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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.
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
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.)
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.
I wonder if they'll do the same thing to XML as what FrontPage did to HTML...
Dark Reflection
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?
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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.
You fucking troll, since when microsoft's binary document formats are documented, or fast?
Implementing a file format as binary data or even a simple SGML structure such as RTF means less overhead. Using XML you have to run an XML parser, and the file is more freeform. There are no set data structures, it is just a stream of text. With a binary format you can structure it in such a way that you can read a header in and know exactly where to seek in the file to get the information you need. With XML you are pretty much stuck reading sequentially and figuring things out as you go along. Sure, an XML parser library may make it easier, but behind the scenes it is still parsing that stream and processing each tag one at a time.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
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.
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.
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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?
Actually, that's not a bad point. What's to stop Microsoft from implanting things like VBScriptlets that are required for the document to render? That would put a real cramp in the competitors' ability to read the format, regardless of how "Open" it is.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
I agree with you in that binary formats can be faster, and I don't love XML-as-storage-format too much, but the case in point is *microsoft's* binary formats, which are little more than straight memory dumps, and UNDOCUMENTED, and SLOW.
A well-designed binary format makes much more sense than XML, in this I concur with you, but XML is better than current microsoft's doc formats in that it would be easier to figure out the inner workings of the format, and making struggle for compatibility a much less gory task.
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Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
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.
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?
Leaving aside that fact that, like you, Slashdot is not an intelligent entity with needs and desires, this is not what we wanted.
We want an open, documented and non-patent encumbered format that allows interoperability between Office and other software.
That is not what this is.
Another poster has already provided a link that will tell you everything you need to know about the conditions attached to these formats.
They have patented everything. You will need to licence their patents in order to use these formats in your software.
That makes them useless. And yet you want us to get down on our knees and praise Microsoft for their generosity? With all due respect, you are either a Microsoft shill or a fucking retard. Not that I am suggesting that those two options are mutually exclusive.
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.
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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.
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I use Open Office exclusively and have for the past couple of years. Reading the files in certainly isn't a problem for me. The only files that are slow to load are the master document files, and that's because they link to dozens of other files.
The XML specification is being expanded (it might already be done) to allow binary formats. There are good reasons, though, why it's best to keep data files in straight XML text format. It eliminates the need to worry about machine architecture. Little endian or big endian, it maks no difference to you. The files are perfectly portable across platforms, which is increasingly important these days. XML files zip very nicely, making them almost as small as a corresponding binary file.
It is far easier to provide backwards compatability to earlier file formats when you are using XML than if you are using binary file formats. With XML, if it sees a tag it doesn't understand, the parser ignores it. If a binary file format loader sees stuff it doesn't understand, it bails out with an illegal file format error.
When you move to a new expanded file format with XML, you don't have to write a conversion utility. Since you are merely adding new tags, your program can read any of your old data just fine, then add the appropriate tags and new data. This saves a great deal of trouble for programers.
Machines are fast and cheap. People are slow and expensive. It is far better to have our computers do a little extra work on loading a text file and eliminate conversion utilities and complicated loading routines that a prone to bugs.
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www.ra
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."
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!
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.
Not to be a troll, but Microsoft Word's HTML output gives a good idea of how greatly can they bloat XML.
My other post is a First.
So you think that a 1Ghz cpu is going to be slowed down because someone's resume or board of directors presentation isn't binary anymore?
Oh puuuulllleeze.
Such concerns might be relevant for a C64 or perhaps even a MacPlus. However, for small consumer documents such notions are absurd.
This isn't exactly someone's corporate data warehouse we're talking about here.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The term you are looking for here is 'self describing structure'.
If you have data in the form of LISP S-Expressions you know where structures start and stop. If you have just one document in that format you can pretty much work out the entire file format - or at least the features being used.
If you have a binary document you have to do a lot more digging and it can take you days to just work out the basic structure.
This will make Word much more useful, it will be much easier to create documents with other applications and emit them in Word format. So for example if I have a report writer component in my server I could spit out a Word Document rather than HTML which I would use today.
I can also write filters to automatically convert from Word format to other formats, so I can take HTML source and spit out Word, I can take an XML data structure and emit word.
So why would I prefer Word format over HTML when I was one of the people who helped write HTML? Well the answer is that virtually all HTML editors are optimized for editing Web pages. I write books and other reports that really don't fit that structure. There is nothing in HTML land that I have seen that provides the power of the Word outline mode and has built in spell checking as you go.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
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.
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.
While VB.Net has its admirers, I think Mono was more a response to the need to interoperate and prevent MS from taking over Net apps development and locking it in to MS languages, more than it was any "admiration".
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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.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
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XML data structures are all going to make life a whole lot easier now that memory and processing time are such commodities.
Commodity != free, especially when you are trying to deploy something on a battery-powered device.
Clean-room reverse engineering doesn't help if the format is patented, and this format is patented.
It's a shame Microsoft won't be using the recently-standardized OpenDocument format, which would mean exisiting products could read it. It also saves the XML file and all included data files (images, etc) within a ZIP file.
(Disclaimer: They might be using it, but TFA doesn't mention it and it wouldn't fit with their MO.)
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.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Take a look at a high school senior's Publisher & PowerPoint files some time. They are HUGE, especially with lots of pictures (as instructed). It's not unusual to see file sizes 100-250mb on an ordinary PP or Pub file. And boy do they take a long time to open across a network on P4 computers with lots of ram. We just had a graduation PowerPoint file that was in the neighborhood of 700mb and it took a couple of minutes to open from the network (using a 100BaseT connection).
I've told the teachers to make sure the kids optimize their photos, etc. but it falls on deaf ears...
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