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The list of highly questionable if not outright illegal activities is very long:

You can start here with "A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm"
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

and then move on to a catalog of their attacks on standards:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history

and then any of these:
Illegal tying: http://www.ecis.eu/documents/ECISPressStatementonOperaSO1.pdf
Unethical marketing: http://www.nearsoft.com/blog/MS-test.html
Antitrust: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/600488.stm

Or these:
http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/Kerberos-PACs-And-Microsofts-Dirty-Tricks
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/2007/02/microsoft_dirty_tric_1.html
http://techrights.org/2008/12/01/leaked-oem-vista-ad-incentives/
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/57261/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/368660.stm
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/06/08/23/1251210/Microsoft-Admonished-by-US-District-Court-Judge
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-tried-to-muck-with-anti-linux-facts/235
http://www.zdnet.com/news/fact-and-fiction-in-the-microsoft-sco-relationship/139743
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110
http://lproven.livejournal.com/102128.html
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

The site has been offline for two years, but the Internet Archive has most of it is HERE .

Read it and weep. Nothing will be done because most Windows users, like you, prefer to not believe that they are being spied on, or that former Microsoft employee James Plamondon trained "Technical Evangelists" who astroturf websites making fun of such claims.

You should read James Plamondon's mea culpa concerning his training of PAID "Technical Evangelists" to do the "Slog", the "Stuffed Panel", Astroturf congress and various websites with pro Microsoft and/or anti-Apple or Linux lies, etc...

Plamondon had to do a mea culpa because his activity was exposed in the Combs vs Microsoft lawsuit where the training documents he wrote were released to the public. As an example of how TE's work, read exerpts from Plamondon's training manual for the phrase "stacked panel", "The Slog", and other techniques here.

When Joe Barr wrote SLIME in 1994, he didn't know about the TE's Microsoft had unleashed on the world, but he described them to a tea:
http://slated.org/more_microsoft_dirty_tricks_history

Internet Achive has the "SLIME" article here.

A more complete, but not exhaustive list of dirty tricks by Microsoft are listed here:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history

OOXML (not to say that I'm claiming that .docx is exactly OOXML, it isn't) can contain proprietary binary blobs. Or has Microsoft gotten around to providing a "make sure that this document will be easy to transfer to other formats" button/preference. No? How surprising....

> Now how hard it is to do this, really depends.

Duh. So prove to us that it's easy and release, in the near future, an open-source renderer for .docx which is 100% compatible with the behavior of any given version of MS Office (my guess is that they don't all render it exactly the same, themselves).

Here you go. Search for "undisclosed information".

And then people wonder why some fear OOXML.

not to use Linux or Mac.

If they do they'll get their "Air Supply cut off"... their per/unit price will jump significantly, making them uncompetitive with their competitors ...

I could go on but space is limited. Microsoft is full of dirty tricks. Just ask James Plamondon and his "Technical Evangelists (TE):
http://platformevangelism.spaces.live.com/default.aspx
http://platformevangelism.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!37F174267DC274C!155.entry
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf

Or the training materials he used, which taught the "Slog" and the "Stuffed Panel":
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20071023002351958

And financial dirty tricks:
http://www.billparish.com/msftfraudfacts.html

Here is a summary of a LOT of Microsoft's dirty tricks, and the reasons why so many "independent" corporations behave as wholly owned subsidiaries of Microsoft:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history

So, ya, it is no surprise when NVIDIA knucles under to Microsoft, otherwise their video chips would suddenly fail to work as well as those from other video chip vendors, just the way DRDOS "failed" to work as well as MSDOS when users tried to install Win3, which was one of the first of an unending examples of how a copy without ethics operates. An people were surprised that Capitalism exhibited a "flaw" in the current economic crisis?

I don't know why companies just don't get *BSD working for them instead Linux. It would save them a lot of headaches.

Maybe because companies like Microsoft have a history of stealing BSD code, making minor changes, and then patenting their implementation. This is why Ted Tso' said he would use the GPL for Kerberos instead of the BSD license if he had it to do over again.

Plenty of other companies are more reasonable:

Juniper - FreeBSD
Isilon - FreeBSD
NetApp - FreeBSD
Apple - FreeBSD
Force10 Network - NetBSD

Perhaps the reason why Kerberos (and BSD's TCP/IP stack and X11 as well) were incorporated in so many places is because of the liberal license? If commercial companies had more restrictions on the use of the code, do you think would have spread as much as they did?

I don't know why companies just don't get *BSD working for them instead Linux. It would save them a lot of headaches.

Maybe because companies like Microsoft have a history of stealing BSD code, making minor changes, and then patenting their implementation. This is why Ted Tso' said he would use the GPL for Kerberos instead of the BSD license if he had it to do over again.

Well, because the "standard" is so convoluted, it's not totally clear.

The OOXML standard states that use of (proprietary) VML is deprecated, but if you search the web for "VML"+"office 2007" you get lots of info on how most .docx files end up chock full of VML because of linkage with proprietary MS tech. See the "Application-defined" binary blobs for Microsoft Ink(TM) data?

This may or may not be OK with the standard, the big point is that there is no mode for Office 2007 which warns you when you save .docx using such deprecated or proprietary features (i.e., saving a file which is not interoperable with non-MS products using the OOXML standard). And you have to be some kind of genius to know what not to use.

"Office 2007 .bin file format" might be interesting to you also.

Now that this format war is so heated, it would be really advantageous to *verify* all the different vendors' implementations of ODF and MOOXML, by using that DTD you mention to validate that it's "really" correct, and send in bug reports when any text processor vendor doesn't meet the standard, so they can correct their implementation. I thought this was a significant advantage of using XML for any document format, be it Docbook, ODF or anything else.

That said, I just unzipped OpenDocument-v1.1.odt and passed its contents.xml through xsltproc with a small XSL stylesheet consisting of just the xmlns: elements mentioned in content.xml's header. xsltproc spat out the readable contents of the 738-page document as UTF-8 text; does that mean it's OK?

Can anyone please do the same to a large MOOXML document and post the results! That would be a nice comparison on the merits. We already have enough FUD here.

What's next? Will Microsoft try to bribe OpenOffice.org to make OOXML the new default file format? Will they attempt to make Microsoft Bob an ISO standard? Will they try to release a document specification that has four different definitions of a "percent"?

Oh, wait... they are already doing that last one.

Invalid XML: http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Non-XML_formatting_codes
Bitmasks (sorry, I made a "language-typo" when I wrote bitmaps): http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Ecma_376_uses_bitmasks.2C_inhibiting_extensibility_and_use_of_standard_XML_tools

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OOXML#Technical_criticisms

I think it is extremely idiotic not to consider bitmasks, non-ISO dates, etc. as against the "spirit" of XML. You do have your right for your opinion, no matter how ridiculous it IMHO is.

HTH. HAND.

Invalid XML: http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Non-XML_formatting_codes
Bitmasks (sorry, I made a "language-typo" when I wrote bitmaps): http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Ecma_376_uses_bitmasks.2C_inhibiting_extensibility_and_use_of_standard_XML_tools

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OOXML#Technical_criticisms

I think it is extremely idiotic not to consider bitmasks, non-ISO dates, etc. as against the "spirit" of XML. You do have your right for your opinion, no matter how ridiculous it IMHO is.

HTH. HAND.

I find it VERY difficult to believe that the complaints list for ODF could be "even longer than the ones about OOXML".

perhaps if someone took the good bits out of both of these and made a better one everyone would be happy.

If anyone has time, can you please comment on this ODF vs OOXML (or maybe MS Office 2003 XML) comparison from November 2005? I don't know enough about XML to understand all of the finer points.

"Doctor it hurt when I do that..." is a perfectly valid argument - if "that" is defined as "attempt to modify a cell in a spreadsheet without going through the entire thing searching for other cells that reuse the formula in it, parsing the formula and inserting modified versions with cell references offset by the correct amount into them, then locating and deleting the file containing the calculation chain and all references to it".

Also, your rebuttal isn't great. True, the "exploding spreadsheet" was exaggerated, and the second one is slightly silly in some ways. You've completely misrepresented 3), the optimisation artifacts, though. As far as I can tell, his argument is that Excel's shared formulas make it unnecessarily hard to update cells reliably, and he has a point. The references to the old binary format are to demonstrate why in some ways it's actually easier to update.

(Specifically, changing a cell affected by this issue now requires a full scan through the document - without this, you can't even tell if the cell is affected by the issue - and the ability to parse formulae and modify the cell references in them by an offset. With the old binary format, all the cells were references to a shared formula, so it was easy to tell if a cell was affected and easy to update it - or at least, no harder than with a normal cell.)

For (4), the problem with VML is that it's patented, probably not covered by any patent pledge Microsoft has given (since it's optional), and apparently not sufficiently specified. While the specification doesn't claim it's no longer in use, since it's depreciated and intended for backwards compatibility, why is Office 2007 still using it in new documents?

With (6), the problem is twofold - firstly, Microsoft did things like localise all the function names in Office, but the localised function names aren't specified, so anyone working with SpreadsheetML documents in a non-English locale will run into problems figuring out what formula to use if they attempt to switch from Office. The second is that Microsoft uses localised strings to specify certain formatting.

You're totally missing the point of 7. The point isn't that there are several things that affect cell formatting. The point is the lack of consistency between them in terms of how the formatting is specified. In particular, note how they use different ways of specifying font, color, etc... (It's not the only issue of this sort - according to the Grokdoc page, it uses a wide variety of size measurements and the same element can have different units depending on where it is (or in one case, on the border type), often for no good reason.)

Etc, etc...

Another possiblity is that he's already read some of the reasoned objections and figures anybody capable of typing "OOXML objections" into Google has too. There are sites that focus on calmly reasoned intellectual discourse, and the grok sites in particular exist to hone arguments for wider consumption. There's little point repeating the results for every shill and troll and just plain lazy MS fanboy on /.

Miguel,

I'm sorry, but you can't dismiss all criticism of OOXML as pedants/FUD/misinformed and your post above attacks the messenger a lot more than the message. How about you comment on well formulated objections such as this one on grokdoc? Some are very specific (narrow) technical aspects , while others are much more fundamental, like:

- Contradicts numerous international standards
- Relies on undisclosed information (e.g. application-defined behaviors)

Not to mention the obvious "why do we need a second standard in the first place?", since ODF is already an ISO standard (too many standards is like no standard at all).

The examples given by Rodriguez do indeed only prove that Microsoft's implementation sucks. Parent's assertion is correct.

On the other hand, a rather lengthy list of objections against the standard itself can be found here:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections

So it seems that both the standard and its implementation suck ;-)

Depending on one's definition of "technical problems" then there's a lot of patching to do because many of the problems are very deeply embedded. I don't just mean the infamous "auto space like Word 95" tags, but the lack of support for dates before 1900, the redefinition of the colourspace to clash with existing ISO standards and the hard-coded definition of non-working days to be Saturday and Sunday (which they are in Western culture but aren't in the Arabic world). A fairly comprehensive list of OOXML's failures is at http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_Objections _Clearinghouse and it's an editable wiki as well.

What the hell are they going to do now, without this case to report on!?

Oh come on! There's the Microsoft-shilling-ISO problem to report on yet, Groklaw is in the thick of that! Don't forget who funded the SCO attack, Microsoft are not yet defeated, that was just one maneuvre. Meaning there's the end-game of Microsoft's patent FUD attack on GNU+Linux to report, might even be a court case in it too.

I think the site is well established, too many people like PJ's pithy analysis for Groklaw to disappear. Although I doubt your post was serious, it's still worth pointing out all the things the site could do in the weeks, months and years to come. :)

I do. Not only mind, but object, severely.

One of the reasons I object is: http://atrc.utoronto.ca/index.php?option=com_conte nt&sectionid=14&task=view&hidemainmenu=1&id=371.

There are a lot of other technical problems why it should not be a standard listed in various places on the web, see e.g. http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections

BTW, I am disappointed on the disabled community for not "standing up" - as they did with ODF 1.0 (and therefore ODF 1.1 was created) http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/articl e.php?story=20070801182558375. Paid shills.

When contacting people, please remember what is crucial:

Be polite - this will make them much more likely to listen. If you are feeling angry, take a walk outside, have a nice snack then come back when you are calmed down.

Make personal contact - fax or phone where you can; reinforce emails by calling up to check that they got them. Write your own letter, based on somebody elses template if you need, but with your own information. If they promise to look into it, call back later to find out what they found out.

State clearly your relationship to them - resident of the state / local business / supporter / floating voter etc. Always find a reason why they should take notice of you. Identify yourself clearly and let them call you back later (better to give a business phone or mobile so that they don't call you at home during election campaign time though)

Give information - links to pages about problems - specific links to ODF sites or the Wikipedia article etc. to show alternatives. However, read through those pages yourself and pick out and explain specific points from them that you think are important.

Be efficient. Make your point early; don't drown them in extra information; Say only things which you think are important.

Be original. Give specific information about your position and how you will benefit from alternative solutions. Show that you care about it and why.

Dear Mr Leno;

I am the owner of a small web hosting company. I am writing to support "California A.B. 1668 : Open Document Format, Open Source.". We would like to be able to automatically send out pre-filled billing forms from our billing system and expect all our customers to be able to complete them easily. Unfortuantely, the current de-facto standard for documents is Microsofts .doc format and that is too complex for us to be able to add it to the billing system. A new alteranative exists in the ISO standard Open Document Format. If that was widely adopted our problem would be solved. Unfortuantely, Microsoft is trying to block this adoption by having a fake new standard based on .doc. This isn't really a standard because it doesn't fully specifiy how the format works (please see http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections section 10.2 "Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications") and is far to big for us to deal with, let alone be a reasonably reviewed ISO standard ( see http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections secton 11 "Ecma 376 cannot be adequately evaluated within the 30-day evaluation period")

We believe that if Microsofts standard is blocked and the Open Document Format is standardised for state use, in future we would be able to rely on it's availability everywhere and our buisiness would be able to work much better with its customers.

As you know well, we are strongly committed to supporting the good of our state and my wife and I have often run coffee mornings for the state assembly which you have attended yourself. We think that this bill would clearly improve life in our state and look forward to hearing that you are committed to supporting it.

Best Regards
Jason R Kovacs Jr.

When contacting people, please remember what is crucial:

Be polite - this will make them much more likely to listen. If you are feeling angry, take a walk outside, have a nice snack then come back when you are calmed down.

Make personal contact - fax or phone where you can; reinforce emails by calling up to check that they got them. Write your own letter, based on somebody elses template if you need, but with your own information. If they promise to look into it, call back later to find out what they found out.

State clearly your relationship to them - resident of the state / local business / supporter / floating voter etc. Always find a reason why they should take notice of you. Identify yourself clearly and let them call you back later (better to give a business phone or mobile so that they don't call you at home during election campaign time though)

Give information - links to pages about problems - specific links to ODF sites or the Wikipedia article etc. to show alternatives. However, read through those pages yourself and pick out and explain specific points from them that you think are important.

Be efficient. Make your point early; don't drown them in extra information; Say only things which you think are important.

Be original. Give specific information about your position and how you will benefit from alternative solutions. Show that you care about it and why.

Dear Mr Leno;

I am the owner of a small web hosting company. I am writing to support "California A.B. 1668 : Open Document Format, Open Source.". We would like to be able to automatically send out pre-filled billing forms from our billing system and expect all our customers to be able to complete them easily. Unfortuantely, the current de-facto standard for documents is Microsofts .doc format and that is too complex for us to be able to add it to the billing system. A new alteranative exists in the ISO standard Open Document Format. If that was widely adopted our problem would be solved. Unfortuantely, Microsoft is trying to block this adoption by having a fake new standard based on .doc. This isn't really a standard because it doesn't fully specifiy how the format works (please see http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections section 10.2 "Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications") and is far to big for us to deal with, let alone be a reasonably reviewed ISO standard ( see http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections secton 11 "Ecma 376 cannot be adequately evaluated within the 30-day evaluation period")

We believe that if Microsofts standard is blocked and the Open Document Format is standardised for state use, in future we would be able to rely on it's availability everywhere and our buisiness would be able to work much better with its customers.

As you know well, we are strongly committed to supporting the good of our state and my wife and I have often run coffee mornings for the state assembly which you have attended yourself. We think that this bill would clearly improve life in our state and look forward to hearing that you are committed to supporting it.

Best Regards
Jason R Kovacs Jr.

When contacting people, please remember what is crucial:

Be polite - this will make them much more likely to listen. If you are feeling angry, take a walk outside, have a nice snack then come back when you are calmed down.

Make personal contact - fax or phone where you can; reinforce emails by calling up to check that they got them. Write your own letter, based on somebody elses template if you need, but with your own information. If they promise to look into it, call back later to find out what they found out.

State clearly your relationship to them - resident of the state / local business / supporter / floating voter etc. Always find a reason why they should take notice of you. Identify yourself clearly and let them call you back later (better to give a business phone or mobile so that they don't call you at home during election campaign time though)

Give information - links to pages about problems - specific links to ODF sites or the Wikipedia article etc. to show alternatives. However, read through those pages yourself and pick out and explain specific points from them that you think are important.

Be efficient. Make your point early; don't drown them in extra information; Say only things which you think are important.

Be original. Give specific information about your position and how you will benefit from alternative solutions. Show that you care about it and why.

Dear Mr Leno;

I am the owner of a small web hosting company. I am writing to support "California A.B. 1668 : Open Document Format, Open Source.". We would like to be able to automatically send out pre-filled billing forms from our billing system and expect all our customers to be able to complete them easily. Unfortuantely, the current de-facto standard for documents is Microsofts .doc format and that is too complex for us to be able to add it to the billing system. A new alteranative exists in the ISO standard Open Document Format. If that was widely adopted our problem would be solved. Unfortuantely, Microsoft is trying to block this adoption by having a fake new standard based on .doc. This isn't really a standard because it doesn't fully specifiy how the format works (please see http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections section 10.2 "Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications") and is far to big for us to deal with, let alone be a reasonably reviewed ISO standard ( see http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections secton 11 "Ecma 376 cannot be adequately evaluated within the 30-day evaluation period")

We believe that if Microsofts standard is blocked and the Open Document Format is standardised for state use, in future we would be able to rely on it's availability everywhere and our buisiness would be able to work much better with its customers.

As you know well, we are strongly committed to supporting the good of our state and my wife and I have often run coffee mornings for the state assembly which you have attended yourself. We think that this bill would clearly improve life in our state and look forward to hearing that you are committed to supporting it.

Best Regards
Jason R Kovacs Jr.

> SOAP can't be complicated, the name says it's simple!
> Simple Object Access Protocol!!!!

Yeah and OpenXML is open

if http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections is a variation of "Micro$oft is teh SUX0R", it's a pretty lenghty and detailed variation of that one...

Several sections require the implementor to clone the behaviour of a proprietary product, where the behaviour to clone is not specified. For example:
Section 2.15.3.6 page 2161, autoSpaceLikeWord95. ...

Compatibility Note
Attributes like these have no place in an international standard, and are not needed for compatibility with existing documents. The correct way to achieve compatibility is through generic tags. For example:
autoSpaceLikeWord95 should be replaced by a generic character-spacing attribute that takes a numeric value or set of numeric values.

even with giving you a benefit of doubt i'd like to call the argument about backwards compatibility a bullshit.

some interesting linked information is here :
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1346

please, read through http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections . pay special attention to sections with "Compatibility Note".
i hope after those documents you'll see what incredible low quality and intentional drawbacks the "format" has.

I'm afraid this is not entirely correct. While it is true (as far as we can discern at this point) that Microsoft plans on making and keeping the specification freely available, it is most certainly not "implementable". This is clear from the article that the parent posted to (search for the word legacy). It is even more clear in Grokdoc's document containing objections to the ISO-standardization of Microsoft's OOXML-specification.

In layman's terms, the specification (which should be complete and exact) contains phrases like "implement this like in Word95" (search for "autoSpaceLikeWord95" on page 1378 in part 4), without defining exactly what this means. As a result, only Microsoft is able to implement this specification. Hence the Microsoft-specification does not meet the open standards definition formulated by the European Union.

What you're failing to take into account is that Microsoft have a paid shill editing Wikipedia for them.

OOXML is not open, see the list of objections. Also ask yourself: if Microsoft wanted to use an open file format, why didn't they use ODF? They had plenty of time to implement it within Office 2007 and were asked to be part of ODF's development. Firstly the ignored it, now that it's gaining traction they're trying to destroy it with a competing 'standard'.

the specs for these formats are going to be so complicated that nobody will be able to open the file in a text editor and just read through it.

I have untarred several documents from the ODF family and found them easy to understand. I would suggest you do the same as the software to create these files is Free. If you can't be arsed to do that, then stop writing inane commentary. :)

The specification for ODF is available online. Since that is the case, please attempt to read it before spouting-off about it being unreadable. It is 722 pages long, I've had a brief look at it and it seems very readable (better than that: it looks implementable!)

In my opinion Microsoft's format is neither XML, or open. It's binary, patentable cruft in an XML wrapper. So it's best not to describe it as an 'XML Format' at all. The specification for this is reportedly 6,000 pages long. This is also available online.

The advantages of XML file formats are:

• Increased Robustness
• Document Archiving
• Version Interoperability
• Documented and Transparent File Content
• Standards Based
• Easy Import and Export of Other File Formats
• Search Engines / Knowledge Management Systems

All of these were copied from the OpenOffice Web Site, explanation of the items in that list can be found there.

1. To Produce a formal Standard for office productivity documents which is fully compatible with the Office Open XML Formats

2.15.3.51 suppressTopSpacingWP (Emulate WordPerfect 5.x Line Spacing) This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (WordPerfect 5.x) ...

1. To Produce a formal Standard for office productivity documents which is fully compatible with the Office Open XML Formats

2.15.3.51 suppressTopSpacingWP (Emulate WordPerfect 5.x Line Spacing) This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (WordPerfect 5.x) ...

1. To Produce a formal Standard for office productivity documents which is fully compatible with the Office Open XML Formats

2.15.3.51 suppressTopSpacingWP (Emulate WordPerfect 5.x Line Spacing) This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (WordPerfect 5.x) ...

Is there something about ECMA International" that prohibits competing standards? Honest question, I don't really know.

Check EOOXML objections and look for "Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade".

ISO has policy of one standard for one purpose. ISO works like a platform and specifically prohibits duplications or overlaps, since that would result in incompatibility of standard-compliant components with each other, thus raising "technical barrier to trade".

The whole point of having a standard is to create or level market - for sake of consumers, NOT vendors.

I thought the main objection to OpenXML was that it fails to define a number of things, essentially saying "render like WordPerfect 1.0", making it an incomplete standard. Making it not impossible but very difficult for anyone other than Microsoft to implement it so it's fully compatible with the MS version.

The author dissmisses such concerns as "groundless":

Claims that the spec is impossible for third-parties to support have so far proven groundlessin fact, longtime rival Sun started working on an Excel Open XML import filter for OpenOffice.org's Calc program.

Sun is a big backer of Open Office which has been decoding M$'s secret formats for a decade, so their continuing is a non starter. How successful they will be is another matter and one M$ loses either way.

Slashdot pointed to a review that proved these issues back in July and Ars Technia forum members quickly pointed to other detailed and credible criticism Anyone who would confuse this as an IBM vrs. M$ story has taken the M$ party line without critical thought.

Dude, what I can't understand is how any technically oriented person can NOT hate Microsoft. If MS simply produced mediocre software that happened to be installed by default on most computers, I wouldn't care. People who aren't in the know might simply be making a scapegoat out of MS, but for the rest of us, the company completely deserves its reputation. It boggles my mind that you think otherwise.

How about this for some easy reading?

Ecma 376 relies on undisclosed information
[edit]
Undisclosed proprietary specifications

Section 6.2.3.17 "Embedded Object Alternate Image Requests Types" (page 5679) requires implementors to support the proprietary Windows Metafiles.
[edit]
Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications

Several sections require the implementor to clone the behaviour of a proprietary product, where the behaviour to clone is not specified in the specification. For example:

* Section 2.15.3.6 page 2161, autoSpaceLikeWord95.
* Section 2.15.3.26 page 2199, footnoteLayoutLikeWW8.
* Section 2.15.3.31 page 2209, lineWrapLikeWord6.
* Section 2.15.3.32 page 2210, mwSmallCaps.
* Section 2.15.3.41 page 2225, shapeLayoutLikeWW8.
* Section 2.15.3.51 page 2245, suppressTopSpacingWP.
* Section 2.15.3.53 page 2250, truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6.
* Section 2.15.3.54 page 2252, uiCompat97To2003.
* Section 2.15.3.63 page 2264, useWord2002TableStyleRules.
* Section 2.15.3.64 page 2265, useWord97LineBreakRules.
* Section 2.15.3.65 page 2266, wpJustification.
* Section 2.15.3.66 page 2268, wpSpaceWidth.

More can be found by searching Ecma 376 for the word "Guidance".

Specifications that say "clone this product", instead of explicitly stating what behavior is required, have no place in an international standard. It may also be illegal in some jurisdictions to determine what such a non-specification means, as discussed below regarding end-user license agreements (EULAs).

Compatibility Note
Attributes like these have no place in an international standard, and are not needed for compatibility with existing documents. The correct way to achieve compatibility is through generic tags. For example:

* autoSpaceLikeWord95 should be replaced by a generic character-spacing attribute that takes a numeric value or set of numeric values.
* wpSpaceWidth should be replaced by by a generic space-width tag that takes a numeric value or set of numeric values.

Even attributes as obscure as lineWrapLikeWord6 can be generalized into a line-wrap-style attribute. Using a more general solution offers far more extensibility and flexibility.

Regardless of how you feel about MS and its attempts at spin control, let's not loose sight of the really important thing here---OOXML is a bad standard. Its many flaws are well documented. Try any of these links to find out about some of them: http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections As a linguist, the pathetic language encoding (which ignores the ISO standard) is particularly galling: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archive s/004065.html

Microsoft was CONVICTED by the USA Department of Justice for Predatory trade practices and Monopolistic behavior. In that litigation is was proven that Microsoft did indeed limit the ability of all hardware vendors to sell alternative operating systems by:

1. Contractual obligation. Only Microsoft products can be pre-installed or the vendor loses the ablity to sell any Microsoft products.

2. Incentives: All hardware vendors are offered incentives to advertise Microsoft products. When you go to Dell and see the logo: "Dell reccomends Microsoft XP" it is there only because Microsoft will pull Dell's incentive programs if it isn't.

3. Bundling: Microsoft was convicted of predatory practices because of bundling products in order to remove competition.

The list of dirty tricks from Microsoft is vast, but if you want proof of hardware vendor lock-in by Microsoft, look no further than the ruling in US vs Microsoft.

see:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

and for more dirty tricks:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_hist ory

As a postscript to the comment above, read and perhaps help contribute to this site: http://www.grokdoc.net/

Things you might consider:

Kubuntu Live CD (Info at Kubuntu.org)
Games Knoppix (Although the 0.2 release is accidentally missing a file manager. Also, the 0.2 version is not a "upgrade" of 0.1 - it has a different list of games, though they do overlap.)
Linux Live Game Project

All three of these are based on KDE, and so should be relatively familiar-looking for a Windows user. If you are comfortable enough with "Mac-like" theme, you can also try:

Ubuntu Live CD (Info at Ubuntulinux.org)

All of these are live CDs, which means that you can boot into them and try them out to your heart's content, without harming your existing windows installations. Those 5 CDs (Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Games-Knoppix 0.1 and 0.2 and LLGP) are what I give out to people to try out linux... Because there are games, they don't feel like it's so scary...

In order to get used to the command line (if that is one of your goals) the following may be useful:

The Command Line - The Best Newbie Interface? (an alternative perspective on the "scary" command line)
and
The CLI Series at Linux.com (Start at the last one on the last page "alias cat and pipe meet grep" and work your way up at your leisure.)

You may want to read and/or contibute to GrokDoc:
GrokDoc

Isn't that what grokdoc is for, to begin a documentation project? Why don't ya'll just contribute to that?