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I had read the essay by Jon Bosak (SUN Microsystems) on why SUN voted as it did in the US. He lays out a very different strategy. His view is that the battle is lost to completely reject OOXML as an ISO standard. ISO can only reject it with comments, and that is equivalent to giving Microsoft a todo-list on how to fix the draft so as to get it approved. Microsoft has sufficient manpower to easily tackle that. Most of us had missed what Mr. Bosak saw: OOXML promises interoperability with earlier closed binary formats (the Word Doc, older Excel file formats etc.). But it doesn’t deliver. How on earth could someone be able to convert old binary files to the new format without having the specification of the old formats and a mapping to OOXML. If you are to translate some text from Chinese to English, it doesn’t much help to only know English.

“Ah c’mon Bosak, you are chickening out, we must stop this dead in the track”

When such new features that enhance the interoperability require enhancements to the Open Document file format we will propose the necessary changes to the OASIS Open Document TC. This way not only OpenOffice.org but also Open Document benefits from our efforts. Florian Reuter, who now works for Novell, lists some of the changes we have in mind in his blog . So there are a lot of common ideas how we can improve the interoperability between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Word documents and I hope we can work together with Florian here.

If this is the case then it greatly increases the scope of the bill from being a simple switch from MS Office to OpenOffice to a massive effort involving the definition of many new XML schemata, developing, testing and debugging software to handle the new schemata, creation of documentation, deployment of and training for the new software, etc., etc.

Another document format is not needed. This was already obvious before blogs took off, but to be promoting now is unforgivably stupid and irresponsible. Try and explain to an average person why all the typing they just did cannot even be viewed in a Web browser, they will not get it. Saving the user's typing as DOC or ODF is a con. The storage of text, styled text, graphics, photos, even movies (MPEG-4 H.264-AAC) has been solved. Your document format is ready it is HTML 4.01 Strict, CSS 2.1, and JS 1.5, there is nothing in the 1980's technology of MS Word that cannot be stored this way.

This seems to me to be a turning point for the creation of global standards. Microsoft was invited to be part of the original ODF Technical Committee in OASIS, and chose to stand aside. That committee tried to do its best to make the standard work well with Office, but was naturally limited in that endeavor by Microsoft's unwillingness to cooperate. This, of course, made it easier for Microsoft to later claim a need for OOXML to be adopted as a standard, in order to "better serve its customers." The refusal by an incumbent to participate in an open standards process is certainly its right, but it is hardly conduct that should be rewarded by a global standards body charged with watching out for the best interests of all.

In the short term and even medium term, it is very likely that mainstream business customers will be more comfortable viewing the cloud as an add-on to rather than a replacement for their traditional Office programs. The competitive battle, in other words, will be fought largely on Microsoft's turf, and on that turf a certain amount of messiness is both allowed and expected. "Google and other Office competitors will be breathing a sigh of relief this morning," writes Mike Arrington. If so, it's a sigh they may come to regret.

Second, don't underestimate the lock-in power that programs like Outlook and Excel and Quickbooks and Peachtree and their associated files still hold, particularly in smaller businesses. Someday we may have standard document formats and easily transportable data, but we don't yet. The competitive battle for the future of software is going to be fought out at the level of the Little Picture as much as at the level of the Big Picture. Lose sight of either one, and you'll be in trouble. In other words: It ain't over till the Fat Guy rants.

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.

This document defines a generic language-independent processing model for combining arbitrary document formats. The Compound Document Framework is language-independent. While it is clearly meant to serve as the basis for integrating W3C's family of XML formats within its Interaction Domain (e.g., MathML, SMIL, SVG, VoiceXML, XForms, XHTML, XSL) with each other, together with CSS and the DOM; it can also be used to integrate non-W3C formats with W3C formats or integrate non-W3C formats with other non-W3C formats. 1.1. Conformance Everying in this specification is normative except for diagrams, examples, notes and sections marked non-normative. The key words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommended, may and optional in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. This specification defines the following classes of products: conforming implementation A user agent that implements all interfaces described in this specification and follows all must-, required- and shall-level of critera in this specification. conforming document A document that follows all must-, required- and shall-level of critera in this specification that apply to document authors. conforming authoring tool One that produces conforming documents.

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.

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

OOXML on the other hand presents ISO with a very different situation. Because of the way the OOXML - Ecma charter is worded, i don't see how ISO JTC-1 could ever fix the OOXML interoperability problems. ISO approval of OOXML would include acceptance of a charter that defines and limits OOXML interoperability to whatever MSOffice determines it to be. If Patrick and the JTC-1 tried to bring OOXML into compliance with existing ISO Interoperability Requirements, they would have to somehow amend a charter duly approved.Given that the JTC-1 has yet to address a two year old ISO directive regarding ODF interop compliance, what are the odds they will dare to amend an approved charter? Not good i think.ISO approval of OOXML is a tragedy for all of us. For sure it's the end of ODF. It's perhaps the end of ISO as a respected standards organization. The issue of open standards itself will become a joke, with the reality of standards by corporation having us all wringing our hands in despair.

Firstly it is a back end to what most people would traditionally think of as "Microsoft Office", i.e. the suite of desktop tools (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and so on). In this respect, it acts as a hub for collaboration, document storage/sharing, search and a range of other functions. However, SharePoint can also be used independently of the Office desktop components as a very respectable and capable portal environment for serving up either native .Net or composite applications to users through a browser.

Fortunately for Microsoft, the DaVinci plugin is coming, which will enable Microsoft office applications to comply with ISO 26300. We all understand the financial issues that prompted the push to make OOXML a standard (see Tim's comment above and http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/whose-finances-are-on-the-line/ for more on this) and ensure continued vendor lock-in. However, OOXML is not the answer.

ODF can handle everything and anything Microsoft Office can throw at it. Including the legacy billions of binary documents, years of MSOffice bound business processes, and even tricky low level reaching add-ons represented by assistive technologies.

Quick! Do you use the Compound Document Format?! You, know, CDF … surely you use CDF, right? Chances are pretty good that you have no idea about what I’m talking about. Everyone knows Microsoft’s word document format and Adobe’s PDF, chances are pretty good that if you’re reading this on XML.com you’ve heard of ODF and OOXML, especially after the fairly rancorous discussions about ISO status for these two formats. Yet CDF, hmmmm … that’s a rough one. Didn’t it belong to Corel, once upon a time?

CDF was in the news recently with the implosion of the Open Document Foundation, originally established to endorse ODF, though in its death throes it briefly highlighted the CDF format as perhaps a better format for documents than either OOXML or ODF. This is admittedly one of those areas where it may be justified in looking at XHTML especially and going “huh”? How can that be a full document format - it’s used for web pages, after all - you wouldn’t want to use it to mark up a full book, would you? Document formats are a lot like religions - people are ready to defend them to the death if need be, yet at the same time it becomes easy to dismiss certain religions that don’t even seem to be religions at all (such as my personal favorite, the rather philosophical Tao). Could you mock up a brochure in XHTML and CSS? Actually, it turns out that its surprisingly easy to do just that - especially if you throw a little SVG into the mix and allow the possibility of embedding XHTML within SVG (for all those odd little bits of rotation and other special effects).

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.

A presentation made two weeks ago by two members of OASIS' OpenDocument technical committee, and founding members of the OpenDocument Foundation, made it clear that the foundation would be turning its attention away from developing the ODF format and translators for it. Instead, in a course change instigated as far back as last May, the Foundation is steering back toward a project launched in 1995 by the World Wide Web Consortium, in hopes of recapturing the momentum toward document interoperability for all existing word processor users.

Here's what Chris Lilley had to say, reconstructed from my notes (in other words, this is not a direct quote): So we were in a meeting when these articles about the Foundation and CDF started to appear, and we were really puzzled.  CDF isn't anything like ODF at all – it's an "interoperability agreement," mainly focused on two other specifications - XHTML and SVG.  You'd need to use another W3C specification, called Web Interactive Compound Document (WICD, pronounced "wicked"), for exporting, and even then you could only view, and not edit the output.  The one thing I'd really want your readers to know is that CDF (even together with WICD) was not created to be, and isn't suitable for use, as an office format.  Here are some other takeaways from my conversation with Chris: Although they would be welcome to become members, Neither Gary, Sam nor Marbux are members of W3C or the CDF working group The W3C has never been contacted by anyone from the Foundation about CDF.  After the articles began appearing, the W3C sent an inquiry to the Foundation, and received only a general reply in response The CDF working group was not chartered to achieve conversion between formats Although he hasn't spent a lot of time trying to unravel what Gary has written on the subject, he can't make any sense out of why the Foundation thinks that CDF makes sense as a substitute for ODF

Ophelia explains he possessed at one time a "noble mind" and was a "soldier," and a "scholar" – all the terms by which any young man at that time would like to be known (3.1.64). Now, though, Hamlet lashes out at others, speaks harshly with those to whom he is supposedly close, and even thoughtlessly kills a man.

Though Hamlet fails to disclose his reasoning behind displaying the "antic disposition," his words and actions point to a few possible motives

though this be madness, yet there is method in 't"

OpenOffice.org's biggest foe may be Microsoft Office, but critics say the open-source organization has, from its inception, also been one of its application suite's own worst enemies -- a victim of a development culture that differs radically from the open-source norm. Observers now wonder if IBM's entry into OpenOffice.org can make the necessary changes.

The Open Document Foundation (ODF) has quietly ended all work on its da Vinci project after failing to secure approval from the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The da Vinci project was to develop a class of plug-ins that would allow users "to create and edit CDF (compound document format) files in their existing Microsoft Office installations". That is to say, a user could save a .odt file within Word as easily as if it were a .doc format. document.write('\x3Cscript src="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/adj/reg.software.4159/applications;'+RegExCats+GetVCs()+'pid='+RegId+';'+RegKW+'maid='+maid+';test='+test+';pf='+RegPF+';dcove=d;sz=336x280;tile=3;ord=' + rand + '?" type="text/javascript">\x3C\/script>'); However, the organisation now says all work has ceased because OASIS has not granted approval of its generic extensions. Without this approval, ODF says: "We can not effectively convert existing Microsoft documents, applications and processes to ODF. The loss of fidelity and feature - business process specific information is too great."