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Microsoft Ends Era Of Closed File Formats
RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "According to an MSDN Channel 9 interview with an Office file-format developer, the next version of Microsoft Office (Office 12) will default to newly-developed XML file formats in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new formats will apparently include XML files along with other files (images, etc) inside of a Zip file. Microsoft will also be providing extensive documentation of the new format to the public through MSDN. The developer likewise announced that Microsoft would be releasing updates for Office 2000, XP, and 2003 to read and write the new formats when the new version of Office is released. If this interview is correct, it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats." Coverage at Beta News, Information Week, and the Washington Post.
Patents (n/t)
Would'nt this approach cause MS to loose its lock-in ability based on file format?
Of course this assumes that lock-in was one of their goals with a propietary format
Does this mark the end of MS Office?
Isn't the only thing holding back Open Office the lack of true compatability for file formats?
Somehow I don't think this will make any difference in OO's market share.
They will use an "open" XML format, but some of the objects embeded in that XML file will be binary (read prorpietary).
AFAIK ZIP was evil because of some patent issues, and that's why gzip was developed. The patent has supposedly expired in the US, but not necessarily in all other countries (same as with GIF). Any info on that?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
...now that they've all but killed off all of the commercial, vendor-supported competition.
And whatever happened to Office Integrated Rights Management, essentially a DRM for Office documents (New Office locks down documents) that (of course) requires a Windows server to administer, and only works with Microsoft Office? You don't think that they're just going to let that go by the wayside, do you?
And what about patents?
Sure, OpenOffice is great, but commercial enterprises will stick with commercial solutions for which there is support. And yes, this could be built for something like OpenOffice (and indeed exists for StarOffice), just as it has been for Red Hat, but I can't see this as anything more than a much belated, empty gesture on Microsoft's part. This sums it up: "Microsoft is doing this as a way to protect its presence on the desktop." Microsoft even dug up Charles Goldfarb, "co-inventor of the concept of markup languages", for its press release to say, "Making XML the default Office file format is, for me, the culmination of a 35-year dream," Charles F. Goldfarb, the inventor of the markup language technology, said in a statement released by Microsoft. Nice touch.
Also, "Microsoft Ends Era Of Closed File Formats" is a little overreaching, don't you think? They're looking for the biggest lock-in of all with the proprietary Windows Media formats. Microsoft wants to be everywhere there is any kind of media, and it's NOT open. Boy, I can't wait to live in a world where Microsoft controls and meters content and has everyone from the end consumer to cable, satellite, and telecom operators, movie and TV production houses, and everyone in between by the balls, which is exactly what will happen if they get their way. (And submission to SMPTE *hardly* means anything. Standards are standards AFTER they've been vetted by standards bodies, have had the patent searches and pools completed, etc., and have been, you know, actually approved. Not when they've been "submitted for consideration". Further, that gesture is nothing more than an attempt to get pinhead PHB-type managers and executives on board with Microsoft when their technical underlings are pulling for open standards like H.264 - then Microsoft can shoot back to the management, Hey, we're just as open as the MPEG family of standards! Look, we even submitted our codec to SMPTE! It's not our fault they take so long to approve things! Do you really want all that H-dot-whatever-gobbledeygook that your oddball IT guys are talking about? After all, that's what *Apple* uses. You don't want an Apple technology, do you? Go with us; you know Microsoft is the right choice for your 18-million-customer cable service! Utter bullshit. And ignores the fact that all of the codec improvements and tools will NOT be open; the SMPTE submission is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to put Windows Media everywhere as well by claiming to be "open" when they're anything but.)
I don't mean to be downbeat here , but I have heard this a few times before . .
So i will belive it when i see it
MS don't seem to be that eager to open anything up , just look at the recent fun the EU courts are having
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I do believe we've seen this news here on slashdot before.
Because, let's face it, the only reason this is happening is because MS have lost the battle to outlaw reverse engineering. Now they'll have widely available specs for their file format -- and all you'll have to do is license the 20 or so patents that protect these formats, and you'll be able to make a competing product that can read Excel files.
Remember, GIF was a completely open format -- but that didn't mean Open Source software got to use them freely.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Isn't it a couple months late for an April fools joke? *rimshot*
come on guys, it's a little late for an April fools joke.
Governments and other entities have been begging for their data to be unlocked for ages and now they are answering the plea...sort of...
To truly be the end of an era, they should give out the complete specs on their formats as well... I know it isn't going to happen but that would be more complete.
I wonder if they'll do the same thing to XML as what FrontPage did to HTML...
Dark Reflection
Wow.... just wow. Of course its just vapor right now we will have to wait to see if they actually do it. They could always make the schema so complex it would be worthless
I will believe it when I see it. I wouldn't be surprised if the XML format they choose is renamed XML+ and it doesn't work like normal XML. Can anyone say J++?
My
Finally there will be absolutely no need to touch MS Word again! I can completely be assured that the documents I create and receive in Open Office will work properly for people using Word.
Meh.
I'll be impressed when Microsoft provides save-as-XHTML and save-as-clean-XML options from Word that write human-readable files without oodles of proprietary namespaces, useless attributes, and structure that only a Philadelphia lawyer could love.
(I say this having just gone through my semi-annual search of third-party conversion software in the neverending quest to figure out a way to get from Word documents to rationally structured XML.)
Sure it will be XML. It will be that embraced and extended XML M$ keeps talking about... Sure you'll give us the details, but a non-standard XML implementation isn't really "open".
Why wait? Why not release specifications of all current and previous Office document formats today?
What I want to know is, will this new format separate information from presentation?
For instance, will the format be
<font name="arial" size="18" style="bold">my heading</font>
or will it be
<heading level="2">my heading</heading>
I definitely prefer the latter (with information and presentation separated), but sadly I think it is more likely that we'll see the former.
If you have the presentation separately then it is much easier to for instance standardize a look a feel within a company.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Gee .. using a zip file to store a few XML files and images. I've never seen anything innovative like this before *cough*OpenOffice.org*cough*
Of course, they have the OPTION of just going with a pretty decent already-designed XML/zip-based file format, but we all know they're going to be re-inventing the wheel on this one. Play nice with others? Never! And I wonder what kind of "extensions" to XML they'll managed to squeeze into it? :)
But hey, I guess it's still a step in the right direction for them. It pretty much kills the OpenOffice advantage of file format lock-in.
(Of course, OO still has the advantage on price...)
Where they enforce their patents. on open source projects. MS Files for Broad XML/Word-processing Patent in NZ
Microsoft profits off of vendor lockin. Barring legal decisions which they are actually made to obey, I can't envision them ever doing anything to change that situation.
No doubt it will be "open" to anybody willing to sign something saying they won't develop a competing product or tell anybody what they read, or something equally worthless. They may SAY they won't do that, but I'll have to actually see it happen to believe it and even then I'll be looking the gift horse carefully in the mouth. Any patents on it? Odd restrictions in the fine print? Other tricks I'm not enough of a lawyer to spot? Microsoft has to prove they can be trusted to do something like this, and prove it thoroughly - I for one don't trust them and will be extremely wary.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
If this interview is correct, it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats
It means no such thing. Simply because Microsoft's marketing department labelled the format "Open" does not make it so. How many people do you see sharing Microsoft's "Shared Source"? Right.
There are all manner of ways that MS can and will continue to maintain a stranglehold on its file formats. DRM. Patents. Proprietary binary extensions. These formats are "open" in name only. Hopefully the legal experts responsible for enforcing Microsoft's obligations in this matter see through this charade and compel real interoperability.
XML files along with images files etc. inside a zip file? Is this a way to publish and control another standard to undermine OASIS (the stanarized format for OpenOffice 2.0 and (KWord 1.4))?
Microsoft developers create something useful....until it gets squashed by someone from higher up and/or marketing.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
XML != Non-Proprietary
I propose two new doc formats both XML(ish).
My Doc
Hello World
or
0xDEADBEEFCAFEBABEFACE0FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
They're both XML(ish) so they must be non-proprietary, and *anyone* will be able to edit their own documents without Microsoft Word right?
Hopefully this file format change will bring about the end of ever-changing file formats from one version of an app to the next. Who among us doesn't have files saved in an old version of, say, Word, which can no longer be read correctly in a newer version of Word?
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
First, an earthquake. Then the sun must be dark as sack cloth and the moon as red as blood...and then Microsoft opens up their file formats.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Whats the license of the docs explaining XML format ?
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
Nice /.ing there... all I see is:
;P
Server Error in '/' Application.
Runtime Error
They should move over to apache
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
Microsoft using an XML file instead of a traditional DOC file is the sort of push I had been expecting for quite some time. XML has been accepted by the community for the most part, but no one has taken steps to give it that "over-the-edge" push that would make it main stream.
http://www.allometry.com
I'm sure that this was some brilliant idea of the MS Office team. "Hey.. let's store our files in a compressed XML format!" says Developer 1. "Wow, what an original idea!" remarks Developer 2.
And I bet they're all conviced they thought of it first. Oh... And to add injury to insult, I bet that instead of working with Sun or whomever on a truely open standard. They will totally re-invent and try to force everyone to follow *their* "standard".
It's interesting that they're doing this. I've been playing with OOo 2.0 beta lately, both under windows and *nix. I'm an Office user, but a home user, not a power user (I'm not a business dealing in several hundred page docs, I just do my homework). And I basically can't see any particular difference between the two packages. I have Office 2000, and so I'm using it, but I'd probably be perfectly comfortable using only OOo (2.0, I hate 1.1)
Anyway, my point is that MS is making it clear that they're not threatened by competing packages, and I'm not entirely sure why not. OOo could easily replace Office for many (I hesitate to say most) users, and if we switch to totally open formats, they'll be able to interoperate without any difficulties. I'm not trying to say that OOo is in a position to hurt Office...but I'm curious if it might be. MS doesn't seem to think so, and I'm really, really wondering what makes them so nonchalant.
The one thing that these others have in common, that MS Office lacks, is support for the OpenDocument DTD. OpenOffice.org v2 will use OpenDocument as its main format.
Note that many of the articles linked to by the original post express skepticism about how open MS' XML will actually be. Recall that in the last year, and even in the last weeks, MS has sought patents from the USPTO for XML and XML related functions. And is even now pushing to get legislation in Europe to make those same patents valid in the EU. That smacks more of a PR stunt rather than an actual opening up.
Furthermore, since the articles don't mention the current leaders in productivity tools with XML-based formats (i.e. OpenOffice.org or StarOffice), that looks all the more like warmed over press release being passed of onto the public as news. What's next? A press release about MS suddenly supporting PDF export like in OOo or StarOffice?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I'll believe it when I see it, from the company that said "the binary is the specification". Far too often it seems like these announcements are followed up with "small changes" that add that little proprietary touch to what could be an open format.
I click on the link and get an ASPX (ASP.NET) runtime error..
LMAO..
A refresh seems have it just report a generic (properly rendered) "there is a problem with the forums" page.
For those who don't want to watch the video, the new format will supposedly offer a %75 improvement in file size. The old, binary format did not use any compression at all. Some of the other features include having the formatting information at the end of the file so that a half transmitted file still contains all the content.
Access to the MSDN documentation will require a MSDN developer's subscription and a signed NDA. The NDA will of course forbid the use of file format specification in unsecured software. Appropriate copyright, patent and other licensing fees will be required of developers writing commercial software to access the new file format.
All kidding aside, I think any hope about this is misplaced. There will no doubt be numerous restrictions on the use of the format information.
There's also the fact that MS has done quite a bit to document their Office Formats in the past. The major issue is that the documentation differs significantly from the implementations.
In other words, this is a load of marketing, designed to grab a few buzz words so the sales staff can toss around the phrase "Open Format" when necessary.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Even with OO as good as it has gotten I still have trouble trading documents with people.
Maybe now that will end. Maybe I will be able to use the faster loading kword than OO soon too.
It will be interesting to watch the aftermath.
With document format soon to be history office applications will need to compete on price and quality.
It will be interesting to see who the winners will be with the format question out of the way.
Will quality improve? Will price improve? Will people go with whatever is cheapest regardless of quality?
I've been doing this for a while:
Yawn. This is a great idea, but not anything new. Microsoft should have done this years ago, as there is an obvious benefit to their customers and innovation is obviously moving to open formats. They would have done it earlier if they didn't need so depserately competition to spur them into action. IE7, XML Office ... what's next? Bash at the Windows DOS prompt?
An employee suggested to me that we use Openoffice 2.0 on a few machines here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using Openoffice instead of having to buy MS Office 2k3. So I decided to let him install Openoffice onto 5 PC's to see how the employees got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using Openoffice at home and he hadn't reported any problems - why not try it on our machines?
Once he'd got the machines up and running with Openoffice we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: Openoffice was a pretty good replacement for the Microsoft Products we'd used before and the users could still do their work as normal.
Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from our employees. Users could not do things they could before (like Visual Basic in Excel). The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when the Openoffice "writer" suddenly crashed, destroying the 70 page legal document he had been working on.
Needless to say, the Openoffice team offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee remove Openoffice from the PC's and lets just say he's not with us anymore.
In particular; consider "Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas." taken from the same page...
What changed? How is that an "improvement" exactly?
And whatever happened to Office Integrated Rights Management
You want it, you install and use it ('it' being the Rights Management Server, which is basically a fancy keyserver). Digitally signing XML docs (even those in DOCX/XLSX like zip-containers) is no big deal, Java JARs have been doing it for years, and encrypting them isn't much of a bother either. Of course, if you don't use it, your docs will be easily readable by anyone else, man or machine.
And even if you do use it, 3rd parties who have your keys can decrypt your documents and then use their favorite tool to process them (it's, after all, XML).
What about patents?
Patents concerns were discussed when the Office 2003 schemas were licensed, this new format is being licensed under the same terms.
And regarding the standards-submission process, did you actually have a point in there, or did you just have the urge on defecate on the Slashdot Comments Page?
Fact: WMV is popular. WMV is currently licensed to hardware makers like Samsung using 1-to-1 deals with MS. It's in Microsoft's business interest to standardize it so that any hardware maker can, for a standardized royalty, use it in their devices (nothing says standards have to be free; MP3 isn't, for example). And AFAIK the committee will not endorse one format only, even if WMV is blessed by the committee, other formats will still be used.
Go somewhere random
give me a break....
Bravo ms.
Funny how time flies...
So, now that we've got billions of word 2002/2003/XP and excel/ppt docs sitting around, why can't they just open the spec up to those as well so we don't have to resave in the new format...
Storing everything in a zip file sounds like what apple does with nearly everything now. ".app" is just a special folder with a bunch of stuff in it. Best part is... I can open that up. Find "uglyicon.tiff" and change it to what ever the heck I want.
Hopefully this goes through and we will be able to hand edit Word files.
Microsoft just said something in public. Slashdot and other forums are now going to analyze the idea to death and Microsoft gets to run off with all the free ideas/advice.
Suggestion . . . add a copyright/prior-art statement to the bottom of anything you post about a Microsoft idea which you discuss. That way, when you find that they have scammed your idea and put it into a product, you can go back and claim ownership.
...Microsoft would be releasing updates for Office 2000, XP, and 2003...
Any chance they'll try to cut out users using pirated versions of Office, or do you think they'll let it fly like the GDI bug fix?
a converter for old .doc to new XML?
<?xml version="1.0"?>; ¡±á
<msword>
ÐÏà
...
</msword>
Microsoft announces that they are going to do something that Slashdot has wanted them to do for ages, and Slashdot proceeds to find faults with it?
You can't have everything perfect. They are doing a Good Thing, yet they still get ripped to shreads.
It's like saying that it's bad for Bill Gates to 'only' give a few millions to charities. So what if it isn't a lot of his money, he's still giving out millions.
Atleast they are opening up somethings and being considerate (whether for selfish or non-selfish reasons doesn't matter) to other companies.
But of course they are Microsoft, thus are Totally Evil and even if they found and released free of charge and free of any restrictions, the cure to cancer, formulated a reliable plan to end world hunger, AND found a way for geeks to get laid, they would still be seen as Totally Evil.
Heck, Slashdot would probably say that their plan didn't solve world hunger fast enough.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
Your turn, open up the Bitkeeper metadata. :-)
Seriously, I wonder if Microsoft might (unexpectedly) be starting a new trend in openness of file formats for proprietary software in general? After all, they do have some influence in the industry.
The interesting thing is that all this server based control and logging of DMR'd functions gives an enormous boost to the type of information available for international and corporate espionage. Through backdoors, security holes or escrow keys it was possible before to get only the documents themselves for the most part. Now it's possible to monitor who's collaborating with who, and see everyone in the distribution chain.
That much can be guessed even now during the vaporware stages. However, as more technical information becomes available it will be possible to guess whether these same functions can be used for more than monitoring and can actually be used to stifle or suppress dissent or specific individuals or groups.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Steve to Bill: We finally did it. We included every possible feature in word, excel in power point. What else can we do?
Bill to Steve: Add more auto correcting. Users don't know what they mean to write. Let the software write the entire document for them.
Steve to Bill: Users might actually figure out that auto-correcting is worthless. They might start buying _less_ copies.
Bill to Steve: Lets try a different file standard. Then everyone else will have to upgrade if one person upgrades.
Steve to Bill: We've already upgraded to XML and changed file formats every time. Customers are going to freak out.
Bill to Steve: Lets make a new version of XML. No one will complain and everyone will upgrade.
It's an improvement for Microsoft. Now they don't have to make all those pesky hidden API calls and hashed up binary formats that even their own developers must have trouble with decyphering.
Now they can just hold up the money bowl and say, 'Sure, everyone can read what it says, but we happen to have a law that says you have to pay up if you can read. And you'll have to say pretty, pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top.'
Can I still change my Dutch "Nee" to a "Ja"?
peace
I love it how they do something everyone else has been doing for years and they act as if they're god's gift to humanity because of it.
"Our Glorious Scientists have slashed disease rates ten times!" Yes, when you no longer sleep in your own feces and the whole ten person family doesn't eat with their unwashed hands from the same bowl, it does tend to improve hygeine.
Microsoft.dieplzkthx();
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
It's a trick. Get an axe.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
You've got your history a little confused there. ARC was evil because of copyright issues - the LZW patent may have come into play as well, but the main problem was the SEA v. Katz lawsuit over copyright on the file format - and so Phil Katz created ZIP as a free replacement. There was no need to replace the already-free ZIP with a "freer" format. In recent years there's been some proprietary embrace-and-extend applied to ZIP, especially in the realm of encryption (the original ZIP's encryption algorithm was inadequate) but those extensions are arguably violations of the informal copyleft Katz put on ZIP.
.Z and .gz.
The gzip format was created to replace Unix "compress", not ZIP or ARC (which would have been, from the point of view of an early gzip user, toy formats for PC weenies - "get a real computer!") and there may have been patent issues there too, but I think the main reason for the switch from compress to gzip was simply an improvement in compression ratios. Archive formats like ARC and ZIP were never directly competing with compression-only formats like
Again M$ makes it sound like they're doing the planet a favour. In the meantime they're doing everything in their power to lock consumers in on the serve-side and are patenting every flippin' conceivable method or process that could somehow be linked to their products
No matter how stupid these patents may seen at the time, make no mistake about it M$ will fore go a war on file formats and use patents to maintain their proprietary standards.
IMHO any government in hte FREE world has an obligation to ensure that the information they are creating on the public's behalf be done so using non-proprietary and open software. This is especially true given the ever-gorwing threat of patents.
Hear me now... believe me later!
Which among us? We'll I'm one that has never seen this happen. Say what you will about changig formats but I've never seen a newer version of Word NOT open an older DOC file. I'd like to see a WORD file you cannot open with a newer version of Word. Post your DOC file online somewhere and tell me what version of Word the file was originally created in and what version doesn't open it. I've never seen this, and I'd love to see an example of it.
I recognize that this post's subject is rather provocative, but Microsoft really isn't about to give up one of their keys to maintaining their market share.
They're simply appeasing government agencies concerned with data longevity with this announcment; much of MS's file format is binary and hence the world turns around again.
If they really wanted to embrace open document formats they would announce a coopertave (and I mean cooperative) partnership with the OpenOffice team.
To put it crudely, it's bullshit.
Micrsoft patents XML.
Profit!!
The model of using lock-in as nearly the only way to force customers into staying with the product family may be over. It has been frustrating too many paying customers for too long.
:-)
Microsoft has lots (and lots and lots) of very very smart, motivated developers and marketers, and there is always the hope that they can begin to use those resources to build a product that really competes without resotring to bogus, short term ploys like lock-in.
Hmmm... Who turned on my "hopefulness neuron" today?
It's ironic to see Microsoft is starting to use Open Source to make more money. Now on next versions of Office they will tout their user base that "Use our product, so that you can interchange your files with OO.o users". I wish they were planning to release a service pack for previous versions of office for that kind of file format support.
But whatever it is, that move will be good for OO.o users, and also to OO.o developers.
In other news, Microsoft uses its patent to stop anyone converting anything to XML, effectively closing the format.
Anyway, if it's proper XML (no, I haven't RTFA) it shouldn't be too difficult for someone to figure out what's going on. Certainly less hassle than trying to decode binary. No license, no NDA.
I don't know what Microsoft's game is here, to be honest. If they are hoping for patents to help them out, people will work around it by using patent-free zones. I forsee a company in India setting up a web based service doing MS XML to OASIS document conversion.
We have both Office 95 Pro and Office 97 Pro at home, and I actually prefer to use the former (older) version when I have to produce Word documents.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
That is for Office 2003 which obviously isn't open. This article is refering to the next version of office. Now many of these restrictions MAY still exist with the next version, but we'll have to wait and see.
;-) Again, we'll have to wait and see, but your above reference doesn't apply to what is being discussed (except to point out past conditions).
Presumably, much of this is going away since they are saying the new version will be open, but what is "open" to MS may not be quite what you'd expect
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
First of all, the entire MSDN library can easily be accessed online (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/), second an MSDN subscription doesn't involve any kind of NDA. The only times I've personally come across this was with pre-release stuff and with their limited beta programs and in those cases it's nothing that any other company doesn't do either.
no big deal.. they cannot stop OO.o users from downloading and installing a filter that is made in some region that is not covered by their patent.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, biblical?
Ray: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor... real Wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies.
Venkman: Rivers and seas boiling!
Egon: 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanos.
Winston:The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!
> Hopefully this file format change will bring about the end of ever-changing file formats from one version of an app to the next.
Somehow I doubt that the release of yet another format is going to mean the end of ever-changing formats.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Great, now I'll have people calling me up asking "what program do I use to open a 'dot D O C X' file with?"
Free MacMini
Watch the video - the entire file format is completely open.
Honestly, I am not going to believe it until I see it.
Microsoft has lied before.
It's quite possible they don't intend to open their file formats at all, they just intend to make the Washington Post and its readers think they've opened their file formats. In the meantime, if Microsoft actually wanted to "end the era of closed file formats", all they'd have to do is, you know, actually comply with the letter of the antitrust decision currently handed down against them in the E.U. and the spirit of the toothless antitrust "settlement" currently in effect against them in the U.S.. Mysteriously, they haven't.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
expect this format to be XML with tons of binary CDATA sections that are neither human readable nor parseable with anything but Microsoft stuff.
If you think that their use of XML will make the format any more "open" then they should bundle a bridge with their Office suite because you'll buy anything.
Just 2 hours ago while getting home I noticed lots of new posters in the train advertising to replace your old MS Office with a newer one. "Microsoft Office evolves". Of course, I thought (grinning :)), they didn't change file format for a long time, so now they just have to resort to this. Who would voluntary buy a new office if most people still don't use all features of Word 2? But now Microsoft can say - hey, you asked for this, we are just complying. And, ridiculous, it's true, but net result is still the same.
And it doesn't matter it's possible to save in the old format - as long as new format is default, you will be sent attachments you cannot read. Just remember how it was since version 2 to 97.
Remember that XML patent MS received for linking objects in an XML document? I bet the XML format is designed so that patent covers everything from font files to page formats in their new XML format. So if you want to be able to use MS file formats, you'll have to pay a hefty patent licensing fee.
We are the 198 proof..
If they are hoping for patents to help them out, people will work around it by using patent-free zones. I forsee a company in India setting up a web based service doing MS XML to OASIS document conversion.
Well, that will be great for India, but anyone who tries to sell that software in the US will be SOL.
Remember original Halloween document? Remember the part about using patents and litigation to kill Open Source?
FUD isn't working, so they're gearing up to toss this to the legal team. Soon, it will be a DMCA violation to have your Office Suite read Microsoft formats.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
As other posters have pointed out, and is usually the case with M$ rhetoric, if they had really meant to be open, there are much better directions they could have taken. Let's be reminded that the document-format issue is crucial PR to M$ because they are at risk of losing business (as they should be!) due to legislation protecting the public from government use of closed tools. We have to stop governments hiding our data in proprietary ghettos. Let's get M$ out of public office, where it does not belong. They've fed at the public trough too long already. Then let's finish the job and put them out of business entirely.
Enderle yesterday, M$ today, why is this propaganda being funneled straight to the front page? When did /. policy become, "They make sh1t up, and we print it"? It's an insult to the intelligence.
you had me at #!
I know where you are coming from -- Office 97 broke the outline list feature -- something to do with HTML compatibility. I preferred the 95/v4 way of doing things.
But life moves on -- I like Word 2003 because of the Style Palette, a pretty trivial feature but one that save mouse clicks.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Office 2003 XML Reference Schema Patent License
Just TRY to use the Office XML Specification in an Open Source application. Go ahead, I dare you.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
They are still evil, right?
Right?
If this interview is correct, it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats. ...and the end of one of the biggest arguments against governmental use of Microsoft Office. On the plus side, at least this would make it easier for public documents to be used by anyone.
To those worried about whether or not it's patented. Just think about the fuss that would be raised if Microsoft used a patent defense against people opening these files with non-MS products on public documents. I don't see why people haven't realized that putting public documents in Microsoft formats means that in the end they will be forced to allow anyone to use them. Maybe not now, but they'll never be able to convince a jury that it's illegal to crack the format when it's being used on public data.
Direct away from face when opening.
Micro$oft is amazingly full of it again. Here we see the threat caused by OpenOffice, who submited these standards to OASIS btw, is so great that MS had to pull an Al Gore and "invent" them. (Appologies to the Dems and Apple Fans). Truth is MS is now using OOo's standards. Amazing how people spin information to sway the lesser informed.
excuse me while I puke....
Why is it getting here so damn cold? Oh! Odds are, hell is frozen over by now!
Billzebub, turn that heater up, will ya?!
In other words, Microsoft is now creating a new document file format that can't be read by Office 2000 users. Their installed base is their biggest enemy, since Office 97 and 2000 are both more than adequate for most users' needs. And Office 2000 isn't crippled by DRM and activation. No one wants to upgrade. How can Microsoft possibly get rid of their old non-activation software that users are very happy with? Incompatible file formats! Office 2K users will now start getting these zipped XML files as e-mail attachments from Office 200x users, and not be able to read them.
If they are true to form, this 'open format xml' will be non standard, and they will retain rights to the non standard extensions.
Ill put money down that its just a publicity stunt to make people think they are being 'more open'.
The important thing to ask always is 'how do they make money and increase market share/control off this decision'? If you cant find reasons, then its just marketing fluff.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"The new formats will apparently include XML files along with other files (images, etc) inside of a Zip file."
Isn't that pretty much the same as what OOo uses?
I'll have to see it to believe it. There is bound to be a catch to this strategy -- probably something to do with patents. M$ is shiftier than a 10 speed clutch. After all, it would be totally irresponsible of them to just give away some of their valuable monopoly power for nothing. A new version of Office with a truly open file format would allow customers to get off of the infamous M$ treadmill: they'd feel free to move to an alternative office suite and still be able to make use of the new, open M$ document format. As a result, sales and profits would decline noticeably. The stockholders wouldn't like that. And since M$ has always put the interests of their stockholders before those of their customers, you (and the stockholders) can bank on reality turning out differently from the hype.
This might turn out to be counter productive for Microsoft, though. If I was running a business I would see this as forcing a lock-in to Microsoft products with an unknown licensing cost in the future. Now you can't predict what the licensing cost will be, but if you are using a format that is open and for which there are no impedimemts to implementation (OASIS format) then I would look very seriously at the OASIS format as an option such that my company's ability to read past documents was not tied to a particular format. At the very least I would mandate that all past, present, and future documents be archived in some format or other that is likely to be widely readable and modifiable in the future. E.g. mandate that all Word docs also get saved in html and pdf format in addition to the native doc format, and add a requirement to archive copies in the OASIS format as support for that becomes available.
I call bullshit
Did you actually read the story at all?
"The developer likewise announced that Microsoft would be releasing updates for Office 2000, XP, and 2003 to read and write the new formats when the new version of Office is released."
There have always been cross-format converters available when new formats are announced.
And those conveters have always sucked too. Sucked so badly that customers have had to "upgrade" (sic) anyway to continue being able to exhancge documents with the rest of the world.
This is just another forced upgrade treadmill that users are going to have to get on, once again.
No news here, now move along please. And don't forget to plan into your next year's budget for that Office 12 upgrade.
Fwooooooosh!
You are of course assuming business people use considerations beyond "Is this what I'm familiar with?" and "Will this be compatible with my customers?"
They don't.
The things we consider important are not factors to most businesses, even though making them a factor would be better for the business in the long run.
Long term outlooks like the one you're discussing are dead in America. You're lucky to get a manager who looks beyond the next quarter, let alone beyond the next major software upgrade cycle!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
These XML files will not replace .DOC, .XLS, .PPT, and .MDB. It will merely augment them for purposes of moving back and forth between other applications. The fact MS will have them as the default format smells of ass kissing.
.PPT file with everything embedded in it?
.mA (Maya ASCII) and .mB (Maya Binary) formats.
But really they serve no purpose other than that because who is going to prep a business presentation to be shown in PowerPoint using an archive file with everything in it as opposed to using a single
If your files are created in an MS Office app and are destined to be used/printed on an MS Office app, then these new formats would be pointless anyways. I just hope MS allows you to change the default back to the proprietary formats.
A similar model for this already exists within Alias' Maya software with its
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
My crystal ball predictions:
MS files patent on XML and then sues others for using "their" technology. Oh, wait...deja vu?
here...
here...
here...
Open standard? My ass. If MS has their way, XML will be THEIR technology and you can use it if you pay for it. At the very least, it seems that their patent licensing allows you to read their format.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Oh I see, microsoft....
hurrah, openoffice.org. Don't look back, how about spreadopenoffice.org ?
g'day (celebrating removal of human check)
Tod the human (barely)
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Microsoft is opening the file format and banking on the concept that their products interoperate flawlessly, are easy to install and maintain, and are supported by a well known company that isn't going anywhere.
The free open source community simply can not compete with a traditional company on service and interoperability, especially when you consider that OSS is not really a community, but small collections of developers who go their own way on things. That's why we have 500000000 flavors of linux and a significant portion of OSS development is spent just trying to get your software working on all the flavors instead of innovating.
The FOSS community will not "defeat" Microsoft until they can actually work together more and focus on innovation instead of the "me-too" copying that is going on now. The current strategy means FOSS is lagging behind the market by months and in some cases years.
...or you would have known to write it as:
Open Schmopen
Oy vay!
it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats
I look forward to seeing the xml version of wmv!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/
:)
Try not to sign any rouge NDAs while you browse the free MSDN library.
Uhm ... try reading the license.
Looks kinda like a BSD license, don't it?
Yeah, especially the part that says "You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights."
But I know what the gist of half of them will be. "Open? Hah! M$ is the suxorz!".
Shut up. It's a step in the right direction. Rather than naysay *everything* that's ever done, perhaps you could send off a nice, non-sarcastic email to the nice folks at MS saying how much you approve of this first tep, and hope that it is leading to a true open format.
Carrot and stick guys, carrot and stick.
Last post!
Finish reading, numnuts.
/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp."
Stripped down to its essence, the license says:
Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license under Microsoft's Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.
If you distribute, license or sell a Licensed Implementation, this license is conditioned upon you requiring that the following notice be prominently displayed in all copies and derivative works of your source code and in copies of the documentation and licenses associated with your Licensed Implementation:
"This product may incorporate intellectual property owned by Microsoft Corporation. The terms and conditions upon which Microsoft is licensing such intellectual property may be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef
By including the above notice in a Licensed Implementation, you will be deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions of this license. You are not licensed to distribute a Licensed Implementation under license terms and conditions that prohibit the terms and conditions of this license.
You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights.
Microsoft reserves the right to terminate this license grant if you sue Microsoft or any of Microsoft's affiliates for patent infringement over claims relating to reading or writing of files that comply with the Office Schemas. This license is perpetual subject to this reservation.
So basically, the license grants you perpetual rights to read or write 'their' schema so long as you don't sue them for patent infringement, and you do display their blurb in your source and docs. You can't sublicense 'their' schema, but no problem, other can get the same license you got, simply by attaching the blurb.
Looks a lot like the *more* free BSD license!
So they make it XML. Great. Now if only there were humans left who were allowed to parse the XML without explicit approval from MS.
The proprietary document formats of Office applications has been Microsoft's ace-up-the-sleeve since MS Office became the dominant office suite back in the mid 90's. During the MS anti-trust brouhaha of 1999-2002 era, I kept saying that all the government needed to do was make Microsoft open up it's file formats so that any competing application could read/write/edit documents on an equal basis. If they go this route, Microsoft will finally have to compete based on quality and price.
That could be the end of MS Office hegemony.
The entire reason any word processor (or office suite) gains entry and marketshare is because it is unofficially used at home (something that the anal-retentive would call piracy; in reality its advertising, but I digress).
If MS makes it difficult to use unofficially, or makes the documents so difficult to use that people are worried they are tracked, people will simply use a different word processor. The most likely candidate is older versions of MS Office, but it will open the door for Open Office. Not Corel. Corel couldn't sell water in the desert.
But seriously, this release has the potential to do for Microsoft what Netware 4 did to Novell... kill the product and almost take the company with it.
That's a very interesting case- can I be sued if I reverse engineered a Microsoft binary because a public document that I wanted to obtain via FOIA was only published in DOC format? Then I could sue the state or governing body for not providing me access...
What a fascinating case that would be.
Or not.
http://www.microsoft.com/Office/xml/faq.mspx
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
you don't seriously expect us to believe that MSFT is going to use non-proprietary formats, do you?
...
At least try to make it believable
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I had to look at the calender to be sure it wasn't April 1st.
It is imperative that I give you the following information, which Microsoft wants concealed from the public. Note that some of the facts I plan to use in this letter were provided to me by a highly educated person who managed to escape Microsoft's lawless, crude indoctrination and is consequently believable. If there is one truth in this world, it's that if we pronounce the truth and renounce the lies, then the sea of gnosticism, on which Microsoft so heavily relies, will begin to dry up. Here are a few points to ponder:
1. Microsoft does not have a record of tolerance.
2. Microsoft is certifiably misguided.
3. Several of Microsoft's comrades, who asked to remain nameless, informed me of Microsoft's secret plans to distract attention from more important issues.
Those points may at first seem unrelated, but when you connect the dots, it becomes clear that Microsoft hates it when you say that the foundation and wellspring of its musings is the odious doctrine of incendiarism. It really hates it when you say that. Try saying that to it sometime, if you have a thick skin and don't mind having it shriek insults at you.
Nobody wants Microsoft to take control of a nation and suck it dry, but Microsoft insists on doing it anyway. What I think -- and I'm no specialist -- is that I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to view the realms of frotteurism and paternalism not as two opposing poles, but as two continua. Of course, it thinks we want it to tear down everything that can possibly be regarded as a support of cultural elevation. Excuse me, but maybe the tone of its accusations is eerily reminiscent of that of foolish cretins of the late 1940s, in the sense that many people respond to its pushy declamations in the same way that they respond to television dramas. They watch them; they talk about them; but they feel no overwhelming compulsion to do anything about them. That's why I insist we raise issues, as opposed to guns or knives. Worst of all, our children's children would never forgive us for letting Microsoft perpetuate the nonsense known technically as the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. There are rumors circulating that Microsoft is a scion of the most dour twerps I've ever seen, so let me just clarify something: Microsoft refers to a variety of things using the word "photochronographical". Translating this bit of jargon into English isn't easy. Basically, it's saying that granting it complete control over our lives is as important as breathing air. At any rate, I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world filled with open spaces and beautiful wilderness -- not in a dark, power-hungry world run by blockish materialistic-types. Microsoft's brethren often reverse the normal process of interpretation. That is, they value the unsaid over the said, the obscure over the clear.
Microsoft's bookish fantasy fits neatly into its ghastly model of society. No joke. Microsoft periodically puts up a facade of reform. However, underneath the pretty surface, it's always business as usual.
Lest I forget to mention this later, Microsoft fervently believes that its activities are on the up-and-up. This shows that it is not merely mistaken about one little fact among millions of facts but that Microsoft has never satisfactorily proved its assertion that we can change the truth if we don't like it the way it is. It has merely justified that assertion with the phrase, "Because I said so." Microsoft recently stated that university professors must conform their theses and conclusions to its patronizing, juvenile prejudices if they want to publish papers and advance their careers. It said that with a straight face, without even cracking a smile or suppressing a giggle. It said it as if it meant it. That's scary, because I am aware that many people may object to the severity of my language. But is there no cause for severity? Naturally, I maintain that there is, because it's a pity that two thousand years after Chr
The new formats will apparently include XML files along with other files (images, etc) inside of a Zip file.
It's good to see how Microsoft remains the driving force for inovation in the IT bussiness...
XML files inside a zip... Who could have thought of that
*gasp in astonishment*
I'm trying to get modded "Interesting Flamebait Informative and Insightful Redundant Troll" *-* Please Help *-*
I would interpret that to mean that they could revoke your ability to distribute at any time. They could stop offering licenses to new users of the patent.
That isn't the end of the world, and if the license turns out to be as unrestricted as it seems, that's pretty excellent. But no, not quite so free as BSD.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
A blizzard moving in, with lows in the -10s...
Read the rest. Anyone can get the exact same license just by including the blurb in their docs & code.
SO you don't need to transfer or sublicense your license, when anyone else can have one too. YOur MS-hatred is blinding you to simple logic.
Does anyone know how MS's "original" and patented format is any different than the OASIS open document format that has been out for a while now?
What does everyone think of the ability to call prior-art if MS litigates a project like OOo for making full compatibility to MS XML doc format?
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
The company I work for has a powerpoint presentation online. There is are no animations, no special transitions, just slides with pretty pictures and some words.
The PHB thinks -any- browser reads HTML and they have a "save as" dialog box for exactly this. So, what's the problem?
Non-IE browsers get a pop-up window telling them
"This presentation contains content that your browser may not be able to show properly. This presentation was optimized for more recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer."
If their open formats are not implemented like my example then MS Management has accepted there's a huge OSS weakness that they have yet to exploit. Maybe they make the open file format license revokable. Besides the obvious IP issues, what could it be?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Add a RETURN and formatting for a section changes, delete a character at end of line and things jump all over the place, backspace has similar...but different result. My bet is the XML for Word is at best a little worse than the HTML Frontpage produces.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
If this is like the standard submitted for .NET, the container of the file format will be completely open but the format of the actual data inside will be obscure. If you read the details of ECMA-335, something that trade press and PHB's can't be bothered to do, you will see that large portions of the .NET class library that you need to do anything useful, like Windows Forms, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET, are not part of the standard.
Microsoft knows that the devil is always in these kinds of details.
They say the mind is the first thing to
This is indeed a heaven-sent for OpenOffice.org people. Now they will not be working against a moving target anymore :)
True. Where is the list of patents that Microsoft has, which specifically apply to the Open Schema? I ask this in ignorance. However, if no such patents apply, you do not need to agree to the license--it effectively would be granting you nothing. It seems to be a cookie-cut document more than anything else.
Ideally, open formats are best for the interoperability they bring between platforms. I am guessing that Microsoft's recent workings with Sun have a lot to do with this move. However, it can also put Microsoft in a position to say "Okay, our formats are open -- we will beat you on sheer usability" and as far as OpenOffice is concerned, Office 2003 does that now. It's simple to use, works well in a corporate environment, documents are easily manipulated and everything else you'd expect. Okay, I know the MS haters will tend to disagree with me here, but some products they make, like Office, are pretty damned good. Choosing open formats just allows for more utility over platforms and I cannot see this as a downside for MS at all. OpenOffice, unless it becomes as streamlined and nice as Office is now, will never replace Office, or even catch up. It remains appealing for people like me who do however, not want to pay the $700 it costs to run Office on their machines.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
So I don't think it's the grandparent post, which pointed out that Microsoft is positioning itselves to try to keep it's monopoly through the use of software patents, who is the "numnut".
Is that a word, by the way?
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
Are they trying to stop governments switching to open document standards by inventing their own? Or has the "binary dump" fileformat meant that they just can't achieve some future functionality that they want to implement? Or both?
Office file format don't lend themselves to datacentre operations: to "manufactured" documents, such as invoice processing, or gas and electricity bills. Are they doing the right thing because they're finally choking on the hairball?
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
What leads you to believe MS Office 13 won't use a slightly different (or very different) XML schema?
The only difference will be the legibility of the format changes between versions.
The Internet is full. Go away.
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpaten tlicense.asp
Patent License
Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.
Except as provided below, Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license under Microsoft's Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas. A "Licensed Implementation" means only those specific portions of a software product that read and write files that are fully compliant with the specifications for the Office Schemas. The term "Necessary Claims" means claims of a patent or patent application (including continuations, continuations-in-part, or reissues) that are owned or controlled by Microsoft and that are necessarily infringed by reading or writing files pursuant to the requirements of the Office Schemas. A claim is necessarily infringed only when it is not possible to avoid infringing when conforming to the specification. Notwithstanding the foregoing, "Necessary Claims" do not include any claims:
(i) that would require a payment of royalties by Microsoft to unaffiliated third parties;
Fair enough
(ii) covering any Enabling Technologies that may be necessary to make or use any product incorporating a Licensed Implementation, or
Means no more OpenOffice or any other wordprocessor
(iii) covering the reading or writing of files other than those complying with the requirements of the specifications for the Office Schemas.
Which means that converting to another file format is illegal. So you're pretty much stuck with MS once you've begun using it. Unless of course you buy the whole Office suite.
"Enabling Technologies" means technologies that may be necessary to make or use any product or portion of a product that complies with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas, but are not expressly set forth or required in those specifications, such as general word processing, spreadsheet or presentation features or functionality, operating system technology, programming interfaces, protocols, and the like.
If you distribute, license or sell a Licensed Implementation, this license is conditioned upon you requiring that the following notice be prominently displayed in all copies and derivative works of your source code and in copies of the documentation and licenses associated with your Licensed Implementation:
"This product may incorporate intellectual property owned by Microsoft Corporation. The terms and conditions upon which Microsoft is licensing such intellectual property may be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp."
By including the above notice in a Licensed Implementation, you will be deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions of this license. You are not licensed to distribute a Licensed Implementation under license terms and conditions that prohibit the terms and conditions of this license.
You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights.
By way of clarification of the foregoing, given the unique role of government institutions, end users will not violate this license by merely reading government documents that constitute files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas, or by using (solely for the purpose of reading such files) any software that enables them to do so. The term "government documents" includes public records.
Microsoft reserves the righ
This may be an indication that they've found a way other than MS Office to make money. Cos it's going to be a big problem for them financially if they haven't. MS Office being one of their most profitable products.
No, it's not a problem. MS used to publish Word/Excel formats and that was when they had viable competition.
Personally I doubt vendor lock had much to do with their undocumented formats. I'd wager that once upon a time the format were designed and code was written to implement that design. As the years and features accumulated the code and format became more of a kludge of a kludge and the documentation was no longer maintained. The infamous "the code is the documentation". Now with the switch to XML they may be starting all over and have an accurate design once again and actually have accurate documentation that could be published.
What they'll have you do is connect to the internet, and using SSL, download the encryption key that "authorizes" the file.
Totally open...in a completely closed kind of way.
You know you are bloated when the XML competitor of your text file format is one-quarter the size!
The license is a perpetual grant and cannot be revoked. http://www.microsoft.com/Office/xml/faq.mspx
Go somewhere random
Who among us doesn't have files saved in an old version of, say, Word, which can no longer be read correctly in a newer version of Word?
Ironically, many people use OO.o for this, seems to be better at deciphering older Word docs than MS does.
What changed? How is that an "improvement" exactly?
Well, when third parties have to do clean room reverse-engineering of these new MSXML document formats to avoid licensing issues, they'll be able to use plain textfile tools to analyze sample documents, instead of having to dump binary files to hex first.
That should make their lives MARGINALLY easier.
whoa! microsoft innovates again! take THAT you derivative open source weenies!
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
It would still be illegal for you to actually use OO.o (or presumably TextEdit.app, Keynote, or anything else that depends on patented algorithms to decipher these formats), unless you were willing to move to "some region that is not covered by their patent." Which probably aren't areas of the world where you'd be particularly interested in living.
However, Microsoft may be walking a tight line here (at least in theory) as they are a convicted Monopolist. I refer you to this quote from Nolo Press' "Patent It Yourself" (p 1/8), on how Patents can be lost:
"The patent owner engages in certain defined types of illegal conduct, that is, commits antitrust or other violations connected with the patent".
I'm not suggesting that Microsofts' patents aren't a threat to the Open Source community; nor am I suggesting that the patents be taken lightly in any way. However, I do have to wonder how much of Steve Balmer's chest-thumping about Patents is just FUD, and perhaps Microsoft isn't as strong on this point as they'd like everyone to believe.
I have no doubt whatsoever that Microsoft would try to pull whatever they can get away with. The question I would like to raise is whether they would actually be successful (or how successful they might actually be); especially given that there are now deep pockets behind Open Source?
I am not a lawyer (nor ever wish to be one ;) ). But I mention this for two reasons. First, for everyone's general awareness. And second, to solicit some input from those who are more knowledgeable in this area of the law.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Most people were bitten by it in the transition from Word 95 to Word 97. The new format (W97) was designed to be future-proof, and is used in all Word version since, but Word 95 (from Office 95... the one that introduced gradient fills in the title bar, IIRC? :) ) couldn't open it.
Then, there's another thing: newer versions of Word added stuff, or interpret the data slightly different, so sometimes you get wrong page borders or formatting when reading .DOCs created in different Word versions.
-- Sig down
Who among us doesn't have files saved in an old version of, say, Word, which can no longer be read correctly in a newer version of Word?
Me.
It is certainly to be welcomed that the file formats are documented.
However, being documented is not the same as being non-proprietary. Microsoft has applied for patents that may apply to the ZIP file format, as well as patents on the XML formats themselves. As long as those patents exist, the formats are proprietary, at least in principle.
There is a good chance that the patents are worthless, but they still cast uncertainty and doubt over non-Microsoft implementations that work to Microsoft's advantage.
Both the public sector and the open source community should insist that Microsoft dedicate all applicable patents to the public domain, or at the very least make a legally binding commitment to providing free and fully transferable licenses with no weird side-conditions (which amounts to the same thing). So far, all Microsoft seems to have offered is free non-transferable licenses, and that is not acceptable if Microsoft wants to claim that these formats are "open".
Who among us doesn't have files saved in an old version of, say, Word, which can no longer be read correctly in a newer version of Word?
Not really. I do have a lot of rather old TeX documents from an older version of TeX, some are 10 or 15 years old. All of them produce results unerringly identical to the old version. I fully expect to be able to use the TeX of 10 or 15 years in the future to still produce exactly the same output from the source. I expect similar things could be said about nroff and the like, but I don't use those, so I can't say for sure.
The really interesting thing is that I now use pdftex on the documents to get PDF output instead of DVI and Postscript. I'm sure if a new display format becomes similarly popular in the future there'll be a version of TeX to compile directly to the new format as well.
I don't fully understand people locking away their documents the way they do...
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I believe that's the first time I've ever seen "XML" and "lightweight parser" in the same sentence.
And, relative to MS Word, it's probably accurate!
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Another difference with the BSD license is the "firstborn child" clause.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
From the FAQ:
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Now when I make Powerpoint presentations for school, I can rest assured that it will not work when I go to present it, since my school will not install the updates to read the new file format...
5...4...3...2...1...submit
...it ain't gonna happen.
Does anyone remember when MS claimed that Office 95 was going to use HTML as its standard document format? (People were ignorant enough about HTML to actually buy that.)
MS's monopoly isn't based on that Windows is easy to install or maintain or use. 95% percent of workplace users only click a handful of icons to start programs and use them. They would hardly know the difference between Windows and Linux/KDE. (For that matter, Windows isn't as easy as the hype has it and Linux isn't as hard as it used to be.)
No, the reason my mother _must_ use Windows at work and at home is that she _must_ be able to share Office documents with people. If it wasn't for that no non-MS software can open and save Office formats correctly, she could switch to a Linux-based solution any day.
And this is why the Office formats are such enormous mysteries. (Even though MS has claimed that they are "open" for years.) Come on, how complicated can formatting code be? Even with MS's "documentation," SUN has failed to decrypt that code!
The secrecy and proprietarity of the Office formats is MS's most valuable asset. The day people can share Word and Excel documents using any application of their choice, MS is just another competitor. And that's why this is as much b*llsh*t as when they claimed that HTML was going to be the new document standard.
<wordfile>
<obfuscation>
Bj1mSC0u/6urolbn2TonoDN031NvKI6g5sOlXVJ8F2s24fUja
hfCEWGYPtdyv7ofqlLN2+
f+QqQ1HPV+ilaf2r4aGa/
ikDwEvijut1u9LSrghz7n
i0A0tcjWoDggf7aSwPVd7
E3SSpREgkgj9sEdBnKsqv
WwOqzy/WZMGSa6Ywk6sve
UAx6jsqOlUpZR7didvU+5
que3SaKvRQfitMfYjrLEa
wJ/6jU7LM4sr7Ixrt+ltO
0yGx+LAThrFtbuFNWs/1x
ZTweCL6M0WfMgc2qYsaQy
qarxStWI5dbav85H+DumE
spn9haF8863KDAUQ8IlHp
</obfuscation>
</wordfile>
RTFA, it states quite specifically, that if you take the new doc extensions and rename them with a zip extension you can view the data in pkzip or any other program that can open zip files.
Yes, that is a technical feature. Technically, you can also manipulate the XML files.
The problem is that Microsoft appears to be patenting those formats, so while you can technically do all these things, it isn't clear that you can do so legally. Microsoft isn't going to go after you for doing this, but the legal risk may keep commercial competitors from implementing the format.
I hate MS, but lets not automatically assume they are evil all the time. They very well could be evil just most of the time.
The fact that they have attempted to patent the formats tells you something...
So Microsoft will zip this all up to save disk space (up to 75% savings)?
With disk space so cheap, why would you want to slow down the opening and saving of each document?
Stupid decision in my mind, unless you need some patented technology (don't forget about MS's patent license required) to read/write to the new "open" format.
Exactly, the schema are soooo open that we patented them.
And, the XML is NOT pretty. It could win prizes as obfuscated code. Ever seen what a Word doc looks like when saved as HTML? Ugh-lee! This is worse.
God, don't rub it in please.... ... And when I went home, there were these big posters hanging around in the station, "Microsoft Office has evolved, have you?"
Just today exactly that happened to me, with a looming deadline etc...
Very bad for the heart, when you're running on caffeine, nicotine and lack of sleep (I'm a student, in the middle of exams, papers to bring in and all that merry stuff.)
I was soooooo mad, in my exhausted, mind-scrambling rage, almost threw a bunch of computers through the window.
People walked around in a wide circle, away from me, wearing a *very* menacing look.
Sigh. So fed up with this. The world is quickly starting to be really, really dependant on computer-data, and yet the single biggest softwareprovider releases broken stuff, again and again.
Oh, and why wasn't a single computer in the whole acadamy able to read my RTF-file, or supposedly-Word compatible file output from a OS X computer????
Ok, end of rant. But this is how become what they are, I'm afraid. Sure feel like starting a flamewar, now. Urg.
I'll believe it when I see it. The problem isn't going away until the customer is the one that specifies the format. Example: The banking industry.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
It's Microsoft, don't expect to be able to do anything outside of their tools. Others have pointed to the ongoing use of DRM to tie the format to their "Servers". I further imagine they will have some oddball and patented method to "zip" the file and will promote copyrighted fonts. Despite being called "open" it's all the usual nightmare that makes it so a Word DOC looks different as soon as you move it to another computer. In short, no change should be anticipated. Your work goes in and it won't come out the way you thought it would.
Microsoft will never be the best way to standardize the look and feel of your company's information. Word has never worked with Word and it won't now. Real open standard's, such as Adobe's PDF, work much better and always will.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Unfortunately, I don't think things will change very soon, this sounds much more like a PR coup to me. Let's say company X buys the latest version of MS-Office with XML documents, but company X has several clients that still use MSO2k or MSO-XP, which don't support the new XML format... Company X will then use it's shiny new MS-Office to produce standard .doc files and there goes the "open" format...
The reason why OpenOffice.org has trouble getting into corporations is because so many clients use MS-Office, so it's easier to use the .doc file format... things won't magically change because MS is doing it, clients will still use older versions of MS-Office, so .doc will still be the dominant document file format for quite a while.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Right. And their terms look totally excellent. It still seems slightly concerning to me:
The proprietors of OpenOffice receive a perpetual license to use those patents. Any user of OpenOffice also receives a perpetual license from Microsoft (The proprietors of OpenOffice cannot sublicense directly).
At some point in the future, if Microsoft has a change of heart, they cannot revoke those licenses. Got it.
Can they, however, refuse to grant new licenses to new users of OpenOffice? I don't see why not. If they can do so, that may preclude the distribution of software that uses these patents under the GPL in nations that enforce software patents.
If you see what I mean. I'm not a lawyer, and I highly doubt that my analysis is entirely correct. But I still think this patent license may not be entirely capital-FSF-Free. Whether or not you prefer capital-FSF-Free, that could have practical implications.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
The new format (W97) was designed to be future-proof, and is used in all Word version since, but Word 95 (from Office 95... the one that introduced gradient fills in the title bar, IIRC? :) ) couldn't open it.
You are talking about the opposite...opening a new file format in an old version of the program. That's not at all unusual. I dare say most software out there will not successfully handle a file made with a newer version of the program.
The original poster was talking about opening and OLDER format file with a NEWER version of the software. I've personally never seen any evidence of that ever happening.
That is still significantly different from the BSD or GPL licenses.
Every distribution of your software requires a patent license from Microsoft. BSD and GPL software typically only require a license from whoever wrote the software.
This is a practical problem for many OSS developers, your long quote notwithstanding.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
What you, and everyone else that keeps posting references to the Office 2003 schema and related license, don't get is that this is a NEW format.
It is a new XML schema. New file format. New licensing policy.
Except for the fact that, at least according to this ZDNet article, Microsoft is backporting the XML reading and writing capability to Office 2000, XP & 2003. So unless you're still using Office 97 (admittedly, there are still many, but it IS 9 years old!). So, what about your point now??
Nice troll. Got me.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Whoops. Everytime I submit without previewing this happens. Sorry... I meant to say that unless you're still using Office 97, you won't have a problem with reading or writing the new formats, thus taking care of the interoperability issue.
Okay, lets talk about geekiness. It all depends on what you do for a living.
Document editing and formatting, I might grant you a pass. But for other applications, a 1Ghz machine is way to slow, and yes, you do examine your processing bottlenecks and possibly write those in assembler.
Several years back, in the age of 450Mhz PII, we had to do Reed-Solomon decoding in real time inside a Windoze NT 4.0 driver, and in high error cases, it almost consumed the entire CPU. Getting that optimized to the point where the rest of the machine was still usable was no fun at all.
So it depends heavily on what you are doing.
Get clue your own self.....
From the license:
If you distribute, license or sell a Licensed Implementation, this license is conditioned upon you requiring that the following notice be prominently displayed in all copies and derivative works of your source code and in copies of the documentation and licenses associated with your Licensed Implementation:Looks pretty straightforward to me.
I don't mean to be overly negative or anti-microsoft (although I admit I am very biased against them), but MS has a long history of making claims that they don't necessarily live up to when the product comes out. At this stage, the more important part for MS will be generating hype.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Is it? What specifically do you foresee as the compatibility problem? As I recall, the GPL does not prohibit the use of patented methods, so long as the licensing is freely available.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
An AC replied to me saying that MS has the right to revoke if you sue them. *shrug* That sounds more like lawyerese CYA than malevolence, but as I said, IANAL.
Go somewhere random
As long as you're using it to access documents in Microsoft's formats, the license doesn't appear to have any restrictions whatsoever. The only restrictions in the license are related to using Microsoft's schema to develop some other document format. I see no problem with that.
Wow. You are a complete dickhead. You dig yourself into a deep hole trying to argue for binary file formats, then when someone explains to you why you're full of shit, you bring up your totally unrelated "Reed-Solomon decoding in real time" in a crappy attempt to sound intelligent.
Binary file formats in general suck. Although they take a few K less file size, and are a tiny bit faster to load, they make compatibility (one of the most important things in the computer industry) a fucking nightmare.
Microsoft is changing file formats (not opening them). Still the same company that fears any competition, still the same lock-in, lock-out mentallity and still the same ol' Microsoft. Nothing new... just headline grabbers.
From the website:
But, note that the patent and copyright provisions in the license for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas require you to include a notice of attribution in your program.
I'm just guessing that the GPL's noted incompatibility with an advertising clause is what breaks compatibility here. MS being MS, they could well have done it intentionally; that said, an advertising clause might also have simply been seen as appropriate. Who knows.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Zip files can be password protected and still hold xml documents, if you can read them. Who is to say that M$ will not encrypt the zip and use the DMCA regulations to quench the "open" part of the spec and thus the competition?
1) First, Microsoft goes their own way.
2) Commodity standards and protocols end up being much better.
3) Microsoft makes a big to-do about how they are "embracing standards" by dumping their proprietary thing for the commodity standard thing.
4) Microsoft quietly introduces non-standard extentions into their implementation of what used to be a standard, then declares that everyone else is being incompatible.
With the patents (regardless of prior art, it seems. morons in government, but I repeat myself) Microsoft will be able to both declare how the competition is incompatible and prevent actual compatibility from being reverse-engineered. Unlike copyright, reverse engineering a patented thing is prosecutable.
Microsoft is not changing their tune. Everything they do is to boost image and/or profitability. Period. They have no other motivation.
As a publicly traded company, in fact they should have no other motivation than maximizing shareholder value. If the principles and officers do anything else they themselves are legally liable to those shareholders. For a good dissertation on this idea, read Neil Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_.
That is one of the concrete reasons that FOSS beats commercial software again and again. The goal of FOSS is to write good software.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Incidentally, this is EXACTLY how OpenOffice 2.x works. The files created in the native format are...XML and embedded components as individual files in a .zip archive.
Microsoft just wants to avoid "playing well with others" (I would be happy to be proven wrong by finding out that MS is really just using the OASIS format without saying so...)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Bah! Most of the posts here are about how this new XML format will open the MS Office formats.
This is wrong.
XML is composed of two pieces: XML, which is open; and an XML Schema, which will be closed and propietary. An XML document without an XML Schema is not usable by other applications.
So don't go around pretending that Microsoft's "XML" will let people open Word documents with other applications. It won't. They are still maintaining their closed formats and will continue to lock-in the customers.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
It breaks GPL, but only in the same way the old-style BSD license did.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Moving to a XML format is great and all... but I've got one question:
Where do I stick the document viruses that we've all come to know and love?
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
on a windows server you can use com objects to open a doc file very quickly. I do it in PHP every once in a while.
If your server relies on COM features of Windows OS, then people who buy (support for) your PHP scripts won't be willing to pay as much because they're already paying more to rent space on a server running Windows OS.
From the Information Week article: In addition IT or author will be able to designate whether an executable file embedded in that document will be able to run or not, Numoto said. A document designated with a .docx suffix, for example, will neuter embedded .exe files while one with a .docm suffix will allow them to run.
Which means: do not open attachments in .docm format
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Using a certain meta-format does not make it open. Using an open format does. We still have to wait and see what format they use.
For those with difficulty understanding what I mean, consider their new format is:
WordFile.xml:
<WordFile>
big-hex-dump-of-old-word-format
</WordFile>
Indeed. Microsoft isn't threatened by BSD-style licenses, because they can just swallow any threats licensed that way whole and Microsoftize them. Their license is a blatant "fuck you" to the GPL, considering they're utilizing probably the most infamous open-source incompatibility.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
is it the tag overhead, or the fact that it's an ASCII file, the reason that people complain about XML file sizes? If it's the latter, one would think that a simple gzip action at load/save would solve that problem
And introduce a new problem of CPU time (which is money) to handle gzip processing.
Slow Down Cowboy! Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. It's been 11 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
They must have forgotten about the XML-related patent that Microsoft received. It's hard to make something more proprietary than when you patent it.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Puzzles me.
No more I say.
What information is there that the XML which Microsoft is 'implementing' is going to be standards compliant (W3C standard that is)? My guess is that M$ is simply making the announcement that they are going to 'implement' an open standard for the press coverage. After all I'm sure they are trying to reel back in those people who are moving to XML Compliant documents and have been leaving Word. I'm sure as M$ so often does they will 'implement' the standard, only they will add on all their own flashing lights and whirly-gigs and therefore break the standard. All the while suits everywhere will be praising them for using XML and how great it is entirely unaware that they just made it proprietary again.
Pages and Keynote use basic XML files, and hold all of the contents in uncompressed package files. You can open the package and find all of your document's pictures, sounds, and XML untouched.
AFAIK ZIP was evil because of some patent issues, and that's why gzip was developed. The patent has supposedly expired in the US, but not necessarily in all other countries (same as with GIF). Any info on that?
.gz files tend to be smaller then .Z files. It also helped that GNU tar has -z to use uncompress or gzip on the fly.
There's some confusion here. ZIP and gzip are really related.
A) ZIP was created as a result of pkarc vs arc. Some of it was on file format, some on pkarc allegedly including code from arc. Because of this, the file format was documented and made freely available. zip compressed better and BBS sysops converted overnight partly for that, partly because they were pissed at arc's tactics. Other archivers such as lha, arj, zoo, etc enjoyed limited sucess. Remember, this was in the days of 8 bit PCs with no hard drive and 1200 baud modems.
B) gzip was created because the Unisys was (threatening to) using the LZW patent against anyone who wrote software that used LZW to compress files. GIF uses LZW. So does the compress program (.Z files). GNU created gzip w/o LZW for creating. gzip can uncompress files compressed with compress's LZW.
Could one get around this by, say writing a filter program, released under a BSD license, that converts between MS XML and OOo XML, and conveniently has an interface that is easy to call from another app, such as a OOWriter or another app that happens to be GPLed? If the word processor detects the companion app, it uses it for loads and saves, invisibly converting between formats. Since the two could be bundled and installed together, it would be seamless from an end-user's perspective. The filter app could be an application in its own right: functional from the command line without requiring OOo or any other app to do something useful. The GPLed app would never have to directly access the Microsoft-format document. It would just read and write OOo documents which just happen to be converted to or from MS-XML by some other application at some point in time.
It seems to me that if a simple program can be written to read and write MS-format documents and can be released under a BSD license, the inability to release it as GPL would really be more of a minor annoyance that serves to make Microsoft look petty and anti-competitive more than it does to stop interoperability with GPLed software.
Not sure there is a compatibility problem. If the recipients of the GPLed software must acquire a license to use those patents infringed by the software, that could be counter to "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." in the GPL. Obviously since Microsoft is granting these licenses to all comers, that may not be a conflict at all. Maybe people use patent licenses like this all the time with GPL code.
It certainly would be a problem if at some point in the future, Microsoft stopped granting these licenses to anyone at all. That would be the only reason that requiring a separate acquisition of a license to use those patents could be considered a "further restriction" now.
But I am very not sure.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Customers are tired of being locked into a proprietary format and being 'milked', accordingly, with monopoly pricing. This is just Microsoft's way of saying "hang on, don't switch to other software just yet, the next version of Office will have open formats". So people wait, and get hooked into the next round of upgrades, realising only too late that, whoops, it was a con, but hey, just a few more years of this and 'maybe next time'.
Come oooon - they pulled EXACTLY this stunt with the last version of Office ... the same gullible people were all over /. about how MS were finally going to open their formats, and then, surprise, it never happened. Whatever happened to "fool me once", etc.? Are customers this gullible and their memories that short? They are lying again for sure. The primary reason Microsoft make truckloads of cash each year is that so many people are locked into their effectively-proprietary formats, and one in particular: Word. Why on earth would they ever be so stupid as to pro-actively change that, unless market conditions forced them? I promise you, OpenOffice is not nearly big enough for MS to feel that threatened just yet. This is just the same old lies. MS are just in that "false promises of big stuff coming in the next version" phase that they always go through inbetween major product releases to convince people to 'hold out' the wait just a bit longer.
Yes, I'm sure that's lawyerese CYA and not malevolence, but it's probably BSD & GPL incompatible just the same. There are other OSI licenses that might work much better.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Me. Granted I haven't used Word very much in the past, and even less nowadays.
The only time Word wasn't able to open a Word document was when it was corrupted. Luckily OpenOffice opened it without any problem.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
Why does everything have to be GPL with you people? GPL is one of the most restrictive "open source" licenses there is.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Nothing changed: the formats are proprietary because they are covered by the same patents and licenses as previous Office XML formats. Calling them "open" formats is a blatant lie.
For people who still don't get it: the difference between a "royalty-free license" and an "open" format is that Microsoft can stop issuing royalty-free licenses any time they choose. They can also impose onerous conditions on you as part of the "royalty-free license".
Since the license is non-transferable, Microsoft can also just stop issuing new royalty-free licenses whenever they choose, or add new conditions.
Consider the case where OpenOffice were to switch to these formats, and then Microsoft wants to kill OOo. What do they do? They just put another condition in their royalty-free license: "This license does not give you the right to create products or software that interoperates with OpenOffice." Even if OOo could continue to use the format (and that alone is uncertain), people couldn't write any add-ons for OOo anymore.
Clean-room reverse engineering doesn't help if the format is patented, and this format is patented.
Here is the deal. In order for you to be able to distribute something under the GPL that is covered by a patent, you must provide a license for that patent that meets all of the terms and conditions of the GPL. The GPL does not say that you must provide a way for the end user to go out and get a license. On the contrary, you have no right to distribute GPL'd code that is encumbered by a patent unless you provide a license for that patent.
As an end user, you can not require me to go out and do anything special in order to have the freedoms guarenteed to me by the GPL. I don't have to go visit some web site. I don't have to click on a registration form. I don't have to give you my name and address. And I certainly don't have to register with Microsoft. Microsoft can kiss my a$$. If you give me your GPL'd code, you have to negotiate with Microsoft for their patent rights, not me. Otherwise, you don't get to use their patents in your GPL'd application.
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
... Binary XML!
Oh, and not all machines are fast and cheap.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The GPL is one of the least restrictive open source (not "open source" as you dismissively wrote) licenses in existence. The only restrictions it contains are guarantees that code released under it will remain open.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
You sound like a prejudice person to me. Exactly _how_ is the GPL "restrictive"? Is it because the GPL doesn't allow you to take the code and make it proprietary and make big bucks off of it? Please tell me exactly how the GPL is "restrictive". The GPL grants you _MORE_ rights than standard copyright does. So if you use the GPL or use a program licensed under the GPL, you are actually getting _MORE_ rights than you would get with any other license.
Oh, but because you cannot take that GPL'ed coed and make it your own proprietary code, it is "restrictive". Yeah. Get a clue "I'm Don Giovanni" (are you a shill for MS?).
From your post "I'm Don Giovanni", I can tell you know _shit_ about the GPL. Calling the GPL "restrictive", is just brain-dead. Did you even graduate from high school? What is sooooo hard to understand that the GPL gives you _MORE_ rights under copyright law than current copyright law allows? How is the GPL being more "restrictive" when it allows more rights to you? Pick any of your favorite MS licenses, and compare it to the GPL. The MS licenses, try to take away your rights, while the GPL gives you more rights.
I really hope you are not _that_ slow that you cannot understand the difference!
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Note that the Office 12 schemas will be covered under a different license. Whether or not that license precludes open-source implementation is another matter entirely.
However, I don't believe that MS would be moving to this format if they didn't want to "open things up". They certainly could have kept their evil binary formats.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Considering that even MS sometimes has problems interpreting their own binary formats from way back when, I could see it just being a move on their part to eliminate that problem in the future.
That said, I don't believe the GPL incompatibility was intentional; I believe it to be a side-effect of what MS thought was an appropriate way to make sure that their patents and patent issues were appropriately labeled in software using their schema.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Okay. BSD license. Done. Next?
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
So next time you're going to write your paper in TeX or XML (e.g. OASIS, XHTML, etc.), right? Whenever I write things I use HTML, and it hasn't failed me yet. All I do is write the markup, load it in a web browser, and print.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oops. I meant to say "Whenever I write things with formatting I use HTML..." Otherwise, I use plaintext.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In other words, it's not GPL-compatible because telling them to get a license from Microsoft isn't good enough -- you must have the right to grant it yourself. Right?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hmm, Rather than 'embrace, extend, & engulf' an open format, make you own, pre-engulfed. Also, good PR for a company starved for it.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
IMHO the issue of speed is a minor issue--the more interesting issue is whether Office will now READ XML files and convert them to font-interpreted readable document files with minimal tweaking and in the Office environment. I can see the extension of XML-aware technologies to permit the export of a world-type document into a tagged XML files across the Office family, although I am curious as to whether XSLT/DTD etc. stylesheets are created on export. The more interesting question, to me, is whether novice operators will be able to open XML tagged data and easily convert them to print-ready documents. There are a lot of XML data-base derived files out there waiting for an easy print-ready solution and currently niche-market proprietary systems serve this need. I believe that all the discussion on the relative speeds of binary vs. XML documents is a side issue from a market point of view. Even if Office reads in and swops out open formats, the Office technology, the wrapper, the interface is bound to contain proprietary and protectable elements--as far as I can tell, MS is moving to further its footprint in XML development.
Incidentally, this is EXACTLY how OpenOffice 2.x works.
I know... I use it for years, and even messed up with the xml files a bit for automatic generation.
The reason they are using it is simple, they found out some way to sell more copies of something using it, and trash the competition in the way.
(reasons for the 2 points above abound in the rest of the posts of this thread)
I'm trying to get modded "Interesting Flamebait Informative and Insightful Redundant Troll" *-* Please Help *-*
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
How amusing; just saw these words projected in large red and black behind them as they played New York last night. Thanks for a weird bit of synchronicity.
grammar-lesson free since 1999. (rescinded - 2005)
Microsoft's current document formats are just memory dumps. This is one of the main reasons why Office can save so much faster than OOo - and also why newer versions of Office have trouble with docs from old versions. As you pointed out, with today's CPUs this shouldn't be too much of a problem. (Heck, OOo's save times aren't a problem at all). It's still noticeable, though.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
I guess that is the reason so many people cry for BinXML standard, and W3C finally have heard them and started the process of defying it.
You do not care about how you text files are organized on a physical disk, do you? You got some quite simple APIs and you do not care about journal entires, in memory paging, segment size, build in compression and wire protocols that get you precious text file to your app. BinXML will be entirely equivalent to an XML doc, once out of some API, and any other "binary" format may be.
You are quite narrow-minded it seems for such a loud mouth.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
To get your hands on the tasty new "openness" you have to upgrade your copy of Office, right...? PS: Binary won't be much faster because most of the info in Office files is plain text anyway...
No sig today...
Funny, because last time i compared the size of an OpenOffice document to an identical Microsoft Word document, the Word document was bigger.
I guess that's really nice. But I can't say that I'm overly excited considering the horrendous quality of e.g Office's HTML output. Apple Mail chokes on HTML formatted messages generated by Outlook. And not without reason. A message containing just 4 lines of text is contained in some HTML spaghetti code of no less then 210 lines.
So even though XML is an open format on paper I guess Microsoft has shown us in the past that they're perfectly able of effectively locking us out again by just using the power of obfuscation.
Customer lock-in and competition lock-out due to the clubbing effect of non-interoperability let Microsoft charge a premium for Office. It would be foolish from a business and shareholder perspective to drop it. Thus Microsoft has every interest not to allow better interoperability. Thus whatever the press release or the interview, unless there is a strong external force pushing for it (read: antitrust authorities or government) Microsoft wil not allow interoperability. In the present case be sure that if the "royalty free" licensing was compatible with GPL or SCCL they would glorify themselves for it. And there still are server-side tie-in, DRM and patents application on the file format.
But you have to get only one copy for your company. You then use it with some VBA macro to automatically convert all your legacy .doc and .xml files to the new shiny XML, then import them with OpenOffice. Then - farewell, MSFT!
Most times when an app says, "We use XML! We're Open!" they are, at best, paying lip service to both XML and Open-ness.
Usually, tags and attributes are thrown about in whatever method made sense to the author at the time. DTD's are rarely, if ever, seen for these "Open" formats. Check the specs; without a valid DTD, any XML document is pretty much useless.
All Microsoft (or anyone else) has to do is put their (unknown) binary data inside a couple of XML-ish looking tags and they can say they're using an open format. Yeah, the format is open, but the data is still opaque.
Personally, I still see XML as a solution that is deperately seeking a problem. Being in that state, it winds up getting used for all kinds of things for which it is not the best tool for the job.
I'll consider taking XML seriously when people start using XML documents that are both Well-Formed and SGML-valid.
I could be wrong, but you'll probably have a hard time convincing me of that.
I want all of the power and none of the responsibility.
Good point. I actually ended up copy/pasting the text into an email, to get it printed, sigh.
Still, this is a crazy situation...
Reality Check. How can an XML schema be patented?? Please explain. Relative to PDF, XML is no novel invention for someone to try to claim.
Any markup language just runs through a compiler/ interpreter is about as novel as any language with reserved words - bold, normal, heading.
Anyway, the pointyheads should say, well, its still a proprietary format, and thats why we are not buying.
That's the question. The big problem with answering the question is that we haven't really stated the question properly. What is everyone looking for?
This is what I need, and I hope that developers are listening.
1) A definitive login startegy. I don't want well you could use radius, openldap and pam, or NIS, I want a strategy that is flexible, secure, works across platforms, and is auto configuring, auto discovering. When I plug in my linux laptop, I should at the very least have the option to log onto domains/realms that I know about, but it would be nicer if the network told me what services were available.
2) For Document management, I want the ability to save to a subversion-like repository for documents. This has to be available in the software that I'm using, or integrated into the filesystem so that when I save to a location, it does the work. Sure it can prompt me for document info, titles, notes, etc. but it should pull my user info from the network. I should also be able to open up old revisions, control who has access to my files, and let me know if someone else is working on it, allow merged changes from different sources, etc. It should have the ability to encrypt documents, and keep a version history. Also, it should be easy to back up, be able to restore either the whole shot or parts, and be managed by an administrator. Come to think of it, this might be better incorporated into the filesystem. Sounds a little like Reiser4, with some AFS thrown in. SVNFS anyone?
3) Enterprise grade CRM and Accounting for linux. Although, I think that ACCPAC is working on this, we need something. I'm not aware of any linux programs that break past the SME marktet for linux. Support for cheque stocks, micr strips, the whole works, is a must.
You have these three things, and you could turn quite a few companies to linux in their next upgrade cycle. #3 is going to be difficult to pull off in the FOSS style, as it is a lot more than just programming that goes into it, it needs to be updated for new tax tables, and thouroughly tested, and commercial entities have a hard time doing all that, let alone people who aren't going to be paid for it.
Anyways, that's what I want. Hopefully wilt Red Hat open sourcing the Netscape Directory, we can get something that fits the bill for #1, all packaged up nicely, and in one single project, not a collaboration of many different ones.
If anyone decides to make #1 and #2 a reality, let me know where to send the cheque.
Correct.
Microsoft is explicitly and deliberately prohibiting you from licensing the patents to anyone. Forbidding you to include it inside the GPL package.
It then becomes a complex chain of logic trying to figuring out whether someone may or may not be able to get the required license, and figuring out under what terms they may or may not be able to get it. The GPL does not allow you to distribute code under some bizzare complex logic that may or may not allow the end user to actually use the code. The GPL says you actually need to include whatever is required, and you must do so inside that single package delivery.
Lets take an amusing example. Lets say Microsoft goes bankupt. *POOF*, gone.
Well, now there's no where to get the required license. Now there's now way to actually use the redistributed code. Whatever company bought up that patent on the auction block could probably then start sueing people. Or minimum it would be a legal furrball trying to figure out whether they could sue people or not.
Which would defeat the GPL. Would defeat the GPL for the code involved.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
In other words Microsoft is once again promising they won't come in your mouth.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
And you're what, an open-mindded loud mouth? Contribute instead of hurling insults. And the word is built-in, not "build in".