Microsoft to Support ODF via Plug-In

Apache4857 writes "It appears that Microsoft has finally caved. BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft is sponsoring an open source project to enable conversion between Open XML in Office 2007 and OpenDocument formats. The project, hosted on Sourceforge.net, made its initial release today. The Word 2007 conversion utility is expected to ship ship by the end of 2006, and similarly conversion utilities for Excel and PowerPoint are expected early next year." See the announcement in Brian Jones' blog (Jones is the Microsoft program manager responsible for Office file formats).

Comments

Doing pretty good until the end.

[khasim]

Microsoft notes that OpenDocument still has gaps that are being worked out by OASIS, such as spreadsheet formulas, macro support and support for accessibility options. Citing Open XML's accessibility features for disabled workers, file performance and support for integrating external XML data, Microsoft says ODF "focuses on more limited requirements."

"Accessibility options" and "disabled workers".

That's not the responsibility of the file format.

That's the responsibility of the app used to read/write that file format.

And with an Open standard for file formats, there's no reason that anyone could not write an app that did direct file-to-speech with no need for a visual display (as is currently the case).

Re:Doing pretty good until the end.

[cnettel]

Not necessarily. For example, PostScript is a very bad format for distributing documents that are to be consumed in any other way than as a graphical document. A naively created PDF can be quite bad, a properly annotated one not so bad. HOW you represent the data is relevant. I would imagine that most formats that are suitable for further editing in a structured manner should be quite good from an accessibility standpoint as well, but you can certainly choose to code things like text flow in a manner that makes a good UI, but where the semantics are lost. The app can only present and persist what's allowed in the format.

DISCLAIMER: This is general obvious facts. I don't recommend the current or future MS Office XML formats as any example of how things should be done.

Caved? Hardly!

[andrewman327]

Microsoft has not caved as TFA says. Now they can compete in new markets where they were being gradually squeezed out. Now organizations can say that they support open standards while still using Microsoft Office. I am sure that they will do a half-hearted job of supporting ODF, and people will grow frustrated with how "limited" it is compared to the native XML file type. They will not realize that only Microsoft's implementation is limited. As a result they might start using the latter for things that are saved locally, undermining ODF efforts.

Why is this important?

[Noryungi]

Several reasons:

1. Microsoft has finally realized it cannot fight against the Linux trend. Even if Linux is not ready for the desktop -- which is debatable -- free [beer|speech] software is now good enough to replace at least part of Windows and/or Office on the desktop.
   
2. Microsoft now openly acknowledges -- through this decision -- that they don't control the market, but that they are forced to bow to the pressure of their clients. This is pretty much unprecedented, as Microsoft, through FUD and VaporWare, used to control its clients, and not the other way around.

All in all, this is very good news for Open Source, and a chink in the mighty Microsoft FUD machine...