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Microsoft Open Document Standard Not So Open
avik42 wrote to mention an EWeek article discussing Microsoft's attempts at an Open Document Standard. From the article: "According to a Microsoft representative, 'The covenant language is what was referred to as the updated license for the Open XML formats that will be submitted to ECMA International for the standardization process.' The only difference between Microsoft's November 2003 open and royalty-free license for the Office 2003 Reference Schemas and today's Office 2003 license, according to the company, is that 'Microsoft is offering a covenant not to sue for the Office 2003 Reference Schemas.'" We reported on this initiative when it was first announced.
What is one to expect from microsoft, just go 100% opensource now?
.kyle
Haven't we been through this before? Quite a while ago Microsoft bragged about using XML as its new Office format. It turned out to be XML with some proprietary additions and such. Is this the very same format, only now Microsoft is claiming it to be open again?
Clever signature text goes here.
Imagine that, I look through the entire site and can't find a single executable or document format that doesn't require me to buy a Microsoft Windows OS and Office Suite. Lets all give Microsoft a big round of applause for their open XML format!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
This really isn't all that suprising. In fact when Microsoft first mentioned the possiblity of opening up their XML schema, a lot of people automatically looked at how they were going to do it, and they came to the same conclusion as has been found here.
I have nothing clever to put here...
People (by people I mean most people) take what they are used to taking. If we can get enought people to be ticked off at this and use another format, we can force MicroSoft to do things the way we want them done. If we hold them to our demands, either they will get our money, or they will seal their own doom in the word processing market.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
M$ will never make their documents standards open because the Office apps represent an enormous amount of their income. The other app is Windows. Everything else they do is either a loss or a drop in the bucket. M$ knows that once they open up their doc formats, competitors would drive them out of that business.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com//syle
Not only do MS not promise to extend the covenant past Office 11, but they limit the covenant to "patent claims necessary to conform" without defining what constitures conformance or necessity in this context.
This means that they can still sue if they allege that there was another way you could have implemented the spec without infringing on their patents (since it wasn't necessary) or they can sue if you don't implement every last detail on the spec (since your implementation isn't conformant).
Between those two, and the fact that MS have not committed not to change the spec at some future time, they can sue just about anyone they like.
PJ also points out that the EMCA doesn't require a free licence, just Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (RAND). However they explicity decline to offer a definition of RAND and simply presume that all submissions will be offered under RAND terms. Which means MS can pretty much do as they see fit.
All in all, typical Microsoft smoke and mirrors.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
that it might fool a political figure or high level state govenment functionary into thinking it was open.
"One, programmers are not free to modify the document format to suit their particular needs."
Er, what do you expect if they're attempting to make it a 'standard'?
Do you want every project tweaking and changing the format in their own ways, leading to the grossly labyrinthine mess that is desktop Linux 'standards' today?
I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but you can't bash them for trying to keep their 'standard' coherent. Given 50 open source projects the 'right' to change the code, and we'd have masses of different endlessly over-engineered second-system syndrome implementations, and you'd try to open a doc but you'd get a 'libmsdocimport-ng.0.4.12 required' error.
The Linux desktop is pretty much empirical proof of all that!
Think a bit further...
Personally I don't give a damn one way or the other about open source software. What I do care about is open source document/data formats and open source protocol formats. Miscrosoft, Apple, Adobe, who ever can write their own software, keep the source well hidden and do what they like, however the DATA that is created is created by ME, not them, so I believe that I own that data and have the right to access it via what ever means I require. Instead of anyone protecting their marketshare by consumer lock-in methods such as proprietry formats, they should be keeping their customers happy by having the best products. It is ONLY through this method that we will see software improvements, better interface designs, better (useable/needed) functionality, better speed, wider platform acceptance. Lets face it, how much more needs to be jammed into a wordprocessor, being able to put in multimedia is crap as the ultimate goal of a WP is the printed format/document, if you need a multimedia presentation then there are other formats (acrobat is one option). Bottom line is if it can not be printed it is not part of a WP. So I guess we can almost safely assume that the WP has been done to death and the only thing keeping it there as a revenue stream is changes in file/data formats. The same applies to protocols, Microsoft can keep Exchange proprietry as hell, however the data and the protocols must be open, that way someone can create a functionally equal (better?) product. if MS has the best product (useability,support,functionality,etc) and they charge for it and have the most customers then more power to them, if someone can create a better product client side or server side the again more power to them. To see if this works, well just look at POP servers, Webservers,NNTP, etc etc etc. There are both open source and commercial softwares accross a variety of platforms, and it seems to me that this system has proven its worth over time.
Why does Microsoft insist on proposing a new "open" document format when there is already an established one accepted by several official standards bodies as well as endorsed by practically every other office suite producer? Why can't Microsoft for ONCE accept someone else's standard and stick to it? I know there's the whole "it's not from here" ego thing, but sheesh.
If Microsoft learned to play well with others, they'd not have a black eye right now. Microsoft is like the kid who was bigger than everyone else in 3rd grade and a bit of a bully, only everyone else has caught up to them in size and are now starting to fight back and hit the punk where it hurts. Linux on the server end and the OOo suite on the deskop are really hurting, and with several Linux distros' being ready for prime time - for real now - they're scared shitless.
Microsoft could continue to dominate the market through offering integration services plus value-added development and extension of open source projects, but again, it's the whole "it's not from here" thing getting in the way.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Why people never even consider that something else exists other than MS Office. It's not just a philosophical argument, everyone I know has ran into problems with a.doc from a different version that doesn't open. It is hard for some people to do work at home, then bring it to work/school and use it! If it's a.doc, it should work in every version of work. The same goes for all the other formats.
py
Fight the fall of slashdot by supporting PlayfullyClever in your sig.
What is the point of a standard if anyone can change it??
As I said here there is a good reason why (some people) need to be able to modify a "standard" to suit their needs. Agreeing on standards is useful. Preventing people from creating derivatives of a standard to satisfy their particular needs is not. We need some innovators to push the envelope, and those people need the freedom to create derivative standards. (But not necessarily the right to confuse people by claiming that these derivative standards are compatible with the original standard.) Having 1/4-20 screws as a standard is good. Forbidding someone from implementing a metric version of the same idea is bad (hooray for M6 screws!... sometimes the derivative standard is better...).
As long as the original standard is published, anyone is free to implement a converter or reader to access them and the data is hardly "locked".
I think that's a large part about what this debate is. Microsoft is not providing a totally open document standard that anyone can legally re-implement. OpenDocument gives us this. What MS is doing is creating a new standard, and making the documentation available, but subjecting it to various licensing schemes. At first, the schemes seem reasonable available, but in fact the provisions make it unclear if other products will be able to open the MS document standard in perpetuity.
At a minimum, the legalese is confusing and it's not at all clear that the MS document format will be open and useable in the ways we need it to be.
An open format doesn't mean that everyone has a say in what the standard is
Fair enough... but in my book, a format isn't open if I'm not allowed to create a derivative standard (under a new name). I should be allowed to innovate and come up with a variant of OpenDocument (and call it "UberTextFormat!" or whatever), or come up with a new kind of screw or electrical socket, based on current designs. Whether or not the standard becomes widely implemented is another question altogether. It is in our general interest to use a small set of standards to get our work done efficiently. But having a particular standard immune to evolution does not serve our goals.
I tend to agree with the earlier poster who postulates that data and application are two different issues. You should be able to use any application you like to access YOUR data. If the file formats are truly standard, than the best product - open source or otherwise - will win. Features, price point, etc will rule the day. This has NEVER been the Microsoft business model and I think all of here are well aware of it.
I plan on keeping a rather close eye on this gentleman for quite some time. All politicians lie when their lips move, regardless of party. However, any politican who thinks that anything Microsoft is doing is "good" is immediately suspect, simply because of the legal and ethical track record of the company. Frankly, he's shown me one thing. He's either a fool or a dupe (read "handpuppet"). I say that he's a fool because he's obviously too dense to find some able technical advisors to set him straight. I say that he's a dupe because if he's not a fool and he's knowingly endorsing this, they've already got their hooks in him which makes him a handpuppet. The only question is which category he falls into.
While he may not be our govenor and this isn't Massachusetts, this *is* Texas. We kill you back. We don't like that sort of thing any better here.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
The whole thing is a farce. Microsoft aren't going to implement open formats because if they did their business would take a monster hit. At the same time, they aren't going to tell the truth and say so because they daren't risk alienating yet more people and, besides, they know which way the popular wind is blowing. What is it with these guys that no matter what happens, they simply cannot tell anything straight?
So we are subjected to this grim charade, which might just be enough to put Massachusetts and others back in their box and prevent a domino effect. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, the dirty work of persuasion continues with (metaphorically speaking, of course) a sap in one hand a a wad of $100 bills in the other.
Really, if Microsoft were Pinocchio, they'd be having to employ a train of footmen to carry their nose in front of them, and give ten minutes' warning of a sneeze so that a team could struggle down the line with a kerchief the size of a parachute. I know it's unreasonable to treat every Microsoft proposal as suspect. Alas, though, experience suggests that it usually is.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
"The sky is blue, water is wet, women have secrets." -JH (1991)
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I'm not sure that you get the problem. I haven't looked through everything on the site you linked, but I did find the document from MS on EMF; it's in the form of a Microsoft help file. This makes me suspect that these documents focus on how to format an emf graphic for display on a Windows box and how to call the Windows emf rendering engine from your program on a Windows box. If so, I'm sure that there's plenty of documentation on how to do that. The problem is the reverse. As far as I know, the only effective emf rendering engine out there is the one embedded into the Windows OS. Getting reliable emf files to render on other OS's is not so easy. Take Office for Mac for example. MS supplies an emf rendering engine, but half the time the results are complete garbage.
I work for a company that provides research to the government. Many of our documents contain plots of data. In order to keep file sizes manageable, these are embedded as vector graphics. Yes, we could use Postscript with a low-res bitmapped preview and they would print nicely on a Postscript printer. However, our customers typically want WYSISYG performance and they don't necessarily want to be locked into Postscript printers. Furthermore, you can't put Postscript graphics into Powerpoint. (Well, you can, but all you see is the low-res bitmapped preview.) Therefore, if much of this work is to be viewed correctly, the government is locked into Windows. To make matters worse, this lock-in is being supported with your tax dollars. (Assuming that you're an American; if not, your government probably has the same problem anyhow.) What we need as part of an open document standard is an embedded vector graphics standard that will display on Windows boxes running Office and *nix boxes running alternative software. In order for that to happen, MS will need to provide WYSIWYG support for something besides EMF in its Office applications.
Your right that the license forbids, "A small subset of people can use the derivative (non-official) format if it suits them". But your also right that this group would be a small subset. Not mainsteam developers looking to solve a business case by adding compatibilty for MS office 2003 to their application. Most pick a standard to solve a business problem. I think this new license does just that.
A good example: If you ever used COM to make, read or modify a MS Word, Excel, powerpoint. You will know that using these XML formats is so much better. Most inportantly it finally solves the problem that a true server side app was never possible with the office COM.
I think some are missing another motivation for their "openness", and that is to get people to upgrade. MS Office biggest competitor is not open source Office apps but MS office 2000, 97. If business and government embraced this format it will be considered a killer feature and a good reason to upgrade to a newer version of office.
I don't know if this would work but... you could "extend" the XML documents. The XML documents like to use relational ids (w:rel). You could create a completely seperate document that uses those ids to extend the format without even touching the original documents. Couldn't this get around the license?
I want a license, not a promise. While it will protect me in court, a promise holds less weight than an explicit license.
That's fine for software.
But we're talking about standards governing the way I can store my proprietary data, and the way my government is to store any data that could affect me.
I want that to be free of any kind of license; I demand that this standard be completely unencumbered by any corporate or individual rights. What you compose on the keyboard is your intellectual property; no person, corporation, or government should have any hint of a right of control over any part of that process.
If their product is superior, it will stay on top even without the format lock-in.