Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's Open XML Project A Short-Term Fix

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the patching-a-sinking-ship dept.

TechPro writes "In an interview with eWeek the managing director of the ODF Alliance (Marino Marcich) was pretty dismissive of Microsoft's Open XML Translator project. While the move was a recognition of the ODF Format's acceptance by government's around the world, the installable software plug-ins that would be created under the project were really 'only a bridge, a stopgap measure that will probably not be acceptable to government's around the world over the long term. Plug-ins simply don't give the benefits of open file formats and standards,' he said."

5 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. No Technical Support For The Plugin by aymanh · · Score: 5, Informative
    [...] a stopgap measure that will probably not be acceptable to government's around the world over the long term.
    According to this blog entry at ZDNet, the author did an interview with MS representatives, and seems like MS doesn't plan to offer technical support for the plugin, and it will forward bug reports to the original authors. This plugin doesn't look different from a 3rd party plugin, so no, I seriously doubt any government will accept it as ODF support in MS Office.

    Quoting the blog entry:
    Microsoft is on the record as saying it will not be offering technical support to end-users for this translator. In fact, as far as I know, no one will officially be offering support (perhaps one of the three companies involved will, for a fee). As said earlier, Microsoft will accept bug reports and forward them on to the project's developers.
    --
    python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
  2. Java Redux by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Didn't MS do something similar with Java? Basically have their own "interpretation" of it which is almost, but not quite, compatible. How difficult would it be to make MS' version just off from everyone else's?

    --
    If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
    1. Re:Java Redux by Jesus_666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      OpenOffice has already broken from the ODF spec to accomplish some things.

      Interesting. Care to elaborate/give a link?

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  3. I don't understand how it is different. by khasim · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From TFA:
    Converters and plug-ins are not solutions to the problem as governments across the globe want access to their vital records and data and are looking to separate the document from the application, which plug-in technologies do not do, and which would open the market up to greater innovation and more product and price competition, he said.
    I don't understand the problem. If it's a plug-in, and it reads and writes to the ODF standard, where is the problem?

    The only thing I can think of is if people worry about a Microsoft "upgrade" breaking this plug-in. And then having to wait for the patch to the plug-in.
    The translators would also not be perfect, Jean Paoli, general manager for interoperability and XML architecture at Microsoft, told eWEEK, as "OpenXML and ODF are very different formats and some hard decisions are going to have to be made when translating from one format to another, like where we have OpenXML features that are not supported in ODF."
    Excuse me, but, fuck "translating". This isn't about "translating". This is about being able to read ODF files and save your work to the ODF format.

    "Translating" only comes into play when you're talking about:
    a. Converting all your previous work to a new format.

    b. When some people you are communicating with are restricted to the .docX format and you use the ODF format. But that's not a problem if the ODF format is the standard format.

    c. And Microsoft's "Open" XML format will only be available in their NEXT release so it won't affect anyone who is still using their current or a previous release.

    Am I missing something, somewhere?

    Microsoft's claims seem to center around an organization upgrading to the next release of MS Office and then migrating to the ODF format.

    While I see most situations as an organization migrating to the ODF format from an existing installation of MS Office 2000 or previous.
  4. ODF great for freedom, but needs better tech info by ishmalius · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have been working for months on ODF output from Inkscape. Although I am a great fan of ODF, it has become apparent to me that there is a weakness in technical specifications and programmer's references. The ODF project seems to be heavily biased in its efforts toward advocacy, with little energy left over to clean up the Oasis specification, provide application information, and most importantly, provide a test bed.

    There really needs to be a reference renderer for ODF. Something independent from OpenOffice, with examples of all of the grammar and semantics in the spec.