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Microsoft Claims OpenDocument is Too Slow
SirClicksalot writes "Microsoft claims that the OpenDocument Format (ODF) is too slow for easy use. They cite a study carried out by ZDNet.com that compared OpenOffice.org 2.0 with the XML formats in Microsoft Office 2003. This comes after the international standards body ISO approved ODF earlier this month." From the ZDNet article: "'The use of OpenDocument documents is slower to the point of not really being satisfactory,' Alan Yates, the general manager of Microsoft's information worker strategy, told ZDNet UK on Wednesday. 'The Open XML format is designed for performance. XML is fundamentally slower than binary formats so we have made sure that customers won't notice a big difference in performance.'"
What I didn't see mentioned in this article was the fact that back in March, Microsoft joined a subdivision of INCITS (V1 Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface group within the International Committee for Information Technology Standards). Which is the group that kind of decides whether or not it should be widely adopted. Being ISO certified is one thing but it doesn't mean everyone's going to use it as a standard.
There was much speculation that Microsoft had joined INCITS with the intent to slowdown or stop the spreading use of ODF and insert their own standard. Sounded like another Microsoft power trip to me.
I predict that Microsoft will bitch and bitch about ODF and then release study after study suggesting some other patent laden format (probably Open XML) over ODF. This is just the first complaint against ODF--too slow. Perhaps next they'll complain that it's not documented well enough, some of their apps just can't support it, it gives their developers arthritis, it looks too ugly, etc.
My work here is dung.
If I was an MS shill (like so many in these forums seems to be), I would be deeply, deeply ashamed that the company I pimped myself out for was incapable of distinguishing between a document format and an application.
(read the 'study')
But I am sure the shills will pipe up with "easier to use", "people are used to it", "noone forces people to use MS" and other such irrelevance.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
It's not a game loading complex 3D worlds and sound effects, it's a load of text being displayed on screen. What difference does a few milliseconds here or there make? OpenDocument could be ten times slower and the benefits of an open document format would still vastly outweigh the effects of loading time.
It does when you are writing MS Office worms and viruses. :-)
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
It's pretty important to me. The thing is, I highly doubt that ODF is naturally slower than MS's format. They're both XML, right? How can one take that much longer to parse?
In fact, the study cited doesn't even refer to "the speed of ODF". It's about OO.o's speed only.
Anytime Microsoft complains about OpenDocument, I just remember back to when they were on the Technical Committee at OASIS forming the standard. They then left that committee. If they truly cared about OpenDocument, they would have stayed on the TC and made changes to it.
I see this as an attempt by Microsoft to slander this format and try to further their own semi-OpenXML format.
--
Jason Faulkner
Eastern US Press Contact
OpenDocument Fellowship
Jay | http://oldos.org
I can just see Microsoft's new slogan for Office 12:
"Microsoft, saving your life, one microsecond at a time..."
Since when is a format slow? I could write an interperter for the MS format that is 3x as slow as the ODF. What are they defining as unsatisfactory and on what kind of documents?
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
It's actually likely they're slightly faster for spreadsheets. For example:
* they use single-letter tag names, for the most part, to reduce parsing time
* they remove all strings and put them in a look-up table
I'm not sure how much difference these things actually make in practice, but there's probably a little speed there.
What's not fair is to compare OOo to Microsoft Office, and determine the speed of OpenDocument versus OXML based on that...
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
If Microsoft are saying that they can't read XML documents efficiently then I guess we have to believe them, but if that's really true it says more about their lack of programming skill than the the difference between reading a binary vs text (or XML flavor #1 vs flavor #2) document on a modern processor.
If a Windows-capable PC has enough oomph to render clippy in 3-D translucent splendor for Vista, then it's certainly fast enough to load an XML document.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
No MSFT's formt is a Binary XML, with binary data encased by XML tags. Images are stored directly in the file unlike ODF which is a zipfile, with a subdirectory for images.
In other words if you don't have an ODF appilication all you have to do is unzip it( a feature found in most OS's these days) and extract the data by hand.
If you don't have MSFT Word of version x you can never open MSFT's formats. Patents will prevent third parties from implenting it. Defeating the entire point of having a standard.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
You mean to tell me that parsing a file at an average of 200k of data is too slow on 1.0+GHz processors?
OPTIMIZE YOUR CODE!
I know that there are many variables here, but seriously... how slow can it be? I use OpenOffice 2.0 on an Athlon64 3200+ and I have no issues, in fact, I find it much quicker than M$ Office
This brings to mind something that Microsoft did in the mid 1990's. When MS Word was trying to wrest market share from Wordperfect, Microsoft apparently coded speed bumps into Windows that only their programmers knew how to avoid. Microsoft then claimed that MS applications were "better" becuase they were faster, though we didn't understand that it was because of intentional handicapping of their rivals' software until they'd pretty much crushed WordPerfect in the market.
It kind of makes me wonder if they'll try the same approach to make ODF look "slower," by optimizing MS apps to work with Open XML and fumble around with ODF files.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
Actually the problem is not binary versus none binary, its fixed length versus variable length fields and records.
With old style formats, you knew that the header was 512bytes followed by 600 bytes of meta data, followed by the document sections which all indicate their size (or have some way of calculating it based upon the block type)
With XML, you get a tag opening and have to parse until the closure, this adds a lot to the complexity of reading.
Writing is slightly different, and should infact be simpler with XML even though it may be more verbose, you don't need to buffer the entire block or rewrite the section header to indicate the length, you just happily do a sequential write.
liqbase
This is typical FUD! The article is not comparing the speed of OpenDoc vs Microsoft's Open XML. It's comparing the speed of OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office. It does not make any sense.
.doc to give us some real numbers. (Microsoft's Open XML is not even available to compare speeds!)
How about if someone with a Windows PC at hand compared the speed of opening and saving OpenDocument vs. the usual
I'm sure Microsoft would very much like to shift the debate from OpenDocument vs. Open XML to OpenOffice vs MS Office. Let's not fool ourselves MS Office has many advantages.
In fact, until this very day I didn't even realize that performance was even in Microsoft's dictionary, and like so many other words Microsoft uses I don't think it means entirely what they think it means. Newsflash, Microsoft, "innovation" does not mean "steal other people's ideas." "Security" does not mean "It'll be taken over before you can download the first update for it." And "performance" doesn't mean "the entire fucking system stops for 30 seconds when some application decides to stop handling its windows controls." Now STFU and go back to pushing your poison kool-aid on unsuspecting consumers before Apple eats your lunch.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
+5 Insightful? Oh PLEASE!
.doc files. So are Microsoft's new XML files. So it's pointless to claim that a "binary" file format is faster than an XML file format.
ODT XML files are binary files. So are old Word 2003
When people say "binary files" they mean this as opposed to "text files", a seperation that stems from the ability to open a file for in "binary" or "textfile" modus in several APIs. Has to do with, amongst others, interpretation of control codes such as ^Z.
The other big mistake: file formats aren't fast or slow. The algorithms for reading and writing them are (or aren't) slow.
*slaps cheek* NO WAI!
You fail to see the point of what they're saying. They're saying a binary file, with a header and fixed data structures, are alot easier to read & parse than an XML file, which consists of structures of variable length, needs to be interpreted, etc etc etc. This is a problem with XML.
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
I've noticed that Word will stream open a large DOC file, so that you can start to work on it before it's been entirely loaded -- similar to a web page.
DOC files don't so much as stream as open for Random Access. They're structured in such a way that the information is stored as an object heirarchy scattered across the file. This makes saving faster because only the changes are saved to the file. It also make opening faster, because Office only needs to pull up the information that's on the screen at the moment. (Even if it's at the end of the document.) PDFs work in a similar, but more structured, fashion.
The unfortunate fact about ODF is that it requires a complete decoding of the file when loading, and a complete reencoding of the file when saving. However, I don't see any reason why Microsoft can't just add ODF support and make it an optional format. Computers are fast these days, and it should be up to the user to decide whether he needs the performance provided by the MS DOC *cough* "standard".
Or in other words, Microsoft is grasping at straws, trying to find a reason why they shouldn't support opening and saving of ODF files. I feel so sorry for them. (Not.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511251 44611543
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using a text editor, would you rather try to fix a bug in an odf or ms xml file?
MS XML
<w:p>
<w:r>
<w:t>This is a </w:t>
</w:r>
<w:r>
<w:rPr>
<w:b
</w:rPr>
<w:t>very basic</w:t>
</w:r>
<w:r>
<w:t> document </w:t>
</w:r>
<w:r>
<w:rPr>
<w:i
</w:rPr>
<w:t>with some</w:t>
</w:r>
<w:r>
<w:t> formatting, and a </w:t>
</w:r>
<w:hyperlink w:rel="rId4" w:history="1">
<w:r>
<w:rPr>
<w:rStyle w:val="Hyperlink"
</w:rPr>
<w:t>hyperlink</w:t>
</w:r>
</w:hyperlink>
</w:p>
OpenDocument
<text:p text:style-name="Standard">
This is a <text:span text:style-name="T1">
very basic</text:span> document <text:span
text:style-name="T2"> with some </text:span>
formatting, and a <text:a xlink:type="simple"
xlink:href="http://example.com">hyperlink
</text:a>
</text:p>
---
There is something true in that study, indeed.
Personally I already have seen this kind of numbers, even though I've never minded to measure them.
Why? Simply put, because it matters very little.
Compared to Windows 3.11, Windows XP needs 100 times more disk space, 10 times more RAM and 10 times more time to boot.
Compared MS to Word 5.5, MS Word 2003 if slower and bigger.
Today I wouldn't revert back to Windows 3.11 and would not choose Word 5.5. What'd be the most important features expected in a document file format? In my opinion:
1. compactness
2. openness
3. flexibility
No "access performances", though.
Because the time needed to load a document, when you do real office work, weighs by far less than the time you spend on it while working.
And when someone sends you a file written with a different version of the software or even with a different software, how much time do you spend to make that file readable and printable?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Here is a fast new algorithm to compress XML in such a way that browsing and searching the tree can be done without uncompressing it. This should make Word definitely faster when handling ODF. I really think Microsoft should start implementing some of this stuff instead of whining and complaining.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
It's actually likely they're slightly faster for spreadsheets. For example:
* they use single-letter tag names, for the most part, to reduce parsing time
* they remove all strings and put them in a look-up table
Thing is XML was desgiend to be readable and easy to parse. If you start doing hacks like embedding tons of binary data (OpenXML has images embeded in the XML), using one letter tags and look-up tables, you've essentially a bloated binary format.
You can call it an XML, it's technically XML, but it really isn't.
It would be better that Microsoft offers an open binary format, but truly open, patent free. XML is really heavy compared to efficient binary formats. Compressing the resulting XML makes XML formats on par with binary as to size, but that's just faking it: the program will have to decompress it and parse an XML, which is tons harder that directly parsing binary offsets and bits (for a machine).
I don't drink or have children so your point is moo!
This reminded me of this paper, "The Psychology of Learning". In it the writer describes the act of people who don't want to learn new things: "As long as everybody around them use tools, techniques, and methods that they themselves know, they can count on outperforming these other people. But when the people around them start learning different, perhaps better, ways, they must defend themselves. Other people having other knowledge might require learning to keep up with performance, and learning, as we pointed out, increases the risk of failure. One possibility for these people is to discredit other people's knowledge. If done well, it would eliminate the need for the extra effort to learn, which would fit very well with their objectives."
This issue is about Microsoft defending their turf rather than not wanting to learn something new. But it's basically the same motive at work: find ways to undermine the new to benefit the old.
It goes on, "This model of learning also explains other surprising behavior that I frequently observe. I have seen novices in software development with knowledge of a single programming language explain to experienced expert developers why their choice of programming language was a particularly bad one. In one case, I talked to a student of computer science who told me why a particular programming language was bad. In fact he told me it was so bad that he had moved to a different university in order to avoid courses that used that particular language. When asked, he admitted he had never written a single program in that language. He simply did not know what he was talking about. And he was willing to fight for it. With respect to programming languages, negative opinions about a language that a person does not know, are usually based on very superficial aspects of it. To people obsessed with performance lack of such in a programming language is a favorite reason to advocate its eradication (even though performance is not a quality of a language, but of a particular implementation)."
The positive lesson to take away from this is the MS is undoing itself. It's turning to cheap, nasty, suit-driven mentalities to defend its turf rather than the old days when it would just go out and write something new and nasty. It's become an unwieldy beast. I read about the Vista delays yesterday and briefly thought "Will anyone notice - who uses Windows these days". To an extent it shows what a bubble I live in. But it's true - *all* of my regular contacts use linux, freebsd or mac os x. As they should. After all - friends don't let friends use Windows.
Believe with me, my saplings.
How about if someone with a Windows PC at hand compared the speed of opening and saving OpenDocument vs. the usual .doc to give us some real numbers.
.DOC files (it took about 1 second to open the doc and about 0.5 seconds to open the ODT).
.DOC in Word was even faster (0.3 seconds? ... hard to measure).
Not very scientific, but I tried to do this test. I opened a big Word doc I have (80 pages), and re-saved it in ODT using OpenOffice 2.0. Then I opened both docs a bunch of times (did them in different orders, sometimes with OpenOffice already open, sometimes not).
End result: OpenOffice 2.0 opens ODT about twice as fast as it opens Word
It is not surprising that OpenOffice opens its preferred (well-documented) format faster than it opens someone else's non-documented format.
The inverse test (opening both DOC and ODT in Word) is not possible for obvious reasons! However opening the
Conclusion: Word opening DOC is probably faster than OO2.0 opening ODT. However the difference is so small that no one should care (on modern hardware especially). Furthermore there's no reason not to believe that opening of ODT documents will get faster and smoother as time goes on, since the standard is published and algorithms for opening ODT can be improved openly with time. Not only that, but since OO2.0 is open-source, it's particular implementation can be improved.
On the flip side, just yesterday I tried using MS PowerPoint on a macintosh to open a big presentation (lots of graphs). Opening (and manipulating) the file was unbearable (took minutes to open on the Mac, even though MS PowerPoint on Windows opens it in a few seconds). Strangely Keynote opens it in a few seconds. So Microsoft even has trouble efficiently opening their own binary format! The idea that XML-based documents are "inherently" slow is silly. It has everything to do with the algorithm (which is good for MS Word, bad for MS PowerPoint for Mac, and decent for OpenOffice).
You forget the rest of the fable: When the fox realized he couldn't get the grapes, he walked off, saying to himself, "They were probably sour anyway."
This is arguably analagous to Microsoft saying (about a format they can't control, which has been approved by the ISO as their open XML hasn't yet), "We'd support it but it's too slow"
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I wouldn't drink or have kids either if someone was there all the time, standing ready to urinate in my beverage or devour my children.
Good god man, open your eyes!
(This analogy is fun! We need more like this one.)
Because "free" still means more to me than an additional 1.7 seconds.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
XML is a miserable failure on both counts. It may technically be readable, but it is excruciating. Easy to parse, it most certainly is not. About the only thing it has going for it, is that it is an extensible standard.
...and it can also be written with any program that can read and write text. Right now, today, I can generate valid OpenDocument files with standard Unix command line tools and simple "print" commands in common scripting languages. While that isn't valuable to the average user, it's extremely handy for those of us who want to generate documents dynamically with as little overhead as possible (example: sending quotes based on form input on a website).
Beyond that, XML is human readable (even if not terribly convenient). I can read well-designed XML documents with any text editor. 100 years from now, I'll still be able to glean the content of OpenDocument files with any program that understands by-then legacy encodings like ASCII. If a binary spec is lost, though, so are the documents written with it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
TeX consists of long streams of ASCII bytes and offer no random-access abilities whatsoever except those implemented by a text editor and the underlying filesystem. And yet, LyX, which can easily handle thousand-page documents, loads and saves nearly instantaneously.
Your complaint is really over the relative brokenness of two major office suites, not the inherent advantages of their document formats.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The parent had a lot of good things to say except this comment: The idea that XML-based documents are "inherently" slow is silly.
No, the idea that XML-based documents AREN'T "inherently" slow is silly. Of course an XML-based document will be slower than a binary document. XML gives a number of niceties, in the form of maintainability and platform-independence, but it can never be made faster than a well designed binary document. That's just the trade-off.
This stuff doesn't even make sense.
OpenOffice uses ODF. Office uses binary formats. The performance analysis quoted doesn't compare ODF and OpenXML. It states right in the article:
Here is a comparison with the standard 16-sheet SXC and XML sample file I've been using. The sample is in compressed XML format because it is smaller and easier for you to download. You'll have to convert the XML file to XLS and the SXC file to ODS to run the following test yourself.
XLS is a binary format. This study is irrelevant to the statements made. And it's the only data given to substantiate the claims made. So there is no data given at all.
All you can conclude from this is that OpenOffice 2.0, retrofitted recently for ODF, is much slower in a windows environment than Office 2003 using binary file formats. A far cry from any statements made either by Yates or by the summary.
What a pile of crap journalism.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth