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"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.
Wizard of ODF: Interoperability barriers and the List Proposal Vote Deadline on Wednesday
marbux at his best.
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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
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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."
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
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!
DataViz "Documents To Go" rocks Google Android with unique Office functions | ZDNet Review
With Documents To Go for the Google Android platform you get read, write, create and sync support for Word and Excel 2007 (OpenXML formatted) documents, support for receiving and sending attachments through Gmail and other applications (including the free <a href="http://www.dataviz.com/products/roadsync/android/index.html">RoadSync Exchange</a> beta client, open password protected files, and view Word documents with track changes so you can see what others have done to your document.
ZDNet reviewer Mathew Miller also recommends that people check out the details of the <a href="http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/android/intact.html">DataViz Intact Technology</a> to see how documents will be handled to maintain file formatting and structure throughout the process of editing.
There are two YouTube Video demonstations of "Documents to Go" running on an Android. ........ No collaborative editing with MSOffice desktops, but this is outstanding stuff.
Wizard of ODF: The Foundation on Interop and the List Proposal Vote Deadline
If ever there was a discussion thread of consequence at the OASIS ODF TC, the "Enhanced List Proposal" donnybrook is it. This is where the ODF interoperability nightmare burst into the daylight of a showdown vote. The interop issues were clear. OpenDocument TC members voted between interoperability and/or application specific innovation. Application specific innovation trumped interoperability. Again.
And what a sad day it was. The thing is, the recent ECIS antit trust action against Microsoft comes at the request of IBM and Sun. They allege that Microsoft is violating standards requirements for interoperability, and has launched a series of corrupt activities to push through a non interoperable standard. They are right. Microsoft is guilty. The problem is that Microsoft can easily point to Sun and IBM activities at OASIS ODF, and make the same allegation! Using this thread as evidence!</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, this thread is evidence that if Microsoft had tried to implement ODF, their efforts to establish interop would have been met with the same response from IBM and Sun that the OpenDocument Foundation received. Or so they could argue.
Houston, we have a problem.
IBM and Sun could have fixed the ODF interop problems at any time during the past five years. Yet, the world is waiting. Meanwhile, this will full negligence and lack of desire to address pressing market needs for full interop has served to hold the door open for OOXML. And now these negligent acts look to be the basis of a Microsoft counter claim.
Oh well ..
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Oh, my. Both IBM and
Sun voted for the proposal that broke the Foundation's plugin that was
going to add full-fidelity native ODF file support to Microsoft
Office. So it's sounding to me like at least two of the TC members who
voted for the Sun/KOffice proposal didn't check in with the ECIS
lawyer before they broke interoperability with Microsoft Office.
Do you think Microsoft won't use this evidence in the DG Competition
antitrust proceeding, Michael? Let's see, you guys are prosecuting
Microsoft for not supporting ODF in Microsoft Office while you block
Microsoft Office from supporting ODF. Yeah, I think DG Competition is
going to hear about this one from Microsoft. They'll probably hear
about what you said about compatibility being a trade off too. Oh,
yeah. Microsoft's lawyers are going to love this. Look at the ECIS
public statement about interoperability's importance.
Open Malaysia: Geneva, Day Five
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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.
ODF and OOXML are standards in name only - Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary' - Talkback at ZDNet UK
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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."
Antitrust: The EU Case Against Microsoft | Investingation, Court Proceedings, Decisions, Enforcment, Case Docuemnts
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The web-pages referred to below provide information about the European Commission’s March 2004 Microsoft Decision, the Court of First Instance proceedings relating to that Decision, and its ongoing implementation.
Antitrust: Commission imposes € 899 million penalty on Microsoft for non-compliance with March 2004 DecisionOOXM
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Antitrust: Commission imposes € 899
million penalty on Microsoft for non-compliance with March 2004 Decision
OOXML/ODF: Just One Battlefield in a Much Bigger War | Linux Today
excellent discussion of why the ISO standardization of OOXML is so importnat to Microsoft.
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If the OOXML format in its current form cannot get made into a true ISO standard, it could lock Microsoft out of any future plays in what could be the biggest IT revolution to date.
Here are the pieces of the puzzle that fit together for me:
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"Amazon SimpleDB is a web service for running queries on structured data in real time."
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A Savage Journey … ODF at the OOXML BRM « A Frantic Opposition
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A Savage Journey …
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‘Erupting from my vivid nightmares into the retro 80s faded luxury of a five-star hotel in Geneva, the pictures of the first victim reappeared on the wall. The head of the Brazilian delegation-it’s only a matter of time now.
My mind thrashes to disentangle the thrown spaghetti threads of blurred reasoning; who’s next, is it just the heads of delegation they are after, any NB member, P-members only?
The fog lifts and it’s worse. Who is behind this, them or us? We outnumber them, but maybe their plan is more devious. Must find Bonky Bob, he’ll know what to do.’
Enough levity for now. The BRM has held few surprises, other than the rather galling situation where I was forced to publicly toe the INCITS line by the temporary head of delegation, a Microsoft employee, against my better judgement.
Harmonizing ODF and OOXML using NameSpaces | Tim Bray's Thought Experiment
Tim Bray suggests using namespaces to brdige the comatibility gap between ODF and OOXML.
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First, what if Microsoft really is
doing the right thing? Second, how can we avoid having two incompatible
file formats?
[Update: There’s been a lot of reaction to this piece, and I addressed some
of those points
here.] -
Add Sticky NoteOn the technology side, the two formats are really more alike than they are
different.
But, there are differences:
O12X’s design center, Microsoft has said repeatedly,
is capturing the exact semantics of the billions of existing Microsoft Office
documents.
ODF’s design center is general-purpose reusability, and leveraging existing
standards like SVG and MathML and so on.OOXML, or to put it more accurately "O12X" as Tim suggests, is designed to capture the exact semantics of MSOffice 12. In fact, OOXML is an XML encoding of the MSOffice 12 in-memory-binary-representation dump. When it comes to representing older versions of MSOffice documents, OOXML must use legacy compatibility settings" to capture the semantics. And it's not an exacting science to say the least.
The thing is, OpenOffice ODF uses the same technique resulting in application specific ODF documents with over 150 un docuemnted, unspecified "compatibility settings". After years of requests from the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to document these application specific settings, Sun has yet to provide any kind of response. And this kills ODF interoperability. Especially concerning KOffice.
There is also the issue of OASIS ODF high-jacked namespaces. When ODF applications reference a namespace, the actual URL is high-jacked with http://oasis-open.org/???? replacing the proper namespace of http://W3C.org/????
This high-jacking impacts the oDF reuse of important W3C technologies such as XForms, SVG, MathML, and SMiL.
So where's the problem you ask? Well, when a developer imports or tries to process an OpenOffice ODF document, they rely on say the W3C XForms specification for their understanding. OpenOffice however seriously constrains the implementation of XForms, SVG, MathML, RDFa and RDF/XML. This should be reflected in the new namespace. However, if you follow the high-jacked URL, you'll find that there is nothing there. There is no specification describing how OpenOffice implements XForms in ODF! This breaks developer libraries, breaks ODF interoperability between ODF applications, and, offends the W3C to no end.
So i think it might be fair to say that at this point, neither ODF or OOXML have come close to fulfilling their design objectives.
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The Case for Harmonization (that IBM will vote against anyway) « A Frantic Opposition
<p>This very funny satire builds on some harsh realities. The ODF chickens have come home to roost, and it isn't pretty. Very funny, yes. But not pretty for those who continue to believe that somehow ODF is a standard worthy of their support.</p>
<p>The flip side of the coin is that using the same critieria of interoperability, OOXML is worthless. The sad truth is that both ODF and OOXML are applicaiton specific formats that will continue to defy and defeat all efforts at interoperability. Inparticular, it's the presentation layers of ODF and OOXML that remain bound to the layout engines and feature sets of their originating applications.</p>
<p>Just as the presentation layers defy interoperability, they will also defeat harmonization. The only way to harmonize two application specific formats is to harmonize the originating applications. And Microsoft, Sun and IBM are not about to do that.</p>
<p>The links in this satire are stunning!!! They shout loudly as to how Microsoft is going to respond to the ECIS anti trust allegations. So when you stop laughing, make certain you track down the links and read through the various OASIS ODF archive threads. IBM and Sun had their chance to fix ODF interoperability. Now it may be too late.</p>
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The Case for Harmonization (that IBM will vote against anyway)
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In my recent post, I discussed the case for harmonization, mainly due to trying to portray a more kindly, conciliatory face in the “standards krieg” that I was enjoying so much. I have been forced to take a different tack, in light of being hung out to dry by my more business-focused IBM comrades and the work that the enemy has done in sprucing up the spec. However, as my closest friends know, for me, there are no half-victories, so you can rest assured that I will not settle for this weak “harmonization” compromise. I set out my (and IBM’s) stall some time ago on this, and as those on the Open Document Foundation know, any attempt at harmonization shall be met with swift and final retribution. They were ejected from the odf-coven just days after their impudence. I have baited my trap, inviting this “harmonization” in my lair (the OASIS ODF TC) where I can bog them down in a morass of incompetence, bickering and politicking, so no new standard is ever ratified. I have already been practicing for this, as you can see, by the ODF 1.1 and 1.2 specs.
Calling all black helicopters! This is a red alert. The OpenDocument Foundation suspected of interfering with Roy's tin foil hat reception!
<p>Yo Marbux! Fire up the Black Hawk! They want us. They need us. Without the big bad bogey man, lurkign in the shadows, secretly conspiring against them, who will they blame their failures on?</p>
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Be aware that Gary Edwards and Marbux (of the organisation formerly known as “The OpenDocument Foundation” [1, 2]) have begun submitting links to their new site. They use Digg where they post elaborate comments about a decoy, a distraction. They comment on each other’s submissions, which are barely receiving any attention at all. The OpenDocument Foundation’s Web site has meanwhile become a link farm (inactive) with many inbound links. This is not very ordinary.
“At times, however, new people are introduced to intervene and create tensions, misunderstandings, and civil wars.”
Word of recognition from an unexpected side: ODF editor Patrick Durusau supports OOXML - ISO effort
<p>Patrick Durusau, the OASIS ODF editor has written an open letter praising the OOXML standardization effort at Ecma and ISO. Patrick is a long time member of ISO JTCS1, currently serving as the ODF editor for both ISO and OASIS ODF efforts. That his endorsement of OOXML comes on the eve of the critically important February BRM is beyond incredible. </p>
<p>Jesper offers this quote which i think adequately summarizes Patrick's endorsement:</p>
<p>The OpenXML project has made a large amount of progress in terms of the openness of its evelopment. Objections that do not recognize that are focusing on what they want to see and not what is actually happening with OpenXML"</p>
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The OpenXML project has made a large amount of progress in terms of the openness of its evelopment. Objections that do not recognize that are focusing on what they want to see and not what is actually happening with OpenXML
The ODF Alliance puckers up and gets smacked with the CSS question - Where is it? | O'Reilly XML Blog
<p>MS-OOXML supporter Rick Jellife discusses the ODF Alliance response to Ecma's proposed disposition of ISO NB comments on OOXML. The Allaince response has recieved quite a bit of ink, wtih waves of ODF jihadists pointing to it as incontroverible evidence that they are right. Rick provides a lengthy response, most of which presents the ODF jihadis with some difficult issues they must now explain.</p>
<p>More importantly though, RJ uncovers one of the more glaring examples proving that ODF is application specific to the core, and bound to OpenOffice. He points out that OpenOffice ODF could have chosen the W3C's highly portable and infinitely interoeprable CSS as the ODF presentation layer. This would have been a great reuse of existing standards. But that's not what happened!</p>
<p>Instead of the widely used CSS, OpenOffice chose an incredibly application specific presentation model with the unique innovation of <i>"automatic-styles"</i>. And with this choice came years of problematic zero interop as application after application try to exchange ODF documents with little success.</p>
<p>Take for example KDE-KOffice. They've been a member of the OASIS ODF TC for near five years now, almost since the beginning. Yet it's impossible to exchange all but the most basic of documents with any of the OpenOffice derivaties (OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office, and Lotus Symphony - OOo 1.1.4).</p>
<p>If after five years of active particpation and cooperative efforts, KOffice is unable to exchange ODF docuemnts with OpenOffice, how is it that somehow Microsoft Office would be able to implement ODF without similar zero interop results? Isn't the purpose of standardized formats that end users of different applications could effectively exchange documents?</p>
<p>The truth is that both ODF and OOXML are application specific formats. And you can't harmonize, merge, map, or translate between two application specific formats without also having harmonized the applications.</p>
<p>Fear not though. It is possibl
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Harmonisation
It is interesting that the ODF Alliance quotes Tim Bray that the world doesn’t need another way to express basic typesetting features. If it is so important, why didn’t ODF just adopt W3C CSS or ISO DSSSL conventions? Why did they adopt the odd automatic styles mechanism which no other standard uses? Now I think the ODF formating conventions are fine, and automatic styles are a good idea. But there is more than one way to make an omlette, and a good solution space is good for users.
My perspective is that harmonisation (which will take multiple forms: modularity, pluralism, base sets, extensions, mappings, round-trippability, feature-matching, convergence of component vocabularies, etc, not just the simplistic common use of a common syntax) will be best achieved by continued user pressure, both on MS and the ODF side, within a forum where neither side can stymie the legitimate needs of other.
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.
Harmonization and Interop: The dizzying dance of ODF, OOXML, and CDF
<p>Will the real universal document format please stand up! Comments on the recent article posted by the Universal Interoperability Council: <i>"Putting Andy Updegrove to bed without his supper".</i></p>
<p>The UIC article is well worth your time. It is extremely well referenced and researched. The arguments put forth counter claims by IBM and OASIS that the W3C's CDF format can not be used to represent desktop productivity environment documents. Not surprisingly, IBM and OASIS argue that the OpenOffice specific ODF is the only alternative to Microsoft Office specific OOXML.</p>
<p>The UIC argues that the full range of MSOffice legacy binary documents and emerging XML documents can fully be represented in CDF - something that not even the most ardent of ODF jihadists would claim as an ODF capabilitiy. The truth is that ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice binary and xml documents.</p>
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With the ISO BRM fast approaching, the harmonization of ODF and OOXML is all the rage. The legendary marbux takes on this discussion arguing that ODF and OOXML both lack the interoperability framework needed to meet ISO directives describing interop requirements. He argues that interop between MSOffice and OpenOffice can be achieved using CDF.
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