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MS Offer File Formats as Open Standards, Sorta Open |
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Monday, November 21 2005 @ 06:51 PM EST
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You may have heard the news that instead of just supporting ODF, the format Massachusetts has chosen, Microsoft has announced they are
offering their file formats as an open standard. According to the press release from Microsoft, there are some co-sponsors, including Apple and Intel: Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)
today announced it will take steps to offer the file format technology behind
billions of documents to customers and the industry as an international
standard. Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, the British Library, Essilor, Intel
Corporation, Microsoft, NextPage Inc., Statoil ASA and Toshiba will co-sponsor
a submission to Ecma International, the standards organization, of the
Microsoft(R) Office Open XML (Extensible Markup Language) document format
technology.
Here's an article in ComputerWorld with some thoughts on what this could mean: Microsoft Corp. today said it will offer its Word, Excel and PowerPoint document formats as open standards, a move that could spark a war with technology rivals over standard document formats.
Microsoft said it would submit its Office Open XML document format technology to the International Standards Organization (ISO) to be adopted as an international standard in time for the launch of the next version of its Office software suite, code-named Office 12. So, looks like it's war. Read the licenses on these file formats. That's my advice. If the license makes it impossible for GPL'd software to use the standard, then it isn't an "open" standard. It's just an anticompetitive maneuver against Microsoft's only real competition. This is so basic. Does Apple not know? Intel? It is interesting and telling that Microsoft found so few to stand up with them, but two is enough to make the assertion that the standard, if approved, is not tied to one vendor. You may wish to review David A. Wheeler's Open Letter to Microsoft for many more details: Basically, if you choose Microsoft’s XML format, you have decided against open competition, in perpetuity. . . . If a specification cannot be implemented using the GPL, it discriminates against open source software (because the GPL is the most common such license). If a specification discriminates against open source software implementations, then it is not a specification that allows open competition. This was not as big an issue decades ago, when large-scale open source software systems were uncommon, but it sure is now. Andy Updegrove has
some quick thoughts on the subject on his blog, which I asked if I could share with
you. What does it mean? And then after that, I'll provide the full press release. Update: Note that Andy has updated his blog since this version was published, so do check his blog for latest details.
**************************
Microsoft Drops the Other Format Shoe
~ by Andy Updegrove
Ever since I interviewed Alan
Yates at Microsoft back in September in connection with the
Massachusetts/ODF story I've been wondering what Microsoft's strategy has
been to fend off the challenge to Microsoft Office that the OASIS format
standard presented. Microsoft did not get to be what it is today by being
less than tough and thorough, and it had to be true that they would leave
as little to chance as possible.
While Yates has been very terse and consistent in his public statements,
things were certainly moving quickly behind the scenes, and it didn't take
too long before the company's targeted Massachusetts strategy and global
response emerged into the open.
The first
shoe fell when an amendment was introduced in the Massachusetts Senate
to remove policy authority from Peter Quinn and the Commonwealth's
Information Technology Division. And the second, global, shoe just dropped
today, as reported in a ComputerWorld story posted today aptly titled, and
subtitled, Microsoft
to open Office document format: The move could spark a standards fight
over document formats
.
Let's get the facts out first, at least to the extent that they are
available. The key points are as follows:
- Microsoft claims to have lined up a number of heavy duty supporters,
including Apple and Intel (each of which was at the Armonk
meeting as an ODF supporter), and two major oil companies
- Microsoft will offer its Office Open XML formats to ECMA
International "early next month", a European IT standards body in Europe
with a close relationship with ISO
- Alan Yates has said that the ECMA/ISO process would take "about a
year" and would yield an ISO imprimatur by the time Office 12 ships.
- Microsoft will make specific licensing commitments to remove
"virtually all barriers" that would prevent developers from working with
the file formats.
- Microsoft is wrapping itself in the Open flag (sample quote from
Yates: "We look forward to the day when people look at this as a
milestone, as the beginning of the end for closed documents")
So what does this all mean (and not mean?) The following observations and
questions immediately pop to mind:
- What's promised today and delivered "a year from now" can be very
different - a distinction that may be lost (for example) on the
Massachusetts legislature.
- ECMA and ISO have RAND policies that I believe would fall short of
the bar set by Massachusetts (an article by Martin LaMonica at ZDNet.com
records RedMonk's Steve O'Grady's opinion that Microsoft's past performance
in offering technology to ECMA leaves it "not clear that Microsoft will
relinquish control of the Office formats to other companies."
- And perhaps most tellingly, if Microsoft is willing to open its
formats and to come up with the necessary converters to allow old documents
to be upgraded, why not just support ODF? What's the advantage that will
be maintained?
At this point, there's much more to be learned, and I'll be watching the
news as it becomes available. You can look for this post to be updated at this
location tonight and tomorrow morning, with more posts to follow.
**********************
Here's the full press release:
PARIS, Nov. 21, 2005 (PR Newswire delivered by Newstex) -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)
today announced it will take steps to offer the file format technology behind
billions of documents to customers and the industry as an international
standard. Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, the British Library, Essilor, Intel
Corporation, Microsoft, NextPage Inc., Statoil ASA and Toshiba will co-sponsor
a submission to Ecma International, the standards organization, of the
Microsoft(R) Office Open XML (Extensible Markup Language) document format
technology. Furthermore, Microsoft will make available tools to enable old
documents to capitalize on the open standard format. With Office document
formats available as an open standard, customers will have even more
confidence in their ability to store and manage data for the long term, with
many more vendors and tools from which they can choose. The move will benefit
the broader software ecosystem because software and services vendors worldwide
will be able to more easily build compelling solutions that interoperate
across a broad spectrum of technologies.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO )
These global industry leaders have agreed to work together as part of an
open technical committee that Ecma members can join to standardize and fully
document the Open XML formats for Word, Excel(R) and PowerPoint(R) from the
next generation of Office technologies, code-named Office "12," as an Ecma
standard, and to help maintain the evolution of the formats. The group will
ask Ecma to submit the results of their collaboration to the International
Organization for Standardization for approval.
With thousands of documents created every minute in an Office format,
Microsoft's Office formats are used in dramatic numbers. More than 300,000
developers have utilized the XML file formats in Office 2003 editions alone.
Those documents will be able to take advantage of the benefits of the new open
standard, enabling document contents to be accessed, searched, used,
integrated and developed in new, innovative ways. Customers, technology
providers and developers around the globe will be able to work with the Open
XML file formats without barriers, creating a broad ecosystem of products,
applications and services that can work with the formats, with or without
Microsoft software. As a result, documents and public records can be archived,
maintained and maintained in perpetuity with long-term, widespread industry
support.
"We are committed to open standards such as XML to provide the highest
levels of interoperability between legacy and next-generation software," said
Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International. "The creation of
an XML file format standard is a major industry milestone. We hope this will
provide both users and organizations with the peace of mind that they will be
able to access their past and future documents for generations to come."
"We are pleased that Microsoft and its partners are making this submission
to Ecma International," said Jan van den Beld, secretary general of Ecma
International. "Our members around the globe pride themselves in their ability
to drive progress and consensus on important technologies."
"Apple is pleased to support an Ecma standard for Microsoft Office Open
XML document formats, which will make them more open and widely available to
all," said Philip Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Product
Marketing at Apple. "Apple and Microsoft will continue to work closely
together to deliver great products to Mac users and application developers for
many years to come."
"We view Microsoft's move to offer its widely deployed XML file formats
for Ecma standardization as a very important and positive step forward for the
industry," said Renee James, vice president and general manager of the
Software and Solutions Group at Intel. "We are pleased to participate in the
Ecma submission and documentation process, and believe our customers will
benefit from better interoperability and systems integration."
"Just as our predecessors stewarded the development of the national
published archive over the past 250 years, the British Library is committed to
preserving and providing access to the U.K.'s digital heritage," said Adam
Farquhar, head of e-Architecture at the British Library. "We expect that
establishing Microsoft Office Open XML as an open standard will substantially
enhance our ability to achieve this. It's an important step forward for
digital preservation and will help us fulfill the British Library's core
responsibility of making our digital collections accessible for generations to
come."
About Ecma International
Since its inception in 1961, Ecma International (Ecma) has developed
standards for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Consumer
Electronics (CE).
The aims of Ecma International are:
-- To develop, in co-operation with the appropriate National, European and
International organizations Standards and Technical Reports in order to
facilitate and standardize the use of Communication Technology (ICT)
and Consumer Electronics (CE).
-- To encourage the correct use of Standards by influencing the
environment in which they are applied.
-- To publish these Standards and Technical Reports in electronic and
printed form; the publications can be freely copied by all interested
parties without restrictions.
For over forty years Ecma has actively contributed to world-wide
standardization in information technology and telecommunications. More than
365 Ecma Standards and almost 90 Technical Reports of high quality have been
published, more than 2/3 of which have also been adopted as International
Standards and/or Technical Reports. Publications can be downloaded free of
charge from http://www.ecma-international.org / .
About the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one
of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class
information services to the academic, business, research and scientific
communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most
comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over
250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of
written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps,
music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken
languages. Further information is available on the Library's website at
www.bl.uk.
About the Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is an easy way to help more people use
information to positively impact their business. Through a system of familiar
and easy-to-use programs, servers, services and solutions, users can connect
people and organizations to information, business processes and each other --
helping ensure that they derive the most value out of information. The
Microsoft Office system consists of the 2003 editions of Microsoft Office,
Microsoft Office SharePoint(R) Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office Project
and Project Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live
Communications Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005, Microsoft
Office Communicator 2005, Microsoft Office FrontPage(R) 2003, Microsoft Office
InfoPath(R) 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote(R) 2003, Microsoft Office Publisher
2003, Microsoft Office Visio(R) 2003 and Microsoft Office Business Scorecard
Manager 2005. Enabling technologies, such as Microsoft Windows(R) SharePoint
Services and Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003, enhance the features and
functionality of products in the Microsoft Office system.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services
and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
NOTE: Microsoft, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, FrontPage, InfoPath,
OneNote, Visio, Windows and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.
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Authored by: heretic on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:00 PM EST |
Over Top threads should go here please.
Remember to use proper link formats
<a href="http://www.example.com">www.example.com</a>
Also use HTML Formatted if using links
Thanks[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: PolR on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:00 PM EST |
and please make the links clicky as per instructions below the comments window [ Reply to This | # ]
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- OT here - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:16 PM EST
- OT here - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 08:54 AM EST
- Some infomation please - Authored by: Tufty on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:15 PM EST
- Microsoft goes after Quinn - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, November 26 2005 @ 12:56 PM EST
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Authored by: heretic on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:01 PM EST |
<EOM> [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: tknarr on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:03 PM EST |
My guess: MS is using ECMA so they can retain the license they've already
shown, the one with the major patent loopholes in it that let them close down
uses of the format if they want. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Jude on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:07 PM EST |
...except, of course, the important ones that allow them to prevent FOSS
implementations.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:12 PM EST |
If Microsoft doesn't relinquish all patent claims to MS-XML, and if it doesn't
relinquish sole stewardship of MS-XML to a multi-vendor organistation open to
all vendors, then it isn't open. It will need to do both of these and ensure
that the licensing terms allow OpenOffice to fully implement it without
control or restriction by Microsoft to be on par with ODF.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- The PATENT Catch - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 08:57 AM EST
- The PATENT Catch - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 10:43 AM EST
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:19 PM EST |
OpenOffice already has pretty good support for the current Microsoft binary
formats. When things do go wrong, users may tend to blame Microsoft rather than
OpenOffice (I know I do).
Security through obscurity isn't working for them any more, so they have to try
and head off the threat by actually playing nice and sharing their toys.
Kicking and screaming, but sharing.
Of course, if they revial a zillion submarine patents in a few years, well,
colour me unsurprised.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:51 PM EST |
The advantage for MS is that they retain hidden hooks
within the OS that
allows the hidden tracking (spying on *YOU* or your business).
If the format
is truely open, then any software can
be written to manipulate the datafile on
any platform, which bypasses
the hidden tracking.
That is why MS is so
alarmed, they lose the ability
to collect that information if you don't use
their [non-trustable] platform.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 07:53 PM EST |
With Microsoft, you always need to read not only the lines but between the
lines.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:06 PM EST |
and M$ documents will be "open" provided you upgrade to Office 12 or use
another software which supports M$-XML.
If Open-Office supports
M$-XML it will negate the immediate necessity of document conversion to
ODF.
Will this not pitch one/off staff retraining costs against the longer
term difference in costs between M$ Office(and any retraining Office 12 will
require) and Open Office or A.N. Other?
It appears to be removing a
compatibility obstacle to alternate suites but does little to address concerns
on monopoly prices. Brian S. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: FrnchFrgg on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:19 PM EST |
[This is my first post here, and I'm not fluent in english, so please be keen on
errors/stupidity. Also assume that offending speach is simply misuse of the
language...]
The ISO group probably won't do such a stupid thing as issuing two standards in
a row about office documents, will they ?
So the question arises : Who will win ? I'd say ODF really is a few steps ahead,
but with MS, who knows...
Suppose MS succeeds in its "standard" path, then they won't ever
support ODF, because/thus nobody will commit to it with the widespread MS format
around... Or MS will support ODF a bit, and we'll have two standards, probably a
bit incompatible, and probably evolving in different directions.
And, why some of the "wanna be in the pro-ODF coalition" companies
glues behind MS ? Do they naïvely believe that MS will do the Right Thing (TM) ?
How the previous ODF supporters can think it is a Good Thing for their previous
"pet" project ?
Or has it to do with big ringing money ?[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: webster on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:22 PM EST |
If they are doing what they imply they are doing, then this can be rushed
through the standards bodies willy-nilly. It is hard to trust these folks, but
we will try and pin them down. If they refused to be pinned down on true
openness, patent openness, and free-for-all openning and producing their format,
then they are lying again.
Most important they must commit to support their own format for as long as the
standards bodies say them must. One fears their opening up a format,
"improving" upon it with their own software and patents, and then not
openning up their improvements to the standards bodies or other software. Then
they can stop supporting the old standard in favor of their improved standard.
(Of course, once their standard is set, the world will use it and not upgrade
unless absolutely necessary.)
One must suspect that this is a delay or tactical manuever to get Vista and
Office 12 on the ground before anything else gets traction or adoption. Rather
than suffer ODF, they will sacrifice the new formats on Office 12 as a sales
ploy. Monopolies are voracious.
---
webster
>>>>>>> LN 3.0 >>>>>>>>>[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: blacklight on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:23 PM EST |
"It is interesting and telling that Microsoft found so few to stand up with
them, but two is enough to make the assertion that the standard, if approved, is
not tied to one vendor." PJ
OK, the "standard" is tied to two vendors instead of one, which twice
as many vendors as one or two more vendors than zero. I am absolutely shocked,
shocked that Microsoft has successfully shaped such an industry wide consensus!
---
Know your enemies well, because that's the only way you are going to defeat
them. And know your friends even better, just in case they become your enemies.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: kirkengaard on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:24 PM EST |
The Devil can quote scripture, too. That's why it isn't the words themselves,
but the God they witness to, that Christians believe in.
Microsoft can parrot Open Licensing all they like, but it is the Freedoms that
they refuse to witness to that demonstrate their manipulative deceit.
No one can serve two masters. They will either hate the one and love the other,
or hold to the one and despise the other.
Microsoft has proven thus far to be a servant of Greed and Ownership, over and
above software users, creators, and their respective freedoms and rights.
Okay, maybe that was a little bit loaded... ;)
The next one may be outright flamebait, and I do have on my Kevlar(R)-Nomex(R)
Boxers...
Is it me, or does anyone else get the feeling that when someone tries to write a
non-GPL "Open License", something other than software Freedoms are
being considered? It may be innocent; the goals may be to some degree
compatible. The goals may even be to stimulate GPL compliance, as with the
LGPL. Inevitably, due to the ferocious activism of the Freedoms protections
built into the GPL, the compromise is a lesser protection of someone's freedoms,
or a lessened grant of rights. But when the goal is keeping your stuff from
other people, predatorily, the compromise cannot weigh to the users' side.
Indeed, compromise of that sort is futile.
For this reason, I cannot regard any pretenses to Open Licensing and Freedom
from Microsoft as anything other than risible. I don't think I'm alone.
--
"Kevlar" and "Nomex" are registered trademarks of the DuPont
Company, and are used out of extreme respect for their protective properties and
safety.
---
IANAL. I'm a JOAT.
Some rights reserved -- CC (BY:) (!$) (SA) 2.5
See bio for link. Free and staying that way.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: marbux on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:34 PM EST |
Does anyone have a further clue what the underlined portion of the following
paragraph means? It's from the ComputerWorld article Pam
linked?
Yates said that the comparison between OpenDocument and
Open XML "is an apples to oranges" comparison. "Open XML allows companies to
integrate data directly into the documents so the document carries data for the
corporation, and [OpenDocument] does things very differently," he said. "Our
customers require us to support the full feature set of Office and Office 12.
They would not accept us supporting anything that didn't support some features
or hid other features."
Is that the attempt to put lipstick on a
pig that I think it is? See this
page at the OpenDocument Fellowship web site.--- Retired lawyer [ Reply to This | # ]
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- MS Offer File Formats as Open Standards, Sorta Open - Authored by: John Hasler on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:51 PM EST
- MS Offer File Formats as Open Standards, Sorta Open - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:59 PM EST
- MS Offer File Formats as Open Standards, Sorta Open - Authored by: FrnchFrgg on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:00 PM EST
- MS Offer File Formats as Open Standards, Sorta Open - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 11:04 PM EST
- MS Offer File Formats as Open Standards, Sorta Open - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 11:48 PM EST
- In a word, Yup.. - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 12:41 AM EST
- Max Factor it is! - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 03:19 PM EST
- "does things very differently" - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 11:23 PM EST
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:51 PM EST |
Brian Jones, who works on XML in Microsoft Word, blogged about this
link [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 08:58 PM EST |
Despite their limited involvement in a small number of projects, Apple is not
really a friend of Open Source, and is especially opposed to anything that might
give Linux a leg up on OS X. Things like OpenOffice, Firefox, etc all make it
easier for people to use Linux, which means less reasons to use OS X.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:00 PM EST |
Microsoft head XML honcho Jean Paoli interviewed on the move:
link [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Jean Paoli - Authored by: marbux on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:42 PM EST
- Jean Paoli - Authored by: Stumbles on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:54 PM EST
- Jean Paoli - Authored by: J.F. on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:10 PM EST
- Jean Paoli - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 07:43 AM EST
- Jean Paoli - Authored by: BrianJones on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 03:08 PM EST
- Jean Paoli - Authored by: kattemann on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 04:17 PM EST
- Brian, - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 07:43 PM EST
- Jean Paoli - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, November 23 2005 @ 01:01 AM EST
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:02 PM EST |
I bet anything that the Massachusetts decision forced Microsoft to do this. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Massachusetts - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:41 PM EST
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:15 PM EST |
. . .what is "open?"
As an example ECMA Java and Sun's Java do not always play nice together. In
other words a website utilizing Sun's Java may or may not render correctly in a
browser that utilizes Ecma's Java flavor. Opera comes to mind in that regard.
Further, "Microsoft said it would submit its Office Open XML document
format technology to the International Standards Organization (ISO) to be
adopted as an international standard in time for the launch of the next version
of its Office software suite, code-named Office 12" (quoting
Computerworld).
Now going strictly by the above (quote'ed) verbiage it becomes clear that
"its [...] format technology" is what M$ is seeking as a global
standard.
An M$ propritary format. *Not* M$ and everybody else. M$ only.
To add some emphasis to my theory, Louis Suarez-Potts of both open document and
open office said " 'With an open standard, any application can use it,' he
said. 'With an ISO standard, it's not quite the same thing. It just means you
have a reference for it' " (quoting Computerworld).
Hence, if all of that holds true M$ will not openly share its xml technology
with anyone. Period.
krp[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:35 PM EST |
Oh Well, I wasn't likely to buy Apple even before they
announced a switch to Intel, now....I'm definitely an AMD
man. Intel just lost any business from me for next few
years.
Do you hear that Intel? bub bye!
What was that? Buy MS? Gonna be a cold day in hell first. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Stumbles on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:51 PM EST |
Well you know, Microsoft has made many, many promises about a
lot of things. So of those have promised to cure what ails ya. Along
with many other consistant behaviors they have displayed. The
most apparent is promising the moon and then later reneging on
those promises.
What they will do now is generate tons o' hype about all the many
endorsements they have, how open they *will* be and how all
these pesky little problems (never mind their ones they
themselves have created) will go away.... if everyone would just
get behind them.
And just at the most critical moment, like always they will jerk the
rug from underneath everyone. But by then it will be to late as the
ball has already gained to much momentum to stop. And lo, guess
what, it won't be as interoperable and open as they promised. No
doubt to some technical difficulty.
Now I wonder where Longhorn is?
---
You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 09:56 PM EST |
Joe Wilcox of MicrosoftMonitor.com weighs in:
link1
link2 [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:01 PM EST |
The Microsoft press release is domonstrably false.
Microsoft Corp.
(Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced it will take steps to offer the file format
technology behind billions of documents to customers and the industry as an
international standard. ... submission to Ecma International, the standards
organization, of the Microsoft(R) Office Open XML (Extensible Markup Language)
document format technology.
The Office Open XML format is not the
Office 2000 format. It is the Office 97 and Office 2000 formats that are found
in billions of documents. Converting these documents to Office Open XML will
not be any easier that converting these documents to ODF. How can Microsoft
make such an obviously false statement and not have anyone notice? Truely the
emperor has no clothes.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: jsusanka on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:03 PM EST |
All I got to say is hogwash. This is purely a publicity
stunt and some boys crying and throwing a tantrum because
we aren't doing it their way.
This is just microsoft's way of saying you are going to do
it our way and we are not going to work with anybody else.
That sure is an odd group they have there. Why isn't
there any other software vendors in that group. Looks like
hardware and some finance firms - not very impressive.
I don't buy apple and intel so they don't get my business
anyway but I wouldn't especially after this.
Does anybody really trust this? I know I don't. All they
are doing is buying time till office 12 is out and then
they will just continue with their defacto style standard.
They don't care about any of their customers - just their
stockholders and holding on to their vice grip on office
software. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Waterman on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:05 PM EST |
of the MS XML format. StarOffice ( and OpenOffice ) use XML and you would have
thought that if MS was being so good with their offer, that Sun would have
joined the group backing it too.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: mrcreosote on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:55 PM EST |
What was Microsoft saying about Longhorn/Vista 12 months ago?
---
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mrcreosote[ Reply to This | # ]
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- "about a year" - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 09:00 AM EST
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 10:57 PM EST |
To me the main question is what parts of Microsoft's XML will not be included in
the standard. They say they will submitt Word, Excel, and Power Point. What
other standards will not be a Part: Sharepoint? Access?Exchange? these may or
may not be included.
They did this with .NET. C#, the runtime, and enought classes to compile a C#
program are part of the standard. Winforms, Webforms, Databases, and anything
else needed to a a program work were not included.
The technical and marketing folks said Mono and DotGNU were cool, the execitives
and lawyers said we do not give up any rights to the non-ECMA stuff.
My understanding is that Microsoft does not yet have any patents for .NET. They
applied for a patent to cover the names and orginzations of the class library,
but to the best of my knowledge it is still being reviewed by the USPO.
My understanding is that if Microsoft give the standard to ECMA, for future
versions, Microsoft will have the privlage of submitting the first draft of all
future version, which the committ can modify as much as they want before
ratifiying it.
Patents will likely be a non-issue. ECMA requires RAND, which means they can
charge whatever they want, as long as they charge everyone the same. Once they
provide them for free to ECMA, they lose any rights to charge anyone.
Another point is that the storage formats are just part of the issue. This will
not cover program functianlity or rendering, which is where th epatents are
likely to be anyway.
Dennis
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 11:38 PM EST |
Beware of geeks bearing gifts.
billwww (formerly addicted to punning)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 11:38 PM EST |
Can people get involved in this, and attempt to make the format that comes out
of the standards process a good XML format? I mean, if MS is putting their
effort behind this, it'll probably get through; it would be nice if we could
make what gets through something with which we could live.
If it can't happen at all, then it's not a real standards process. If we can't
get the people to do it, well, that's a shame. I'd hope, with all of the people
here, that there would be at least one who was placed somewhere that some effort
could be applied.
Now, I'm assuming that, given the name of the standards body with which MS is
dealing, one would need to be European, and I'd guess it couldn't be just any
European, but rather one that the standards body recognizes as someone. If this
isn't the case, it would be nice if someone in the know could let us know what
the process is for getting involved.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, November 21 2005 @ 11:51 PM EST |
So what they say now is that their format wasn't "open enough" [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: bbaston on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 12:21 AM EST |
Who are the guys I can trust and support with my music and technology buying
decisions?
Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, the British Library, Essilor, Intel
Corporation, Microsoft, NextPage Inc., Statoil ASA and Toshiba appear to
demonstrate a resistance to the concept of end users in control of their own
data. That doesn't make me happy at all.
All vendors with the letters DRM
buried somewhere on their software, music or video product labels believe I am a
thief and treat me accordingly. Sony is only one of them, so I'll be sure to ask
about the use of Digital Rights Management before making a buying decision. You
see, I insist on being recognized as one who obeys the law and on being
considered innocent unless proven guilty.
It does seem nice and is very
convenient to know where all the main vendors stand now, and that these stands
have been made so very loudly in the press. This makes it very simple for me to
delineate the vendors who support my point of view and therefore make properly
informed buying decisions. --- Ben, Groklawian in training
IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO
imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold
Have you donated to Groklaw this month? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 12:37 AM EST |
"it will take steps to offer the file format technology behind billions of
documents to ..."
"to standardize and fully document the Open XML formats for Word, Excel(R)
and PowerPoint(R) from the next generation of Office technologies, code-named
Office "12," as an Ecma standard,"
MS claims that it will offer the technology behind 'billions' of documents, but
the actuality is that it will be offereing the _next_ format which has exactly
_zero_ documents in productive use.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 02:25 AM EST |
Microsoft... fool me once, shame on you;
Fool me 2^32 times, shame on me.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Wesley_Parish on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 03:23 AM EST |
Seems that once upon a time, there was a conference in
Paris, 1856, on the
matter of marine warfare, and the
codification of expected behaviour from all
the Great
Powers. It prohibited among other things, privateers -
private
persons granted a Letter of Marque from their Head
of State to commit commerce
raiding on enemies during
wars; liable to be hanged as pirates if the enemy
refused
to acknowledge the Letter of Marque as legitimate. The US
I think
attended, but refused to sign the treaty at the
end of it, the Declaration of
Paris, on the grounds that
it prejudiced the rights of states without navies
to wage
war.
Then the Civil War started, Abraham Lincoln being the
then President. And the Unionist Federal Government
realized that the
Confederate Government took the refusal
of the previous US Government to sign
or accede to the
Declaration of Paris, and they were better at Privateer
Commerce Raiding than the Unionists were. So they
high-tailed it over to the
Foreign Office in London, which
was the Depository of the instruments of
ratification and
accession, and demanded to accede to the Declaration of
Paris, otherwise everybody would ignore them. I forget
just what the Foreign
Office's reactions were, but I think
there was a good amount of diplomatic
sneering and
sniggering at the uncouth and stupid Americans not having
the
foresight to join when they were invited rather than
desperately trying to
join as a kind of death-bed
conversion ...
And Microsoft's belated
death-bed conversion to the
Standards Process strickes me as being precisely
the same
blind stupidity as the US Government showed on the
Privateer issue
before the Civil War showed them just how
deep it could dig.
--- finagement: The Vampire's veins and Pacific torturers stretching back
through his own season. Well, cutting like a child on one of these states of
view, I duck [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Felix_the_Mac on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 04:47 AM EST |
This story is going to run and run.
People will need a 'resource' to help them keep up with the FUD. Leave out the
other ODF stuff etc.
I suggest that you have a page specifically dedicated to the 'MS Office Format -
Open Standard or trojan horse?'
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: atheist on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 05:23 AM EST |
Remember that Micosoft broke the existing RTF format with the release of Office
97. They attempted to excuse their behaviour by sayind that they'd notified
their partners.
There was little need for the parallel change to the Word 6/95 format as the
documents are made up of seperate streams, and the additional features could
have been made backward and round trip compatible.
More embrase and extend likely making this proposal unacceptable as a standard.
Amongst other qualifications, Word MCP.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 05:37 AM EST |
MS says it hopes to have an open standard accepted by the time Office 12 is
released with Vista. So that would be ... what ... about a decade from now?[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 06:23 AM EST |
Historically, when Microsoft has claimed to be supporting an open standard, it
has turned out to be a lie.
While Microsoft always tries to give the
appearance of supporting open standards, that "support" always comes with
a hook, ensuring that the Microsoft implementation will be the only one that
works in the long run.
We should recall when Microsoft claimed to be
supporting Java, while they were actually introducing extensions to their J++
Java implementation -- extensions aimed at killing Java's cross-platform
compatibility.
In a memo, Microsoft's Thomas Reardon explained the need
for Microsoft to maintain the illusion of continuing to support the open
standard:
> "at this point its not good to create MORE noise around
our win32 java classes. instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume
that people will take more advantage of our classes without ever realizing they
are building win32-only java apps."
Of course, this is business as usual
for Microsoft. The strategy was summarised quite nicely by Microsoft's Vinod
Valloppillil in the Halloween
Document:
> "OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in
many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized,
simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we
can deny OSS projects entry into the market."
And so, the standard rule
applies:
DO NOT TRUST MICROSOFT!!!
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 06:37 AM EST |
Q&a
mp;A: Microsoft Co-Sponsors Submission of Office Open XML Document
Formats
PressPass: How open a file format is Office Open
XML?
Paoli: Office Open XML is an open format because, as I already
mentioned, the committee that will ratify Office Open XML as an open standard is
open to anyone that is a member of the Ecma standards body and wants to be part
of the process.
Another reason Office Open XML is an open format is because
XML itself is an inherently interoperable text-based standard that has been
defined by the W3C. We have used this standard as the foundation for the Office
Open XML file formats, and we have worked very hard to ensure that the work we
have accomplished using XML is open, too. For instance, two years ago, we
announced a program to publish our Office 2003 XML formats on the Internet. We
also provided a simple, open and royalty-free licensing program to support
republication of the specification and development of format converters, and we
were very happy when this program was favorably acknowledged by public sector
experts like the Danish IT ministry and the European Commission’s IDA
(Interchange of Data between Administrations) committee.
Finally, Office
Open XML is open because the license for Office Open XML is open to anyone. We
are expanding the language of the current royalty-free license to specifically
enable developers who work only with open source licensing to also be able to
work with Office Open XML. This will enable any customer or technology
provider to use the file formats in its own systems without financial
consideration to Microsoft.
Still no clear indication that Open
Source will be allowed to fully implement the formats in a competing
Office application. There is talk about work with and use but they
never say IMPLEMENT.
It definitely seems (to me anyway) that
Microsoft are after some sort of one-way only compatibility - probably anyone
(even open source applications) will be able to read the formats (ie. use
them, or work with them), but not write them (or create them, or fully
interoperate with MS Office).
Finally, there is a caveat "open to anyone
that is a member of the Ecma standards body and wants to be part of the
process." Why not just say "open to anyone" period? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: overshoot on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 09:43 AM EST |
The usual suspects (IBM, Sun, etc.) who are ECMA members were to join the
working group and bring in the same kind of review that went into years
of OpenDocument work?
I suspect that the minutes would be very interesting,
amounting to "this is a take-it-or-leave-it offer, we've already written the
software and nothing you do here can change the real standard. Just
rubber stamp here, thank you." [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 12:00 PM EST |
ECMA is basically a trade
association. It has rather a motley assortment of members. It is difficult to
see what it represents - certainly not a particular industry or even a
particular sector of one. It is not dominated by M$, rather, despite its
European origins, Japanese companies seem to be represented
disproportionately.
Why should M$ be making use of it? The answer is
that it provides them with a back-door into ISO. ECMA standards tend to become
ISO standards. In fact, the one-to-one correspondance makes me think that any
changes to an ECMA proposal made by ISO is automatically written back into the
ECMA 'standard'.
Rather curiously, non-voting members include: Novell and
the Mozilla Foundation.
I should imagine it is fairly easy for a member to
get a "standard" accepted as there are unlikely to be many other voting members
who would be affected by it. The standards are mainly concerned about the
interchange of data.
Alan(UK) [ Reply to This | # ]
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- What is ECMA? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 12:45 PM EST
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Authored by: cjk fossman on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 12:35 PM EST |
Is there a trademark infringement suit in there somewhere?
It sure seems like a closer match than Windows - Lindows![ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: ThrPilgrim on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 01:14 PM EST |
Isn't Office Open, sufficiently close to Open Office for OOo to sue.
Just thinking of Lindows here :-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: billyskank on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 01:57 PM EST |
ok, they think, so we can open our formats to allow commercial competitors to
write interoperable software, using "reasonable and
non-discriminatory" licencing terms (which exclude free software
implementations). That will leave Microsoft with some competition (which I'm
sure has them gritting their teeth) but at least it's competition by commercial
entities. They know how to deal with those. They could even keep some
commercial competition on life support themselves if they wanted, in order to
maintain the illusion of a competitive marketplace.
The objective at all costs is to nullify the free software competition, because
all of their traditional tricks are ineffective against it.
---
It's not the software that's free; it's you.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: eskild on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 03:15 PM EST |
So what is the status of the specification right now?
CD (Committee Draft), DIS or what?
and what is the status of ODF?
are the two specificstions submitted to the same or different workgroups?
---
Eskild
Denmark[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Atticus on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 10:34 PM EST |
...and the best way to catch a rat? Try a little cheese!
I suggest the Open Office developers create the software necessary to implement
Microsoft's doc format. GPL it. Place it before the software behemoth and pose
the question to their lawyers, "Hey, what do you think of this?"
Likely they'll wait 5 years down the road before bringing the lawsuit...
---
--
-Atticus (who is not a lawyer :-) aka Mike Schwager)
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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, November 22 2005 @ 11:11 PM EST |
In this newly found world of "openness," and
the accompanying MS fondness for
the wonders of
free competition, where are the corresponding
covenants
concerning VFAT? As it turns out, user's
also store data using that format, on
diskettes
and such, in addition to fixed disks (and disk
images).
Hm.
Maybe there isn't a new spirit of openness
here. Maybe, MS is doing it usual
absolute minimum
to try to turn the tide in MA ODF affair. Could that
possibly
be?
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