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Gary Edwards

Open IT Strategies: Sun and IBM Sabotage ODF Interoeprability - 0 views

  • 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.
Gary Edwards

Open Document Format Wars at xentek.net - Eric Marden - 0 views

  • 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.
Gary Edwards

Play the tape!!! The W3C eMails to the Foundation tell a differenct story | OpenDocumen... - 0 views

  • An honest misunderstanding? Hardly! Play the tape! Instead of arguing about who said what when, let's just go to the record and see exactly what the W3C's Doug Schepers said to us in an eMail introducing himself. Keep in mind that we did not contact the W3C or Mr. Schepers. The following eMail was most welcome, but entirely unsolicited.
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    The W3C's Doug Schepers joins the discussion claiming that the Foundation misunderstood his eMail messages.   We say otherwise!

    There is of course one way to settle this: PLAY THE TAPE!

    So here it is.

    ~ge~

Gary Edwards

OpenDocument Foundation folds; will Microsoft benefit? - Mary Jo ZDNet - 0 views

  • +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~
Gary Edwards

Peter O'Kelly: ODF * 2 and Open XML |BurtonGroup - 0 views

  • A bunch of press channels picked up the "ODF abandons ODF" story and apparently didn't do sufficiently detailed homework on the charter/status/etc. of ODF the group. There's a lot more to this topic -- stay tuned...
Gary Edwards

The OpenChange Project: reader comment from Gary Edwards - CNET News.com - Flock - 0 views

  • Unfortunately much of the world is unaware of the OpenChange Project launched by members of the SAMBA Community. OpenChange is a young project, but there are working solutions already. And everything is Open Source Software portable across multiple operating systems.
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    Comment to article about Microsoft Exchange and OSS
Gary Edwards

open...: Oh, Tell Me the Truth About...the ODF Bust-Up - 0 views

  • Oh, Tell Me the Truth About...the ODF Bust-Up The recent decision by the OpenDocument Foundation to shift its energies away from ODF to CDF has naturally provoked a lot of rather exaggerated comment. I wrote a piece for LWN.net (now out from behind the paywall) exploring what exactly was going on, and found out that there are bigger issues than simply document interoperability at play.It turns out to be all about Microsoft's Sharepoint - software that I am beginning to see as one of the most serious threats to open source today. Read it and be very afraid.
Gary Edwards

Adobe's Latest Acquisition Creates Buzz Around Office Docs - Flock - 0 views

  • Adobe's foray into online productivity is unlikely to keep Microsoft's Steve Ballmer awake at night. But document sharing and collaboration features are central to Google's web-based office suite.
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    For a Web 2.0 application, Buzzword is very slick.  It's more sophisticated and feature rich than Glide Writer, which is also written on Adobe Flex.  Glide however offers an incredible array of portable office 2.0 features.  It's the whole enchilada.  And, Glide runs on iPhone!

    Another interesting plus for Glide is that Google uses Glide Presentations for their on line PowerPoint alternative.  Which is to say, Google is likely to purchase Glide while Adobe tries to build on Buzzword.

    One of the disturbing things for me is that Buzzword uses a proprietary file format!  In the future they will provide conversion to ODF, but that will probably be based on the OpenOffice conversion engine.  Which everyone in the Web 2.0, Office 2.0, enterprise 2.0 space uses.  Including Google.

    The thing is, the OpenOffice conversion engine lacks the conversion fidelity to crack into existing MSOffice bound business processes.

    Because they can't crack into these existing MSOffice bound business processes, the entire Office 2.0 sector is at risk.  All it takes is a competing entry from Microsoft, and the entire sector will ge twiped out by the superior interoperability - integration advantage to the MSOffice - Outlook desktop that Microsoft owns and carefully guards.

    Oh wait.  That just happened today with the announcement of MSOffice Live!  Suspiciously timed to take the oxygen out of Adobe's announcement too.

    ~ge~



Gary Edwards

Ballmer threatens Linux and open source with patents again - Flock - 0 views

  • To handle IP conflicts between open source and proprietary software organizations, Ballmer wants to see what he calls "an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds." He did not give any specifics on what such a framework would look like.
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    You've got to be kidding me!  Balmer wants to establish "an intellectual property interoperability framework" that open source communities would honor?  I think that's called "open standards" implemented according to the ISO, W3C and International Trade Agreement Interoperability conformance requirements.

    Why doesn't Microsoft start with an honest effort to comply with where the rest of the world has long been?

    ~ge~

Gary Edwards

Government Open Source Conference to Feature Open Document Debate - Government Technolo... - 0 views

  • The Executive Panel on Open Document Formats, moderated by Andy Stein, director of information technology at the city of Newport News, Va., will focus on how the user community can get involved in this issue, have influence over its outcome and knowledge for implementations. Panelists are expected to address the practical differences between competing standards OOXML, ODF and CDF to determine which one(s) truly provide a single file format that is open, universally interoperable and application- and platform-independent. About half of the session will be set aside for audience questions, providing an opportunity for GOSCON attendees to gain direct access to the debate.
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    The press coverage on GOSCON is outstanding.  Kudos to Debra Bryant and Andy Stein for stoking the fire here. 
Gary Edwards

ODF Civil War: Bulll Run - Suggested Changes on the Metadata proposal - OASIS ODF - 0 views

  • From our perspective it would be better to aim for doing the job in ODF 1.2, even if that requires delay. We will oppose ODF 1.2 at ISO unless the interoperability warts are cleaned up. What the market requires is no longer in doubt. See the slides linked above and further presentations linked from this page, < http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/6474/5935>. Substantial progress toward those goals would seem to be mandatory to maintain Europe's preference for a harmonized set of file formats that uses ODF to provide the common functionality. Delaying commencement of such work enhances the likelihood that governments will tire of waiting for ODF to become interoperable with MS Office and simply go with MOOXML. We may not be able to force Microsoft to participate in the harmonization work, but we will be in a far better position if we have done everything we can in aid of that interoperability without Microsoft's assistance. As the situation stands, we have what is known in the U.S. as a "Mexican stand-off," where neither side has taken a solitary step toward what Europe has requested. We have decided to do that work via a fork of ODF; it is up to this TC whether it wishes to cooperate in that effort.
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    This is the famous marbux response to Sun regarding Sun's attempt to partially implement ODF 1.2 XML-RDF metadata.  It's a treasure.

    There is one problem with marbux's statement though.  We had decided long ago not to fork ODF even if the five iX "interoperability enhancement" proposals were refused by the OASIS ODF TC.   This assurance was provided to Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez witht he the first ODF iX proposal submitted on July 12th, 2006.  Louis ended up signing off on three iX proposals before his resignation October 4th, 2006.

    The ODF iX enhancements were essential to saving ODF in Massachusetts.  Without them, there was no way our da Vinci plug-in could convert existing MSOffice documents and processes to ODF with the needed round trip fidelity.

    For nearly a year we tried to push through some semblance of the needed iX enhancements.  We also tried to push through a much needed Interoperability Framework, which will be critical to any ISO approval of ODF 1.2.

    Our critics are correct in that every iX effort was defeated, with Sun providing the primary opposition. 

    Still rather than fork ODF, we are simply going to move on. 

    On October 4th, 2006, all work on ODF da Vinci ended - not to be resumed unless and until we had the ODF iX enhancements we needed to crack the MSOffice bound workgroup-workflow business process barrier.

    In April of 2007, with our OASIS membership officially shredded by OASIS management, bleeding from the List Enhancement Proposal doonybrook, and totally defeated with our hope - the metadata XML-RDF work, we threw in the towel.

    Since then we've moved on to CDF, the W3C Compound Document format.  Incredibly, CDF is able to do what ODF can not.  With CDF we can solve the three primary problems confronting governments and MSOffice bound workgroups everywhere. 

    The challenge for these g
Gary Edwards

XForms with Google Widgets (GTW) - IBM developerWorks : XML : - 0 views

  • Integrate XForms with the Google Web Toolkit, Part 3: Using GWT to create XFormsThis four-part series demonstrates how to use the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and XForms together to create a dynamic Web application. Part 1 looked at the two technologies and how both had JavaScript underpinnings. Part 2 shows how to create a small application with two pages. One page uses GWT to show a list of artists managed by a record company. The second page uses XForms to display the albums recorded by a particular artist. Part 3 uses GWT and XForms on the same page. See how to take advantage of each technology's bindings to JavaScript by using JavaScript to achieve interactivity between GWT and XForms.
Gary Edwards

The X Factor: ODF, OOXML, CDF | Redmond Developer News - 0 views

  • XML expert, consultant and Microsoft MVP Don Demsak argues that both technologies share a fundamental flaw-they're not really striving to be standards at all. "I think this whole OOXML versus ODF thing is a non-issue. Both formats are just serialization formats for the object models they're associated with, and are not designed as impartial, interoperable formats," Demsak writes in an e-mail. Gary Edwards, president of the OpenDocument Foundation, which drives ODF development, believes codified document standards should not carry forward old flaws and application nuances. "The world is not a clean slate, but it's going to somehow make that transition of existing documents, applications and processes to XML," he says in an e-mail. "To us, that is an open XML file format consistent with the continuing work of the W3C that also meets the following criteria: open, unencumbered, universally interoperable, totally application-platform-vendor independent, with an acceptable citizen-driven governance," Edwards writes.
  • Being XML, it should be easy to convert between the two formats."
    • Gary Edwards
       
      UH, excuse me. ODF and OOXML might be XML, but they are both application specific XML. Converting between the two means somehow being able to reconcile the different application models for handling basic document sturctures such as lists, fields, tables, sections, and page dynamics. The problem is that the two file formats are irreconcilable on these issues. What's needed is a move towards a basic generic elements/attribute model able to layer these application specific nuances into a more flexible attibute descriptive. Or, we could just move to XML/RDF and never look back :)
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    Now you're talking!
Gary Edwards

File-Format Fistfight | Redmond Developer News - 0 views

  • Gary Edwards, president of the OpenDocument Foundation, flatly stated to me that any effort to "peel away the politics" in this debate was doomed to fail. Another very prominent member of the open source development community refused to comment on the record due to the sheer acrimony he's faced in this debate. And my newsletter articles, which have been generally critical of Microsoft's stance in this area, have drawn a significant amount of ire.
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    More great stuff from Michael Desmond
Gary Edwards

A new Duel | File Format Shoot Out Goes Global - 0 views

  • Microsoft's Kapoor says "Let the consumers decide what they want to use. Why thrust a standard on them?" On the issue of old file formats he says "Microsoft does support old formats and there is no reason why doubts are being raised in this area."
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    Aha!  Our friend Mitch Kapor finally weighs in on this battle.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator - SharePoint Goes Web 2.0 - Flock - 0 views

  • 4) Linking; Within Confluence, users can access SharePoint document facilities. By including SharePoint lists and content within Confluence, users can (in a single click) edit Microsoft Office documents.
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    Pay close attention here boys and girls because here it is.  Wonder why Microsoft is wealing, dealing and ready to shell out billions for Web 20 collaboration software?  It's to tie them into the MS Stack of MSOffice, IE, Exchange/SharePoint, MS LIve, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, etc.

    Grand convergence is the convergence of desktop, server, device and web systems.  It increasing looks like were going to have to live with the MS Stack and the Open Stack of grand convergence interoperability.  One will be able to have perfect interop within it's walls, with all applications able to handle the same compound XML document.  The other will be totally unable to implement an inteoperable version of MS-OOXML. 

    Members of the MS Stack will be able to access everything in the Open Stacks, but outside systems will have limited (crippled) access into the MS Stack.  Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.  Here we go again.

    ~ge~



Gary Edwards

Microsoft: the cloud as feature - Rough Type - 0 views

  • 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.
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    Here we go.  The final piece to the MS Stack puzzle falls into place.  Nick Carr provides excellent commentary and analysis.  As usual.
Gary Edwards

Taking an incremental approach to SOA | Avoiding costly "rip out an dreplace" - 0 views

  • Current implementation issues One of the biggest hurdles to implementing a realistic SOA is understanding what the business units and end users are doing today. This understanding is critical to the success of any SOA project since the new services must match exactly what each business unit is doing today. Neglecting these business processes and replacing them with individual services will most likely lead to hundreds of non-used services and frustrated business units.
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    Excellent article from NetManage's Archie Roboostoff.  He lays out all the difficulties and mistakes experienced with SOA efforts.
Gary Edwards

Compound Document Format and OpenDocument Foundation (Updated 20071109) « Cyb... - 0 views

  • 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.
Gary Edwards

SynOA What? Syndicated Application Architectures Come of Age - O'Reilly XML Blog - 0 views

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    Excellent explanation of syndication oriented architectures and the concepts possible impact on the web's future.
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