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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:

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.

An intriguing idea is whether we can have it both ways. Suppose you are in an ODF editor and you have a "Save for archiving..." option that would save your ODF document as normal, but also generate a PDF version of it and store it in the zip archive along with ODF's XML streams. Then digitally sign the archive along with a time stamp to make it tamper-proof. You would need to define some additional access conventions, but you could end up with a single document that could be loaded in an ODF editor (in read-only mode) to allow examination of the details of spreadsheet formulas, etc., as well as loaded in a PDF reader to show exactly how it was formated.

In e-mailed comments, Heintzman said his criticisms about the situation have been made openly. "We think that Open Office has quite a bit of potential and would love to see it move to the independent foundation that was promised in the press release back when Sun originally announced OpenOffice," he said. "We think that there are plenty of existing models of communities, [such as] Apache and Eclipse, that we can look to as models of open governance, copyright aggregation and licensing regimes that would make the code much more relevant to a much larger set of potential contributors and implementers of the technology.... "Obviously, by joining we do believe that the organization is important and has potential," he wrote. "I think that new voices at the table, including IBM's, will help the organization become more efficient and relevant to a greater audience.... Our primary reason for joining was to contribute to the community and leverage the work that the community produces.... I think it is true there are many areas worthy of improvement and I sincerely hope we can work on those.... I hope the story coming out of Barcelona isn't a dysfunctional community story, but rather a [story about a] potentially significant and meaningful community with considerable potential that has lots of room for improvement...."

But at all relevant times you knew that you could not respond on the merits if Alex took the time to write the same analysis I did. I call foul. Foul 1: You accused Alex of ignorance and deceit. Foul 2: You had no informed basis for those insults.Foul 3: You knew you had no informed basis for your insults.Foul 4: You have put me to the work of repeating the conversation we already had. Shame on you, Rob Weir. The position you took was unprincipled. You are the one who has intentionally misled Alex's readers. You are caught. If you are a principled person, you will immediately retract your insults and apologize to Alex Brown for your deceit in as public a manner as you inflicted your deceit. If you do not do so, the undeniable record lies here of a man who is not man enough to take responsibility for his wrongs and apologize.

Ah, Marbux, what circus is complete without the clowns?

It seems you like to ignore requirements in order to defend Microsoft

Both ODF and OOXML are only one WTO Dispute Resolution Process complaint away from losing their international standard, national technical regulation, and government procurement specification status. They do not meet the minimum requirements of international law. Both are unnecessary obstacles to international trade; neither specify a uniform and substitutable product. That does not sound like a sound business plan to me. So I return to my question posed in an earlier post: Will ODF v. 1.2 under your leadership attempt to "clearly and unambiguously specify that conformance requirements essential to achieve the interoperability" and will the standards-based interoperability between *different* IT systems be "demonstrable," as required by JTC 1 Directives? That is not a complicated question and it requires no deep dive into international law to answer. International law requires what the quoted JTC 1 Directives require in this regard, but for purposes of the point under discussion we need go no further than the Directives' plain language. One either adheres to the rules or one forfeits the moral high ground to complain when others ignore the rules. Where does Rob Weir stand on complying with the rules?

This fight is a distraction. Recognize both formats as legacy defacto standards and move on. This is actually a very common precursor in a standards process. CDF provides an opportunity to do the job right. People should not be translating OOXML into ODF, there simply isn't the value there. It is much more likely that OOXML will be a live format in twenty years time than ODF. We have a common standards based document language today - HTML. OK so I have a bias here but there is much more HTML than anything else. HTML is just a document format and it is somewhat presentation oriented but modern XHTML is changing those problems.

The problem for "you" is that Microsoft is the one who has 400 million or so installs of the dominant de facto office suite in the planet. "You" can either try to get them to play nice with you by applying pressure intelligently, or you can organize an exciting jihad to stick it to them. In a make-believe world where companies choose technology based on, well, technical merits and openness, the second approach will usually work. In the real world though, the former option would have been a better idea. But when you have well-paid shills like Rob Weir (courtesy of IBM) and his co-religionists who rarely take a break from hating Microsoft (except for lame attempts at making fun [robweir.com] of Microsoft) it's difficult to get away from the join-us-or-die approach. It just feels so right, I guess. I'm going OT here but seriously, Weir is just the cat's meow. Every single time Microsoft has challenged his hyperbolic rants and outright lies he's essentially ignored them or just penned some more. He thinks the OpenDocument Foundation is an irrelevant fly-by-night fanboy club (which I guess is possible), but he has no problem quoting obscure African groups [robweir.com] and his groupie bloggers to prop up his "Microsoft is evil and Office sucks and remember, IBM had nothing to do with this post" arguments. If the man spent 1/10th as much time writing some code or documentation as he does bitching about the Office toolbar buttons, ODF would have conquered the world by now. With people like that at the helm it's not difficult to see why a document format controlled by a single company and an elite group of testy technorati has gotten to where it is now. Not that I think OOXML is a particularly good idea, but at least there's someone out there with the balls to point out that the emperor is buck naked. I guess they better get ready for the DoS attacks, hate mail and death threats.

Blame Sun for this. Sounds like a populist position, or maybe troll flamebait. I'll be generous and assume the former, despite the fact your post seems like a digest from an anti-ODF briefing paper. Disclosure: My job [sun.com] includes the task of receiving complaints about Sun and trying to get Sun to fix whatever causes the problem. If you have proof of any of your accusations, let me know. I may have some of my facts wrong below as I'm working from memory; I'd welcome correction. With a few small additions, ODF could have supported Office formats as well, but Sun would not allow this. That is indeed the constant assertion that the three guys who comprise the Foundation make. However, I have personally asked members of the ODF working group at OASIS and they tell me its not so. The Foundation guys wanted to add structures to ODF to preserve untranslateable tags in translated documents so they could be regenerated on the reverse translation. Sounds OK at first glance, but in practice it results in very brittle software solutions that work well in demos but not in real life. The proposal was thus rejected by the whole working group (not just the Sun employees). Rejected, that is, in conversation. A complete solution was never proposed for voting. To say Sun would not allow it ignores the actual dynamic of the working group (see below). Their policy is that ODF will support what is needed for StarOffice, and nothing more. Naturally every member of a standards group in the traditional standards process is looking out for the code base where they implement a standard, and will have serious questions of any feature that they regard as unimplementable. The features actually put to a vote by the guys from the Foundation would have resulted in very brittle implementations, highly dependent on the version of MS Office with which they were coupled. It may have been possible to come up with a solution that reduced this problem, but the discussion was not sustained. The assertion you make is not true in the general case.They control the ODF technical committee Untrue. The ODF TC [oasis-open.org] can have no more than three members from any one organisation and is not under the control of any organisation. The Foundation guys actually flaunted that rule at one point and sent many, many more representatives - OASIS had to step in to fix it. That intervention is one of the issues they have with OASIS, in fact. Sun happens to employ the people who act as Chair and Secretary to the TC but the voting remains democratic.and their patent license allows them to stop the ODF TC if the ODF TC goes in a direction Sun does not like. I've heard that interpretation of the patent non-assert covenant [oasis-open.org] that Sun has made regarding ODF, but it's untrue. Sun covenants not to enforce any patents against ODF implementations based on any spec it participates in. To the extent that versions of the spec after Sun's departure are based on version in which Sun was involved, that covenant remains in effect even in the unlikely event of Sun leaving the TC. Sun can't stop the TC from continuing its work. Are you relaying this all as hearsay, or do you actually have data to back up your accusations? If you have, I'd like to see it (genuinely).

You must admire their tenacity. Gary Edwards and the pseudonymous "Marbux". The mythology of Silicon Valley is filled with stories of two guys and a garage founding great enterprises. And here we have two guys, and through blogs, interviews, and constant attendance at conferences, they have become some of the most-heard voices on ODF. Maybe it is partly due to the power of the name? The "OpenDocument Foundation" sounds so official. Although it has no official role in the ODF standard, this name opens doors. The ODF Alliance , the ODF Fellowship, the OASIS ODF TC, ODF Adoption TC (and many other groups without "ODF" in their name) have done far more to promote and improve ODF, yet the OpenDocument Foundation, Inc. seems to score the panel invites. Not bad for two guys without a garage.

The first time I heard about OpenDocument Foundation people not happy with ODF is from Stephen McGibbon post about Gary Edwards disagreement with Sun. Then comes Rob Weir’s that OpenDocument Foundation had moved away from OpenDocumentFormat. With Rob Weir post I sense some crack in OpenDocument Foundation over ODF. While Weir’s post continues its tradition of building up evidence to support his argument, he is known to be a very passionate guy about ODF and is not shy about attacking opposition, any opposition to ODF. Hence, in this respect, I believe I have to exercise a certain amount of caution when Weir start attacking someone new. Today, I came across Jason Matusow’s happy rambling about how OpenDocument Foundation is unhappy about ODF and appears to be supporting a single document format. Matusow view it as an argument that the “one document format” theory does not work. More on this later. Hmmm… Did OpenDocument Foundation change direction away from ODF? and what is this Compound Document Format (CDF) thing that seems to be the new love of OpenDocument Foundation.

There has been quite a lot of hubbub recently about ODF conformance, in particular about how conformance to the forthcoming ODF 1.2 specification should be defined.

The proposal caused much debate. In support of the new conformance clause, IBM's Rob Weir described foreign elements (formerly so welcome in ODF) as proprietary extensions that are “evil” and as a “nuclear death ray gun”. Questioning the proposal, KOffice's Thomas Zander wrote that he was “worried that we are trying to remove a core feature that I depend on in both KOffice and Qt”. Meanwhile Microsoft's Doug Mahugh made a counter-proposal suggesting that ODF might adopt the Markup Compatibility and Extensibility mechanisms from ISO/IEC 29500 (OOXML). Things came to a head in a 9-2-2 split vote last week which saw the new conformance text adopted in the new ODF committee specification by will of the majority. Following this there was some traffic in the blogosphere with IBM's Rob Weir commenting and Microsoft's Doug Mahugh counter-commenting on the vote and the circumstances surrounding it.

The Case for Harmonization (that IBM will vote against anyway) In my recent post, I discussed the case for harmonization, mainly due to trying to portray a more kindly, conciliatory face in the “standards krieg” that I was enjoying so much. I have been forced to take a different tack, in light of being hung out to dry by my more business-focused IBM comrades and the work that the enemy has done in sprucing up the spec. However, as my closest friends know, for me, there are no half-victories, so you can rest assured that I will not settle for this weak “harmonization” compromise. I set out my (and IBM’s) stall some time ago on this, and as those on the Open Document Foundation know, any attempt at harmonization shall be met with swift and final retribution.  They were ejected from the odf-coven just days after their impudence. I have baited my trap, inviting this “harmonization” in my lair (the OASIS ODF TC) where I can bog them down in a morass of incompetence, bickering and politicking, so no new standard is ever ratified.  I have already been practicing for this, as you can see, by the ODF 1.1 and 1.2 specs.

Events have played out in the media and in the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks that represent a breakdown of some of those anti-OpenXML arguments that have been played back so frequently over the last year. Arguments that there is a lack of demand for Open XML, the specification is too complex to implement, the specification can’t be deployed cross platform and the long running but baseless claim that the Ecma-376 specification might be encumbered by IPR and patent threats all appear to have been cast aside as big blue steps up to meet the demands of their own customers and the market in general. Here is a blow by blow review of the relevant activity over the last two weeks…

To prove libel, which is the same thing as written defamation, the plaintiff has to prove that the blogger published a false statement of fact about the plaintiff that harmed the plaintiff's reputation. Let's break that down. "Published" means that at least one other person may have read the blog. That's right, just one. A "false statement of fact" is a statement about the plaintiff that is not true. Truth is the best defense against libel. An opinion is also a defense against libel. But, depending on the context, the difference between an opinion and a statement of fact can be remarkably gray. Context is a big deal in determining defamation. One thing to watch out for: simply inserting the words "in my opinion" in front of a statement of fact doesn't magically make it an opinion. Satire and hyperbole can also be defenses against libel, but again, very gray. Then there's the matter of "harming the plaintiff's reputation." It's one thing to say that a false statement harmed your reputation, but if you can't demonstrate damages, the suit may be effectively worthless. Damages would include, for example, losing X customers that represent Y income, suffering emotional distress and so on. Also, if your damages are minimal, you may have a hard time finding a lawyer to take the case. They're a greedy lot. (That's an opinion, not a statement of fact.) If the plaintiff is your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill person or company, then negligence is sufficient to prove libel. That means that a reasonable person would not have published the defamatory statement. If the plaintiff is a "public figure," however, then the plaintiff must prove actual malice--a higher burden of proof. That means that the blogger knew that the statement wasn't true or didn't care. Then there's the question of who's responsible for comments on a blog. Whoever publishes the Web site is responsible for content on the site. That includes comments. However, many bloggers have independent agreements to indemnify the site that publishes their blog. That may or may not include comments. Plaintiffs can certainly sue everybody in the chain and see what sticks, though they will likely go after those with the deepest pockets. You can avoid the entire question by turning comments off.

CDF is one of the very many useful projects that W3C has been laboring on, but not one that you would have been likely to have heard much about. Until recently, that is, when Gary Edwards, Sam Hiser and Marbux, the management (and perhaps sole remaining members) of the OpenDocument Foundation decided that CDF was the answer to all of the problems that ODF was designed to address. This announcement gave rise to a flurry of press attention that Sam Hiser has collected here. As others (such as Rob Weir) have already documented, these articles gave the OpenDocument Foundation’s position far more attention than it deserved. The most astonishing piece was written by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. Early on in her article she stated that, “the ODF camp might unravel before Microsoft’s rival Office Open XML (OOXML) comes up for final international standardization vote early next year.” All because Gary, Sam and Marbux have decided that ODF does not meet their needs. Astonishing indeed, given that there is no available evidence to support such a prediction.

Most (quality) specifications provide clear instructions using those magic words SHALL, SHALL NOT, and MAY where those words have a defined meaning for an implementor. Paragraphs are clearly identified as either normative or informative. That way an implementor knows what they must and may implement to claim conformance against a specification. This approach has been well established over time as a sensible way for spec writers and implementors to work

Most (quality) specifications provide clear instructions using those magic words SHALL, SHALL NOT, and MAY where those words have a defined meaning for an implementor. Paragraphs are clearly identified as either normative or informative. That way an implementor knows what they must and may implement to claim conformance against a specification. This approach has been well established over time as a sensible way for spec writers and implementors to work That is the way quality specifications are written. For example, ISO/IEC's JTC 1 Directives (link to PDF) requires that international standards designed for interoperability "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the interoperability." With that clarity, conformance is testable and can provide confidence of interoperability. A suite of tests may be developed and applied to an implementation to determine which tests pass, which fail, and hence arrive at an objective pronouncement on conformance of an implementation against the entirety of the specification.

In a quality specification, it should be feasible to select a normative paragraph, identify a conformance test for it, and make a clear statement that this test proves that an implementation meets (or fails to meet) that requirement. Call it a test plan: define the tests (test specification), define the expected set of results, and define what constitutes a "pass" of each test that establishes conformance. The plan then provides the matrix of test spec against requirement. Simple.