What Does the Microsoft ODF Converter Mean?

Andy Updegrove writes "It's been a week now since Microsoft announced its ODF/Office open source converter project - time enough for 183 on-line stories to be written, as well as hundreds of blog entries (one expects) and untold numbers of appended comments. Lest all that virtual ink fade silently into obscurity, it seems like a good time to look back and try to figure out what it all means. In this entry, I report on a long chat with Microsoft's Director of Standards Affairs Jason Matusow, and match up his responses with the official messaging in the converter press release. The result is a picture of a continuing, if slow and jerky, evolution within Microsoft as those that recognize market demands for more openness debate those that want to follow the old way. This internal divide means that the proponents of change need to point to real market threats in order to justify incremental changes. This adaptation by reaction process leaves Microsoft still lagging the market, but has allowed those that favor a more open approach to gradually turn the battle ship a few degrees at a time."

Comments

Duh

[Umbral Blot]

Embrace, extend, extinguish? At least that is what everyone here is going to say, so I don't even see why the editors bothered to post this story. It's slashdot, we always have the same response to news about microsoft.

Re:Duh

[utopianfiat]

I've been saying the same thing about this issue from the start:
If they wanted an open-source project, they should have published an open-source application. Furthermore, the ODF converter doesn't hook into the save-as dialog. Why? Because plugins in office don't support that.
If they wanted ODF compatability, they should have PATCHED THE FILE DIALOG, not do some Open-Source song-and-dance to turn some RMS fanboys' faces red and Redmond fanboys' pants white.

Re:Duh

[NutscrapeSucks]

Furthermore, the ODF converter doesn't hook into the save-as dialog. Why? Because plugins in office don't support that.

Hmm -- there's other converters that plug into the Save As dialog. I suspect this is just a packaging issue that they haven't gotten to because they're only at version 0.01 or whatever.

Oh, Boy!

[waif69]

I can keep using microsoft office forever if they support, fully and properly ODF. Actually that is only a semi-funny thought as I actually do enjoy using microsoft office as compared to the alternatives.

Re:Oh, Boy!

[nine-times]

I don't think it's funny at all. Look, for lots of everyday uses, Microsoft Word isn't a bad program. Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint-- these all have their valid uses, and they all do a pretty decent job.

Is it good enough that I'd want to spend hundreds of dollars for it when there are free alternatives? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what I'm doing and what I want, but I've spend money on Photoshop and Acrobat, and those also have free alternatives. I could imagine Microsoft Office remaining successfull if Microsoft starts selling it based on its own merits.

However, as someone running an IT department, I'm trying to migrate to OpenOffice where ever I can. It's not so that I can save a couple hundred dollars here and there, but I'm just entirely sick of the abuse Microsoft heaps on its own customers. All the vendor lock-in, piracy checks, and all the rest-- it hurts my company's flexibility. It worries me that my company might find itself in a position where it can't access its own data. I'm annoyed by the idea that Microsoft's default format isn't real XML, which would be easier for our databases to generate/process.

So what I'm saying is, yes, I'd like Microsoft to use/support real open standards. I'd like their systems to play well with others. I'd like to see a better version of Office for the Mac, and a version for Linux-- there have been times when I would have bought Office for Linux, even though Evolution/OpenOffice is working well enough.

I'd like Microsoft to do those things specifically because I kind of like Microsoft Office, and I'd like to keep using it. However, I can't, in good conscience, put my company's future at Microsoft's mercy because some executive in Microsoft is a childish prick who insists on leveraging their monopoly to the point of hurting their own customers. It's unacceptable.

Beating Microsoft to the punch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so good times for Microsoft anymore... :-)

Today I saw this: www.officeviewers.com

You answered your own question

[dougman]

"...183 on-line stories to be written, as well as hundreds of blog entries (one expects) and untold numbers of appended comments"

While I'm sure they will come out with a useful tool of some sort, the bottom line is free marketing (IMHO).

Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[tomstdenis]

I'll avoid the typical MSFT bashing and move on to a tangent.

When will "professionals" realize that Word is not meant for all documents? It's great for short documents, posters, etc. But for real professional looking documents it's hard to beat a typesetter like TeX [or LaTeX].

This has nothing to do with bashing MSFT and everything to do with bashing the "one size fits all" mentality.

Tom - Who hates writing a book in Word but will do it anyways because its good for the resume.

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[Neil Watson]

I write my resume in LaTeX. It allows me to have one source and offer formats in html and pdf automatically.

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[tomstdenis]

To be fair, OpenOffice will let you save in HTML and PDF as well [so will AbiWord] and with extensions so will Word.

Though I do admire the geek-pride of using TeX for that. I used to Blog in TeX, often because I didn't like MathML and was talking about math. :-)

What I'm talking about moreso are books [even non-math books] and papers. It's so much cleaner to write them in LaTeX with the book class macros then in Word. For one thing, TeX handles all the layout for you, so the even/odd margins [e.g. where the fold goes], starting chapters on the right page, headers/footers. Then not to mention the easy to auto-number [and list] figures and other goodies.

Most of which [except the layout] you can do in Word, just it's a royal pain in the ass. For example, I routinely have to tell Word to "restart counting" because it thinks all number lists are joined some how. In TeX, it's just \begin{enumerate} and you're off to the races.

My first book [BUY IT!!!] was done purely in LaTeX and in my opinion looks classy. My second book [not out yet] is being written with Word and while I pray the final product looks good [and reads well] it's hard to get all jazzed about a non-laid out document which I can only picture what will look like...

Tom

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[Umbral Blot]

Although the capabilities of Latex are nice I do have one beef with it: it's still eassier to use the equation editor that comes with Word (in the windows version of office). The Word equation editor lets you select formatting options from a list, each of which is accompanies by a visual representation, and you can see the results immediately. With Latex you have to remember all the formatting commands you want, and you have to wait until the very end, when you compile your document, to see what you have actually created. More frustrating is that with the version of Latex I am using when you use a command improperly you simply get an error message, leaving the user to find what was wrong by themselves, in contrast with the Word equation editor where errors are impossible. In summary I'll take usability over power anyday, because I simply want to get the job done; it doesn't matter how pretty the math is, it simply needs to be readable.

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[tomstdenis]

This is typical anti-OSS flamebait but I'll respond anyways.

TeX is a 30 yr old system still used today for a reason. Not saying the commercial side is bad but if you're working on a budget and need precision nothing beats TeX. Not only that but TeX is CVS friendly which comes in handy if you work in a team.

Besides, academia is moving towards Word for the very reason I cited. "oh it can do anything". Look at the recent LLNCS call for papers. They used to only accept photo-ready postscripts. Now they accept .doc files straight for the submitters.

And to add to that, writing a book in Word is cruel. You never get to see the final product and the flow/layout is just awful. When I was working on my first book I could easily make a modification then see what the final product would look like. Regenerating the entire 320 page book takes a mere minute [less really]. As an author it's encouraging to know what your presentation will look like as you work on it.

With my second book I will know what my pages look like a mere week or two before it hits the printers. That gives me very little time to review the layout and submit feedback. So I may get stuck with a book that really doesn't reflect what I wanted to accomplish.

Tom

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[pubjames]

When will "professionals" realize that Word is not meant for all documents?

People often comment on how nice my documents look, my response is, it's because I don't use Word. Microsoft Word has always been terrible at creating attractive documents. It doesn't follow typesetting rules. I use Apple Pages now, used to use WordPerfect. Both produce documents that look much better than a standard Word document. In fact WordPerfect of ten years ago produced better looking documents than the current version of Word.

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[Valacosa]

When will "professionals" realize that Word is not meant for all documents?...This has nothing to do with bashing MSFT and everything to do with bashing the "one size fits all" mentality.

I agree fully.

I'm currently working in an office environment. Personally, I haven't used MS Word here yet - for every document I've created I've either used LaTeX (great for citations, macros, and breaking things into chapters) or Pagemaker (great when you want to do layout by hand.)

Everyone else in this building, however, uses MS Word as their Blunt Instrument to do whatever task they have to get done. They use Word primarily because it's what they know, it works (albeit poorly) and in the end, they're uncomfortable with computers. To a lot of the general population, even an office population, computers are still magic black boxes. I'm not sure if there's a way to combat that fear. How many people can change their own oil? Fix their own TV?

We're geeks. We learn the most efficient way to do things because that is in our nature. Most people won't bother. They just want to get the damn job done, even if they end up wasting more time in the long run.

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[value_added]

When will "professionals" realize that Word is not meant for all documents? It's great for short documents, posters, etc.

I'd like to think that "professionals" have no problem grasping that Word isn't really good for anything. Office drones and beginners may get by with writing shopping lists and memos in Word, but I consider it unfortunate that their sheer number perpetuate the notion that Word is the tool to use for generating documents of any type.

But for real professional looking documents it's hard to beat a typesetter like TeX [or LaTeX].

Agreed, but most anyone can crank out a short document, poster, etc. faster in LaTeX than some else pointing and clicking their way using Word. Long articles and books doubly so.

I submitted the following as a story some time ago. It wasn't accepted so I'm guessing most /. readers are more interested in reading about inconsequential techno-trivia or games. Maybe someone will find it as interesting as I did.

Love at First Byte -- Among the many enduring passions of Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming is only the one with the most pages.,

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[rockmuelle]

"We're geeks. We learn the most efficient way to do things because that is in our nature. Most people won't bother. They just want to get the damn job done, even if they end up wasting more time in the long run."

I've spent a good deal of time in both Word and LaTeX and hear this all the time from geeks who still use LaTeX for everything.

It's worth pointing out that LaTeX is not the most efficient way of doing most documents. It is very good at handling citations, but that's it. For everything else, it is inefficient compared to a word processor. And, word processors could have excellent support for citations, if there was a market for it (a few thousand acadmics who expect all software to be free is not a market).

To back up that statement a bit, consider the process of createing a document in LaTeX. Usually, you open up a text editor, write your document using LaTeX's markup language and 'compile' the document. Once its compiled, you look at it in xpdf, find the layout/grammar bugs, and repeat. At some point, you start breaking the document out into sub-files that contain sections or complex equations, and it's not uncommon to have a main.tex file that builds the final document, usually with the aid of a makefile.

Given that workflow, can you see any reason LaTeX would appeal to geeks? Think about it. It's exactly the same way we learned to develop code in school! Edit, compile, run, subroutines, makefile. It _appears_ to be the most efficient way because it maps nicely to something we do on a regular basis. But, most people stopped using text editors and makefiles when IDEs matured. Here's the secret: Word processors are the IDEs of layout.

Let's look a little deeper. To do any basic formating in LaTeX, you have to surround your text with markup. That's extra typing, which is not terribly efficient. And, when you're reading heavily marked up text, you have to filter out the markup to make sense of things. To catch any layout errors, you rely on a viewer for feedback, which adds a roundtrip between the viewer-editor-web. I threw Web in there, because if you've ever tried to do any _real_ layout in LaTeX, you'll need to hunt down the secret incantation that solves your problem. Then there's spell checking. Sure, FlySpell is nice in Emacs, but it's hardly state of the art. Grammar checking? Don't even thing about it (yeah, I know this is of limited usefulness, but it helps sometimes).

Now, go back to a word processor. There's no extra markup to type, layout problems can usually be resolved by tweaking a few settings available from the context (right-click) menu, there's no compile-debug cycle. Styles (even in Word) can be defined to change the look of a document instantly (as long as you know how to use them, but the same is true for LaTeX). For complicated documents, word processors do start to show their rough edges. But, LaTeX doesn't scale that well, either. And, that's a customer issue, most people just don't do enough complicated layout for it to matter. Output formats? "Save as..." (and don't try the human readable claim - how often do you really go back and edit things outside the program you created them in? Be honest.)

So, next time you find yourself claiming that LaTeX is the best way to do everything, take a step back and make an honest evaluation of your workflow.

-Chris

Re:Avoid the bash and move straight to the tangent

[jejones]

You're right. That's why I started using LyX.

Re:It means...

[tomstdenis]

Write your C.V. in HTML and hand out the URL. Much more fun and saves on the bandwidth.

Tom

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of:

[skids]

It means: there will be yet another way for desk potatos to potentially send me emails that aren't loaded up with some bell or whistle or whatnot that breaks them under anything other than the very newest version of MS Office.

Along with text, RTF, and older MS formatting.

And just like all those other options, they won't use it.

Duh

[GweeDo]

It means Open Document Format...geez, some acronyms are just easy...

Battleship

[truthsearch]

turn the battle ship

And that's the problem. The public perception is still Microsoft as a weapon of war. And it's the perception because that's still how Microsoft operates. Going beyond the open/closed debate they need to stop treating IT as a battleground. As soon as they switch from a war mentality to a peace and cooperation mentality things will go a lot smoother. For as long as they make a fight out of things there will be trouble. Maybe one day they'll learn there's actually money to be made while at peace with others.

Re:Battleship

[truthsearch]

You can't just judge Microsoft based on their products. Their tactics are destructive. They may have the best word processor on the planet. I don't care. I will not give money to a company that hurts my industry and the overall economy if I don't need to.

I don't like to think of business as a battle. Every conflict is not a war. But Microsoft chooses to make it one.

Re:Battleship

[0racle]

The 'general public' doesn't hate Microsoft, they actually don't care. Like with all things popular, successful or current, its popular to complain about it.

Re:Battleship

[Wylfing]

As soon as they switch from a war mentality to a peace and cooperation mentality things will go a lot smoother.

I think it is almost the opposite. Microsoft has always been at its best when it was not in control of the market, and had to fight for success. I remember very, very fondly Word 2.0 on DOS. That was a thing of beauty, and it came out of the need to compete with WordPerfect and Wang and all the other word processors on the market in those days. Microsoft weren't trying to lock out new competitors in those days, they were participants in a competitive landscape. That is what is missing -- that idea that they are participants in a fray, not the idea that they should enforce the Pax Microsoftia where no competitors are allowed.

Re:Battleship

[babbling]

Slashdot will forever hate Microsoft

That's a load of crap. There are valid reasons for disliking Microsoft at the moment. They try to push proprietary, patented file formats/codecs/protocols into the community so that everyone feels pressure to use Microsoft software.

I don't mind if Microsoft software is crap, because I can just choose not to use it.
I don't mind if Microsoft software is proprietary, because I can just use something else.

I DO MIND when Microsoft forces their users to try to exchange files with me that are in formats that Microsoft have made sure I can't read, either through secret specifications or through legal (software patent) pressure.

If Microsoft played nice, they could get along well with the Slashdot community. Have you ever considered why Microsoft has Internet Explorer? They don't make money by selling it. It's not really a decent browser - other browsers are better. So why do they have it? Why not just bundle Firefox or something else with Windows? IE is a power grab. Its sole purpose is to be incompatible with web standards so that websites are written specifically for IE and won't work well for users of other operating systems.

Re:Battleship

[truthsearch]

First of all, the "fringe geeks" you refer to encompass millions of people. Second, major media regularly reports negative news about Microsoft. Windows-based viruses have been front page news. Every day you can find an editorial bashing Microsoft. I can't talk to an "average" Windows user for long without hearing complaints about the software and questions as to why the creator does nothing to fix problems. General public perception of Microsoft is most definitely negative.

Re:Battleship

[Seraphim_72]

Do you seriously think that the company that made it so that every retard on the planet can and does use a computer is "hurting your industry"?

Asked and answered your own question there - good job!

Re:It means...

[NutscrapeSucks]

Sorry, this plugin is not going to magically make ODF an popular interchange format. It's for governments and others who want to use ODF as a archive format. It's going to take a long time for the converter to have any real installed base, and HR drones will continue to delete "wierd attachments" as IT instructed.

Just create your resume in HTML and rename it to .DOC, nobody will notice the difference.

Re:It means...

[X43B]

I don't need people modifying my CV so I send it out in PDF and have never heard one complaint about the file format.

Depends on the Implementation

[Carcass666]

Depending on how Microsoft chooses to implement it, it can be a Good Thing or a Distracting Thing. For example:

• They can make it simple or difficult to change the default file format (hide the option in some obscure dialog or make it impossible to implement via a group policy)

• They can change the default file format back to the proprietary format whenever there is a service pack (think Internet Explorer browser tug-of-war)

• They can throw up dialogs like "If you save in this format your document may look like crap later" (sort of what they do now)

If they stick to previous behavior, the converter will work, but it will be annoying enough to implement that a lot of people and organizations won't bother with it.

Re:Can they extend the format?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

You mean, like OO.o already has?
OO.o has extended ODF for its own purposes since the ODF spec itself is incomplete (e.g. lack of a standard for storing spreadsheet formulas).

And how about this little gem?
http://opendocumentfellowship.org/applications/kof fice
"Our tests show that OpenOffice and KOffice have some problems opening each other's OpenDocument files. Also, support for drawings is a bit incomplete."

I wouldn't be surprised if MS ends up with better ODF support (i.e. more compliant to the spec, as opposed to just trying to mimic whatever OO.o does) than most ODF-native suites.

some sort of OpenOfficeConverter???

[radarsat1]

I was just thinking, when I read the lines:

"if even one citizen wants to send a document to a government in ODF form, they have to be able to deal with it."

I realize that OpenOffice has got an incredibly complex build system, and just sitting down and modifying is more than a simple task. However, it IS open-source, so I was wondering if anyone has considered this possibility:

What about a nice, self-contained version of OpenOffice, but with all of the GUI stuff stripped out, which instead of opening the editor, simply opens a little drag'n'drop dialog box. You select your desired "output format", and drop any document supported by OpenOffice into this window. This would include ODF files, Word docs, RTF, etc. It would then perform the equivalent of "Open" and "Save" in OpenOffice, in whatever format you specified.

Voila, instant converter!
I would think this would be a baby-step towards having a nice universal document converter. It doesn't strike me as totally necessary to have it as an Add-in to Word, at least not immediately.

Yes, this would use OpenOffice's reverse-engineering MSdoc parser for converting to ODF, rather than using Word's native code, but I imagine it would be a good start anyways, and easier to do.

Anyways, I've tried to build OO before and quickly ran out of RAM and disk space, but maybe someone would be up to the task.

A publishing company that used Word

[doublem]

I used to work for a company now called Financial Campus.

Their stock and trade is Securities and Insurance Course ware. When I started there, they were in the midst of a massive project to migrate from Word perfect to Word for all heir courses.

That's right, they maintained 200 plus page securities courses in Word, running on Windows 95 and 98.

One problem with this was the fact that word always formatted the document for your "Default Printer" which in this case caused things like floating text boxes and graphics to move around the page. Every time someone worked with the files on a new computer they had to start by reformatting the document for their desktop. (Shared printers were a novel concept at the company, which was another part of the problem.)

I tried to get the company to at least try Quark, Pagemaker and the like. It got shot down for two reasons. First, they couldn't pirate them as easily as they could Word 98 and 2000, so it would be too expensive. The second reason blew my mind.

The owner told me: "I never even heard of these things. What do you think Word is for anyway? Do you think they became the biggest company on the planet by selling crap? I'm not shelling out hundreds of dollars for something inferior to Word."

The company owner had a very clear and definitive, "If it's from Microsoft, it MUST be the best product available" attitude.

Re:A publishing company that used Word

[doublem]

The company tried using Publisher for a single document.

Then they tried sending a Publisher file to their preferred printing company. (Financial Campus' owner was a part owner of the printing firm)

It turned out their hardware couldn't use Publisher files, and the Publisher generated EPS files were apparently a Microsoft Specific variant on EPS that their systems couldn't parse.

So Publisher was similarly discarded, and the owner continued to insist Word was the "Best tool for the job."

Re:Can they extend the format?

[TheLinuxSRC]

(i.e. more compliant to the spec, as opposed to just trying to mimic whatever OO.o does)

You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Seriously, it has almost never been in MS best interest to adhere to standards and MS has a long history of bastardizing standards. While I fully expect them to "extend" functionality in the specification, I am pretty sure that will not be "compliant" with the specification.

Re:Can they extend the format?

[javilon]

I can assure you that while OpenOffice will extend the ODF format in a documented way, with an eye on interoperability and trying to add the extensions into the next version of the standard, If MS does it, it will be in a undocumented way, with the spirit of breaking interoperability and make it windows/office centric.

Don't you remember java?

"Director of Standards Affairs"

[metamatic]

...I report on a long chat with Microsoft's Director of Standards Affairs Jason Matusow...

Presumably his title is Director of Standards Affairs because Microsoft's relationship with standards is only ever a quick fling, and someone usually gets fucked.

Avoid the tangent and move straight to the bash

[dpilot]

The "existence" of the ODF plugin might really mean the exact opposite of what everyone would like it to be. In fact, it might mean the same thing as "Posix compatibility" or "Kerberos" did.

In other words, big migrations never happen overnight. Let's say that an executive has made a commitment to move his organization over to ODF. If Microsoft were to continue stiffing ODF acceptance, the first action would be to start rolling out and training an alternative tool, like OpenOffice. On the other hand, if Microsoft has announced an ODF plugin is coming, the first action is to stand pat, and wait for it. At this point, 3 things may happen:
1: Microsoft delivers an ODF plugin, and the migration moves onward.
2: The executive moves onward to a new position, and the ODF migration can be safely ignored and/or rescinded.
3: Things continue as-is until the deadline approaches and there's still no ODF plugin. At this point the business can either go into some sort of panic mode or make the first, perhaps of many, perhaps indefinite, ODF migration deadline postponements.

Note that all it takes is the promise of an ODF plugin to defer the whole "ODF threat". It's easy to add "schedule slips" and other such to slow the entire migration plan to a crawl, possibly even to increase its cost until everyone cries "Uncle" and decides that Office licenses until Doomsday are cheaper.

Thank goodness...

[doctorjay]

This is probably going to be modded troll or flamebait, but I really dont mean it to be. In my social circle of geeks there are those who are ODF nazis. They refuse to send me documents in anything but ODF and it pisses the hell out of me. I have held my ground for a while because I, for various reasons, use MS office. Now both sides can be happy. Thank Goodness.

Re:Can they extend the format?

[MobyDisk]

I just assumed ODF was popular because it was already fully capable of representing everything the popular word processors do. I guess that was a bad assumption. :-(

This will give Microsoft a chance to embrace and extend ODF, so maybe in a few years everyone will be using Microsoft's ODF format. If the format isn't capable of doing everything that existing formats already do, then it isn't ready to be a standard yet.

So I'm going to use OpenOffice, you will use KOffice, and my boss will use Microsoft Office, and none of us will be able to read each others files. Welcome to 1989 when people got sick and tired of converting between WordStar, WordPerfect, MS Word, and AbiWord - so slowly everyone moved to the dominant player because interoperability was just too frustrating.

If ODF doesn't have a solution to this problem then it is completely pointless.

Re:Can they extend the format?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can assure you that OpenOffice does extend the ODF format, and in a way that is not documented. For example, the ODF spec doesn't have the syntax for spreadsheet formulas. Obviously OOo stores formulas for spreadsheets, so where's the documentation for its format? Well, it's a mix of "see Excel" and "read the source". I'm sure that this is something important enough to add to the spec in the next version of the standard, but why wasn't it added initially? Was it just so they could get their standard out there ahead of MS and "win" the race?

To use a more obscure example, look at how OOo handles non-Latin list numbering. Not only does the standard not specify how to do it, but OOo seems to implement it in a way that is at odds with the spec.

For an example of where Office documents might need to extend the spec, consider highlighting. It is a way of specifying a background color for text that covers the other background color. That way you could highlight search terms without having to permanently change the way the document prints. ODF has no support for this. Should the MS converter not implement highlighting, should it implement it as a background color (thus not letting you turn it off), or should it implement it as an extension? Keep in mind that ODF doesn't provide a standard way of implementing extensions.

However the MS ODF converter implements it will be documented, though, because it's an opensource project. Feel free to read the source to see how it works, or change it if you want. You can even fork it if your changes aren't acceptable to the maintainers.

I don't know what your beef with Java was all about. Java was supposed to take the market by storm, and in a few years every new app was going to be in Java. MS recognized that Java was missing some key features that would be required to make GUI apps just as easily as you could with VB, so they added them. Sun could have licensed the changes back, but instead chose to sue and have them removed from the market. So now all kinds of new desktop apps are written for .Net, while Java is stuck on the server. Some of those features that MS was planning to add have only recently appeared in Java, and only because C# already had them.

dom

Let's start calling it "MS XML"

[windowpain]

Right here, right now: Let us forever more call what Microsoft refers to as "Open XML" as "MS XML."

It's the sensible thing to do.