Gray Knowlton on the reasons for the Redmond decision to provide native support for ODF 1.1. But most noteworthy, I think, is Knowlton's statement indicating that Microsoft aims at improving interop through best practices & patterns, i.e., application-level interop initiatives, as opposed to amending the ODF standard to specify conformity requirements essential to achieve interoperability, as required by JTC 1 Directives, international law, and antitrust law. In other words, big vendor negotiations around interop rather than giving software users and independent developers a seat at the table.
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