Office + OpenDocument, Never Say Never

barryfreed writes "There's a blog entry by Andy Updegrove at ConsortiumInfo.org that says Microsoft has officially stated to him that support of OpenDocument in MS Office could happen. Microsoft sent the statement in a response to an article Updegrove wrote called Massachusetts and OpenDocument: A Brave New World?"

Comments

bait and switch tactic

[dwgranth]

Come on... this is ridiculous, MS would never support something that destroys lockin. If "maybe someday" constitutes a promise in anyone's mind... they should be shot.

Re:Support will be useless for the most part

[AstroDrabb]

These XML files are in plain text; the only thing binary about them is binary attachments (such as PNG files) that are referenced in the document itself.

So an embedded excel spreadsheet in a word doc is going to be plain text? An embedded PowerPoint presentation is going to be plain text? Microsoft has finally given up their entire "IP" to all their office formats? I don't think so.

What exactly is going to stop any MS Office competitor from just using the MS Office XML format if it is "totally open" as you suggest? Oh, yeah, those damn patents, not to mention that it is not totally open. Please show me _one_ official link from MS that tells me all the specs I need to know to fully read and write MS Office documents with zero patent/license encumbrances, and then I will believe you.

It was really great "innovation" on the part of MS to use XML for exactly what it was designed to do and then get a patent to block others from doing it.

Please read this blog, by a real Microsoft software engineer

No thanks. I don't need any more corporate MS crap. I doubt this "real" MS software "engineer" is allowed to speak his mind. Plenty have been fired for MS for less than saying that MS is not the "best". How about the poor guy who just posted some pictures of MS getting in some nice new G5 Macs that got fired?

but if you want your questions answered then take them to a Microsoft software engineer

Does MS call _all_ of their programmers "engineers"? Do all of those "software engieers" _actually_ have degrees and certifications in engineering? Or are they really just programmers with a nice PR made title? I studied engineering and work as a programmer. I personally cannot stand when I see people who just program computers with _zero_ engineering training get titles of "engineer".

You seems to be a shill for MS. However, MS has not, and will not give up their hold on their proprietary MS Office document formats. Please send me a link the day MS officially allows _anyone_ to use their office formats in the way OpenDocument would allow.

Re:Support will be useless for the most part

[AstroDrabb]

whereas it's possible to actually find Microsoft employees who actually have minds of their own.

Please show me _one_ that has done this in any public fashion and has not be fired. Saying "oh, I talked to one in an MS-Toilet(tm) and he said, hey, I use Linux and an IPod", is not much of an argument IMO.

You keep fighting the good fight, though. Ten years from its inception as an open source project, OpenOffice.org might hope to achieve the 10% market share established as a victory point by Mozilla/Firefox advocates. You might want to work on the fact that this Free As In Beech software looks like crap, isn't compatible with the VBA macros that businesses use daily (but which you would childishly dismiss with name-calling and "I don't use that, so it's not important" rhetoric), and is slow even compared to Microsoft Office**.

Geez, you have to work for MS to be such a shill or you and Bill make man-boy love weekly. Why would you get so emotional over a stupid freaking company and some software? To answer some of your stupid points, IMO OOo doesn't look like crap, I like the interface and it is pretty darn close to MS Office, so if you think OOo looks like crap, well you must think MS office looks like crap as well. As far as this stupid point:

isn't compatible with the VBA macros that businesses use daily (but which you would childishly dismiss with name-calling and "I don't use that, so it's not important" rhetoric)

So VBA crap is waht business use daily? So I take it you have worked for _all_ business that use MS office and know that they use VBA crap daily? Wow, you are great. Me personally, I have only worked for 3 fortune 500 companies and not one has use VBA in any production software. The fortune 500 I am at now would never deploy VBA office crap as an "application" and expect it to be stable and our user to use it. So get over _your_ childish crap that "all" business use VBA, because it just isn't true. Any "application" I have seen based on MS office and VBA has crumbled once the concurrent users have gotten over a very small number and _more_ money had to be spent on programmers like me to create real applications that are not based on VBA and MS office.

You also missed the point where I said I don't want USENET-style replies. I'm not having a vocal conversation with you, so stop pretending like we're having a back-and-forth chat, point for point.

Huh? This is /. reject. If you don't like the way /. works, than don't post. It is a simple as that.

* Programmers, engineers, whatever.

Uhh... not quite dummy. There is a huge difference. To program software you don't even need a stinking education, just some stupid MS "certification in VB" can get you in the door to many companies. Now, try to go and engineer a bridge or some electrical systems of a rocket with just some MS "certification" and see how far you get.