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Article - WSJ.com
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When Oracle Corp.(ORCL) acknowledged two weeks ago that the U.S. Justice Department was extending an antitrust review of its planned merger with Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA), the software giant maintained the deal would still close by the end of August.
But pressing through a second-request investigation in such an abbreviated time frame would buck the odds, according to Justice Department statistics and antitrust experts, even as Sun's financial results as an independent entity skid to surprising lows.Sun will hold a special shareholder meeting on Thursday, where it is expected to receive approval to accept Oracle's $5.6 billion buyout bid.
How Microsoft Ratted Itself Out Of Office | BNET Technology Blog | BNET
Here, IBM's Rob Weir takes OOXML to task for not specifying scripts and macros. But nary a mention of the fact that OpenDocument suffers from the same weakness. Yet another IBM double standard. He also tacks on an ad hominem attack against Gary Edwards, in lieu of addressing the merits of what Edwards said.
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Also, you have the problem that OOXML does not define details like scripts and macros, the very essence of integrating documents with business processes. So although you may now know how Office stores bold and italics, but these are not exactly the crown jewels of Office compatibility.
Lotus Symphony now reads Office 2007 documents
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IBM today announced the release of Lotus Symphony 1.3, an update to its year-old free productivity suite that for the first time lets users import files saved in Microsoft Office 2007's native Office Open XML (OOXML) document format.
untitled
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Most (quality) specifications provide clear instructions using
those magic words SHALL, SHALL NOT, and MAY where those words have
a defined meaning for an implementor. Paragraphs are clearly
identified as either normative or informative. That way an
implementor knows what they must and may implement to claim
conformance against a specification. This approach has been well
established over time as a sensible way for spec writers and
implementors to work
That is the way quality specifications are written. For
example, ISO/IEC's JTC 1
Directives (link to PDF) requires that international standards
designed for interoperability "specify clearly and unambiguously
the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the
interoperability."
With that clarity, conformance is testable and can provide
confidence of interoperability. A suite of tests may be developed
and applied to an implementation to determine which tests pass,
which fail, and hence arrive at an objective pronouncement on
conformance of an implementation against the entirety of the
specification. -
Most (quality) specifications provide clear instructions using
those magic words SHALL, SHALL NOT, and MAY where those words have
a defined meaning for an implementor. Paragraphs are clearly
identified as either normative or informative. That way an
implementor knows what they must and may implement to claim
conformance against a specification. This approach has been well
established over time as a sensible way for spec writers and
implementors to work - 5 more annotations...
When Did IBM Know? And Why That Matters ... | Universal Interoperability Council
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When did IBM learn that Microsoft would not implement Excel spreadsheet formulas in OpenDocument Formats ("ODF") v. 1.1 the same way OpenOffice.org does? And why does that timing matter?
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Why then did IBM wait nearly seven months, until May 3, 2009 — after Microsoft's ODF 1.1 native support was coded in Office 2007 SP2 — to mount the Big Blue attack on Microsoft's ODF 1.1 implementation of formulas?
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An Antic Disposition: Compatibility According to Humpty Dumpty
In 2007, IBM's Rob Weir roundly criticized OOXML because the principle justification for having a largely duplicative international standard was compatibility with the billions of extant legacy Microsoft Office documents in binary formats, yet the specifications for the binary formats were not included in the OOXML specification.
Just how committed IBM management was to that position may be seen in the fact that IBM later instigated an antitrust investigation of Microsoft Office by the E.U.'s DG Competition through the European Committee on Interoperable Systems, alleging monopoly abuse by Microsoft on the same grounds, an investigation still ongoing.
In this blog post comment, IBM's Rob Weir takes a hard line position that the sufficiency of the OOXML standard's specificity must be determined on the basis of what is stated in the standard itself, as opposed to Microsoft's subsequent recoding of Office to remove compatibility defects between Microsoft's implementation of OOXML and the binary formats.
The quoted passage may be usefully compared to later IBM arguments and actions in regard to the OpenDocument.standard that will be included in later bookmarks. For example, Weir has been unyielding that vendor-defined extensions to the ODF standard must be classified as conformant in ODF 1.2, yet their specifications are definitionally not part of the ODF specification. As another example, in 2009 Weir attacked Microsoft for having implemented ODF 1.1 using formula markup different from that used by OOo, despite ODF 1.1's lack of specifications for spreadsheet formulas. Weir's rationale: that vendors must collaborate to code around holes in the standard. He came very close to arguing that data gaps in a standard are irrelevant. See e.g., http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/05/battle-for-odf-interoperability.html
Conclusion: IBM's treats ODF as a double standard rather than a standard. What IBM argues in effect is that what is required for OOXML does not apply to ODF. OOXML must be fully specified according to IBM
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But none of that is really 100% compatibility with legacy anything. That is really just saying that OOXML is compatible with code that Microsoft is writing months after OOXML was standardized by Ecma. But the qualities of the format were set the day the standard was approved by Ecma. The standard does not gain capabilities by Microsoft writing code. Microsoft applications may gain capabilities, but the standard is what it is, and is as compatible as it is going to get the day it was standardized. If OOXML was really compatible with legacy binary formats then they would work without requiring code changes or customer upgrades.
Where is there an end of it? | Real Conformance for ODF?
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There has been quite a lot of hubbub recently about ODF conformance, in particular about how conformance to the forthcoming ODF 1.2 specification should be defined.
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The proposal caused much debate. In support of the new conformance clause, IBM's Rob Weir described foreign elements (formerly so welcome in ODF) as proprietary extensions that are “evil” and as a “nuclear death ray gun”. Questioning the proposal, KOffice's Thomas Zander wrote that he was “worried that we are trying to remove a core feature that I depend on in both KOffice and Qt”. Meanwhile Microsoft's Doug Mahugh made a counter-proposal suggesting that ODF might adopt the Markup Compatibility and Extensibility mechanisms from ISO/IEC 29500 (OOXML).
Things came to a head in a 9-2-2 split vote last week which saw the new conformance text adopted in the new ODF committee specification by will of the majority. Following this there was some traffic in the blogosphere with IBM's Rob Weir commenting and Microsoft's Doug Mahugh counter-commenting on the vote and the circumstances surrounding it.
Doug Mahugh : ODF Implementation Notes for Office 2007 SP2
Jesper Lund Stocholm asks a right-on-the-mark question. Peter Amstein answers for Microsoft. What do you expect when a specification ends its conformance section with the statement, "There are no rules regarding the elements and attributes that actually have to be supported by conforming applications, except that applications should not use foreign elements and attributes for features defined in the OpenDocument schema?"
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Microsoft has today published our first set of document-format implementation notes, for the ODF implementation in Office 2007 SP2. These notes, which are available on the DII web site, provide detailed information about the design decisions that went into our implementation of ODF 1.1.
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Doug,
The list of elements and attributes "not supported in core Word/Excel/PowerPoint 2007" is quite long. Can you tell us what will happen, when Office 2007 encouters an unsupported element.
Will it simply be ignored?
When roundtripping - will it be deleted or preserved?
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Giggle of the Day -- Microsoft boosts OOXML compatibility - ZDNet.co.uk
Chutzpah or terminal naivity from John McCreesh. As though Microsoft had actually considered dropping OOXML from its game plan for domiinating the Web. Did McCreesh actually fall for that "ODF has clearly won" bit of press deflection from Microsoft? http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/19/red-hat-summit-panel-who-won-ooxml-battle As Jean Paoli said in another report today on the same Microsoft event: "Since for maybe a year now, we are seeing far less passion about the format issue and more rationality."
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/120308-microsoft-openxml.html?page=2
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John McCreesh, an evangelist for OpenOffice.org, the main open-source competitor to the Microsoft Office productivity suite, told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that he was surprised to hear Microsoft was continuing to work on OOXML's compatibility.
"The feeling had been that OOXML was dead in the water, so it's interesting to see that Microsoft is still trying to revive it in the marketplace," said McCreesh. "The response in the marketplace [to OOXML] hasn't been that encouraging, but they've clearly decided it's worth another push."
There is no end, but addition: Alex Brown's weblog - SC 34 Meetings, Jeju Island, Korea - Day 2
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Yet more ODF and OOXML
… were the main topics of today, both separately and in tandem. Of most interest, perhaps, was the discussion surrounding the start of work on a project setting out to describe the mapping between ISO/IEC 26300 (ODF) and ISO/IEC 29500 (OOXML). This had received wide and decisive voting support from countries in its ballot, though some countries had objected to its commencement due to the non-availability of the ISO/IEC 29500 text. That hiatus is now happily behind us and the project is set to proceed with a powerful three-person editing teams (from Germany, Korea and China).
Tectonic » Southern nations frown on ISO
Document discussed in the article is downloadable from http://www.serpro.gov.br/noticiasSERPRO/2008/tecnologia/software-livre/joint_letter_cuba.odt
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State IT organisation representatives from Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Paraguay have signed a declaration expressing their dissatisfaction with the International Standards Organisation (ISO).
The countries signed the declaration at the CONSEGI conference in Brazil over the weekend in response to news that the ISO/IEC had rejected the appeals from South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela and India to the ISO process to adopt Microsoft’s OOXML format as an international standard.
Technology News: Applications: What's Holding OpenOffice Back?
The myths that ODF is an open standard, that Lotus Symphony is open source, and that Microsoft is the only company that manipulates "open" standards for unlawful competitive advantage continue to propagate.
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Most folks see data formats as an inside-baseball issue, because they work in all-Microsoft organizations where incompatibilities are rare. The only hangup, in that case, comes when Microsoft releases new software (Office 2007 being the latest example). Invariably, the data format's been upgraded as well.
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The data format wars have been going on for years and have provoked a substantial backlash. The anti-Microsoft crowd has an alternate data format, OpenDocument, that anyone can freely incorporate into any program, just as everyone uses the same old free, non-proprietary HTML to build Web sites.
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OpenDocument format gathers steam - CNET News.com
Martin LaMonica report of the 2005 ODF Summit Conference. Note IBM's plan to draft a proposal for the "OpenDocument Foundation."
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IBM and Sun Microsystems convened a meeting in Armonk, N.Y., on Friday to discuss how to boost adoption of the standardized document format for office applications. The ODF Summit brought together representatives from a handful of industry groups and from at least 13 technology companies, including Oracle, Google and Novell.
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The participants in last week's ODF Summit included Red Hat, Adobe, Computer Associates, Corel, Nokia, Intel and Linux e-mail company Scalix, in addition to Oracle, Novell and Google. The goal of the meeting, convened by Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and open source, and Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open-source officer, was to drive support for the standards "on a global level," Sutor said.
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Microsoft, Intel join the ODF Technical Committee
The ODF TC home page just changed its list of "OASIS Sponsor-level members who have reperesentatives serving on this TC." Microsoft and Intel have just joined the ODF party. Let the party begin!
Patrick Durusau on ODF and interoperability
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Interoperability is one of the primary reasons why I like XML in general
and ODF in particular.
New OASIS Discussion List: oiic-formation-discuss
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The proposed discussion list name is "oiic-formation".
(2) A preliminary statement of scope for the TC whose formation the list is
intended to discuss.
It is the intent of the ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance
(IIC) TC to provide a means for software implementors and service providers to
create applications which adhere to the ODF specification and are able to
interoperate. As such, the purpose of the IIC TC includes the following: -
It is the intent of the ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance
(IIC) TC to provide a means for software implementors and service providers to
create applications which adhere to the ODF specification and are able to
interoperate. As such, the purpose of the IIC TC includes the following:
1. To publish test suites of ODF for applications of ODF to check their
conformance with the Standard and to confirm their interoperability;
2. To provide feedback, where necessary, to the ODF TC on ways in which the
standard could improve interoperability;
3. To produce a set of implementation guidelines;
4. To define interoperability with related standards by the creation of
profiles or technical reports;
5. To coordinate, in conjunction with the ODF Adoption TC, OASIS InterOp
demos related to ODF;
The IIC TC may also liaise with other standard bodies whose work is leveraged in
present or future ODF specifications. These include, but are not limited to, the
W3C and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34. - 1 more annotations...
What to do now - Rick Jelliffe
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Now that ODF and OOXML are both set to be on the ISO/IEC books, it is useful to consider what the next productive steps are.
For genuine ODF Supporters who are concerned that ODF has languished a little out of the limelight during 2007, there are a lot of useful things to be done. You don’t even need to join the OASIS groups or your local National Body or SC34 to begin.
I suggest here are some things that will help the ODF effort coming into ODF 1.2.
GullFOSS
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OOXML? Isn't that Office Open XML? That file format, that Microsoft Office 2007 is using, that has been approved by ECMA as ECMA-376, and that is currently in a fast track process to become an ISO standard like ODF? That file format, that although its name is very similar to Open Office XML, has nothing to do with OpenOffice.org or ODF? And you may have wondered: What are Sun's OpenOffice.org developers doing with OOXML, and why? And when will we have an OOXML filter in OpenOffice.org?
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ODF is the only file format that provides the level of interoperability and choice of products that our customers want.
Publicly Available Standards
Most ISO and IEC standards are only available for purchase. However, a few are publicly available at no charge. ISO/IEC:26300-2006 is one of the latter and can be downloaded from this page in XHTML format. Note that the standards listed on the page are arranged numerically and the OpenDocument standard is very near the bottom of the page. This version of ODF is the only version that has the legal status of an international standard, making it eligible as a government procurement specification throughout all Member nations of the Agreement on Government Procurement.
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The following standards are made freely available for standardization purposes. They are protected by copyright and therefore and unless otherwise specified, no part of these publications may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, scanning, reproduction in whole or in part to another Internet site, without permission in writing from ISO. Requests should be addressed to the ISO Central Secretariat.
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ISO/IEC 26300:2006
XHTML version
1st
Information technology -- Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0
XHTML version
Detail Results ISO/IEC FDIS 24754
"FDIS" stands for "final draft international standard," which puts this standard at the final voting stage. I suspect that this document will be frequently cited in the efforts to harmonize ODF and OOXML at the presentation layer. Unfortunately, it looks like you have to be a member of a national standardization body to come up with a copy.
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ISO
International Organization for Standardization
Document #:
ISO/IEC FDIS 24754
Title:
Information technology -- Document description and processing languages -- Minimum requirements for specifying document rendering systems
Scope:
Keywords:
IT applications in information, documentation and publishing
Committee:
ISO IEC JTC 1 SC 34 - Document description and processing languages
<!--TR valign="top" bgcolor="#E7ECE6">
<TD><span id="Label29">Publication Date:</span></TD>
<TD><span id="PublicationDate"></span> </TD>
</TR-->
SDO Approval Date:
ANSI Approval Date:
Date File Updated in Database
May 13 2008 4:50PM
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