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."

4 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. 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.