Slashdot Mirror
Massachusetts Explains Legal Concerns for Open Documents
Tontoman writes "ZDNet is running a story that sheds new light on the decision by Massachusetts to switch to
open formats for the commonwealth's official documents. This issue has previously been discussed on Slashdot, first The Massachusetts Office Party and then
Microsoft Lashes out at Massachusetts IT Decision . From the
article: 'Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration & Finance for
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, told CRN on Friday that
Massachusetts had concerns about the openness of Microsoft XML schemas
as well as with potential patent issues that could arise in the
future.' The article also quotes a Microsoft executive
on further reason that Microsoft's upcoming Office 12 will not support
OpenDocument."
Microsoft said that Massachusetts decision is wrong because open document formats do not allow embedded video or audio in the document. I wonder, how many of us have ever used embedded audio/video feature in the .doc?!
The article also quotes a Microsoft executive on further reason that Microsoft's upcoming Office 12 will not support OpenDocument.
Well, sort of. From the article:
Yates reiterated the Microsoft does not intend to natively support the OpenDocument format, which he said was very specific to the OpenOffice.org 2.0 open source productivity suite.
I don't recall Microsoft having any problems supporting say, WordPerfect documents, which after all were "very specific to the [WordPerfect] productivity suite." Of course, that was back when Microsoft were chasing WP down. It just wouldn't do to support a format that might help people not to use Office now would it?
But it has been already answered: The open standard is not a fixed one, but something consensuated. It is very easy to add this to the standard -if needed- and you do not loose the openess.
Isn't there anybody who could program an appropriate converter to be loaded into MS Word?
I mean, if people can program an import filter, why not an export filter?
There certainly people who know how to do it.
Even if somebody has to sign an NDA agreement -- would it disallow to make such a filter?
I'm sure this would be more productive than waiting for MS to do it.
From what I can tell (I have read the specification but didn't understand that much of it) OpenDoc is a fairly restrictive format in terms of what you can do with it. AFAICT it won't do video or audio. It will do charts and images, and I think there was some kind of scripting language in there.
This is perfect for the purposes of governmental organisations working with lots and lots of text. It's a *good* thing, especially if it stops MS playing the proprietary extensions card. It's just not the OO.o format, and I'm getting slightly bored of people getting the two confused.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
"the Office 12 formats pay special attention to compatibility with older document versions, [and] other formats do not concern themselves with this important issue."
ROTFL. Anyone that has had to distribute anything via Word knows this is beyond FUD. My best example is my CV. I wrote it in Mac Office 2004, and made sure it was compatible (using compatibility checker) all the way back to Word 97. It wasn't even close. In the end I was sending my CV out as Word 97, 2000, RTF and PDF just to make sure.
Backwards compatibility my arse. It nearly cost me a job, as when your in IT, and people think you can't even use word, it starts to look bad. I understand that its a word processor, not a desktop publisher, but is consistant handling of tables and pictures that much to ask?
I've had documents that would open in Word 2004 fine, but all the pictures would be rotated through 90 degrees on Word 2000. And thats before you start looking at the way it handles the difference between A4 and Letter.
The only way I can send a file and be certain that it looks the way it should is via PDF. But thats at the expense of other parties being able to edit it.
PDF isn't the solution, its a hack. I want/need the consistant typesetting of PDF, with the editting features of Word. Now I know there are other applications that let me do this (latex et al), I just wish other people did too so I could start using that instead of frigin office.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Microsoft is showing it's anticompetitive true colors on this one. Would be smart if they focused on compatibility as their customers aren't asking - they are saying we will not buy it if it does not meet our standards.
Forcing your standards on customers is dangerous - after all it's their data and their business, not yours.
-- $G
Microsoft wasted no time writing in the ability to handle other word processor formats. Word Perfect format was a specific target. "Inferior" as it may be, they took special care to make their Word capable not only of handling Word Perfect documents, but also assisted users through software in the process.
It would be a nice change for MS to simply tell the plain truth -- there's not enough profit motive for them to cut their own throats by giving their customers the means to migrate away from their most profitable product and I doubt there ever will be.
When I was watching the MS antitrust stuff happening, I really thought that was the beginning of the end for Microsoft. I was both gleeful and a little scared. Taking a lesson from countless other businesses under government investigation, they bought their way out of it through donations to politicians who, in turn, would support MS's interests.
But now there is this... the gradual chipping away at Microsoft's hold on government data by not only Massachusetts, but other governmental bodies as well. (Other nations, local governments, etc.) Some suggest that these chips are merely attempts to get Microsoft to cut them a nicer deal. While the results of some of those deals show this effect, can you really claim that the result was the intent? It would be like throwing a dart and claiming that whatever it hit was the intended target. We can see were Microsoft's attempts to dissuade have failed. Without inside knowledge, no one can really know the intent. But even in those cases, these activities show that Microsoft is being weakened in some small way each and every time they have to deal with these situations. They either need to lower their prices or face becoming irrelevant... and that's the best case scenario! The worst is that there is nothing they can do to save their sinking ship.
First of all, I can be honest and true and yes, MS Office dominates, there is no doubt about that. However, I see *perfect legal* reasons to Massachusetts to choose open format. And Microsoft rethorics about 'how the real world deals with it' [tm] doesn't work.
It is nice to see goverment institutions which start to get it, that your IT infrastructure isn't video game - there should be REAL rules to follow. And there are no written in favor of some kind big business who wants it's format be main in goverment documentation.
For some reason, I'm really not surprised about reaction of Microsoft. What I am surprised about that they insist to their stubborness and stupidness in this topic. They just make their own grave in this situation.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
You know I'm retired from the military and while there are lots of our comrades deployed and fighting there are lots of them here at home too- supporting the deployed troops and preparing for their next round overseas. Furthering your education is an important part of the military- just as in any job. I think he should be commended for devoting some of this precious time to this topic and helping to further the use of open formats. I don't think the poster suggested this is the overriding concern of his life and I suspect you have limited knowledge of the military and thus are in no position to judge.
since Massachusetts is MS's customer, I feel MS's response is unreasonable
You'd certainly think so, seeing how Microsoft is bending over backwards to help Newham Council do everything it requires.
Perhaps Newham should ask for Open Document support?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
If the state truely wants to provide unrestricted access to public documents, then the state must provide the documents and not require access through expensive third party private corporation. The file format is important, but it is a secondary issue at best.
State and local government budgets have been severely strained for the past few years. Why would anyone want their government to waste money on an office package.
[Insert pithy quote here]
You might want to look at this essay: Why OpenDocument Won (and Microsoft Office Open XML Didn't)
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Exactly. IIRC, back when I was using Word 3.0 it proudly listed all the "competing' formats it supported (from WordPerfect on down). By the time Word 5.0 came out, that list seemed to disappear.
No, you misunderstand.
A schema defines what elements are allowed in a given collection. For example, there are a number of elements. These can be contained in other elements as defined by the schema.
You can't add a msstyle:xxx element to that style: list because it won't validate against the schema. Thus you can't add a new style element. And you can't change parameters needed by existing styles. An example i gave in another message was style:text-blinking has no way to control the blink rate. If you want to add that, you break the schema.
All this would be done without changing the the elements defined by the standard, but the restrictiveness of the document prevents it anyways.
The point is, there isn't any way to extend functionality without breaking the standard. The standard is flawed, in my opinion, because of that.
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No, you misunderstand.
I don't think I do- I have been dealing with XML for years. However, there is always a first time.
A schema defines what elements are allowed in a given collection. For example, there are a number of elements. These can be contained in other elements as defined by the schema.
You can't add a msstyle:xxx element to that style: list because it won't validate against the schema.
So you add new namespaces with additional schemas.
See http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/
"XML Schema in fact permits multiple schema components to be imported, from multiple namespaces, and they can be referred to in both definitions and declarations."
Well, aside from the obvious but publically denied reasons ("we'll do everything we can with our current monopoly powers to keep from having to compete or losing our monopoly power."), Microsoft CLAIMS that, although they ARE an OASIS member, they refused to work with everyone else because, to put it simply, the OASIS format wasn't going to be designed specifically to store older Microsoft Office document data. Personally, I take that to imply that their "new" format is going to have a lot of "<CDATA>(insert binary data from Word 97 here)</CDATA>" sort of stuff in it when you convert to "Office 12" formats from older versions of "Microsoft Office", ruining the whole point of having portable, interoperable formats.
And if this is not going to be the case, what "special features" could they possibly need to store the converted documents in this supposedly "open" format of theirs?
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