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Gary Edwards

Wrapping with foreign elements in Word 2007 and OpenOffice Writer - O'Reilly News - 0 views

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    Better late than never i guess.
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    Rick "Van Winkle" Jellife discovers the fatal interop flaw in the ODF "foriegn elements" implementation - The infamous compliance clause "Section 1.5". One question, where was Rick back in 2006 when the Massachusetts ODF pilot was on the rocks, and the OpenDocuemnt Foundation was claiming that there was no possible way to roundtrip documents between a da Vinci MSOffice ODF and OpenOffice ODF?
Paul Merrell

Technology News: Applications: What's Holding OpenOffice Back? - 0 views

  • Most folks see data formats as an inside-baseball issue, because they work in all-Microsoft organizations where incompatibilities are rare. The only hangup, in that case, comes when Microsoft releases new software (Office 2007 being the latest example). Invariably, the data format's been upgraded as well.
  • The data format wars have been going on for years and have provoked a substantial backlash. The anti-Microsoft crowd has an alternate data format, OpenDocument, that anyone can freely incorporate into any program, just as everyone uses the same old free, non-proprietary HTML to build Web sites.
  • Is Open XML an open standard? The arguments are pretty technical but boil down to this: Microsoft says OpenDocument is not good and that anyone will be able to implement its far more enlightened Open Office XML. Opponents say Microsoft has built into Open XML all manner of snares, deadfalls and booby traps to defend its monopoly.
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  • And I'm auditioning the latest open source goodie, IBM Lotus Symphony, which looks like a sweet suite. More on that next time.
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    The myths that ODF is an open standard, that Lotus Symphony is open source, and that Microsoft is the only company that manipulates "open" standards for unlawful competitive advantage continue to propagate.
Paul Merrell

OpenDocument format gathers steam - CNET News.com - 0 views

  • IBM and Sun Microsystems convened a meeting in Armonk, N.Y., on Friday to discuss how to boost adoption of the standardized document format for office applications. The ODF Summit brought together representatives from a handful of industry groups and from at least 13 technology companies, including Oracle, Google and Novell.
  • The participants in last week's ODF Summit included Red Hat, Adobe, Computer Associates, Corel, Nokia, Intel and Linux e-mail company Scalix, in addition to Oracle, Novell and Google. The goal of the meeting, convened by Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and open source, and Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open-source officer, was to drive support for the standards "on a global level," Sutor said.
  • On the promotional side, IBM will draft a proposal to create an "OpenDocument Foundation" which would serve to market OpenDocument-based products.
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    Martin LaMonica report of the 2005 ODF Summit Conference. Note IBM's plan to draft a proposal for the "OpenDocument Foundation."
Jesper Lund Stocholm

IDABC - Search Results - 0 views

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    IDABC-work on interop between ODF and OOXML
Paul Merrell

Matusow's Blog : Open XML, ODF, PDF, and XPS in Office - 0 views

    • Paul Merrell
       
      Whoopee! Everyone gets to add vendor-specific extensions to standards like ODF to enable some quality of Sharepoint/Exchange/Outlook interop in their apps, just as soon as Microsoft gets around to offering adequate specfications. History teaches that may be a very long time, and of course the relevant Microsoft patent RAND terms apply, because the disclosures are made outside the context of a standard that requires otherwise. And of course the OASIS RF on RAND policy does not forbid new ODF features subject to RAND terms and the policy is silent on the subject of vendor-specific extensions. Methinks FOSS may have just lost its "open standard" ODF.
  • Office is NOT implementing ODF 1.0 from ISO. That spec is not representative of the marketplace today, it is not what is implemented in OpenOffice, it is not what IBM is using for Symphony, and it is not referenced in the Massachusetts ETRM policy.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      As I have been arguing, there are no full featured implementations in existence of the ISO/IEC:26300 OpenDocument standard and every government that has adopted the international standard as its own internal standard or procurement specification is subject to legal challenge because of the lack of implementations.
  • In my opinion, the continued interest in innovation presented by those solutions will speak much louder than the formats themselves.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      You can have standards and you can have innovation. But you can't have interop if you embrace and extend standards. The need for stable, fully-specified formats for document interchange purposes apparently is not part of Microsoft's plan. Scant wonder, neither ODF nor OOXML is designed for document interchange among competing vendors' apps. They are both standards designed to allow a single vendor to maintain dominant market share among implementors of those standards. Microsoft will soon diominate market share in both so-called "standards." The embrace of a standard is necessary to extend and extinguish it.
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  • While this is a big deal announcement for the Office product team (check out Doug Mahugh's blog), my take on it is predictably focused on the longer-term interoperability factors.
  • the API that will allow ANY document format to register itself with Office and be set as the default will be made available as planned. Additionally, the work with DAISY and other specialized document formats will move forward as well.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      I was wrong. The API is for more than ODF plugo-ins.
  • The documentation of client/server protocols for Office-related technologies (such as SharePoint and Exchange/Outlook communications) will remain available to the public.
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    "Clearly the Press Announcement today from Microsoft will bring about another wave of discourse on the future of document formats. " Jason Matusow presents the long-term view of the announcement's significance.
Paul Merrell

Doug Mahugh : Office support for document format standards - 0 views

  • Third-party translators. We anticipate that some developers may want to take over the default ODF load and save paths, so that they can plug in their own translators for ODF, and we'll be providing an API in SP2 that enables this scenario. This means that if a developer disagrees with the details of our approach and would like to implement ODF for Office in a different way, they're free to do so and can set it up such that when a user opens an ODT attached to an email or from their desktop, it will be loaded through their ODF code path.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      The Third-party translators discussion of the forthcoming new API suggests that it is for ODF only, and thereby implicitly that it will not be a tool for accessing the full functionaolity of MS Word, i.e., that only the functionality specified in ODF 1.1 will be available. E.g., no control of Sharepoint functionality or manipulation of the Microsoft cloud through the API from OpenOffice.org via ODF. .
    • Jesper Lund Stocholm
       
      The Microsoft cloud depends heavily on OOXML, and that is likely not going to change. Are you saying that you'd prefer a plug-in mechanism in SharePoint as well? I believe the protocols used by SharePoint are included in the specs now provided. Won't that do (apart from the non-commercial usage of the specs)
  • If you're an Office 2007 user, the image above probably looks pretty familiar. But look close, and you'll see some Save-As options you've not seen before here: OpenDocument, and (unless you have the existing add-in) PDF & XPS.
  • There is new information today about the planned release of v2.0 of the ODF translator on the ODF translator team blog. The SourceForge translator projects will continue to move forward, and Microsoft will continue to be an active participant in these projects.
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  • This is a screen shot of a pre-release copy of SP2 (Service Pack 2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, showing the new document format standards that we'll be supporting starting with SP2.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      Hi, Jesper. according to another article I found later, the new APIs (I assume it should be plural rather than singlular) will allow addition of formats other than ODF, so I apparently got that part wrong. On the Sharepoint example, I wasn't sufficiently clear and apologize. Assume you create a document in MS Office that invokes Sharepoint functionality, then you save it as ODF and ship it off to a co-worker using OOo. The OOo user wants to send it back to you for further processing. But if saving to ODF in Office wipes the Sharepoint metadata, you've got data loss on the outbound trip. The path you suggest would work at least in theory (I haven't heard any reports yet of the documentation on the Sharepoint APIs) if Sharepoint were used as an intermediary hub. But the Sharepoiint document may not be accessible to the co-worker, e.g., because of page security settings. I anticipate that there would be many cases where only one end of the trip has access to the hub, so there's a need to keep the path open that bypasses the hub and for it to be non-lossy. There is an article on BetaNews by Scott Fulton that interviews a couple of the Softies. They said that there will be lots of Office functionality that won't be able to be saved in ODF, that they're not planning a compatability mode that would block use of features that can't be saved to ODF, and that they're not planning to go beyond the features specified in ODF 1.1. So if they carry through on what they said, the outbound trip to ODF implementations will be lossy. I think the real problem with the Sharepoint specs and other documentation Microsoft is releasing is that it isn't in a standard where a technical committee could say yea or nay on whether it is suffiiciently specific and where the specs can be made vendor-neutral. In other words, that Micrsooft is in control of the specifiation rather than a standards body. Microsoft got away so far with creating a de facto standard for the line of business functional
    • Paul Merrell
       
      Hi, Jesper. according to another article I found later, the new APIs (I assume it should be plural rather than singlular) will allow addition of formats other than ODF, so I apparently got that part wrong. On the Sharepoint example, I wasn't sufficiently clear and apologize. Assume you create a document in MS Office that invokes Sharepoint functionality, then you save it as ODF and ship it off to a co-worker using OOo. The OOo user wants to send it back to you for further processing. But if saving to ODF in Office wipes the Sharepoint metadata, you've got data loss on the outbound trip. The path you suggest would work at least in theory (I haven't heard any reports yet of the documentation on the Sharepoint APIs) if Sharepoint were used as an intermediary hub. But the Sharepoiint document may not be accessible to the co-worker, e.g., because of page security settings. I anticipate that there would be many cases where only one end of the trip has access to the hub, so there's a need to keep the path open that bypasses the hub and for it to be non-lossy. There is an article on BetaNews by Scott Fulton that interviews a couple of the Softies. They said that there will be lots of Office functionality that won't be able to be saved in ODF, that they're not planning a compatability mode that would block use of features that can't be saved to ODF, and that they're not planning to go beyond the features specified in ODF 1.1. So if they carry through on what they said, the outbound trip to ODF implementations will be lossy. I think the real problem with the Sharepoint specs and other documentation Microsoft is releasing is that it isn't in a standard where a technical committee could say yea or nay on whether it is suffiiciently specific and where the specs can be made vendor-neutral. In other words, that Micrsooft is in control of the specifiation rather than a standards body. Microsoft got away so far with creating a de facto standard for the line of business functional
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    "This is a screen shot of a pre-release copy of SP2 (Service Pack 2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, showing the new document format standards that we'll be supporting starting with SP2."
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    "This is a screen shot of a pre-release copy of SP2 (Service Pack 2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, showing the new document format standards that we'll be supporting starting with SP2."
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.
Gary Edwards

The Charter Dilemma | ODF Editor Says ODF Loses If OOXML Does | Slashdot - 0 views

  • 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.
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    This commentary follows the Stockholm Syndrom post, which is itself in the thread based on Yoon Kit's Open Malaysia comments concerning the dilemma Patrick Durusau is in; the JTC-1 is now filled with Microsoft OOXML supporters!
Gary Edwards

Some thoughts on OOXML | Larsblog - 0 views

  • What is to be done? ISO has in a sense put itself in an awkward position here by already approving the rival OpenDocument format as an ISO standard. This makes it harder to reject OOXML, and at the same time makes it difficult to approve OOXML, since it competes with an existing ISO standard. Generally, I'm unhappy with how closely these two standards are tied to existing software. What I would really have liked to see was for OpenDocument and OOXML both to be dropped, and the two communities to sit down and work out a common agreed format that is not tied to any existing software. The Chinese UOF format, for example, might have served as the starting point for this. ODA has also been suggested. Unfortunately, this requires a political will that does not seem to be present, and so this seems unlikely for now.
Gary Edwards

ODF Editor Says ODF Loses If OOXML Does | Slashdot - 0 views

  • IMHO, the change in Patrick's position is entirely due to the realization that it is impossible to map between OOXML and ODF. I don't know this for sure, but when i read the German Standards Group (DIN) report on harmonization, authorized by the EU-IDABC and provided to ISO, i couldn't help but wonder how Patrick would react. The report definitively ends his OOXML ODF mapping dream.Many wonder why mapping is impossible. I had more than a few discussions with Patrick on this. His point was that a schema is a schema. As long as the syntax and semantics are fully documented, no problemo. My point is that both ODF and OOXML are application specific; and, both are woefully lacking in "semantic" documentation. Add to this problem that both ODF and OOXML lack an interoperability framework with any semblance of compliance teeth, and the whole mapping issue becomes an impossible solution. Especially if interop is the goal.
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    ge comments about Patrick Durusau and his surprising change of position in support of ISO approval of OOXML
Gary Edwards

garyedwards's Discussions at ZDNet.co.uk Community - 0 views

  • garyedwards's Discussions Breaking the Web Talkback: Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'
Gary Edwards

OOXML vs ODF: where next for interoperability? | Reg Developer - 0 views

  • 'A diversion from the real end game – the taking of the internet' Gary Edwards of the Open Document Foundation has a fascinating post on the important of Microsoft Office compatibility to the success of the ISO-approved Open Document formats. It is in places a rare voice of sanity: People continue to insist that if only Microsoft would implement ODF natively in MSOffice, we could all hop on down the yellow brick road, hand in hand, singing kumbaya to beat the band. Sadly, life doesn’t work that way. Wish it did. Sure, Microsoft could implement ODF - but only with the addition of application specific extensions to the current ODF specification … Sun has already made it clear at the OASIS ODF TC that they are not going to compromise (or degrade) the new and innovative features and implementation model of OpenOffice just to be compatible with the existing 550 million MSOffice desktops.
Gary Edwards

What Cloud Means to Marketing Forecast - Nick Carr The Big Switch - 0 views

  • The gorilla in this nascent market is Google. It has been spending billions of dollars to build huge data centers, or "server farms," around the world, enabling it to run all sorts of consumer software and store enormous quantities of personal data. Combine that processing muscle with the company's dominance of web searching and advertising, and you have a juggernaut capable of redefining the software business on the media model.
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

IE aims to embrace the web again | Technology | The Guardian - 0 views

  • I asked Hachamovitch, who has led the Explorer team since 2003, why it has taken Microsoft so long to address these deficiencies. "It comes down to what we were doing with our time," he said. "Between 2001 and 2003 we were building what you experience now as Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight."These technologies display not HTML, the language of web pages, but XAML, Microsoft's proprietary code for creating rich visual content.
  • It sounds good, but Hachamovitch's warmth begins to fade when I broach the vexed subject of browser scripting. The context is important. Hachamovitch had already stated that Microsoft spent three years neglecting IE for the sake of a more proprietary technology, which is now appearing on the web as a browser plug-in called Silverlight. This is similar in some ways to Adobe's Flash, and supports rich multimedia effects within web pages, as well as the ability to run applications written in Microsoft's .NET Framework.
  • Is it possible that Microsoft is stifling the advancement of JavaScript in order to promote programming within Silverlight instead?
Gary Edwards

Unbreaking the Web: IE 8 passes ACID 2 Test | John Resig - 0 views

  • IMHO, the key to Microsoft's OOXML strategy can be seen in the recently released MSOffice SDK. The SDK provides a component for the fluid conversion of OOXML to something called fixed/flow. The fixed part of this interesting conjunction is also known as XPS, which is designed as a proprietary alternative to PDF. The flow part is a fascinating and highly proprietary replacement for (X)HTML - CSS. Reading further through the MSOffice SDK, one can't help but be amazed at the lack of W3C technologies; especially (X)HTML, CSS, XForms and SVG. What we have instead is an entangling cascade of stuff like OOXML, fixed/flow, silverlight, XAML, and WPF. And then there is that recent promise of other high volume API's probably delivered through future Exchange, SharePoint, and MS SQL Server SDK's. So, at the end of the day, what are we looking at here? IMHO, Microsoft has figured out that the smart thing to do is leverage and extend their existing desktop monopoly into the next generation of cloud computing where the Internet platform rules. To pull this off, they have a number of problems to overcome; not the least of which is that they need to catch a break on anti trust, and, get OOXML through ISO. And oh yeah, there's that little problem that Windows can't do cloud computing.
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

Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary' - marbux - ge comments | ZDNet UK - 0 views

  • Interoperability and the binary ODF conversion di... garyedwards Sorry, the comment was cut short. Here'... garyedwards
  • ODF and OOXML are standards in... Marbux
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."
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