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28 Oct 09

"A Strategy For Openness" : Report to the NYS Governor and Legislature (CIO/OFT)

This is the report John Cody worked on.  I spent four months answering his questions but was unable to adequately explain to him the difference between an "Office Suite" and a workgroup-workflow centric "Productivity Environment".  

John insists that it's entirely possible to rip-out-and-replace the MSOffice editors with the free OpenOffice Suite without disrupting important workflows and business processes.  I explained to him what happened in Massachussetts, including the 300 page pilot study report Sam wrote.  What he needs to do i think is pay close attention to the Burton Group coverage of what is now known as the SharePoint Foundation platform;  SharePoint 2010 having totally swallowed the MSOffice 2010, leaving the venerable desktop productivity office suite as an important end user interface into information rich business systems centered on the SharePoint "Unified Productivity" platform.

www.cio.ny.gov/...erecords-study.htm - Preview

john-cody nys odf openxml unified-productivity

12 Aug 09

Good-bye and Good Luck II | Part II

Official Statement from the OpenDocument Foundation to OASIS

docs.google.com/View - Preview

foundation odf oasis good-bye-and-good-luck

Good-bye and Good Luck I Part I

Official statement from the OpenDocument Foundation on leaving OASIS

docs.google.com/View - Preview

foundation odf oasis good-bye-and-good-luck

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.

talkback.zdnet.com/5208-10741-0.html - Preview

foundation w3c ibm andy-updegrove cdf odf david-berlind

15 Jul 09

Compatibility Matters: The Lessons of Massachusetts

This document discusses the primary reason ODF failed in Massachusetts: compatibility with the MSOffice productivity environment, and, the billions of binary documents in use by MSOffice bound workgroups and the business processes so important to them.

docs.google.com/View - Preview

lessons-of-massachusetts compatibility interoperability ODF OOXML MSOffice OpenOffice document-wars

Compatibility matters: The Lessons of Massachusetts

Gary Edwards's List: Compatibility matters - The lessons of Massachusetts are many. Application level "compatibility" with existing MSOffice desktops and workgroups is vital. Format level "compatibility" with the legacy of billions of binary documents is vital. And "ecosystem" compatibility with the MSOffice productivity environment.

www.diigo.com/...compatibility-matters - Preview

msoffice ooxml odf openoffice massachusetts productivity-environment bound-business-processes MSOffice-ecosystem unified-productivity compatibility interoperability

09 Jul 09

Markup's Dirty Little Secret - O'Reilly XML Blog

So remember, there are three kinds of fidelity: fidelity because the document has all the information used by the producing and receiving applications, fidelity because the applications have the same resources available to them, and fidelity because the producing and receiving applications have the same algorithms and defaults. When looking at the various claims (Len Bullard mentions Spy versus Spy) made by MS on Open XML and” fidelity”, and ODF people on “interoperability” we need to interpret them in the hard light of the Dirty Little Secret.
Governments and procurement projects need to be quite clear that whenever they insist on page fidelity, they are probably in fact locking themselves into one vendor’s tools, in which case it becomes a debate on features, quality, price, training, etc. In a limited sense, everything *except* interchangeability.

www.oreillynet.com/...rkups_dirty_little_secret.html - Preview

odf pdf ooxml docbook html+

02 Jul 09

Martian Headsets - When the Problems with Standards Becomes the Standard Itself | Joel on Software

Joel takes on the difficult issues of standards and vendor specific implementations. This is a classic!

www.joelonsoftware.com/...17.html - Preview

ODF OOXML Browser-Wars document-wars HTML+ WebKit

30 Jun 09

Why is Microsoft Office so hard to kill? | InfoWorld

This article compliments the previous publication, "The better Office Alternative - Softmaker Office". Good stuff!\n\nExcerpt: "It's the question that vexes free open source software advocates and commercial competitors around the globe: Why is Microsoft Office so difficult to dislodge from its perch atop the IT heap? Is it the exclusive bundling deals? The deep Software Assurance entrenchment? Steve Ballmer's backroom deal with the devil?"\n\n"The answer, of course, is none of the above (though some evidence of a Microsoft-Hell alliance exists). Rather, it's the Office ecosystem -- the vast library of third-party add-ons and vertical solutions built (with copious encouragement from Microsoft) on Office's extensive programmatic model -- that makes Microsoft's suite so hard to kill."

www.infoworld.com/...rosoft-office-so-hard-kill-264 - Preview

ODF OpenOffice MSOffice compatibility interoperability softmaker-Office

07 Jun 09

ODF and OOXML must converge!! AFNOR, the French Standards Body, announces proposals for revisable office document formats

  • 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."









    So there you go.  A solution that removes ODF and OOXML from the clamy big vendor hands of both OASIS and Ecma, and puts the future of a "single revisable document" in the hands of ISO national bodies.

    IMHO, this is a winner.  If they (the ISO national bodies) can control the big application vendors, this will work.  And it's actually quite reasonable.

    They can't even begin to solve the technical challenge of convergence until they separate ODF from OpenOffice and OOXML from MSOffice.  The French have proposed their plan for separating OOXML from MSOffice, by creating a basic OOXMl-Core, and legacy compatible OOXML-Extensions.  Okay, but what about separating ODF from OpenOffice?

    ODF failed in Massachusetts for the love of five lousy generic elements we called the iX "interoeprability enhancements".  That's all it takes to convert existing MSOffice documents, applications and processes to ODF. 

    The five generics dealt with document structure fundamentals that were implemented differently in MSOffice and OpenOffice.  The generics are for lists, fields, tables, sections and page dynamics (breaks).

    There is also the problem with both ODF and OOXML that "compatibility-conformance" is optional.  Meaning, there is no requirement that compliant applications preserve the document markup of other applications.  Bye bye "round trip" fidelity!

    These implementation differentials break the high fidelity "round trip" conversion required by MSOffice bound workgroup-workflow business processes.  And with near 500 million MSOffice workgroups out there, this is hardly a trivial problem.  For Massachusetts, California, Denmark and Belgium this is an ODF show stopper.

    So what's the problem with adding five lousy generics to the ODF specification? 

    It's simple.  Nothing goes into ODF unless OpenOffice supports and implements that feature.  And OpenOffice is unable to support and implement these five generics unless there are significant changes made to the internal layout engine - implementation model. 

    The iX "interoperability enhancements" wouldn't degrade in any way the current OpenOffice conversion fidelity between MS binaries and xml docs, and ODF.  But they wouldn't improve that fidelity either.  The impact on OpenOffice conversion fidelity would be neutral. 

    Where the iX proposals would have an impact is on emerging ODF applications that would design their layout engines to perfectly implement ODF within the new iX interoperability framework.

    In the past year Florian Reuter submitted for discussion no less than five iX based proposals to the OASIS ODF TC members.  The first three iX proposals were submitted on behalf of the OpenDocument Foundation, and were signed off on by Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez.  A fourth iX proposal was presented in November of 2006 on behalf of Florian's new employer, Novell.  And in February of 2007, the fifth iX proposal, also known as the RDF interoperability framework, was submitted to the OASIS ODF Metadata SC.

    A sixth "iX interoeprability framework" is in the works.  It's designed to bring ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2 into conformance with



    ISO/IEC
    JTC 1 Directives     5th ed., v. 3.0, pp. 11, 145 (PDF), that mandate interoperability. 

    The ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives for interop conformance requirements are uncompromising.  ODF 1.0 somehow slid through ISO without being held to account.  Interestingly, in May of 2006, ISO specifically refused to grant ODF an exception to interop conformance requirements.

    Here's a brief taste of what ODF 1.1, 1.2 and MS-OOXML face:

    ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives unequivocally require that standards "specify clearly and unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the interoperability." Since ODF v. 1.2 is intended to become an ISO draft standard, this TC must shoulder the task the Directives place upon it. The Directives provide in relevant part:

    These Directives shall be complied with in all respects and no deviations can be made without the consent of the Secretaries-General.
    ............

    A purpose of IT standardization is to ensure that products available in the marketplace have characteristics of interoperability, portability and cultural and linguistic adaptability. Therefore, standards which are developed shall reflect the requirements of the following Common Strategic Characteristics:

        * Interoperability;
        * Portability;
        * Cultural and linguistic adaptability.

    Interesting huh?  There is the possiblity that come February, MS-OOXML will be put on the three year AFNOR plan.   Next up for ISO/IEC consideration will be ODF 1.1 and/or ODF 1.2.  Maybe by May of 2008? 

    Given the interoperability challenges facing both ODF and MS-OOXML, the world could easily find itself without an ISO approved desktop document standard.

    Although ODF 1.1 was OASIS approved in January of 2007, it has yet to be presented to ISO for consideration.  Meanwhile, ODF 1.2 is in it's final stages before it too goes before OASIS.  Shipping versions of OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and Novell Office implement ODF 1.2 aspects.  We're way beyond ISO approved ODF 1.0 here!

    I like the French plan.  It's doable.  But speaking as someone who has been there, the ISO national bodies are going to have to wrestle the big vendors to get both an interoperable document standard, and, conforming applications.

    The expected February fireworks are just the start.  For sure there will be no lack of entertainment in 2008.

    ~ge~
     - garyedwards on 2007-09-25
  • 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.
  • 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


  • 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) Latest News about Sun Microsystems, 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."

Wizard of ODF: Interoperability barriers and the List Proposal Vote Deadline on Wednesday

  • this TC does not have the final word
    on what goes into the ODF 1.2 spec. There is still the OASIS vote, the
    JTC-1 vote, and the ISO final ballot, with a few other stops along the
    way. There is also the market's response to what this TC does. Given
    that no one on this TC has objected to my considerable efforts to
    raise public concerns with Microsoft's ISO submission and some on this
    TC have lambasted Microsoft for creating interoperability barriers,
    why should this TC's members consider themselves exempt from warnings
    that they have just fallen into precisely the kind of behavior we
    routinely criticize when it's Microsoft that creates the
    interoperability barriers. Especially when it's the end users who will
    pay the price of the non-interoperability?

Denmark: OOXML vote won't affect public sector. ODF is too costly! | InfoWorld

  • Lebech said Denmark considers OOXML an open standard, regardless whether it is approved by the ISO. "It would be impossible
    for us to use only ISO standards if we want to fulfill the goal of creating interoperability in the government sector," he
    said.


    The Danish Parliament also mandated that public agencies consider the cost of using open formats. One of the main reasons
    OOXML was included is because Denmark is heavily dependent on document management systems that are integrated with Microsoft's
    Office products, Lebech said.


    Denmark also found that requiring agencies to only use ODF would have been too expensive, mostly because of the cost of converting
    documents into ODF, Lebech said.


    "We wouldn't have been able to only support ODF," Lebech said. "It wouldn't have been cost neutral."

Document Interoperability Initiative: Appendix H

Microsoft recently released their blueprint for implementing ISO 26300 (ODF 1.0 - dated May 1, 2005), and referenced this Web site. Appendix H is interesting in that it lists 13 of the 28 contributors sponsored by The OpenDocument Foundation. This contributor list contradicts the determined liars (er, editors) at Wikipedia who insist that The OpenDocument Foundation was two guys without a garage. The OpenDocument Foundation was founded in 2005 (shortly after OASIS approval of ODF 1.0) for the express purpose of balancing out the rapidly growing participation in the ODF technical committee of corporate contributors. IBM, Oracle, Novel, Intel and Adobe led a corporate wave joining the ODF TC following the May 2005 OASIS approval of ODF 1.0 and subsequent submission to ISO. The Foundation was set up to fund the participation of expert individuals representing both open source communities and groups interested in an Open Web future.

www.documentinteropinitiative.org/...P1-9999.AppendixH.aspx - Preview

odf ooxml interoperability opendocument Open-Standards

ODF infighting could help Microsoft's OOXML - zdnet Mary Jo

  • 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.
  • 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...
04 Jun 09

OASIS ODF: List Proposal Enhancement Vote Deadline on Wednesday | Gary Edwards

Thanks to Paul for digging this up. Who would have guessed that years later, these same issues hang like a dark shroud on the future of ODF? Note also that June 1st of 2007 was the cut off date for ODF 1.2 proposals and recommendations. The OpenFormula and Metadata SC's were rushing to make the cutoff.

The List Enhancement proposal itself was just one of many enhancements submitted by Florian Reuter in November of 2006, designed to greatly improve ODF compatibility with MSOffice "ODF". By November of 2006, thanks largely to the Massachusetts Pilot Study, there were a number of ODF plug-ins for MSOffice. All were capable of producing perfectly compliant ISO 26300 ODF, but falling far short of public expectations of high fidelity interop with OpenOffice ODF. Sound familiar?

Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before Microsoft was pressed into providing MSOffice ODF support. There was no doubt that they would face the exact same interop challenges as the many independent plug-in efforts. Hence the stepped up efforts by many at the OASIS ODF to "fix" ISO 26300!

At the time of the List Enhancement Proposal, we had increasing evidence from the many pilot studies that ODF was impossible to implement in business and workgroup environments where the MSOffice productivity environment was the defining platform. ODF was not designed to be compatible with MSOffice or the binary documents so critical to business processes bound to this environment.

OpenXML was designed exactly to be compatible with these environments. Unless ODF fixed it's compatibility/interoperability problems there was no way for the independent plug-ins to provide a reasonable ODF implementation alternative to OpenXML. And even if Microsoft did produce an MSOffice ODF compliant with ISO 26300, these productivity environments would remain entirely locked.

The world expected ODF to be compatible, interoperable, Web ready, and fully capable of cracking open the iron grip Microsoft has on the desktop. This List Enhancemen

lists.oasis-open.org/...msg00001.html - Preview

odf openxml oasis list-enhancement

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!

lwn.net/258232 - Preview

cdf foundation glyn moody odf ooxml opendocument sharepoint html+ html5 css3 interoperability

  • 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:
28 May 09

Classes of Fidelity for Document Applications - Rick Jellife

Rick Jellife weighs in on the OpenOffice ODF- MSOffice OpenXML interop embroglio. His take is to focus on <i>Classes of Fidelity</i>, providing us with a comparative table of fidelity categories. I wonder though if this über document processing approach is anywhere near consistent with the common sense meaning of <i>interoperability</i> to average end-users? IMHO, end-users interpret "<i>interoperability"</i> to mean that compliant applications can exchange documents without loss of information.

<i>"..... In my blog last year Is ODF the new RTF or the new .DOC? Can it be both? Do we need either? I raised the question of whether ODF would replace RTF or DOC. I think this issue has come back with a bang with the release of Office 2007 SP2, and I'd like to give another pointer to it for readers who missed it first time around.... </i>

<i>"...... OASIS ODF TC has some kind of conformance and testing wing at work, but it is not at all clear that they will deliver anything in this kind of area. Without targetting these classes, ODF's breezy conformance requirements means that ODF conforment software can deliver vastly different kinds of fidelity, yet still accord to the letter of the law (and, indeed, to the spirit of the ODF spec, which allows so many holes) which will cause frustration all-around....."</i>

Ouch!

broadcast.oreilly.com/...es-of-fidelity-for-docume.html - Preview

odf ooxml openxml interop

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