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Microsoft cranks up its Open XML standardization campaign | |
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| Time: 11:21 EST/16:21 GMT | News Source: ActiveWin.com | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Now that Microsoft's Office Open XML specification has entered into the official ISO five-month technical review/balloting period, company employees are encouraging Microsoft supporters to lend their support to Microsoft's standardization campaign. Ecma approved Open XML as a standard in December. Open XML is an alternative to ODF, the Open Document Format, which already is an ISO-approved standard. | ||
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| #1 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/4/2007 1:19:11 PM |
| I hope this gets shot down for good. MSXML wouldn't be so bad if they turfed all the legacy Office baggage. |
| #2 By 52115 (66.181.69.250) at 4/4/2007 3:46:59 PM |
| I guess this is something which once approved, they can take back and yell about others use of "our intellectual property".. |
| #3 By 32132 (142.32.208.231) at 4/4/2007 3:52:00 PM |
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#1 Yeah. Like macros. Or formulas! And Sun can't take back ownership and sue everyone in sight like they can with ODF!
Talk about baggage! "There is no macro language specified in ODF." "The OpenDocument ISO specification does not contain a defined formula language" "The Sun OpenDocument Patent Statement [24] applies to a future version of ODF only if Sun participates in development of that version. If Sun does not participate, then the assurance not to seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation will not apply." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument ODF sucks! ODF sucks! ODF sucks! This post was edited by NotParker on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 at 15:52. |
| #4 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/4/2007 3:55:49 PM |
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#3: Yes, and static documents need a macro language so that the very next day a macro worm can bork your whole system. Sound familiar? Then there's all the tags that point to another object that is undefined except within MS' proprietary etchnology, like the exact width of a space in a particular version of Office.
In the end, I have no problem with MS submitting MSXML to ISO. I do have a problem with the usual ramrod MS techniques, where they're trying real hard to get MSXML fast-tracked. Says one ISO member about the massive size of the spec versus the time to digest it: "Even if an expert were to spend every day to review it, he would have to read 200 pages of the technical documents per day, cross references and all." What's the hurry, MS? |
| #5 By 32132 (142.32.208.231) at 4/4/2007 5:06:21 PM |
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"Yes, and static documents need a macro language ..."
Yes they do. Thats why ODF is a failure. "Then there's all the tags that point to another object ..." Unlike say ODF: "The ODF standard is insufficiently detailed, requiring excessive application specific namespace extensions to record document features. These application specific namespace extensions are not necessarily interoperable between ODF compliant applications." If ignorance is bliss ... Latch is #1 in blissfullness. This post was edited by NotParker on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 at 17:06. |
| #6 By 2459 (69.22.113.215) at 4/4/2007 5:21:13 PM |
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Details often left out in discussions of the differences in the size of the specifications (besides OXML providing more functionality than ODF) are the larger percentage of defined elements in OXML, and the greater depth with which OXML's behavior is defined (including numerous examples) in the spec. What's also often omitted is that the specs are comparable in size, if not greater for ODF, when you consider the number of external specs you'd need to be familliar with in implementing ODF (SVG, MathML, XHTML, XLink, etc.).
Also ODF enjoyed a faster fast-track w/ less defined functionality than OXML (and with no organized smear campaign against it). This post was edited by n4cer on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 at 17:22. |
| #7 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 4/4/2007 7:58:36 PM |
| Wow! Latch got spanked. |
| #8 By 15406 (74.104.251.89) at 4/4/2007 8:21:31 PM |
| #5,6: You're so easily distracted, aren't you? Your comments would be helpful if we were talking about feature sets in ODF and MSXML. But we aren't. We're talking about MS trying to ramrod a massive specification through the fast-track process and why. |
| #9 By 32132 (64.180.219.241) at 4/4/2007 9:57:15 PM |
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#8 "We're talking about MS trying to ramrod a massive specification through the fast-track process and why."
"I missed this blog post by Mary Jo Foley on the debates surrounding ratification of OOXML by ISO. Unlike printed newspapers, however, which get thrown away shortly after the day for which they were printed has passed, online articles stick around forever. Heck, every article I've ever written for ZDNet can still be found on this site. Anyway, I've read many articles elsewhere that chastised Microsoft for submitting so long an OOXML specification to ISO. The insinuation, of course, is that they've piled a bunch of unnecessary extras into the specification so as to confuse people and thus hinder interoperability. That post by Ms. Foley, however, pointed me towards some comments by Miguel de Icaza, father of the Mono project and Novell employee, where he made some interesting points on the subject (well, besides the ones Foley included in her blog). *A common objection to OOXML is that the specification is "too big", that 6,000 pages is a bit too much for a specification and that this would prevent third parties from implementing support for the standard. *Considering that for years we, the open source community, have been trying to extract as much information about protocols and file formats from Microsoft, this is actually a good thing. *For example, many years ago, when I was working on Gnumeric, one of the issues that we ran into was that the actual descriptions for functions and formulas in Excel was not entirely accurate from the public books you could buy. *OOXML devotes 324 pages of the standard to document the formulas and functions. *In other words, Microsoft goes into very precise detail in their specification in ways open source programmers have been wanting them to do for a very long time. In contrast, Mr. de Icaza had this to say about the much shorter section in the ODF specification that covers spreadsheet functions and formulas: Depending on how you count, ODF has 4 to 10 pages devoted to it. There is no way you could build a spreadsheet software based on this specification. To build a spreadsheet program based on ODF you would have to resort to an existing implementation source code (OpenOffice.org, Gnumeric) or you would have to resort to Microsoft's public documentation or ironically to the OOXML specification. Miguel de Icaza himself highlighted that text in bold." http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/?p=1643 ODF is grossly incomplete and underspecified. There is no way you could build a spreadsheet software based on the ODF specification. This post was edited by NotParker on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 at 21:58. |
| #10 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/5/2007 8:03:32 AM |
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#9: de Icaza is in MS' pocket now, has been for a while now, so I don't put a lot of weight behind what he says. And Parkkker, do you ever have an original thought of your own or do you just cut & paste what others think?
And, as usual, good to see you not able to post ANYTHING without an edit. |
| #11 By 32132 (64.180.219.241) at 4/5/2007 9:37:18 AM |
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"de Icaza is in MS' pocket now"
Is that the best you you can do? Loser. |
| #12 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/5/2007 9:41:12 AM |
| #11: What, no edit? |
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