“Yesterday, Microsoft let the other shoe drop in a two-pronged attack on the support that has been building for the OpenDocument OASIS Format. It’s still far too early to say that the dust has settled, but I’ll attempt to pull together here the most significant pieces of information that I’ve located since last night’s post, and what it all means.”
This is good stuff. Buried in all the double-speak, rhetoric, apparent changes of position, etc. is the simple fact that the OSS movement (catalyzed by ODF) is indeed forcing a change in the entire industry. The Titanic is turning and this is notable moment in computing history.
Open Source/Standards/Formats aficionados, rejoice and mark your calendars with a big X.
Well, the surface of the deep water hides that icebergs are large…
Microsoft says they will submit something to a standards body, Microsoft is open and everything is OK with the world!
Apart from the fact that no one knows what they are opening, or whether there are some parts of this submission that are missing like other Microsoft standard submissions that makes another implementation outside of Microsoft Office pretty unfeasible. Quite how they’ve managed to get Apple involved in this I don’t know, although Apple are Microsoft’s bitch when it comes to Office because they really need it on the Mac. However, they’re so stupid they simply can’t recognise that widepspread usage of ODF would really increase sales of Pages and other bits of their software.
“not be reliant on one product or one version of a previous product from the past in order to open up those documents.”
Hmmm. I take it this ‘not reliant on one product’ means multiple versions of Office then? Sounds like Microsoft is trying to angle this as an opportunity for people to upgrade Office. A bit of the usual double dutch.
It’s really amazing where a totally meaningless, potential, submission to a totally meangless standards body can get you and how many gullible people will buy it.
It is certainly interesting that Apple are apparently supporting Microsoft on this. I would guess that it comes down to a couple of things:
Apple has a large investment in the Microsoft Office format
Apple relies on Microsoft Office for Mac in order to help maintain market-share. They must also have a spent a pretty large amount of money on translating Office documents. At present, Pages can interpret Word docs, so can TextEdit. Also, Spotlight is able to read and understand Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents.
Apple doesn’t like ODF
Although it’s probably not as important as point the first reason, I can see why this could be the case. As far as I am aware (please correct me if I’m wrong!) the ODF is standard for creating Office documents. You have a single kind of file that represents several different types of document – text, spreadsheets & presentations.
Now although this is not a problem for many users, for those of us (and I would probably place Apple in this group) who like to use distinct, separate programs for the different kinds of documents, this is a bit of an issue. Apple (or indeed anyone, really) would have to write some kind of extra system in their software whose job it is to decide which application is required for a particular document. This would only serve to confuse matter’s for end users, not something that anyone wants really.
ODF is not compatible with Pages
With Pages, Apple has begun to make a fairly serious investment into their new word processor. However, Pages is a little unusual, in that it is a semi-hybrid of a word processor and a page layout app. Now, I know very little of the internals of ODF, but I suspect that it would rather tricky for Apple to re-write Pages to acceptably handle Styles and certain Page Layout features in that way that it does in present, whilst being fully compatible with ODF.
Sorry if that was a little long-winded, but this ODF business does have some pretty serious implications.
Apple doesn’t like ODF
Since they’ve never given their position…..
Apple (or indeed anyone, really) would have to write some kind of extra system in their software whose job it is to decide which application is required for a particular document. This would only serve to confuse matter’s for end users, not something that anyone wants really.
Mmmmmm, no. That’s just daft what you’ve written there.
ODF is not compatible with Pages
And Office is?! That’s an extremely weak argument if ever I heard one. There would be no problem at all in Apple trying it and contributing what they needed to making ODF a first class citizen.
I take it the Microsoft people have crawled ou the woodwork around here…..
Sorry, maybe I should have been clearer that this was just some thoughts of mine on possibilites.
And rather than just telling me that what I’ve done is “daft,” could someone actually explain whether I am right on this point or not?
As I understand it, ODF is a single file format that represents multiple kinds of document – text, spreadsheet, presentation. Surely this must cause problems with those Office suites (i.e. most of them) that use seperate programs to handle each kind of file?
And rather than just telling me that what I’ve done is “daft,” could someone actually explain whether I am right on this point or not?
Basically you described how onerous and how much of a chore it would be for Apple to support ODF when they already support Microsoft’s Office formats – in a fashion. That’s just daft.
As I understand it, ODF is a single file format that represents multiple kinds of document – text, spreadsheet, presentation.
Well that can’t be true otherwise you could only represent a set limit of information.
Surely this must cause problems with those Office suites (i.e. most of them) that use seperate programs to handle each kind of file?
Nope. Open Office does it. KOffice is doing it.
another story
Well, it’s going to be interesting to see what license will actually come with Office XML.
Right now it looks messy. Perhaps a license which allows for GPL’ed applications, or perhaps not. The sentence “will be very positive for the vast majority of developers” implies that the new license will be no more open than the existing one, since it will be for a “majority” and not for “everybody”.
But if MS opens Office XML completely it will have no reason not to implement ODF, and the reason for others to implement Office XML disappears. There is no need for two open standards in the same area. And in that battle Office XML will lose.
So, for MS to win Office XML will not be truly open, as the statements from MS shows, when you read between the lines.
But cadeau to MS for actually trying to play this game
Microsoft’s Office XML is still patent emcumbered, regardless of any ECMA standard.
Anonymous: Microsoft’s Office XML is still patent emcumbered, regardless of any ECMA standard>
Sun Patents also cover OpenDocument, the point is whether Microsoft will allow complete royalty free access to the XPS standard … and they have already have … therefore your point it moot.
But the real question to ask here is will developers target OpenDocument or will they target XPS ??
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/default.mspx
Edited 2005-11-22 19:23
ODF isn’t patent emcumbered.
It’s patented alright, but it’s not patent emcumbered.
It’s free for anyone to use anyway you want to – without restrictions.
The patent only kicks in if you’re sueing someone for violating a patent for storing documents in XML-format, while said someone is using ODF.
Sun Patents also cover OpenDocument, the point is whether Microsoft will allow complete royalty free access to the XPS standard … and they have already have … therefore your point it moot.
Sun do not have patents over the format – they’ve waived their right to any they might have though, so stop dredging up that crap please.
Additionally, royalty free is absolutely meaningless. Microsoft controls the format, end of story. It’s hardly been submitted to an independent body like Oasis has it?
No speculation required here! It’s an easy decision for Massachusetts: adopt OpenDocument now since it’s already an open format. And if Microsoft want to join the party late, I suppose they’re welcome to do so. When their format is actually judged to be open, and when it has been shown that they aren’t secretly extending it to break interoperability, perhaps it could be considered as some kind of open standard.
Microsoft should have opened their formats up years ago; no-one should have any time for Microsoft’s vague promises, FUD and stalling tactics any more.
” It’s an easy decision for Massachusetts ”
huh? the democrats already killed that in the legislature here. the whole thing was a republican idea and unfortunately in MA, the dmocrats have 80% of the legislature.
Its dead and probably will never be revisited.
huh? the democrats already killed that in the legislature here. the whole thing was a republican idea and unfortunately in MA, the dmocrats have 80% of the legislature.
Eh?
the ODF thing in MA was a proposal of Mitt Romney the GOP governor’s administration . The democrats did not like it and have killed it in the legislature. Since they have such a huge majority, there will be no revisiting this in the future. See the previous OSnews article on MA plans on ODF and how it died.
This is a sad state of affairs when Democrats turn out to be as tied in to big business as Republicans usually are. I think all F/OSS-friendly democrats in MA should write their representative and protest loudly, threatening to vote for the other side if the democrats do not act in the public’s interest (as opposed to the interest of a corporate monopoly).
Mass is pretty much a one party state. The democrats dont think they will ever lose so they don’t need to care about such things. We usually dont even have elections here, generally the representative for a region is who ever is picked by the party. Some parts of the state hold elections, but for the most part the democrat is “elected”.
For example, no one runs against John Kerry or Ted Kennedy they are automatically “reelected”. I think someone called Jackie Robinson (no joke) ran against Teddy back in 2000 and got trounced. There is really no reason for the GOP to invest in an election here since there is no chance of winning.
The odd exception to this is the governor who has been a republican since 1990. The reason for this is because the last democrats in the executive Gov Michael Dukakis and Lt. Gov John Kerry did such an awful job (see 20 year old big dig ) they managed to turn the whole state against them. Well that and they started letting out rapists and murders from prison on day passes until one day one of them raped and killed a young couple (see Willie Horton) now that would turn anyone against any party.
Massachusetts likes Republican voters because single-party government doesn’t work very well, it’s simply not very democratic. The legislature is still that way, and it’s nothing to be proud of. Hopefully we’ll get some more Republicans making serious bids for state office.
The Big Dig was muscled through Congress when Mass. had lots of power there (Tip O’Neill was speaker, etc) but it was the Republican governors William Weld and Paul Celluci who really bungled the task of administering and overseeing it – they sat on their butts and did Michael Brown type jobs. The general contractor (Bechtel) and its local subs got away with murder for twelve years.
The Willie Horton thing was just a Republican campaign ad, like the Swift boats.
Paul G
oops I meant Massachusetts likes Republican *governors*
Paul G.
actually, no, the willie horton thing was very real. i remember it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton
“William R. Horton Jr. (born August 12, 1951 in Chesterfield, South Carolina) is a convicted felon who was the subject of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program that released him while serving a life sentence for murder, providing him the opportunity to commit a rape and armed robbery.”
heck it looks like Al gore was the one who brought it up (I didn’t know that)
“Horton was sentenced in Maryland to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The sentencing judge refused to return Horton to Massachusetts, saying, “I’m not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released. This man should never draw a breath of free air again.””
OUCH
the ODF thing in MA was a proposal of Mitt Romney the GOP governor’s administration . The democrats did not like it and have killed it in the legislature. Since they have such a huge majority, there will be no revisiting this in the future.
Hmmmm, no. In reality they have no power whatsoever, on the ground, over what file formats the state decides to use – it’s a technology decision. In order to challenge that they will have to formulate something in legislation. The politics is actually still going on, which is why there is this belated decision by Microsoft to try and make their format some sort of standard.
Read previous OSNews articles for information.
Well if Massachusetts doesn’t do it than nobody will.
If Massachusetts wants to play politics with their data so be it, but ODF is something much more powerful to the whole industry and should continue to be developed.
It appeared to me from last year GOP governor’s interest in open source were more about using it to reduce the actual amount of money needed to run a state government.
As long as it can run on LGPL apps like OOo, competition will be interesting anyway
You do realize that there’s basically no difference between LGPL and GPL when apps are concerned, right? LGPL only matters for libraries.
it doesn’t matter if MS office 12 format is standarized; it is still controlled by one company.
“It’s really amazing where a totally meaningless, potential, submission to a totally meangless standards body can get you and how many gullible people will buy it.”
Ever heard of ECMA-Skript ?
Ever heard of ECMA-Skript ?
Speaking of meaningless……
ECMAScript (ECMA-262, standard JavaScript) is certainly meaningful, and the same goes for .NET’s CLI (ECMA-335, rock on Mono!).
ECMAScript (ECMA-262, standard JavaScript) is certainly meaningful
Since no browser actually adheres to it properly……
and the same goes for .NET’s CLI (ECMA-335, rock on Mono!).
ECMA != .Net. The ECMA stuff specifies nothing that will give you a .Net compatible implementation.
ECMA != .Net. The ECMA stuff specifies nothing that will give you a .Net compatible implementation.
You couldn’t be more wrong. .NET is a full implementation of the ECMA/ISO standards. MS has submitted 3 versions of the CLI/C# specs to ECMA/ISO. I believe they’ve also submitted C++/CLI for version 2.0. People can and have created cross-platform code that runs on Mono, .NET, and other implementations of the CLI. There’s a compiler switch and Visual Studio option to create standard code.
You couldn’t be more wrong. .NET is a full implementation of the ECMA/ISO standards. MS has submitted 3 versions of the CLI/C# specs to ECMA/ISO. I believe they’ve also submitted C++/CLI for version 2.0. People can and have created cross-platform code that runs on Mono, .NET, and other implementations of the CLI. There’s a compiler switch and Visual Studio option to create standard code.
Actually, Microsoft has submitted specifications for each to be given a unique ECMA standard ISO number.
You couldn’t be more wrong. .NET is a full implementation of the ECMA/ISO standards.
What the parent was trying to say is that only C#/CLI/etc. is covered by the ECMA standards, and not an entire .NET implementation – which would be much more than just the language specification.
What the parent was trying to say is that only C#/CLI/etc. is covered by the ECMA standards, and not an entire .NET implementation – which would be much more than just the language specification.
.NET should not be covered under the standard anymore than the MSR runtimes, Mono, .GNU, et al. These are all implementations of the standard, with additional libraries added to fill specific needs.
Saying .NET should be covered under the standard is no different than saying Win32 should be covered under the C/C++ standards.
You couldn’t be more wrong. .NET is a full implementation of the ECMA/ISO standards. MS has submitted 3 versions of the CLI/C# specs to ECMA/ISO.
No, that’s double dutch. Just because Microsoft’s .Net adheres to those specs it does not mean that anyone who implements them automatically has a .Net implementation. There is stuff in .Net that is not a part of the ECMA and will never be.
People can and have created cross-platform code that runs on Mono, .NET, and other implementations of the CLI.
They haven’t got that far just be reading and implementing those standards.
No, that’s double dutch. Just because Microsoft’s .Net adheres to those specs it does not mean that anyone who implements them automatically has a .Net implementation. There is stuff in .Net that is not a part of the ECMA and will never be.
Read my post again. I said that .NET is an implementation of the ECMA/ISO standard, not the other way around.
It’s no different than C++. There’s a standard that functions as a common base. Then different venders build their custom solutions on top of the standard. .NET implements the standard, then proprietary technologies (ASP.NET, Winforms, et al)which MS markets are built atop the standard base in the same way that Visual C++ implements the standard and MS provides proprietary technologies (Win32, DirectX, et al) on top of it.
Mono is an implementation of the standard as well and also provides functionality specific to *n*x on top.
The standard allows for a common base that you can expect to be in all implementations. Then if your desire is cross-platform compatibility, you code to the standard and only use other technologies built atop the standard that target cross-platform development.
They haven’t got that far just be reading and implementing those standards.
They have. The trouble that they have is going beyond the standard and implementing proprietary technology not covered by it instead of just creating their own innovations.
To put the situation another way, just because everyone can implement C/C++/Objective C/C++, should that entitle them to Apple’s Aqua/Quartz technologies just because they are built atop those base technologies? This is the equivalent of what some expect they’re entitled to from MS just because everyone can implement C#/CLI.
MikeGA I can’t speak much about your other reason because I don’t know them. However, i think the points that you mention on your last part are actually covered on the OpenDocument Master Document that allow the combination of elements from different OpenDocument types.
I swear, nothing will make you all happy until this stuff that Microsoft has spent large sums of money developing is both free and open source.
I’m sure even then you will be complaining about somthing over it.
Bring on the -5 mod for stating the truth!
You’re probably right
Well, this is about a standard and not about a certain piece of code.
We’re not going to be satisfied until Office XML is a truly open standard.
Whether or not MS releases everything as open source doesn’t matter to me. I’d be satisfied if they dumbed their prices and changed their EULA so it didn’t violate the danish Constitution (Grundloven).
Sure they can be very nice when it suits them.
http://www.advogato.org/article/101.html
We should nominate them for sainthood right now.
…which is why making the next version of Office ODF-compatible would make sense – after all, they did not spend any money on that format!
I personally suffer from vendor lock-in. I have to use .doc file and .xls files for compatibility. I’d like nothing more than the next version of Office to be ODF compatible, so I could use a native solution on my Linux laptop instead of using MS Office through Crossover Office.
I’m the living proof that if MS really cared about its consumer’s needs, it would support ODF. Then again, I don’t expect MS apologists and potential astroturfers to agree with me on this…
That’s exactly what the standard is for, so other companies can build support into their own products.
Well, I look forward to see MS implement support for ODF in Office. ODF is an open standard after all.
Office XML is a closed proprietary standard, openly documented.
Implementing support for ODF in Office is logical since that’s exactly what the standard is for (letting other companies build support into their own products).
Speak for yourself, but I would be happy with not having to deal with Microsoft’s bull tactics with closed formats and hidden APIs. They can spend money and develop applications, but when they start encumbering interoperability then it becomes an issue.
“But if MS opens Office XML completely it will have no reason not to implement ODF, and the reason for others to implement Office XML disappears. There is no need for two open standards in the same area. And in that battle Office XML will lose”
What sort of world do you live in?!? Microsoft is winning *right now* with proprietary formats. MS Office is the dominant office suite, and the existing Office formats are the dominant formats. If Microsoft switches to open formats, and makes them the default, then the Microsoft open formats will become the new dominant formats. Everyone else will scurry to support Office XML, and ODF will whither and die.
Office XML probably won’t be “open” to the point of satifying the GPListas, but it will be open enough to keep anyone else from seriously considering ODF. At that point, ODF has no value.
Well… that’s just not what’s happening right now
Microsoft isn’t winning anything – actually it’s losing battle after battle. That’s why it’s behaving this way.
Office XML will not be open enough to satisfy european companies, nor european authorities if it doesn’t allow for GPL’ed applications.
Not that it’s a problem in Denmark. The current licensing terms for Office XML is void in Denmark. Like most of the MS EULA btw. The same is true for Apple and it’s license for end users
Open formats from Microsoft will probably not survice, unless they are truly free. But if they became truly free, it would be quite okay. However, Microsoft cannot kill ODF, simply due to the fact that Microsoft delivers too little, too late.
My first bet is that this is not going to a a real open standard and that somewhere in the license jungle is a clause which excludes GPL.
But … let’s say I’m wrong.
Microsoft is quickly positioning it self to be able to enforce its Windows monopoly without the Office formats, but only through its DRM encumbered media-formats. With the current development, in a few years, it won’t matter to MS whether other programs can read Office documents… As long a no one can view television without a MS license…
DOWNLOAD Windows Vista pre-Beta 2 – http://windows.czweb.org/show_article.php?id_article=173
Microsoft is trying to improve its image and make itself look good and “open” – this is nothing more than a PR stunt. Until other applications can truly and fully interact with Microsoft office formats, with no patent encumberances, no funny licensing agreements etc. All rest is bullshit. I’m sure that the GPL will be totally excluded by the Microsoft licensing agreements, and that’s totally unnacceptable.
Dave
Isn’t their releasing something (still not sure what) to ECMA as a proposed standard similar to what they did with several .NET technologies that Mono is using? Do the issues and concerns that people keep posting regarding Mono (at least for the non-Windows APIs) apply to their document formats?
Yes, but the question is: can we trust Microsoft? Past history has shown that this is a very risky decision to take.
Also, I want to know if GPL/BSD apps will be able to to use the file format without fear of MS changing its mind down the road. I.e. will Koffice or OpenOffice be able to use it? A “covenant” not to sue doesn’t seem very convincing coming from MS. Why don’t they just release their file formats under the BSD?