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Office 2003 and XML

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-what-you-expected dept.

zachlipton writes "Internet World is reporting that initial reports from Office 2003 beta testers don't look good for those hoping to share documents with non-MS systems using the XML file format. Gary Edwards, the OpenOffice.org representative for the OASIS XML file-format group is quoted as saying "although it's still early in the review process, it does look as though XP XML has been so seriously crippled as to be useless to anyone but the big content management and collaboration system providers." Apparently, all formatting and presentation information is removed from the XML. Furthermore, Office's new collaboration featres will only work with users who are also running Office 2003 (requiring Windows 2000 or 2003) that are connecting over XP servers." So Microsoft will continue its efforts to lock-in users with proprietary formats, and hopefully the rest of the world will produce an XML standard document format without them.

10 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by deviator · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am shocked. Shocked! I'm shocked that Microsoft would do something like this that wasn't in the best interest of their customers.

  2. This is great news by tsa · · Score: 2, Funny

    Many offices will soon have to upgrade their PC's and software to be able to use XP together with this new MS software. Apart from this being a Good Thing for the economy, this has another important side effect: the 2nd hand market will be flooded with PIII's and cheap Athlons. I was thinking of buying a new computer to make a nice Linux server but I guess I will wait until this new Office thing comes out.

    --

    -- Cheers!

  3. Look how surprised I am. by pete-classic · · Score: 2, Funny
    Microsoft will continue its efforts to lock-in users with proprietary formats[. . .]


    Look how surprised I am:

    :^|


    -Peter
  4. Re:At some point..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Haha, sure you do, kid. That really cracked me up.

  5. Real World Vs. Game by blahlemon · · Score: 5, Funny
    Truth be told the real disadvantage to this being the real world vs. a game is I can't set the level of difficulty to my liking...nor can I stop and speed up time.

    Or spy on other people from a God perspective. Damn you! Now I'll have to spend the rest of my day realizing how pathically small my scope is...

    --
    It take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in God
  6. Re:Duh. by edward.virtually@pob · · Score: 1, Funny

    There are a lot of moderators who abuse their privilege by ranking comments they don't agree with as "troll" or "redundant" so you can consider those rankings to really mean "controversial". MS has a lot of apologists, so any anti-MS comment is bound to be mismoderated fairly rapidly. Yeah, this move by MS is not a surprise to anyone who remembers their past behavior. It will be "amusing" to see how long Linux/*BSD's minor advances into the desktop world last once Office 2003 becomes the Windows standard and its documents are once again unusable by anything else.

  7. Re:What did you expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    >Pigs will fly if that day ever comes!

    "Will you be donating that million dollars now, sir?" - Smithers

  8. Re:Duh. by kin_korn_karn · · Score: 4, Funny
    Separating data from format is one of the strengths of xml.

    Also, of the comma-delimited file.
  9. Re:Microsoft's new file format is: by nenolod · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oops, i forgot to set the reply to "Code". Please note, your SAX parser probably wont be able to parse this, heh. It is however, theoretically proper XML.

    <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" encoding="en">
    <!DOCTYPE worddoc [
    <!ELEMENT document (document_properties, document_section)>
    <!ELEMENT document_properties (title, author, organization, department, job, generalsummary)>
    <!ELEMENT title (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT author (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT organization (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT department (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT job (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT generalsummary (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT document_section (sectionsummary, proprietarybinary, unenhancedcrappytext)>
    <!ELEMENT sectionsummary (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT proprietarybinary (#PCDATA)>
    <!ELEMENT unenhancedcrappytext (#PCDATA)>
    ]>
    <document>
    <document_properties>
    <title>Crappydoc</title>
    <author>William H. Gates III</title>
    <organization>BORG</organization>
    <department>Unimatrix 0</department>
    <job>Secondary information processing adjunct</job>
    <generalsummary>Doc about crappy M$ things.</generalsummary>
    </document_properties>
    <document_section>
    <sectionsummary>Haha, you cant parse this and make it look perty, it's BINARY! You're still screwed!</sectionsummary>
    <proprietarybinary>firoiorfioeiojvonvonviniooiwnco ncooisoi39f940f9439 0f904390f94390fj904j90j3f09j4fj3490jf30jf040fj03j0 9fj9340fj043j90fj4903fj9043jfj0vjoirejvoojvoerjgoe jgojerogjoejoenmvotnhnoignoengotnhinringuinfi</pro prietarybinary>
    <unenhancedcrappytext>Hehe, doesnt this text just look ugly? I bet it does, if you arent using M$ WORD!</unenhancedcrappytext>
    </document_section>
    </document>

  10. Re:At some point..... by RoLi · · Score: 2, Funny
    It would be like McDonalds asking all their customers to remove their shoes and socks when they enter the restaraunt...

    Or like Microsoft asking all their customers to sign away all their rights and let the MS-police (aka "BSA") search everything in their organization.