Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Wins Industry Standard Status for Office
everphilski writes "The International Herald-Tribune reports that Microsoft has won industry standard status for Office. EMCA International, a group of hardware and software makers based in Geneva, approved the MS file formats with only one dissenting vote - IBM. IBM backs the OpenDocument standard, which was approved by the ISO in May of this year." From the article: "Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president for open source and standards, called Microsoft's Office formats technically unwieldy - requiring software developers to absorb 6,000 pages of specifications, compared with 700 pages for OpenDocument. 'The practical effect is the only people who are going to be in a position to implement Microsoft's specifications are Microsoft,' Sutor said."
Wow, 6,000 pages to describe an "open" format? Never underestimate the power of committees.
Sutor, IBM's dissenting voter says: "The practical effect is the only people who are going to be in a position to implement Microsoft's specifications are Microsoft." This in the context that the OpenDocument (competing) standard is only 700 pages. Seems like both must be quite verbose, but I'd opt for mastering 700 pages.
6,000 is a lot of pages to master, but it should be freely available for others to interpret, correct? On the other hand, since it is "essence of Microsoft", there's probably lots to misstep with and lots to nuance for interpretation letting Microsoft essentially maintain a proprietary flavor of a supposedly open standard.
Also of note from the article:
Van den Beld might be an idiot. Using his logic we should strike Microsoft Windows XXXXX as the standard for OSes, not.Hopefully there is still some inertia for the OpenDocument (yes, I know it's an ISO Standard) standard to gain purchase and compete. It is largely the emergence and work done with OpenDocument that has pushed Microsoft into the uncomfortable arena of pretending to like open standards.
ECMA just confirmed the MS Open Office XML format as a standard, not Office in general. MS further states that OOXML will be an "open and royalty-free" specification.
What's also interesting is that MS will be offering a "bridge" (as a separate download) that enables Office software to read and write ODF (the OpenOffice Open Document Format) files.
Just junk food for thought...
Sure it can
.bmp?
buggy- well, it can't be buggy but it can be so complex that its hard to implement without bugs
bloated- a file format can easily store data in unefficient formats
insecure- hold important data without encryption
unreliable- hold the data in a lossy way
overpriced- Standards don't have to be free, they can charge a license fee (or even refuse to license on a RAND basis)
nonintuitive- Ever tried to decode all the variations of
clunky piece of dog shit- A hard to implement format is easily described as clunky
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
They standaridized JavaScript; hence js's official name ECMAScript. However, although Netscape created javascript, ECMA based their standard on the "clean room" document Microsoft created in the process of reimplementing javascript, errors and all. The upshot was that after standardization, netscape was instantly in violation the standard of the language they themselves had created.
It's ECMA. It even says that in the page you've linked to. And the original article. This Slashdot typo's infectious - it seems to have spread to half the comments posted already...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Microsoft's spokesman countered the IBM executive's statement by pointing out,
"Actually the Open standard we propose is six thousand pages, but that's only because we printed it in 256 point boldface fonts in order to be handicapped accessible for the visually impaired, you insensitive clod."
Microsoft further countered allegations of being too hard for developers by pointing out,
"If you take away the title information, the table of contents, the index and the pages that say This Page Intentionally Left Blank, all the standards document says is 'Buy a copy of Microsoft Office'. What could be simpler than that?"
I guess your standards for standards is higher than the standard industry standards standards used by standard Microsoft employees. In other words, "I've upped my standards, so up yours".
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
While I'm inclined to a cynical view that Microsoft is unnecessarily burdening the specification - and they probably don't mind the fact that this will impede the development of competitors products - I do have to admit the possibility that they are addressing a different criticism that many have made of them in the past.
Namely, that Microsoft specifications are incomplete and/or imprecise (corner cases, etc.).
Albeit verbose, is their specification technically watertight?
Or is it merely, "Here's everything Word can do as a result of development since 1985." with no overall logical structure?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
How long until Microsoft embraces and extends its own standard? This is simply an old Microsoft trick with a new twist. As soon as Microsoft documents break compatibility with ECMA OOXML, then every other third party software will lose the ability to read and write compatible documents. Worse than the current situation, because an attempt to maintain compatibility with Microsoft Office might violate the conditions of the OOXML license. And no doubt break the format they will, in subtle ways of course, a little bit off here and there just enough to make a document look much better in Microsoft Office than it will in other applications.
The Microsoft license to use ECMA OOXML is contingent on following the standard to the letter, which is a seemingly innocuous condition until you realize that Microsoft itself is under no legal obligation to follow the standard to the letter. So you will have a bunch of third party software that follows the standard which won't be able to accurately read or write documents written by the dominant office software, it will just look like the other software is defective when really it is working according to the standard. And even if the other software developers want to break the standard in favor of microsoft compatibility, they won't be allowed to do so under the OOXML license. Microsoft wouldn't do this at first of course, what good is a trap sprung before your prey are fully in, so I am sure that Microsoft would spend a year or two adhering rigorously to the standard, just enough time for other software to incorporate OOXML compatibility. Then it would be time to break compatibility and continue the microsoft monopoly for another few years, while things work their way through the courts.
If Microsoft itself makes a legally binding and enforceable commitment to follow the ECMA OOXML standard to the letter, then I don't see a problem with another document format standard. But as the licensor, I don't see how they could be forced to adhere to the OOXML standard. Unless Microsoft itself can be forced to rigorously follow the OOXML standard, then this is just a monopolist's trap.
FOSS should avoid "Open" XML because Microsoft has encumbered it. Their game is now on. Offer code and protocols that they claim is "open" but, when push comes to shove, they alone control.
Down the road a bit they will begin strategic law suits and try to make FOSS programmers look like a bunch of thieves for implementing the "open standards" they pushed through without paying royalties.
Microsoft is not even a bit interested in competing on a level playing field. For a very long time they have used their monopolies to gain unfair advantages; antitrust laws be damned. Now they want to use their monopoly muscle in their Office package to control a "standard" that they feel will lock out their greatest competition. They know that GPL'd software CAN NOT be encumbered by patents.
They have no intention of real cooperation.
The solution: EVERYONE must work to make them irrelevant. Put them into a position where they either start playing fair or die. Not an easy task. We must press our Justice department to hold them accountable for breaking antitrust laws. The Courts MUST break Microsoft into a least three separate companies. This can easily be justified by their continued disregard for the law.
We should only support protocols and "standards" that are truly free. No unacceptable licenses, no royalties etc. As Linux gains market share there will come a time when Microsoft's insistence on being incompatible with OSS will begin to work against them.
We should push for laws that force standards and protocols to be truly open and available to everyone including Open Source.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!