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Play the Tape!!!! OpenDocument Format community steadfast despite theatrics of now impotent 'Foundation' | TalkBack on ZDNet
An honest misunderstanding? Hardly! Play the tape! ... A response to David Berlind relating to false claims made by IBM and the W3C regarding direct correspondence concerning CDF being used as an interchange format.
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.
ODF and OOXML must converge!! AFNOR, the French Standards Body, announces proposals for revisable office document formats
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French experts have determined that it is technically possible to converge ODF and MS-OOXML, into a single, revisable document format standard?
The plan has four parts:
"Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions."
"Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality."
"Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years."
Fourth, "Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players."
- garyedwards on 2007-09-25
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AFNOR has recommended to ISO adopting an approach enabling it to guarantee – using ISO processes – mid-term convergence between Open Document Format (ODF) and OfficeOpen XML (OOXML), as well as the stabilisation of OOXML on a short-term basis.
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Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions. Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality. Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years.
Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players.
Linux News: Software: OpenDocument Foundation Abandons Namesake Format - Katherine Noyes
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Soured Relationships
"What's happened is that there's just not a lot of interest in their approach, and that has resulted in a lot of souring of relationships on the part of the OpenDocument Foundation folks," Douglas Johnson, standards manager at Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA)
, told LinuxInsider.The about-face in support should not have a significant effect on the move toward open standards, Johnson added.
The OpenDocument Foundation's decision to support CDF, however, is puzzling, Johnson said.
'I'm Perplexed'
"It doesn't seem like a good fit," he explained. "It's not designed for this, so I'm perplexed at their desire to go in that direction."
ODF infighting could help Microsoft's OOXML - zdnet Mary Jo
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Hey, great comments!
- garyedwards on 2007-10-29
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As a result of the latest infighting, is Microsoft now all-but-guaranteed that OOXML will sail through the ISO standardization vote in Feburary 2008 because ODF — and its backers — will be in disarray? This has nothing to do with the outcome of the Ballot Resolution Meeting.
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But we also oppose adoption of ODF 1.2 as an ISO standard in the form we expect it to emerge from OASIS.
- 1 more annotations...
The OpenDocument Foundation breaks with OpenOffice ODF: Getting the (Share)Point About Document Formats [LWN.net] - Gly Moody
Good article from Glynn Moody explaining the OpenDocument Foundation's decision to drop OpenOffice ODF for HTML+. That date of this article is November 13th, 2007. The Foundations announcement comes after ISO members vote down OpenXML as an ISO standard. Microsoft however does not give up. They come back to ISO by responding in detail to every objection, pushing for a February 2008 BRM. Following the BRM, and contingent on Microsoft's promise to fix OpenXML, join the OASIS OpenOffice ODF work, and, support ODF 1.1 in MSOffice using a plug-in, ISO votes again. In March of 2008, ISO approves OpenXML.
In May of 2009, Microsoft releases an MSOffice plug-in fully compliant with ODF 1.1 (ISO 26300). Although conforming to and in full compliance with ODF 1.1, the world is shocked to learn that the interop between MSOffice ODF and OpenOffice ODF is worthless. Which is exactly what the Foundation had been arguing for years. ODF "compatibility, interop and compliance" had to be fixed prior to Microsoft's expected implementation!!!!! Otherwise, ODF would be shredded.
Told you so!
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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:
Comment for Jesper on the Groklaw "Digging at those who tell the Truth" article
Lengthy response to Jesper's Groklaw comment. Groklaw rips apart Alex Brown, convenor of the ISO JS34 docuemnt standards group.
Hyprocrisy 101 | Jesper Lundstocholm "A Mooh Point"
Great post exposing the sanctimonious bag of blather Rob Weir. Jesper calls out Rob Weir, exposing the deceitful tactics Wier uses to destroy individuals and corporate competitors, all the while posing as an arrogant and self righteous arbiter of interop and document expertise. This is very funny stuff. Especially where Rob joins in, defending his arrogant bloviating through personal attacks on anyone who might disagree with him. I called him a liar, and i've got mountains of eMails, non-disclosure agreements and meeting notes/schedules to prove it. Facing an avalanche of evidence proving his lack of candor, and inspite of ethics challenge that has become synonymous with his name, Rob soldiers on with even more slander, lies and inuendo. Very funny
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I posted a lengthy comment here summarizing a few of the more glaring aspects of my relationship with Rob Weir and IBM. It's very much a response to the devastating Rob Weir post, "Cracks in the Foundation".
- garyedwards on 2007-12-18
ODF infighting could help Microsoft's OOXML | ge TalkBack on ZDNet
We Tried. Did you?
I've got five years into ODF, one of only three original members to last that long. In the past year, we've been involved in five major proposal submissions to improve ODF compatibility with existing file formats and interoperability with existing applications. What else would you have us do?
The Education of Gary Edwards - Rick Jelliffe on O'Reilly Broadcast
I wonder how i missed this? Incredibly, i have my own biographer and i didn't know it! The date line is September, 2008, I had turned off all my ODF-OOXML-OASIS searches and blog feeds back in October of 2007 when we moved the da Vinci plug-in to HTML+ using the W3C CDF model. Is it appropriate to send flowers to your secret biographer? Maybe i'll find some time and update his work. The gap between October 2007 and April of 2009 is filled with adventure and wonder. And WebKit!<br><br>
<i>"....One of the more interesting characters in the recent standards battles has been Gary Edwards: he was a member of the original ODF TC in 2002 which oversaw the creation of ODF 1.0 in 2005, but gradually became more concerned about large vendor dominance of the ODF TC frustrating what he saw as critical improvements in the area of interoperability. This compromised the ability of ODF to act as a universal format."</i><br><br>
<i>"....Edwards increasingly came to believe that the battleground had shifted, with the SharePoint threat increasingly needing to be the focus of open standards and FOSS attention, not just the standalone desktop applications: I think Edwards tends to see Office Open XML as a stalking horse for Microsoft to get its foot back in the door for back-end systems....."</i><br><br>
<i>"....Edwards and some colleagues split with some acrimony from the ODF effort in 2007, and subsequently see W3C's Compound Document Formats (CDF) as holding the best promise for interoperability. Edwards' public comments are an interesting reflection of an person evolving their opinion in the light of experience, events and changing opportunities...."</i><br><br>
<i>".... I have put together some interesting quotes from him which, I hope, fairly bring out some of the themes I see. As always, read the source to get more info: ..... "</i><br><br>
NYS Open Records Discussion Must Recognize Technical Requirements
While the workgroup failed to decide between “choice” (Microsoft's mantra) and “openness” (the ODF mantra), predictably punting this question to a new Electronic Records Committee, it did issue a number of interesting findings, the most important of which reads as follows:
In the office suite format debate, there currently is no compelling solution for the State’s openness needs. The State needs open standards and formats. Simultaneously, the State needs electronic records to be preserved in their original formats whenever possible. Many Request for Public Comments commenters, particularly in response to the e-discovery questions, stated preserving a record in the same format as it was created results in a more faithful record and diminishes the possibility of expensive e-discovery disputes. This is important to ensure future generations of New Yorkers can access the permanently valuable electronic records being created today. Moreover, State Archives emphasizes creating records in open formats makes it easier to preserve their essential characteristics and demonstrates they are authentic (i.e., they were created in the course of State government business and have not been altered without proper authorization).
I imagine that the workgroup must have found some level of solace in arriving at the one conclusion that all the experts seem to agree on: that electronic documents should be published using the same format in which they are created. If this principle held true for state documents, it would reduce the job of the new Electronic Records Committee to deciding between three alternatives: (1) require all state agencies to create and publish their documents in OOXML, (2) require all state agencies to create and publish their documents in ODF, or (3) allow each agency to decide which of these formats, OOXML or ODF, they will use in creating and publishing their documents. Unfortunately, this central assumption is incorrect, and adopting it as a basis for further deliberation will lead to a deeply defective
Behind Putting the OpenDocument Foundation to Bed (without its supper) : Updegroove | Linux Foundation Legal
Response from the OpenDocument Foundation setting the record straight. See "copmments" with this bookmark
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Uh? The ODF failure in Massachusetts doesn't count as evidence that ODF was not designed to be compatible with existing MS documents or interoperable with existing MSOffice applications?
And it's not just the da Vinci plug-in that failed to implement ODF in Massachusetts! Nine months later Sun delivered their ODF plug-in for MSOffice to Massachusetts. The next day, Massachusetts threw in the towel, officially recognizing MS-OOXML (and the MS-OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in) as a standard format for the future.
Worse, the Massachusetts recognition of MS-OOXML came just weeks before the September 2nd ISO vote on MS-OOXML. Why not wait a few more weeks? After all, Massachusetts had conducted a year long pilot study to implement ODF using ODF desktop office sutie alternatives to MSOffice. Not only did the rip out and replace approach fail, but they were also unable to integrate OpenOffice ODF desktops into existing MSOffice bound workgroups.
The year long pilot study was followed by another year long effort trying to implement ODF using the plug-in approach. That too failed with Sun's ODF plug-in the final candidate to prove the difficulty of implementing ODF in situations where MSOffice workgroups dominate.
California and the EU-IDABC were closely watching the events in Massachusetts, as was most every CIO in government and private enterprise. Reasoning that if Massachusetts was unable to implement ODF, California CIO's totally refused IBM and Sun's effort to get a pilot study underway.
Across the pond, in the aftermath of Massachusetts CIO Louis Guiterrez resignation on October 4th, 2006, the EU-IDABC set about developing their own file format, ODEF. The Open Document Exchange Format splashed into the public discussion on February 28th, 2007 at the "Open Document Exchange Workshop" held in Berlin, Germany.
Meanwhile, the Sun ODF plug-in is floundering in Belgium and Denmark pilot trials now under way.
What Andy Updegrove needs to do is provide some evidence that it is possible to implement ODF where MSOffice workgroups rule. Announcements of good intentions are starting to ring a bit hallow. We need to see some successes.
There is another side to this problem. For the past five years, the OASIS ODF Technical Commitee has brushed aside all efforts to improve ODF interoperability with Microsoft Office documents, applications and processes. If ODF is the "single file format" solution IBM claims it to be, then someone is going to have to do something about the 550 million MSOffice desktop that cannot convert their documents, applications and processes to ODF without suffering intolerable fidelity loss and costly disruption to business processes.
Five years without interop progress between ODF and MSOffice is a bit much. But now we have Sun's Simon Phipps suggesting that maybe this will challenge will be considered in ODF 1.3 or 1.5 (or why not ODF 12.3?)
Meanwhile, Sun continues to insist that ODF was not designed for interoperability with Microsoft documents and applications. Therefore Sun argues, the world needs mulitple file formats, including ISO approval of MS-OOXML.
Don't believe me? Check out the Sun ANSI - ISO vote in favor of MS-OOXML. A vote they submitted with this comment from Sun's Jon Bosak:
“We
wish to make it completely clear that we support DIS 29500 becoming
an ISO Standard and are in complete agreement with its stated
purposes of enabling interoperability among different implementations
and providing interoperable access to the legacy of Microsoft Office
documents.”
The one thing we know for certain is that ODF cannot be implemented in workgroup environments driven by MSOffice. So why not try converting existing MSOffice documents to CDF WICD Full?
And who's the looney toon suggesting that someone is trying to use CDF WICD Full as a native file format for MSOffice? The da Vinci Group believed it was possible to convert MSOffice documents to CDF WICD Full. How is this different from an export from MSOffice to CDF WICD Full?
The Foundation steps into the fray claiming that hey, if the da Vinci Group can convert MSOffice docuemnts to CDF WICD Full, then why not convert ODF documents to the same CDF profile? At least at the web platform level much if not most of the current ODF interoperability problems will be lessened. It's not a desktop application to desktop application play, but what's wrong with a web platform solution? End users are going to end up there anyway.
As with any tempest in a teapot, it's the threat to big ego's with identities and purpose of being bound to ODF success as a universal file format that roils the waters. Somebody somewhere has to put down the keyboard, step out of the blogoshpere, and start providing real world pragmatice solutions. Otherewise, those 550 million desktops will have no other choice but MS-OOXML going forward.
This isn't rocket science. It's pragmatism in the face of mounting evidence that ODF was not designed to meet the needs of MSOffice workgroups needing to convert to XML.
~ge~
- garyedwards on 2007-11-19 -
Marbux sets the record straight. These are the facts: Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper) .....
http://www.universal-interop-council.org/node/4 - garyedwards on 2008-05-30
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CDF is one of the very many useful projects that W3C has been laboring on, but not one that you would have been likely to have heard much about. Until recently, that is, when Gary Edwards, Sam Hiser and Marbux, the management (and perhaps sole remaining members) of the OpenDocument Foundation decided that CDF was the answer to all of the problems that ODF was designed to address. This announcement gave rise to a flurry of press attention that Sam Hiser has collected here. As others (such as Rob Weir) have already documented, these articles gave the OpenDocument Foundation’s position far more attention than it deserved.
The most astonishing piece was written by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. Early on in her article she stated that, “the ODF camp might unravel before Microsoft’s rival Office Open XML (OOXML) comes up for final international standardization vote early next year.” All because Gary, Sam and Marbux have decided that ODF does not meet their needs. Astonishing indeed, given that there is no available evidence to support such a prediction.
GROKLAW - W3C's Chris Lilley: CDF Not Suitable for Use as an Office Format & Can't Replace ODF
I (IBM operative PJ)put the link to Andy Updegrove's article in News Picks earlier, but this is too important not to inform you about here as well. As you know the so-called OpenDocument Foundation has been telling the world that CDF is a better approach than ODF. Updegrove met with W3C's Chris Lilley, the "go-to guy guy at W3C to learn what W3C's CDF standard is all about." Lilley says CDF can't replace ODF. It's not suitable for use as an office format, and he's mystified by the pronouncements of the Foundation.
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This is priceless! The ODF Community is now attacking the W3C and CDF. Watch what happens next inside IBM and Sun who are the primary supporters of CDF. You see, the thing about a mob is that there comes a point when you can no longer control them. We've reached 451 Fahrenheit. somebody is goign regret ever having lit that match.
- garyedwards on 2007-11-10
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As you know the so-called OpenDocument Foundation has been telling the world that CDF is a better approach than ODF. Updegrove met with W3C's Chris Lilley, the "go-to guy guy at W3C to learn what W3C's CDF standard is all about." Lilley says CDF can't replace ODF. It's not suitable for use as an office format, and he's mystified by the pronouncements of the Foundation.
Here's what Updegrove reports:
To find out the facts, I interviewed Chris Lilley, the W3C lead for the CDF
project, and his answer couldn't have been more clear: "The one thing I'd
really want your readers to know is that CDF was not created to be, and
isn't suitable for use as, an office format." In fact, it isn't even an
format at all - although it has been matched for export purposes with
another W3C specification, called WICD - but WICD is a non-editable format
intended for viewing only. Moreover, no one from the Foundation has joined
W3C, nor explained to W3C what the Foundation's founders have in mind.
It is highly unfortunate that the founders of a tax exempt organization
that solicited donations, "To support the community of volunteers in
promoting, improving and providing user assistance for ODF and software
designed to operate on data in this format," should publicly announce that
it believes that ODF will fail. By endorsing a standard that has no
rational relationship to office formats at all, they can only serve to
confuse the marketplace and undermine the efforts of the global community
they claimed to serve.So, there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. CDF can't replace ODF, according to Lilley. It wasn't designed to be used as an office format. It's good for other things.
So, was all this media push really about ODF? Or about damaging it with FUD and giving support to Microsoft's assertion that the world craves more than one office format standard so we can all struggle with interoperability complexity for the rest of our born days? And is it a coincidence it all happened on the eve of the next vote in February on Microsoft's competing MSOOXML? Was Microsoft behind this? Or did they just get lucky? Microsoft representatives, like Jason Matusow, certainly gave support to what the 3-man crew was saying, so much so that ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley wrote that, "the ODF camp might unravel before Microsoft’s rival Office Open XML (OOXML) comes up for final international standardization vote early next year." Dream on. ODF is doing fine. It's the OpenDocument Foundation that is shutting down.But here's my question: did the Microsoft reps not understand the tech, that CDF can't replace ODF? How trust-inspiring do you find that? Or did they think that *we'd* never figure it out? Whatever the story might be, unfortunately for Microsoft, people aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be. FUD has a very limited shelf life in the Internet age. There is always somebody who knows better. And they'll tell the world.
ODF and differences of opinion | TalkBack on ZDNet about the OpenDocument Foundation
The Foundation principles set the record straight, explaining the Foundation's five year role at the core of OASIS ODF development, and our decision to consider the W3C CDF (XHTML+CDF) as a highly interoperable web ready format. This discussion answers the false allegations of artful fairy tale spinners Rob Weir and Andy Updegrove. Neither of which had anything to do with ISO 26300 (ODF 1.0).
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Lengthy comment explaining once again why we moved from ODF to CDF.
- garyedwards on 2007-11-04
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Just because we are garage challenged doesn't mean we can't find the back door to the big house :)
The larger issue at stake here is not whether or not we have a garage, or what our contribution to ODF has been over the course of five years as active members of OASIS ODF. What it really comes down to is the implementation of ODF in the real world.
How To make Web-Clean Documents in AbiWord
Bonus points to Paul!
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HTML Formatting Instructions - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
By default, when you save your document as an HTML file, AbiWord places all formatting instructions into one block at the beginning. These formatting instructions use the Cascading Style Sheet language, and are in the <style> tag in the <head> of your document. From here it is easy to move the styles as a whole (copy and paste) into a new document which can then be externally linked or integrated with your web-site's style sheet.
Is HTML in a Race to the Bottom? A Large-Scale Survey of Open Web Formats
What makes the Internet so extraordinary is the interoperability of web ready data, content, media and the incredible sprawl of web applications servicing the volumes of information. The <i>network of networks</i> has become the information system connecting and converging all information systems. The Web is the universal platform of access, exchange and now, collaborative computing. This survey exammines the key issue of future interoperability; Web Document Formats.
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The "race to the bottom" is a
familiar phenomenon that occurs when multiple standards compete for acceptance.
In this environment, the most lenient standard usually attracts the greatest
support (acceptance, usage, and so on), leading to a competition among
standards to be less stringent. This also tends to drive competing standards
toward the minimum possible level of quality. One key prerequisite for a race
to the bottom is an unregulated market because regulators mandate a minimum
acceptable quality for standards and sanction those who don't
comply.1,2 In examining current HTML standards, we've come to
suspect that a race to the bottom could, in fact, be occurring because so many
competing versions of HTML exist.At this time, some nine different versions of HTML (including its successor,
XHTML) are supported as W3C standards, with the most up-to-date being XHTML
1.1. Although some versions are very old and lack some of the newer versions'
capabilities, others are reasonably contemporaneous. In particular, HTML 4.01
and XHTML 1.0 both have "transitional" and "strict" versions.
Clearly, the W3C's intent is to provide a pathway to move from HTML 4.01 to
XHTML 1.1, and the transitional versions are steps on that path. It also aims
to develop XHTML standards that support device independence (everything from
desktops to cell phones), accessibility, and internationalization. As part of
this effort, HTML 4.01's presentational elements (used to adjust the appearance
of a page for older browsers that don't support style sheets) are eliminated in
XHTML 1.1.Our concern is that Web site designers might decline to follow the newer
versions' more stringent formatting requirements and will instead keep using
transitional versions. To determine if this is likely, we surveyed the top
100,000 most popular Web sites to discover what versions of HTML are in
widespread use. -
Add Sticky Note
The summary statement glosses over the value of a highly structured portable XML document. A value that goes far beyond the strict separation of content and presentation. The portable document model is the essential means by which information is exchanged over the Web. It is the key to Web interop.
Up till now, Web docuemnts have been very limited. With the advent of XHTML-2, CSS-3, SVG, XForms and CDF (Compound Document Framework for putting these pieces together), the W3C has provisioned the Web with the means of publishing and exchanging highly interactive but very complex docuemnts. The Web documents of the future will be every bit as complex as the publishing industry needs.
The transition of complex and data rich desktop office suite documents to the Web has been non existent up till now. With ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML, Microsoft is now ready to transition billions of business process rich "office" documents to the Web.This transition is accomplished by a very clever conversion component included in the MSOffice SDK. MS Developers can easily convert OOXML documents to Web ready XAML documents, adn back again, without loss of presentation fidelity, or data. No matter what the complexity!
The problem here is that while MSOffice-OOXML is now an ISO/IEC International Standard, XAML "fixed/flow" is a proprietary format useful only to the IE-8 browser, the MS Web Stack (Exchange, SharePoint, MS SQL, and Windows Server), and the emerging MS Cloud.
Apache, J2EE, Mozilla Firefox, Adobe and Open Source Servers in general will not be able to render these complex, business process rich, office suite documents. MSOffice-OOXML itself is far to complicated and filled with MS application-platform-vendor specific dependencies to be usefully converted to Open Web XHTML-CSS, ePUB or CDF.
XAML itself is only the tip of the iceberg. The Microsoft Web Stack also implements Silverlight, Smart Tags and other WPF - .NET technologies not available as open standards. Silverlight is a proprietary alternative to SVG and Flash technologies. Smart Tags and the LINQ meta search mechanism are alternatives to RDF, RDFa and SPARQL. And of course, XAML "fixed/flow" is a proprietary alternative to advanced XHTML-CSS, CDF, iPAPER, FlashPaper and PDF.
Web formats are important. This survey sadly only begins to scrape the surface of the interoperability problems the future of the Open Web faces. ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML is going to initiate a great transition of legacy client/server business process systems to a new model of highly efficient, barrier free and cloud ready client/ Web-Stack /server systems.
Hope this helps,
~ge~
- on 2008-04-18
Unbreaking the Web: IE 8 passes ACID 2 Test | John Resig
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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.
Play the tape!!! The W3C eMails to the Foundation tell a different story | OpenDocument Format community steadfast despite theatrics of now impotent 'Foundation' | TalkBack on ZDNet - Flock
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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~
- garyedwards on 2007-12-03
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- 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.
CDF and WICD FAQ - Flock
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- What is CDF's relationship with ODF and OOXML?
- They occupy different spaces. ODF and OOXML are office applications formats, while CDF is a W3C Working Group defining a framework for extensibility on the Web. Compound Documents such as WICD may be appropriate as ODF/OOXML export formats for Web presentation.
Compound Document Formats Group Charter
The W3C CDF Charter written in 2004
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be widely implementable in browsers and authoring tools
Putting Andy Updegrove to Bed (without his supper) | Universal Interoperability Council
Great article from the Universal Interoperability Council arguing the case for CDF as a universally interoperable format capable of fully representing desktop productivity environment documents. The UIC arguments are of course opposed by IBM and the lawyer for OASIS, Andy Updegrove.
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In late 2007, an article by OASIS attorney Andy Updegrove claimed that W3C Compound Document Formats: [i] are non-editable formats; [ii] are not designed for conversions to other formats; and [iii] are therefore unsuitable as office formats. Updegrove could not have been more wrong.
But unfortunately, the erroneous Updegrove article was widely publicized by the usual occupants of the IBM cheering section (1) in the stadium where the latest big vendor game for the Incompatible File Format Cup is being played, IFFC Games Stadium.
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