OpenDocument

“By migrating from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org we had to take our productivity environment to a higher level, so that the migration would not be perceived as a mere replacement but as a genuine improvement. The OpenOffice.org user doesn’t need to leave the OpenOffice.org application or start another application. This effectively eliminates the borders between template management and document collaboration for teams, projects and departments. We are focused on the user and on the usability of the applications we use. With O3Spaces Workplace we’ve found a fully integrated document management, collaboration environment that till now couldn’t be found on the market”, says Hiemstra.

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).

Did the OpenDocument Foundation recently shutter its doors for good because it was unable to convince Oasis to support its converter, known as Da Vinci? Or was it because OpenDocument Format was simply not designed for the conversion of Microsoft Office documents, applications, and processes?

But standards don't rule the computing world. Today, ninety-two per cent of desktops and seventy per cent of servers run the proprietary and non-standardized Microsoft Windows OS.

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.

The OpenDocument Foundation was formed in 2005, with the mission "to provide a conduit for funding and support for individual contributors to participate in ODF development" at the standards body OASIS. So, at a time when backing for the ODF format seems to be gaining in strength around the world, eyebrows were naturally raised when Sam Hiser, the Foundation's Vice President and Director of Business Affairs, wrote on October 16 that it was no longer supporting ODF:

A while back the OpenDocument Foundation folded up, withdrawing its support for the ODF in favor of CDF. The reason for the switch is buried in the details of ODF community’s denial to be fully interoperable with Microsoft Office, which might have helped in migrating to ODF without affecting the processes. So, there was something bigger here playing it up. Matt Assay notes that Microsoft Sharepoint might kill ODF more than anything else. It is the process stupid! People want to move to ODF, but without having to re-engineer their business processes.

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.

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 major proponent of this format, the OpenDocument Foundation, has evidently recently decided to dump ODF in favor of an obscure alternative called the Compound Document Format, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. So now I really don't know what to think. I wonder if the foundation will change its name.

the World Wide Web Consortium's Common Document Format (CDF) had been identified by the OpenDocument Foundation as a superior document format to the OpenDocument Format

the OpenDocument Foundation had decided to back away from work on ODF in favor of CDF (a W3C-backed standard) out of a belief that ODF wouldn't achieve the real-world interoperability goals the OpenDocument Foundation was originally created to achieve,

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).

Now, Sam Hiser, VP of the ODF, has said that he sees the W3C standard CDF (Compound Document Format) as a more viable universal format than ODF. He stated simply that, "ODF is not the open format with the open process we thought it was". Why is this significant? First, I think it speaks to how important the W3C is and has become over the past several years. The number of web standards in particular that have been formalized by the W3C is remarkable, whether they have been successful or not. Second, it (CDF) addresses an issue that I see on a daily basis in my role here at Compendium Blogware.

Nov. 12: A great article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols announced that the Open Document Foundation has closed shop, alleging that the foundation’s founders Sun and IBM tried to sabotage document interoperability, and instead endorsing W3C’s Compound Document Format. I’ve had my differences with SJVN — he’s on the true-believer end of open source reporters — but he’s really captured well a complex story: in the end, neither the ODF nor CDF faction comes across as completely credible.

What is quite remarkable, if not a little confusing, is that an organization would not only put the brakes on a format it helped created - but do so publicly and authentically, as soon as they realized that the end result was not what they set out for it to be. Many organizations would just sweep such thoughts under the rug, and keep to their dead end strategy - afraid to admit the wrong turn they took at Albuquerque. I have to applaud the leadership body of the Open Document Foundation for having the courage to stand for what they believe. Bravo.

+1 gary.edwards - 11/16/07 Thanks for the consideration Anton. You might want to follow an emerging discussion now taking place at the OpenDocument Fellowship: Interop between multiple standards and multiple applications Check on the follow up post and understand that this is the same problem the da Vinci group tried to overcome in Massachusetts, when ODF hung by a thread in the summer of 2006; with the sole hope being a plug-in conversion process capable of very high "round trip" fidelity. To assist Massachusetts and the da Vinci Group, the OpenDocument Foundation introduced to the OASIS ODF TC a series of discussions and proposals collectively known as the ODF iX interoperability enhancements. A total of six comprehensive iX enhancements were introduced between July of 2006 and March of 2007. The first three sets of iX enhancements were signed off on by CIO Louis Gutierrez, with the full knowledge and awareness of IBM (they participated directly in those discussions and i do have the emails and conference schedules to verify this . Also, if you're interested in other issues surrounding the da Vinci groups use of CDF WICD Full as an in-process conversion target for MSOffice documents, there is a series of recent responses posted in the comments section of this blog, "Going to Bed (without my supper). One last note; I do have a response to AlphaDog sitting in the blog que, where i try to put the MSOffice to CDF WICD Full conversion, and the OpenOffice ODF to CDF WICD Full conversion into the larger context of the web platform and universal interoperability. This post will also briefly explain the events immediately preceding the decision to shut the Foundation down. Hope this helps, ~ge~

But in serving as that "glue," the Foundation's founders had recently said they believed CDF could fulfill the original goals of the ODF format - goals they described as having been circumvented by their current backers, perhaps in the effort to keep OOXML from being considered an equal player. To that end, they established what had been called the da Vinci Project, whose stated goal was to build a better bridge between OOXML and ODF than Microsoft itself is working on, using CDF as a go-between.Today, the da Vinci Project appears dead, as its home pages on Google were also struck down.

The reasons for the move to CDF was improved compatibility with Microsoft’s OOXML format the foundation claimed at the time. Cris Lilley from W3C contradicted. CDF is not an office format, and thus not an alternative to the Open Document Format. This turn-down is likely the reason for the abrupt ditching of the foundation.

The decision to go with CDF has left some industry commentators scratching their heads, with arstechnica.com’s Ryan Paul noting that the decision is curious as CDF doesn't support “the full range of functionality required for office compatibility”. Paul does add, however, that the formats broad use of formats such as XHTML and SVG does give it a compelling edge.