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Comments on the Massachusetts Decision |
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Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 07:38 PM EDT
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has posted comments from around the world regarding the Open Document format decision, in addition to the letters from corporations. I'm sure they'll be receiving many more. Several excellent comments as well as responses to Microsoft General Manager Alan Yates' letter in opposition [PDF] have surfaced:
An Open Letter to Alan Yates of Microsoft from the KOffice team: KOffice is in fact not related to StarOffice or OpenOffice. It is a completely separate product, and a very fine one at that. One of our team members, David Faure, was an active party in the creation of the OASIS OpenDocument standard, and KOffice was the first office suite that publicly announced support for it. . . . In case you think that even two competing products will not be enough to satisfy the "well-accepted public procurement norms", I can assure you that they will soon not be alone. The fine word processor AbiWord and the spreadsheet program Gnumeric, will also soon support Open Document due to an independent effort by a Nokia research lab.
Sam Hiser, whose letter regarding the ETRM draft document is also highlighted on the Massachusetts site:
Yates highlights the "technical challenges" of changing the State's standard document file format.
As a migration expert, I can state from personal and client experience that it is not actually that hard. It is certainly no more difficult than managing an organization of Massachusetts' size (approximately 60,000 desktops) with as many as four different versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system and possibly four different versions of Microsoft's Office suite -- each of which has a different file format that is not backward-compatible.
Additionally, any possible difficulties changing away from the Microsoft file formats make the case itself for the immediate change, for this is certainly a 'pay-me-now...' situation.
Nicholas Carr: Although I'm a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I have to admit that I haven't been paying much attention to this situation up until now. I assumed it was just another case of anti-Microsoftism, an assumption backed up by the press's "Massachusetts Dumps Office" headlines. I was wrong. This isn't about Microsoft. It's about a state government launching a serious and comprehensive initiative to replace its fragmented, inefficient set of traditional information systems with a modern, coherent, and flexible IT architecture that allows data to be shared and reused easily. The adoption of OpenDocument as a standard is just one element of the state's ambitious plan. As described in a comprehensive technical paper, called the Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM), the state aims to make a transition "from siloed, application-centric and agency-centric information technology investments to an enterprise approach where applications are designed to be flexible, to take advantage of shared and reusable components, to facilitate the sharing and reuse of data where appropriate and to make the best use of the technology infrastructure that is available."
Steven Walli: Another categorization attempts to discuss the difference between de jure standards developed in a consensus-based process and de facto standards. A more accurate statement might be de facto technology that describes a market dominant product, rather than a specification for interoperability open to all implementers. . . .
Proprietary specifications of de facto technologies are NOT standards. They don't exist to encourage multiple implementations of the technology for the consumer, but rather to encourage multiple complements to the technology, therefore increasing the value proposition of the de facto technology for the vendor. They serve a very different economic purpose. All of Microsoft's claims about being "the standard" are the antithesis of the standardization efforts the Commonwealth want to support.
Simon Phipps:
All these (and more, watch for it now I've mentioned it) want you to approach the discussion from the perspective this is Microsoft vs OpenOffice.org, Microsoft vs Sun, Microsoft vs Free Software - in other words, they want to frame the conversation as company competitive when it's nothing of the sort. Massachusetts are not mandating OpenOffice.org or any other specific product. If Microsoft would stop and listen for a split second, they would see they could trivially comply with what Bob Sutor explains is their customer's reasonable and necessary requirement for an open document format and add support to Office like they have for countless other file formats. The argument is not company competitive, it's about end-user freedom.
Claiming OpenDocument is open-source-only is an act of framing.
Microsoft's Brian Jones continues to chirpily blog (see also here) about how wonderful Microsoft's XML is, and the comments on that page are well worth taking the time to read, because some very thoughtful comments were left. I enjoyed this one: MS can stop granting the license when they want. At that point, anyone who already has a copy of the software I wrote that infringes the patents in question can continue to use it. Perhaps new versions could be distributed to those same people (since they already have a license). I cannot, however, continue to distribute my open source project, because only MS has the right to grant my potential user a license. That is, MS can effectively kill (or at least place in stasis) any project that gets big enough to pose a threat.
This is at the core of every OSS license - the right to grant the same rights I have to the recipients of my software. I didn't see a chirpy answer to that. I found this pertinent question there as well: "I think a good test of the license is this: if Microsoft had to license someone else's file format as a mandatory format in Office, and that format was only available under the same terms Microsoft is offering the Office schemas under, would Microsoft's legal department accept the terms as-is or not?"
An anonymous Groklaw reader left a little poetry as a comment here. Titled "A Massachusetts Soliloquy", it goes like this:
To read, or not to read, that is the question,
Whether tis nobler of the IT departmente to suffer
The lost documents and man-houres of outragious proprietary formats,
Or to take Armes against a monopoleye of FUDsteres,
And by opposing, restrain them, to open to compete
No more, and by a standarde, to say we end
The conversiones, and the thousand read/write errors
That archiving is heire to; tis a consumation
Devoutly to be wisht to open to compete,
To compete, perchance to innovate, Aye there's the rub,
For in that competition of open standardes what innovation may come
When we have upgraded off this end-of-lyfed formate
Must give us pause, there's the respect
That makes calamitie of so long archival requirementes:
For who would beare the failed hard-disques and office suites of time,
The monopolistes wrong, the proude CEO's contumely,
The pangs of despiz'd greed, the lawes delay,
The insolence of patente office, and the spurnes
That patient merrit of the unencumbered takes,
When he himselfe might his open filtre make
With a bare XML specification; who would programmeres beare,
To toil and type under a wearie employmente,
But that the dread of something after release dayte,
The undiscover'd patent, from whose infringemente suit
No developer returnes, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather beare those ills we have,
Then flie to others that we know not of.
Thus patent lawe doth make cowards,
And thus the native hue of innovatione
Is sickled o'er with the pale cast of litigatione,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their fortunes turne awry,
And loose the name of freedome...
Hark you now,
The faire OpenOffice, openness in thy 'orizons
Be all my documents remembred...
There was also a useful and thorough comment from Gary Edwards, who responded, as a ZDNET Talkback, to a comment that said this:
The only reason why Massachusetts is implementing this is because they are sore losers and they could not get Microsoft broken up. I believe the pretty much are acting against their best interests in this matter. I think that the person that is pushing this should be fired ...... bigjim01 I asked Gary if I could republish his comment on Groklaw to make it part of our history of this event, one, because it's a very good overview of the subject matter, and two because it's a good example of how to respond to such comments.
Here's the Edwards response:
******************************************
*You're Kidding, Right?*
I don't see how Massachusetts could have made any other decision
except OASIS OpenDocument. Let me break it down for you as simply as
possible.
MASS has a sprawl of disparate, disconnected legacy information
systems that have accumulated over the past 30 years or more. Many
of these systems continue to perform their departmental and business
process specific functions quite well, even though they are outdated
and sometimes even abandoned by vendors or otherwise orphaned by the
ravages of the technology marketplace. But they still work, and
they're still on line.
Rather than replace these disparate systems (at great cost), the
Commonwealth is going to connect them using Open Internet
technologies and methods. The blueprint or collection of best
practices for doing this is called SOA, or Services Oriented
Architecture. With an SOA approach to solve the dilemma of their
information systems sprawl, the state will save a bundle of money,
yet also make the move into the next generation of collaborative
computing.
The promise of SOA is that disparate systems, platforms, and
applications can can connect, and once the connections are written,
effortlessly exchange information. Writing these connections is a
one time affair if done properly. The trick is to focus on ?loosely
coupled? connections instead of hard wiring. This is where the magic
of Open XML Technologies becomes important. In particular, at the
messaging layer of an SOA XML methods such as Web Services,
HttpXMLrequest, and Jabber become important.
Open Internet technologies began with a "connectivity and exchange"
layer based on such things as TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML. But to truly
become a universal platform of connectivity and collaborative
computing, the Open Internet had to wait for Open XML technologies.
There is simply no way to transform the Open Internet into a
computational platform without also standardizing how disparate
systems format information and package it for digital exchange.
With XML the problems of deploying portable logic - accessible logic
and portable content - data - media across the global infogrid are
largely solved. At least the foundation for collaborative computing
can now be said to be in place. The Open Internet is not just
"everything", it's also a way of solving some of the most stubborn
problems of integrating information systems into a manageable
framework of massive connectivity and exchange, without having to
rip out and replace any legacy systems. Originally devised as a
"network of networks", the Open Internet is well on it's way to
becoming the network of everything.
If you want to say that Peter Quinn and Commonwealth are making a
mistake in their decision to adopt an SOA model for solving the most
intractable systems integration problems known, problems that no
amount of client/server dollars could ever solve, then go ahead and
make that SOA - ESB argument. But keep in mind that even the mighty
Microsoft knows full well that XML is the future of both the Open
Internet and the Bill Gates Internet. At an average of 300 patent
filings per day, the good Chairman takes XML very seriously.
And so does the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. No XML, no SOA, no
way to effectively integrate disparate information systems, no way
to move forward into the next generation of collaborative computing.
So here we have it. It's not about MS Office, Windows, or Linux.
It's not about proprietary or open source. It's all about what makes
an SOA model work; the Open Internet , Open Standards, and Open XML
technologies.
Open Standards are important in that you can't have a loosely
coupled approach to systems integration unless you have Open
Interfaces, Open Messaging and Communications protocols, Open run
time engines and libraries (portable logic), and Open XML
technologies, including file formats and shared business process
schemas.
That the Open Internet is "owned by none, used by all", is also the
enabling factor behind Open Standards. Any attempt to assert
ownership over core Open Internet protocols and methods through
patents, permission based licenses, royalty schemes, or other
encumbrances, is both a threat to the Open Internet and, a blow to
global participation. Both of which represent exactly those elements
that would be SOA killers.
The "participation" demands that every government must answer to are
extreme. There are state level workers, department level information
systems, local, federal, and intrastate level information systems,
trading partners, supplicants, and on and on. Hey, there are even
tax payers to consider. At some level or another, everyone having
business with the state needs clean, secure digital access and
transparent participation.
So where SOA is a solution to systems integration, strict adherence
to Open Standards and Open XML technologies are also a means of
lowering the "participation" threshold. The Open Internet is a
double edged sword.
If you're not going to argue SOA, then were down to some very simple
Open XML decisions. Let me give you a hint on how to make SOA work,
"first, get everything into XML, and then get it back again". The
ability to connect and transform into a common XML layer is critical
to an SOA. It is this XML transformation layer that enables all the
different content, data, media, and transaction processing silos to
interoperate.
Once you get the XML transformation layer connected to the silos and
other disparate information systems, you can start building on the
other side of the layer your next generation collaborative computing
solutions - many of which will no doubt be XML enabled rich client
based efforts.
An important decision in all this is the Open XML file format you
choose to standardize on. Remember, SOA is an Open Internet
approach, and the Open Internet file formats, while many, are
basically limited to HTML and XHTML frames when the issue is that of
"compound documents?". XHTML was written as the successor to HTML.
OASIS OpenDocument XML was written as the successor to XHTML. ODF
today is where XHTML will be in two to three years, but what's more
important is that the two XML file format proposals come from very
different directions, destined to meet at some point. That "some
point" is exactly where browsers, productivity applications, and
application service providers can read and interoperate via OpenDoc.
Think of it this way; XHTML comes at the
interactive-portable-compound document issue from the browser.
OpenDocument comes at the same problem from a two pronged
perspective; that of the desktop productivity environment, and that
of the enterprise content management - legacy systems integration
point of view.
Considering how important the desktop productivity environment is in
the grand scheme of information, there are only two XML file format
candidates the Commonwealth can choose from; OpenDoc XML and MSXML.
To perfect an SOA, you need to have your information in an XML
format that enables clean, high fidelity transformations. It has to
also be application and platform independent; otherwise it's going
to clog up the common transformation layer that universally connects
the disparate information systems - which is the whole point of an
SOA! In an SOA, all file formats are welcome as long as there is a
way of perfecting a transformation in to and out of the common XML
layer. But the layer itself has to be open and perfect XML.
Otherwise arbitrating the traffic becomes a nightmare. You do SOA
right and it's a dream come true.
The XML file format also has to be an Open Standard with an enduring
guarantee that it will always be open. Having a clean transformation
layer is one thing, but it's a serious matter if your transformation
and connectivity process is hostage to the whims of a single vendor.
That kind of a mistake places every other systems vendor or solution
provider in a permission based or royalty based dependency with that
single vendor. You do that and you can kiss your SOA goodbye. So
long to any hope of ever having an orchestrated symphony of
information. It's back to a single platform integrated stack
approach where nothing works together unless the single vendor with
control of the desktop productivity environment says it can
interoperate.
So here's the problem; MSXML (and the governing MS XML Reference
License) is crippled XML. It's not interoperable. And it breaks the
most basic promise of XML, the promise of easy high fidelity
transformations.
I am well aware that Microsoft shills are out in force, trashing
OpenDocument in every way imaginable. Even in ways that result in
their also trashing MSXML in the process. Most of the stuff i see is
nonsense. Besides, if Microsoft had any problems with OpenDocument
they could have said so at any time during the past there years of
their membership on the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee. As
the OpenOffice.org representative on the OpenDoc TC, i've only
missed one meeting in the near three year effort. Never once has
Rahib complained or objected. So their complaints today about
OpenDoc are not based on XML expertise, interoperability, legacy
compatibility, or the implementation of all those Open XML
technologies coming out of the W3C. No, their complaints are
entirely conceived to protect their monopoly control over the
desktop productivity environment, and how that environment
transitions into the next generation of Open Internet (or not)
collaborative computing.
Note that there is a big difference between what MS means by "legacy
compatibility" and what the OpenDocument TC had to address.
Microsoft is only talking about MS Office legacy information. The
first 18 months of OpenDoc TC work was focused on thirty year legacy
needs of all information platforms and systems. By comparison, the
MS Office stuff is a drop in the bucket compared to the enterprise
publication and content management concerns of OpenDoc TC
participants like Boeing, ArborText, Stellent, Documentum, Corel,
The Society of Biblical Literature, the Australian National
Archives, IBM - Lotus Notes, Adobe and SpeedLegal. Having said that
though, let me also say that the OpenDocument TC had some of the
world's foremost experts in reverse engineering that legacy of MS
Office documents.
Anyway, if Microsoft had any complaints about the volumes of effort
that went into perfecting OpenDoc fidelity with the MS Office legacy
documents, they had every opportunity to contribute.
From an interoperability - transformation perspective, MSXML fails
miserably. Every MSXML file has a binary key in the header. The
binary key holds the critical layout definition for styles, or what
would otherwise be called the "presentation" aspects of the file.
Sometimes this is also called "contextual information". With the
"content" aspects of a file, MSXML provides an excellent text book
XML transformation opportunity. But this low level of transformation
is only useful to publication and content management systems that
would prefer to provide a higher level systems level formatting
style anyway.
If your purpose with XML is to have all your information in a
structured file format that enables the aggregation, reuse, and re
purposing of massive stores of information, the binary in MSXML is a
deal breaker. It's an SOA killer.
Now don't get me wrong, XML is intended to be eXtensible. So it is
kosher to put a binary key in the header. What happens though is
that you break transparent interoperability wherever these
eXtensions occur. In some cases, the transformation process only
needs to be tweaked to perfect the one to one relationship between
an XML file and an XML ready information system. If the eXtensions
are openly declared, this isn't a big deal. XSLT, XSL-FO and XPath
are incredibly effective tools if you have access to "all" the XML
information.
If on the other hand, the eXtensions are not transparently declared,
or worse, critically important aspects like the layout definition
are locked in a binary key - and comes with a governing license that
threatens and looms over any reverse engineering attempts, then
this simply isn't XML. It's a scam using "XML" to control
information and information processes far into the future.
In the case of MSXML, interoperability and transformation is broken
right from the git go. Because of the binary key in MSXML, you can
not transform a MSXML file to OpenDocument. And those transformation
"filters" Microsoft promised the European Union in November of 2004?
Forget it. They don't exist.
Since OpenDoc is Open XML, and an Open Standard, it would be easy
for Microsoft to perfect a transformation from OpenDoc to MSXML. But
until and unless the reverse engineer experts break that binary key,
it is not possible to perfect in any useful way a transformation
from MSXML to OpenDocument.
Which leaves us starring at another fine example of a Kerberos type
corruption of an Open Standard. Information can go in. But it can't
go out. Least ways not without Microsoft's permission. This is one
way arbitrarily limited interoperability.
Microsoft argues that the standards requirement threshold should be
lowered by Massachusetts to the level of basic XML. They argue that
requiring such a high level, well defined, and robust file format
specification as OpenDoc is anti competitive. (This coming from a
convicted anti trust monopolists). Well of course they want to keep
that binary key. With the key in place they can leverage their
monopoly on the desktop deep into the realms of Open Internet
servers and back end data - transaction processing systems. The
stockholders are going to be happy if they pull off this coup. But
how this works for the state of Massachusetts, or anyone else for
that matter is beyond me.
If Massachusetts were to accept this low level of non
transformational, non interoperable XML, they would have to kiss
their SOA goodbye, and accept the cost of an all Windows, all the
time from now on far into the future. And oh what a cost this
"acceptance" entails. I'll get to that in a moment. But one thing
that needs to be pointed out here is that when your dealing with
systems architectures, if you set the standard of XML to it's lowest
level, as Microsoft is proposing, than you also reduce your
interoperability to that same low level. (pssst SOA killer!)
One of the things we have tried to do with the OpenDocument XML
specification is to reduce the areas of eXtensibility. The higher
the threshold for having to create eXtensions beyond the standard,
the greater the interoperability and ease of transformation. Think
of it this way, wherever there is a need to extend, there is a
"fork". Some forks are soft, and can be folded into a highly
interoperable system. Other forks like the MSXML binary key are
hard, and break interoperability before there's even a chance to
attempt a transformation. So one of the things the OpenDoc TC tries
to do is to embrace W3C Open XML technologies as soon as they can
reach "baked enough" consideration. In that way we can push the
eXtensibility threshold higher, broadening our interoperability
without closing off the importance of being both eXtensible and
scalable.
Two areas of this OpenDocument approach to eXtensibility are of
immediate concern; XForms and Metadata.
OpenDoc fully supports XForms, But what's really important is that
Adobe Acrobat Interactive Forms are an eXtension of XForms, and, IBM
has committed Lotus Notes to some sort of coexistence with XForms.
The trick for the OpenDocument TC will be to push the XForms
eXtensibility threshold to include and accommodate Adobe and IBM
needs at the highest level of convergence possible. Which we will
do. The result will enable governments, enterprises, organizations,
and collaborative associations of all sorts to work the same
information with applications and tools of their choice, rather than
being bound by platforms and applications of someone else's choosing.
Microsoft of course does not support XForms. They have their own
digital forms application; InfoPath. While i don't know whether or
not InfoPath files are bound by a non interoperable binary key, it
is clear that there are serious platform and cost requirements.
The other area that is very important is that of Metadata. There is
currently an all out effort on the OpenDoc TC to merge the Dublin
Core metadata model with RDF. An effort that will no doubt bridge
XML:RDF to the entire OpenDoc specification. But where the metadata
effort is of immediate significance is that through this work, the
Adobe XMP Metadata model will effectively be merged. At the end of
the day, we seek to enable Massachusetts to manage, aggregate, and
re purpose at the metadata level, with the same set of tools, stores
of information in OpenDoc, PDF, and Lotus Notes. And that's just for
starters.
All Adobe files, even Photoshop images, implement the XMP XML:RDF
metadata model.
Okay. What is the cost of MSXML vs OpenDoc XML?
OpenDocument is a purely text based XML specification; a human and
machine readable structured file format for the most advanced kind
of intelligent and compound documents required by next generation
Open Internet collaborative computing systems. Today OpenDoc is
available across all generations of Windows (3.0, 3.11, 95, 98,
98SE, 2000, and XP), Linux, Solaris, and Mac OSX. There are even USB
keys fully OpenDoc enabled. Because it's open and text based, there
is no reason why DOS, DRDos, Atari, BE OS, OS2, all UNiX, or any
device specific applications couldn't work with OpenDocument. It's
completely application and platform independent.
As an XML file format, OpenDocument has been in production for five
years, meeting the rigorous demands of a real world productivity
environments. The cost OpenDocument ready applications range from
zero to whatever an organizations wants pay for support, enhanced
implementations, and enterprise publication and content management.
There are choices at all levels, but at the zero cost level,
OpenOffice.org has reached parity with MS Office. And although
OpenOffice.org 2.0 and the yet to be released MS Office 12 take near
opposite directions regarding collaborative computing, the race is
on. And with OOo ecosystem participants like IBM's WorkPlace,
Microsoft is going to have their hands full.
MSXML is a comparatively recent release, with so little real world
implementation that there isn't enough workflow involving MSXML to
prime the reverse engineering pump needed to crack that binary key.
Microsoft does provide an XSL-FO transformation file called
Word2FO.xsl. But the styles are so crippled that the transformation
is useless. This is inexcusable. The promise of XML is that we
should have perfect transformations without any kind of reverse
engineering!
Unless someone shows otherwise, the platform requirements for
collaborative computing with MSXML are Windows XP, MS Office XP
Professional 2003, IE 6, and at least a few of the many offerings in
the MS XP suite of Servers (Exchange, SharePoint, Collaboration
Server, Server 2003 - Active Directory, and MS Office Server).
IMHO these requirements are extraordinary. The taxpayers of
Massachusetts should not have to pay this incredible price for
moving into the next generation of the Open Internet. The problem is
that Microsoft stubbornly insists on tying their collaborative
computing efforts to a tightly integrated XP stack where a cascading
entanglement of interfaces and dependencies bolt together the
operating systems, application layer, development tools, framework
and server suites.
Open XML technologies should provide a means for other systems to
establish effective interoperability with the XP integrated stack,
but there is a world of difference between the promise of XML, and
the proprietary and controlled way Microsoft has chosen to implement
(cough cough corrupt) Open XML technologies.
I doubt if even 5% of the entire state of Massachusetts is MSXML
ready. The upgrade requirements in both hardware and software at
both the desktop and server side has to be beyond costly. Microsoft
tries to hide this cost behind the magnitude of the monopoly base,
posturing that MSXML is available today for the great herd of 450
million Windows users. But nothing could be further from the truth.
MSXML is as bolted into the XP 2003 stack as everything else in
Microsoft's collaborative computing proposal. I've even seen numbers
posturing that OpenOffice.org has a 12% desktop penetration, and MS
Office XP Professional is at 8%. But even if the XP Office
Professional market penetration was at 33% (which it isn't), the
cost of bringing everyone up to the participation threshold is
beyond belief.
If MS Office embraces OpenDocument, instead of trying to shove
another bolted, interdependent, proprietary platform - application
version bound file format down our throats, the whole world wins.
The cost of moving forward and truly taking advantage of the Open
Internet becomes minimal. Global participation in the collaborative
computing age will explode. But as we all know, that's an impossible
"if".
The State of Massachusetts has chosen to pursue an SOA going forward
and into the next generation of collaborative computing. They did
not choose the Win XP integrated stack model. The OpenDocument
ecosystem on the other hand is SOA ready, and growing like crazy
with IBM, Adobe, Novell, Red Hat, and Sun leading the way. Apache
servers command over 70% of the Open Internet. Which XML file format
do you think they will be able to integrate and interoperate with?
Which XML file format do you think Google and Yahoo will consider?
The bottom line is that OpenDocument is today able to be used by
almost the entire state of Massachusetts.
If you use the Open Internet, you can use the OpenDocument. Today.
No upgrades. No strategy sessions about whether or not to pay
Microsoft forever or get off the Redmond treadmill now. It's an easy
decision. Open Internet, Open Standards, Open XML. The world is just
a download away from taking that first step into collaborative
computing. A step that's a leap far into future.
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Authored by: overshoot on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 07:45 PM EDT |
Clickable HTML, preview, instructions at bottom, all that. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 08:10 PM EDT |
Gary Edwards, the fellow who wrote the zdnet response, is a member of the
technical committee that developed the Open Document Standard. He is a real
promoter of open standards and open source. Check out his web site:
openstack.us [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: kawabago on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 08:31 PM EDT |
I can't help it, I was a civil servant!
---
TTFN[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Stumbles on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 08:35 PM EDT |
Man. That was one dandy of a response from Mr. Edwards. Well
done.
---
You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 08:56 PM EDT |
We could state OpenDocument is not available on on every
platform -- if I
want it on a (say) VMS system, there
might not be any product, either FOS or
proprietary, that
I can use. You can replace VMS by whatever you want --
there are going to be some OSes that do not have an
offering for
OpenDocument.
So... Microsoft *can* use this argument on their side:
"there are no offerings for OpenDocument on all the
platforms needed, while
we provide MSXML on all our
platforms".
Nice argument. Difficult to
oppose. Rather strong, I
would
say.
Except...
(1) ANYONE
can develop for the missing platforms -- and
out on this wide world, there is
always some people crazy
enough to do it, and do it well done. We do not
depend on
a specific vendor for it (but it may happen that one will
be
created because the product is good);
(2) the above argument creates a
nice fallacy, usually
difficult to catch on first view. You *know* it is
wrong,
but... where?
I am not against MS, or IBM, or the FSF, or any
other. I
work with both proprietary and open-source products. Both
have
space to grow. But... lately, more and more I am
getting tired of having to
use a certain product because
the file I received requires it. And... it
happens that
more often than not it's a MS product. Which forces me to
have
a Windows partition on my laptop. Which forces me to
spend much more money
that I wished for something I do not
want to use.
This, I guess, is the
crux: spending much more than you
wanted for something you did not want to
have in the first
place. And this is all, unfortunately, that MS gives us. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 09:15 PM EDT |
Jeez, does Alan Yates get paid by the word? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 09:34 PM EDT |
Et tu, Yates? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: bmcmahon on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 09:41 PM EDT |
What, is Microsoft attempting a buffer overrun attack against USPTO? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: cgranade on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 10:03 PM EDT |
(No pun intended.)
It seems that OpenDocument can only grow from here. Now that two large office
suites support it natively, the door is open for more and more to do so in the
future, esp. when an entire commonwealth supports it for their transactions.
Hopefully this decision will provide the incentive needed to spur others into
adoption, giving OD critical mass.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Tufty on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 10:04 PM EDT |
And I wonder what would happen if Microsft went from MSXML to MSXML2 in Office
13? Would Office 12 be able to handle it?
Whose going to be the first to generate a virus in a MSXML doc, hiding in the
binary? What happens if the binary gets chewed, does the document become
unrecoverable? What happens if Microsoft decide to put a microfee on each
document created in MSXML? Oh, the list can just go on.
---
There has to be a rabbit down this rabbit hole somewhere!
Now I want its hide.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: erg on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 10:17 PM EDT |
It was good to say about the secret(?) binary key (a schema key?) within MSXML
headers..
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Authored by: Jude on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 10:17 PM EDT |
MS can stop granting the license when they want. ...
Yes, and that
would be a classic Microsoft-style marketing coup: Suddenly destroy ALL
of
the competing products, leaving Microsoft as the only source of software that
can
legally read the victims' documents.
I can imaging Billy cackling in
glee when countless open-source word processing users
are forced to switch
to the Microsoft product.
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Authored by: webster on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 10:22 PM EDT |
Thanks for the article. It is a great testament to PJ and this site that I
thought I understood almost all of it. The Metadata, x forms paragraphs glazed
by, but I don't think I need to understand that. I fear a political over-ride.
A few million sprayed around some campaigns will result in some grateful
incumbents sneaking in some legislation to undo this. They could also buy some
executive action. Let's remain hopeful since the open standards got this far.
---
webster
>>>>>>> LN 3.0 >>>>>>>>>[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: emmenjay on Sunday, September 25 2005 @ 11:25 PM EDT |
It used to be possible to make custom import/export filters for MS Word. These
were DLLs that adde functionality to import/export whatever file format you
wanted.
While I'm not certain, I suspect that you can probably still do that.
What we need are some volunteers to write (open source) open doc filters and
give them away freely. That will make MS Word compatible with Open doc, and I'm
guessing it will cause Mr Balmer to blow a blood vessel or six.
You could probably re-use a lot of code from oo.org.
I wish I had time to do that (I don't :-( )
However I'd encourage any hacker(s) with a bit of spare time to think about that
as a project.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 12:27 AM EDT |
The great thing here, especially if MS cooperates, is the ripple effect of other
users.
If people and companies want to get be involved in document creation or
accessibility, they also have to use apps working with the OpenDoc and PDF
formats.
Want to create a document to send to a Mass. agency, you need to get (currently)
either KOffice or OOo.
Want to get a copy of a Mass. document you want to modify, you need either OOo
or KOffice.
Need a copy of a Mass. document which doesn't need modification, you can use the
PDF, which multiple apps and utilities can display.
This will push other people and businesses to look at and use OOo and KOffice.
Most people and companies want to simplfy life, so wouldn't generally want 2
office suites when 1 will do. So those entities will settle on the one Mass.
document formats require. And entities who work with those entities will need
to do the same, and so on.
A nice ripple effect.
I expect MS to capitulate by the end of 2007.
Mark[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: dnl on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 01:10 AM EDT |
So PJ can find them easily.
First one, in
If you're not going to argue SOA, then were
"were" should be "we're." Don't know if this is the
original author's error or a transcription error...
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 01:48 AM EDT |
In the Massachusetts comments collection I saw several
comments from disabled persons, especially blind, who claim
conversion to open-source programming will make access
harder because their screen reader software only works
with Microsoft programs.
Access is of course an important issue, but I have hard
time understanding why the screen readers would not work,
or could not be made to work, with OpenDocument-supporting
office software.
The comments also have interesting commonality on blaming
open source for bad accessibility, even though the Mass.
decision is NOT about mandating open source code (as all
regular Groklawers know, but the general population
may not).
In fact, the complaints have so much in common I wonder if
you-know-who has stooped so low as to spread disinformation
in the disabled communities?
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 02:22 AM EDT |
Steven Walli: > All of Microsoft's claims about being "the
standard" are
Steven Walli: > the antithesis of the standardization
efforts the
Steven Walli: > Commonwealth want to
support.
Having no idea of bookish word 'antithesis', I saw a
dictionary...
According to the OALD(Oxford Advanced Learner's
Dictionary):
antithesis n 1(a)[C usu sing] the exact
opposite:
Slavery is the antithesis of freedom.
Oh! I
understand. Therefore, the following must be the logical consequence
:P
"The antithesis of Free Software is slavery
Microsoft-ware."
Sir_Didymus
---
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 02:37 AM EDT |
since I have been reading about XML for sometime, I had no idea what it was/is.
This article helps me understand. I regret that it [XML] didn't come a decade
or two ago; WordPerfect would still be around and M$word would be where it
belongs...in the software boneyard.
M$ must fight XML's adoption or lose it's monoploy. Therefore, I encourage
every US citizen to write their state's IT official/department and advise them
about what is happening in Mass. and ask them to adopt open format standards.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 08:54 AM EDT |
This is just so awesome - this will really start to excel computing to the
masses. I hope all the other government agencies start to follow - state,
federal and local.
I wish some of the mainstream media would get a hold of this and start
explaining to the masses. i.e CBS, NBC, ABC.
I think this will help our society as a whole.
It will also exploit the real Microsoft and their wonderful business model and
how much they really care about their customers. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 10:57 AM EDT |
I could not realy see why MS was moving to XMS from their binary
formats.. it didn’t seen to make sense as format lock-in has always been the
keystone of their upgrade strategy.
I was waiting for
the other shoe to drop..
Now it all makes sense! The
MSXML file has a ***binary key*** in the header!
So this is
a perverted XML just as Open means Closed, now MS's XML does not facilitate
perfect data transformation (XML’s WHOLE REASON FOR EXISTANCE!) instead it
provides a better way to control more of a users data.
---snip
MSXML (and the governing MS XML Reference License) is crippled
XML. It's not interoperable. And it breaks the most basic promise of XML, the
promise of easy high fidelity
transformations.
---snip
--- "They [each] put in one hour of
work,
but because they share the end results
they get nine hours... for free"
Firstmonday 98 interview with Linus Torvalds [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 04:12 PM EDT |
1) Some people have suggested that M$ may sue the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
My feeling is; M$ would be very wary of starting a case that it was not certain
of winning. Imagine M$ telling the judge that if the State only wants to use ONE
format, then it should be a M$ format because M$ has a monopoly and it therefore
has the right to determine what people must use.
2) Suppose the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had decided:
a) The number of different document formats used by the State is a problem
now and in the future.
b) We do not want to add any more.
c) Therefore we will only use Microsoft(tm) Windows(tm) Office(tm) formats in
future.
d) The particular ones chosen are Office(tm) 2000(tm)formats as almost all
existing computers can run genuine Microsoft(tm) programs which can save in this
format.
I am sure that legal steps against it would be taken very rapidly by every M$
competitor. I am also sure that the State would lose. In fact it would be FORCED
to adopt open standards.
3) Massachusetts is very well known on this side of the Atlantic for being the
home of Harvard, MIT, Bunker Hill, the Mayflower Pilgrims, witches, and
fancy-dress tea parties. However it does not seem to make the news as a STATE.
One commentator (Dick Armey) has suggested that it is not even part of America.
Bearing in mind that was also the home of the original Governor Gerry Mander,
how possible is it to buy politicians in the State?
Alan(UK)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 26 2005 @ 07:56 PM EDT |
This whole OpenDocument thing is a setup for Microsoft, of course. This is the
first state to have a truly neutral position when it comes to document formats.
They even told Microsoft that if Office starts supporting OpenDocument, the
state will consider it.
Now, what are Microsoft to do? If they don't support OpenDocument, other states
may see this as a good way to put pressure on Microsoft and potentially lower
the price or drop them altogether. If they start supporting it (the OpenDocument
format), then it's all over anyway (in terms of monopoly - the only thing
Microsoft are really interested in), because the competition is on for real.
So, how will Microsoft respond? They will complain for a while, but then they
will eventually comply. Well, sort of - with a twist. They will use their
proven technique: embrace, extend, extinguish. They will support OpenDocument,
but they will throw in very "useful extensions", just like they did
with IE/HTML, Active Directory/Kerberos and Microsoft's own Java. They won't
tell anyone, of course. And by the time people realise that Office OpenDocument
ain't true OpenDocument, it'll be too late. Already locked in!
Can Microsoft do it fast enough and secretive enough? The time will tell. But
make no mistake, Microsoft will try everything they can to keep their exisiting
monopoly position. Remember the words of Jim Allchin: cross-platform support and
by extension interoperability are like putting they gun to Microsoft's head -
they won't do it. Not for real. Not ever.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 30 2005 @ 11:14 PM EDT |
In some major way, this whole thing is very curious. Microsoft
has long been
off course in a way that is only detrimental to consumers,
and their monopoly
makes that possible. So, we looked to what we
thought was the ultimate source of
power - the law and the courts -
to get it fixed, and basically got nothing (via
the US vs. MS antitrust
suit). Are goverments really all that
impotent?
And finally, a government is finally doing something that will
probably
have more impact than the antitrust ever did or will. Some bunch of
clowns
in the purchasing department thought about it, and did the right
thing!
Yea!
Whoda ever thought that those clowns in the purchasing
department
held more power than the law and the courts? You really gotta
wonder.
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