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."

Comments

MS reply

[DLX]

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?!

It wasn't a problem before

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:It wasn't a problem before

[richlv]

an interesting and required read for everybody interested in open formats :
http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000743.htm l

gary edwards, member of oasis opendocuemnt tc, comments on ms xml, od and related stuff. you really should read the whole comment, but i'll cite a couple of excerpts that imho are relevant to your comment :)

"Since MS XML looks to be a clone of OpenDoc XML, i think it's disingenuous to imply that Microsoft put so much time and effort into creating a duplicate XML file format to meet their "legacy" needs. This is a knockoff clear and simple. The work was done by OpenOffice.org, Sun Microsystems, and the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee."

"The first 18 months of work at the OASIS OpenDoc TC (...), was focused near entirely on legacy systems. Especially legacy systems
wedded to Microsoft binary file formats.

The OpenDoc TC was very fortunate to have a wealth of expertise in reverse engineering the legacy maze of incompatible MS binary file formats. Experts from Corel Office, StarOffice, Boeing, Stellent, ArborText, and SpeedLegal among others had long made their living reverse engineering MS file formats. Phil Boutros, the legendary binary cracking wizard representing Stellent, near single handedly represented what would have otherwise been thought to be the full cooperation of Microsoft in solving these legacy issues."

"At any time Microsoft was and is able to jump into the TC discussion's about their legacy file formats and the transformation issues that were eventually resolved in the OpenDoc XML specification. They did after all have an official membership on the OpenDoc TC."

Re:ms

[trezor]

ms office must support openoffice documents... it's just more reason not to use it

Just like there's "no reason" for MS not to support webstandards. But we all know how that story...

Re:Possible reason to not support "save as" OO

[pandrijeczko]

Wait - I can't think of a reason not to support a "save as Open-Office format".

I can.

Think about Joe Sixpack who sees this on his "Save as" menu for the first time & maybe then does a search on Google for "Open Office" only to find out it's a free office suite he can download... Then Joe Sixpack tells his friends about it...

Yes, it would be nice to see it supported in MS Office but it won't happen because MS will lose market share by doing it.

The best we can hope for are more governmental departments and service organisations applying pressure for open document formats to make MS change its mind.

Re:ms

[jurt1235]

Firefox part II?

And compared to the firefox story, which just hurts freely given away IE, and people still use MS windows as platform, so not costing any profits, and uptake of 10% in OpenOffice would really hurt the bottomline of MS. Not that they will lose money because of it, but the profitability goes down, maybe even pricing pressure to keep people away from this free OpenOffice.

Hey, how about a page size add in a newspaper for www.downloadOpenOffice.org (already exists, and is someones attempt to earn some cash, to bad)

Re:It could be useful

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, try looking at what OpenDocument actually supports first (as opposed to what Microsoft claimed it supports).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

"OpenDocument is designed to reuse existing open XML standards whenever they are available, and it creates new tags only where no existing standard can provide the needed functionality. So, OpenDocument uses DublinCore for metadata, MathML for formulae, SVG for vector graphics, SMIL for multimedia, etc."

Note the bit about multimedia, Microsoft?

Format converter

[Peer Janssen]

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.

Re:Format converter

[ozmanjusri]

Isn't there anybody who could program an appropriate converter to be loaded into MS Word?

You're right, and this could be a fatal error in Microsoft's strategy. If there is a freely available converter which allows Word to import and export OOo files, any attempt on their part to make their own format incompatible could backfire and make OOo the default file exchange format.

I've been looking at both OOo and MS XML formats, and it doesn't look like it would be too hard to impliment converters as add-ins for Office formats.

Re:Format converter

[ajs318]

OpenDocument compatibility is coming to Office anyway, and whether Microsoft likes it or not. Office has an embedded programming language, a bastardised dialect of BASIC, which includes a document object model. So, it ought to be entirely possible to write a series of Office macros which turned an Office document into an OpenDocument document -- and maybe back as well.

Now the only thing keeping Office popular is the lack of interoperability with anything else. Lack of interoperability is usually considered to be a bad thing -- name me one electricity company that sells 48 volts DC. We have already seen protectionism fail when countries did things like adopting different TV standards from their neighbours effectively to prevent imports of cheap tellies {setmakers just went multi-standard, and SCART connectors with RGB input eventually became the norm}.

These realities do not appear to have hit the computer market yet ..... or at least, not hard enough. Probably the ones who are still in awe of computers don't even realise what ought to be possible. I've been connecting stuff together all my life -- before computers, it was record players, tape recorders and radio sets, recording signals from the wireless and amplifying them through the record player's speaker. My first VCR, with its separate audio and video sockets opened up exciting new possibilities in connectivity {4 hour long recordings of radio broadcasts from pop festivals! Complete with teletext-style graphics from the Model B, which were initially only there to keep the muting off but evolved into a kind of artform in their own right}. Every computer I have ever owned has had something unusual plugged into it.

But I don't think I represent most of the population. I think most people don't expect things to be connected together and just work like that; they're still so taken in by the fact that they just press the keys and the letters come up on the screen, and later pop out of the printer, that they don't think past that. That ought to change in the future; but it will depend more on the fact of clue filtering slowly through to the population than anything any major player does {unless that something is to cause sudden and large-scale data loss}.

If the conversion suite was released as quasi-Open Source software {as open as anything running on a closed platform can be}, then the only thing Microsoft could do about that is try and prove they own a patent on converting documents between Office and OpenDocument standards; but then they would expose themselves to the patent being struck down on the grounds that the invention had not been worked {which is still valid in some jurisdictions IMMSMC}. Not to mention that it would constitute an admission that Microsoft already had the technology to perform the conversion {otherwise the patent would be a mere work of science fiction, therefore null and void by default}. This would have the effect of casting doubt on other things Microsoft are fond of saying.

Once a mechanism was in place for converting documents between OpenDocument and Office formats, a business would then need only one PC running Office -- and then only for as long as they have any Office files to convert to OpenDocument. Under well-established doctrines, they would even be within their rights to sell that machine to another business when it was finished with.

At the moment, I have good reasons not to be having a go at this. When those reasons change, if there is not already a functioning translator, I will definitely set up a Windows machine of my own and give it a crack.

They have a valid reason for concern....

[kg4czo]

Massachusetts has a valid reason to worry. The worry about future readability of the data they are producing today. What if M$ went away in the next 30 years? What if, while going down hill, they decided to bleed their customers for the use of their XML "standard?" I don't doubt this could happen....

I also don't buy Microsoft's stance on the OpenDoc format. They can, and should, implement this format as an export/import at the least. Backwards compatability is a sorry excuse for not implementing open standards. They just don't want to give up the gold they find when they have locked their customers into a certain format.

Dang, not again

[smsiebe]

This may turn out to be a problem for students and those of us that work at home. I had a similar problem when I was going to college for CS a few years back. My professor required our C++ to be created in a Windows-only compiler, commented and structured using that editors tools. I was only running Linux, just as I am now, and had to get an exception to policy in order to not have to live in the computer lab.

Now, working on my EE degree while in the Army, I am doing distance learning with a school that requires MS Office formats on papers. So far, it has been working out well but what if they 'upgrade' to a new office version that somehow corrupts or otherwise does not display a file created in OO well? There goes my GPA!

Same goes for my job in that Army. As an NCO I often times complete work at home and bring it to my work terminal (all MS, after the recent Solaris genocide) on a USB stick. Will all my work be for nothing? Will I be spending hours at the office instead of at home where I can at least be with my wife and kids? I guess the same can go for those that tele-commute and use Linux.

Man, I REALLY don't want to have to install Windows or use an emulator just to use Office.

Re:That's not the proposed format

[DrXym]

OLE objects are supported in the urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:drawing:1.0 namespace. This can be seen by saving a document containing an OLE object and opening up the content.xml file.

The tag will be represented as something like this:

<draw:object-ole xlink:href="./Object 1" xlink:type="simple" xlink:show="embed" xlink:actuate="onLoad"/>

The OLE object's content would be in that "Object 1". This is obviously not XML, doesn't have to be. When OO starts, it instantiates the CLSID specified in the Object 1 file and streams its data into it via IStream or IStorage. Thus any OLE object is supported by the spec and by OO.

The object-ole tag is documented on page 300 of the OpenDocument 1.0 spec. Other mechanisms for embedding objects are also documented.

So it is supported by the Open Document spec.

Re:It could be useful

[insert cool name]

Now think of yourself as Microsoft, publisher of the biggest word processor of them all. Are you going to let yourself be hamstrung by "standards" which force your users to *not* use the full capabilities of the format?

Sorry but how is this insightful? Microsoft's stated reason for not supporting an open document standard is very transparently not the actual reason.

The last time I checked it was entirely possible to read and write ascii text and Microsoft Works documents from within Word, neither of which allow you to embed Audio or Video (ok, I'm just guessing this is the case with Works. With ascii I'm pretty damm sure though).

Providing support for a format does not tie you to that format's limitations, it just means you can read and write it. If your users choose not to use that format all the features are still available to them.

Microsoft isn't going to support it for political reasons, not technical ones. They have a monopoly and a widely adopted open format would threaten that monopoly.

OO vs. Firefox platform lock-in

[Alwin Henseler]

And compared to the firefox story, which just hurts freely given away IE, and people still use MS windows as platform, so not costing any profits, and uptake of 10% in OpenOffice would really hurt the bottomline of MS.

Moderators, parent clearly deserves some 'insightful' points here, since known cash cows for MS are Windows, and Office. But:

If users ditch Office for a free alternative, clearly MS's bottomline gets hurt. Not so with Firefox? I disagree: IE is a way to lock users into the Windows platform. If you need IE, you need Windows (in general). If you need Firefox, you need Windows OR (enter you favorite Firefox-capable OS here). So ditching IE in favor of Firefox, is one way to reduce your dependence on the Windows platform. And a good reason for MS to give away IE for free, I think.

So increased use of OO may eat directly into MS's bottomline, but increased use of Firefox makes it easier for MS's bottomline to get eaten into.

My view is that MS not supporting open standards is simply to make it harder to switch platforms, to increase the cost & effort of a switch. Another example: why doesn't MS itself provide support for Linux ext2 or BSD filesystems? It's technically feasible (others have done it), many dual-booting folks would like it, and there aren't any licensing problems that I can see (as long as MS would write their own, or build on BSD-licensed code). So why? Simple: without it, dual-booting folks have to look themselves for ext2/BSD filesystem drivers for Windows. More hassle, higher cost of moving to Linux/*BSD.

MS says it cares about interoperability, but it's actions often say otherwise. Not supporting OO document format in Office is just another example of that. Anyway, I think managers that decide between MS Office or OO, Firefox or IE, Windows, Linux or Mac OSX on company desktops, matter more here than home users.

Re:Possible reason to not support "save as" OO

[oneandoneis2]

There's a VERY good reason for MS to not support "Save as OO" as an option.

Imagine you're a typical corporation: You have thousands of documents, they're all in .doc format. So everybody has MS Office installed.

You hear about a free alternative, but it doesn't support the .doc format reliably enough to switch - your thousands of documents would have to be manually edited, one at a time. This is a big expense that stops OO being free. Or you'd have to keep MS Office available, in which case you might just as well not switch.

In other words: Nobody with more than a few .doc documents can switch from Ms Office to OpenOffice. Result: $$$ for MS

Now imagine MS Word could save reliably in OO's format. And it can obviously open .doc files reliably.

A company could now run a batch job that opens .doc files and saves them in OO format. MS Word converts all the company documents into OO format. Company then throws away MS Word, and happily uses OO.

Result: MS looses customers.

MS will fight to the last to stop people being able to do this. If this function were implemented, most people would not need MS Office any more. And if you don't need Office, you don't really need Windows. And if you don't need either of those, why do you need MS?

Re:ms

[KermitJunior]

FUD= Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

Correction:

[msauve]

It not not currently in Microsoft's best interest to support OpenDocument. If they loose marketshare to alternatives which do, it will at some point be in their best interest to do so.

It behooves those who desire unrestricted interchange of information to help make proper support of OpenDocument become of interest to MS.

This move by MA is a step in the right direction, away from proprietary formats.