Two Open Document Standards Better Than One?

tsa writes "Microsoft says that the consumers should have the choice between multiple open standards for documents." From the article: "Microsoft's Yates said that OpenDocument and Open XML come from very different design points. 'In the future at some point there will be convergence,' he said. In the near term, the transition period from proprietary document formats to Open XML-based ones will be 'messy and complex,' he added. 'Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.'"

Comments

Divide and conquer

[timeOday]

We might not be able to beat one good format, but we can easily defeat two.

Re:Divide and conquer

[grasshoppa]

Ha! I never thought I'd hear from Microlimp that competition is good.

That's not precisely what they are saying. They are saying that competition on standards is good, which is a far cry from saying competition based on implementation is good.

Honestly, we should not have to deal with competition with standards. What's their to compete on if everyone agrees this is a standard? This is only a concept that is big because MS likes to fuck with standards ( embrace and extend ).

What they are trying to do is create an enviroment where PHB feel they have to go with the safe option. And no one ever got fired for going with MS.

Re:Divide and conquer

[timeOday]

Does anybody have a good handle on whether or not it will be easy to convert between the two formats?

Sure, just like you can convert back and forth between C code and assembler automatically. Just try editing that C code after one round trip though!

Complex document format conversion is lossy. Imagine converting a MS Word document to a TIFF image. OK, you'd lose some things (like page breaks) but you could do it. Now imagine trying to convert back to .doc from TIFF. You could sort of do it with OCR, maybe you could automatically recognize noncharacter regions and convert them back to images, but there's no way it would reclaim the structure of the document not to mention change tracking, comments, self-updating cross references, links to embedded spreadsheets, document-specific word lists for the spellchecker...

Two word processor formats will be much more similar than .doc and TIFF, but the same problem exists to a lesser degree. Document formats are not supersets of each other! At some level there are basic incompatibilities.

Re:Divide and conquer

[NickFortune]

You act as if Microsoft is so anti competition but then you have all heard of macs and linux so apparently they aren't perfect because most the world now at least knows there is an alternative...

So you're suggesting that we should infer goodwill from Microsoft's imperfections? That they could have destroyed Linux and Apple any time they liked, but they withheld their hand becuase they're nice people?

I have to say that doesn't sound like the Microsoft I've come to know and loathe. Should we also infer that they put all those bugs in on purpose so other OSes won't feel bad abut themselves?

Seriously if people continue to just bash microsoft hear then it shows they are no better then the funded surveys that microsoft does to prove they are better except you guys

So like, if I criticise Microsoft, I'm just as bad as they are, yeah? So if I say, Microsoft are untrustworthy hypocritical greedy grasping anti-competitive and morally bankrupt, that means that I am also untrustworthy hypocritical greedy grasping anti-competitive and morally bankrupt, made so purely by the act of saying so. Is that right?

Wow.

So, presumably, if I say the Pope is a catholic, that would make me a catholic too.

Maybe I should stop using the toiletary habits of bears for emphatic confirmation. I mean, it's not as if there's a decent sized wood anywhere near where I live. Talk about getting caught short...

Re:Divide and conquer

[Sathias]

Different standards are nothing new though... VHS vs Betamax? HD-DVD vs Blu-ray?

Re:Divide and conquer

[denmarkw00t]

...the market can sort out which one is really best, and it will end up as the reference standard


That seems good but what happens when two companies develope two pieces of software with identical functionality but one supports OpenStandardA and the other OpenStandardB? To the user, it appears to work and function the same, but then when said user moves from ProductA to ProductB or, lets say, sends a co-worker who uses ProductB an OpenStandardA document, what happens?

You hit a brick wall.

Instead of the two companies working together to develope a standard for their formats, they've put up a nasty roadblock for their users. Yes, competition in creating the standard is good, but the community should pick one and then everyone should drop the other, even its own creators in favor of whats best for the users.

I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are two standards, how can they be called standards?

Isn't that like having competing monopolies?

Regardless, competetion in standards is only good for a short period of time, after that there is a waste of man hours on one project to the detriment of whatever the standard is for.

Re:I'm confused

[RogL]

If there are two standards, how can they be called standards?

That's right - who could possibly need more than one standard?

Just as there's only one graphics-file format... GIF! I mean bitmap... or was that JPEG? Oh, PNG - that's the one! Except for the nuts using TIFF or RAW...

Re:I'm confused

[Pudusplat]

Nope.

Multiple ideas can be thought of as a "standard", they just aren't necessarily compatible. PAL vs NTSC, 120 volts vs 220 volts, AC/DC, DVD-R vs DVD+R, Letter size vs Legal vs Postcard. They're all standards, all used for various purposes, and sometimes (DVD-R vs DVD+R) interchangable. As long as a lot of people conform to using it (not necessarily ALL people), it can be deemed a standard. Multiple standards can be a good thing. Of course, multiple standards can also be a bad thing, as it leads to unneccessary incompatabilities.

Of course!

[Just Some Guy]

As soon as Microsoft releases a fully documented, non-patented format, or at least creates a perpetual license for F/OSS projects to use a patented format, I'll welcome them with open arms.

Since they haven't done that yet, the rest is just speculation. It looks like legal issues will be keeping the Free world on OpenDocument for the foreseeable future.

Re:Of course!

[Just Some Guy]

Will you do that even without considering the merits of their patented-yet-standardized format?

Will I what? Welcome them to the competition? Sure! That's not the same as blindly adopting their proposal.

Now that is funny!!

[gasmonso]

"Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.

If Microsoft had to actually compete, they would cease to exist.

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Now that is funny!!

[lbrandy]

Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.

More importantly, isn't that the entire reason for a "standard"? So you don't have competing formats? Hence the use of the word "standard". Maybe he needs to look up the definition of standard (and, while he's at it, oxymoron).

MS strategy

[JoeCommodore]

Let's just forget the embrace thing, we'll just muddy the market by extending.

Competition

[QuaintRealist]

"Competition between two standards we believe is a very good thing"

From past experience, Microsoft only believes this when the leading standard is someone elses. Once Microsoft's standard holds the most mindshare/marketshare, then they don't like competition anymore.

Just what I've observed

Re:Competition

[Eil]

MS realizes at this point, that it's going to be quite hard or impossible to beat out OpenDocument. So what do they do? Well, they simply suggest that there will be two standards, and that they will at some time converge into one. But taking these statements apart and considering Microsoft's prior attitudes and actions toward difficult competition, we arrive at some very strong assertions from a Microsoftian point of view:

1) We will sooner curl up, die, and/or join the open source movement before letting a non-MS Office document standard become any sort of official or de facto standard.

2) There will be two incompatible standards in popular use. Yes, that does defeat the entire purpose of standards in the first place, but you have to realize that we're Microsoft and that we will never stop pushing our own solutions, even if they're inferior, evil, or expensive. Even if everyone on the planet rejects them, it will not hinder us. But we will succeed eventually.

3) Our standard will converge with the competition's in response to market forces. And if the market doesn't force it, we will, and we'll just make it sound like we didn't.

4) We plan to be in charge of this convergence. And by "converge," we mean "effectively replace that one with ours." We'll be in full control of the result.

Last time I checked...

[mmaddox]

Last time I checked, TWO ain't a standard. It's a competition.

For who?

[grasshoppa]

Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing

Yeah, for microsoft.

You can expect this kind of horse shit from MS because they are on the weak end of the document format wars. Allow me to explain:

Competition between programs is a very good thing. No arguments. Standards are just that, standards. There has already been a shake down period, and people have agreed this is an agreed set of rules. Hence, "standard". By instigating a whole new standards "war", they hope to create confusion and chaos. And those of you who work with PHB already know the next bit: They panic and go with the safe option.

Fuck 'em. I hope against logic that they get eaten alive on this one.

Re:For who?

[grasshoppa]

I have yet to even meet in person ANYONE who uses open office

Then you don't work in IT. I would further say you don't work with computers much on a day to day basis.

No one cares about OS except linux zealots and and a few governments looking to save a few pennies by using an inferior product

Try not to drool to much on yourself, it really undermines your credibility.

Let me paint you a picture. You are the IT head of a state ( lets say California ). You see Mass moving to open-office due to concerns about document formats. A year goes by, and they report an enormous budget savings due to no MS tax on their office suite.

Now, do you a) Stay with MS, and have to deal with corporation crap regarding their document formats and pay for the privledge? Or do you b) investigate costs associated with moving to open office?

Try not to drool on yourself while you think about this.

Re:For who?

[picaro]

Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.

Competition between the English and the metric systems, for example, has provided an endless stream of benefits over the years.

And while we're at it, the different standards for power plugs and telephone adapters are really great, too, stimulating the ingenuity of international travelers everywhere, and doubtless provide jobs and livelihoods for tens of thousands of adapter manufactures around the world.

Open Standard?

[Fallen Kell]

I still do not know how they can call their "Open XML" open to begin with. It was basically MS dictating what the "standard" would be with no comments accepted from anyone in the community (asside from MS's internal community).

The process was, this is the standard.

Microsoft's bastardization of the word 'OPEN'

[OwlWhacker]

Open doesn't mean what it should anymore.

Like in this article for example.

QUOTE:

Thanks to Microsoft, users will face the "unsavory prospect of two supposed standards. The truth is that only one of them is free of intellectual property encumbrances. Only one reflects multivendor support, and only one reflects openness. That standard is OpenDocument Format,"

Not again...

[Taevin]

Let's see, embrace, extend, extinguish.

Embrace: Do a complete reversal; say that open standards are a great idea, far better than our own proprietary asshattery.

Extend: So yeah, we're all about open standards now and look we've got our own version OpenXML. It's obviously better (or at least that's what people will believe thanks to our unstoppable marketing department) so we'll add extra tags and change the format of existing ones. Oh by the way, this means that only Microsoft products will create this and only Microsoft products will understand this but that's not our fault, honestly.

Extinguish: Well everyone seems to be using our version of the open document format since 90% of all computer users use our software so only masochists use that 'other' standard. We'll repeatedly change the standard by making each version of our software understand only a new version of it. After everyone is frustrated by the lack of stability in a so called standard, we'll do another 180 and point out how much better and stable closed source/standards are and move everyone back to safe, trustworthy Microsoft standards that Just Works(tm).

Thanks for playing!

For Some Definition of "Open"

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Multiple, competing open standards are fine, and being open it is usually not too difficult to translate between them. Unfortunately MS's "Open XML" standard is not open, so they are not really giving us the choice they are claiming. Open XML is format that is patented and that is licensed with a variety of important restrictions. For example, only the current version is covered by the license, it expires immediately should a new version come out. According to the letter of the license this means the benefits of backwards compatibility and even the ability to distribute a program from one day to the next are subject to MS's whim. Should MS release a new version that is intentionally broken, they could legally restrict competitors from continuing to sell or even give away a word processor.

Redistribution is completely forbidden by the licensing, leading many to believe that it was specifically designed to exclude GNU licensed applications, like Open Office, their primary competitor. How can anyone call "Open XML" and open format when the license under which that format is offered means it can't be implemented by OpenOffice?

All of this is MS marketing FUD. Closed is open. Bad is good. Ha ha we made it really hard for you to explain shit to your managers by naming our product the opposite of what it is. This is like GM calling the next iteration of their traditional cargo van "Hybrid Luxury Mobile" despite it not having a hybrid engine or any luxury features. Don't fall for their crap.

Am I the only one...

[squoozer]

...that thinks two competing document standards isn't a good thing? Yes, I know all the arguments about the competition spawning features and a better product and quite frankly I don't really believe them. As far as I am concerned it will just lead to a situation where I am always playing off the benifits and draw backs of the two formats and trying to guess which one a potential client will want. At least at the moment it's a no brainer. Send it in the latest .doc format or .pdf depending on whether you want the recipient to be ablet o edit the document.

If MSO and OOo have perfect reading and writting capabilities for both formats and both formats are able to produce quality documents (I think that's a given) that it's not a big issue but how would you choose between the two formats. You can't because they would be the same so you might as well roll them into one.

My worst fear is that the two formats will be fundamentally incompatible. That would be like having two incompatible versions of HTML and having to choose your browser based on site.

offtopic? Surely you jest

[porkThreeWays]

offtopic? I guess some people need things spelled out for them. The above was a reference to Microsoft's blatent disregard of html standards. In effect, when we've got more than one standard out there, the above is the result.

Re:Missing the point?

[Trepalium]

It's obvious, isn't it? Microsoft has exclusive control over the ECMA standard. Only Microsoft can release another OpenXML standard and the "standard" states that clearly. On the other hand, anyone from the ODF group could update the Open Document format, and release a new standard through the normal OASIS procedures. If Sun became disinterested in maintaining the standard, the remaining members could. If Microsoft becomes disinterested in maintaining OpenXML (say, for example, they successfully killed the ODF threat), that would simply be the end of OpenXML. We're exchanging one de facto standard for another de facto standard, and calling it open to keep lawmakers happy. It's all about control.

Re:the old saying goes..

[CrazedWalrus]

Heh -- I've heard that one too, but my 26 years of 'wisdom' have shown me that two heads generally just re-enforce each other's harebrained ideas (e.g. the wacky old couple down the street who have the wild ideas about the neighbors), or simply confuse each other more (typically in professional settings, or Slashdot). It even happens with smart people who have slightly different views of reality.

In my several years of professional IT, I've been shocked (and, at times, guilty as well) by how many times smart people will argue, over something that is easily investigable, but whom both are too lazy or full of themselves to actually do said investigation.

Surely, one thing is true: Two heads are better at talking out of their asses.

Re:Blah blah from MS

[arkanes]

That is because in a lot of organizations the Legal and HR departmets are idiots who don't know anything about technology and won't listen to the people who do. You cannot guaranteee proper formatting with HTML, even with mshtml. If proper formatting is actually important to you you won't use HTML for that - you'll publish your documents as PDFs or similiar instead. People who write documents in Word, save them as HTML, and consider that "saving the formatting" because it looks right in IE don't actually care about saving formatting - they use it as an excuse for not doing things the right way.

NASA Proved Two Standards are Bad

[codepunk]

One only has to look at NASA to see just how bad using two standards can be. NASA used two standards of measurement (english and metric), the result is a pile of parts strewn across the red planet.

OK, but if it's kosher XML

[smittyoneeach]

How do you preclude an XSLT to un-frobnicate documents bearing the Redmond taint?

Re:UMMM???

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... not very good at the whole reading comprehension thing, are you?

Maybe I can spell it out using nice, short little sentences for you.

1. User uses MS Word trial edition to view/edit documents.
2. MS Word trial edition expires.
3. User double-clicks on Word document, Word says "Piss off, I've expired".
4. User installs OpenOffice (and doesn't change any file associations).
5. User double-clicks on Word document, Word opens document and says "Yes, I would be happy to serve you. Don't forget to license me sometime!"

See, the interesting part comes from the change in Word's behaviour upon installing OpenOffice. That wasn't so hard, was it?

competition

[SebNukem]

"Competition between two standards we believe is a very good thing"

What a ridiculous statement.

If there are multiple standards then there is no standard by definition.

Competition between products using a common standard is a good thing.

Unintended side effects for Microsoft

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Microsoft "opening" their XML format has an unintended side effect. Sure, they may end up winning the purchasing agreement for office software for the Massachussetts state government ... but by opening the format, they've also opened the door to allowing the OpenOffice.org software to read/write Microsoft's format -- legally. This will allow the free world to continue using OpenOffice.org in a Microsoft-centric world.

Re:MS is competing... and winning...

[Lifewish]

Yes it is. They all have agreements with Microsoft which means they lose discounts if they sell systems without Windows on.

You would not believe how hard it is these days to get a laptop without an operating system preinstalled. There are precisely two companies doing this in the whole of the UK, compared to several hundred (rough estimate) laptop+windows vendors/resellers.

Re:MS is competing... and winning...

[swillden]

Sir, offering discounts to manufacturers who install Windows exclusively is emphatically not mafia-like activity.

Nope, it's a normal business practice.

However, monopolists are barred from many normal business practices, for good reason. This is one that Microsoft should not be allowed.