Microsoft Blasts IBM Over XML Standards

carlmenezes writes "Ars Technica has up an article discussing Microsoft's latest salvo against IBM. Microsoft's open letter to IBM adds fresh ammunition to the battle of words between those who support Microsoft's Open XML and OpenOffice.org's OpenDocument file formats. Microsoft has strong words for IBM, which it accuses of deliberately trying to sabotage Microsoft's attempt to get Open XML certified as a standard by the ECMA. In the letter, general managers Tom Robertson and Jean Paol write: 'When ODF was under consideration, Microsoft made no effort to slow down the process because we recognized customers' interest in the standardization of document formats.' In contrast, the authors charge that IBM 'led a global campaign' urging that governments and other organizations demand that International Standards Organization (ISO) reject Open XML outright."

Comments

Microsoft is being disingenuous

[brennanw]

... but that shouldn't surprise anyone.

'When ODF was under consideration, Microsoft made no effort to slow down the process because we recognized customers' interest in the standardization of document formats.'

This might be true, but when Massachusetts decided to adopt this standard they raised holy hell, and used every trick in the book to make Massachusetts take it back.

yea sure

[codepunk]

This little blurb just kills me...

"When ODF was under consideration, Microsoft made no effort to slow down the process because we recognized customers' interest in the standardization of document formats."

Yep you bet no effort to slow down the standardization process because they refused to be involved. However they have made every effort possible and will continue to do so in the future to slow
the adoption and deployment of this standard by any means necessary.

Ars missing something

[grimJester]

I thought the main objection to OpenXML was that it fails to define a number of things, essentially saying "render like WordPerfect 1.0", making it an incomplete standard. Making it not impossible but very difficult for anyone other than Microsoft to implement it so it's fully compatible with the MS version.

Re:Ars missing something

[phayes]

A secondary major objection is that MS placed OpenXML on an accelerated track to acceptance. Had they used the normal track, most of the objections could be ironed out eventually, but as I understand it, using the fast track process mean that OpenXML must be accepted or rejected as-is. In other words, IT'S THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT for submitting an incomplete specification.

OASIS submitted ODF

[shis-ka-bob]

ODF has its origins with StarOffice/OpenOffice.org, but ODF is not 'owned' by OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org controls the source code for one of several software suites that use ODF. OASIS submitted ODF, as discussed in the Cover Pages. ODF had signficant revisions during the approval process, and it continues to evolve as a result of efforts by concerned parties. However, in the case of ODF, the concerned parties are not third parties, but active participants. Handicapped users expressed concerns about the format's accessibility. They were empowered to change the standard, because ODF is a public standard.

This emphasis on ODF is to strengthen the parent post's claim on the importance of ODF being unencumbered.

Re:They both suck.

[JohnFluxx]

Wow, it's almost as if we need some form of compression that would find often repeated strings and replace them with short strings. Let's invent it and write a program called gzip!

Re:Whose format is whose?

[ILikeRed]

Programs that use ODF natively include:

• OpenOffice
• Star Office
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• KOffice
• Scribus
• Abiword
• ajaxWrite
• Zoho Writer
• Ichitaro
• IBM's Lotus/Domino
• IBM Workplace
• Mobile Office
• Gnumeric
• Neo Office
• Hancom Office
• WordPerfect???

So it is just Microsoft who is trying to frame this as a MS Office vs. OpenOffice argument, when it really is an Open, multi-vendor format vs a single vendor, obfuscated format argument. Argue formats, not software.

Re:They both suck.

[uradu]

(uh, let's do that again, this time with Extrans)

Wow, insightful indeed. To add some metrics to the rebuttals in this thread: create two files with some bogus XML, one with very short tag names, the other with long ones. Then compare their uncompressed versus zipped sizes:

File 1:

<r>
    <c>Value</c>
    <c>Value</c> ...
</r>

(1000 total copies of the <c> element)

Uncompressed: 16,009 bytes
Compressed: 190 bytes

File 2:

<thisIsTheVeryLongRootElementTagName>
    <andThisIsTheVeryLongChildElementTagName>Value</an dThisIsTheVeryLongChildElementTagName>
    <andThisIsTheVeryLongChildElementTagName>Value</an dThisIsTheVeryLongChildElementTagName> ...
</thisIsTheVeryLongRootElementTagName>

(1000 total copies of the <andThisIsTheVeryLongChildElementTagName> element)

Uncompressed: 92,079 bytes
Compressed: 525 bytes

So yeah, let's create really obscure and non-intuitive file formats to save ourselves the wasteful redundancy of XML.

Microsoft Standards

[mlwmohawk]

IMHO this is is the crux of the "Microsoft Problem" in entirety.

First: They have no idea how to document file formats, this is mostly because of their file format model. I worked as a contractor, indirectly, for Microsoft a long time ago. Their file formats are not "documented" per se'. They are program structure based and can change on the whim of a developer, their name at the time was "chunk format." This works well if you don't expect anyone to use your document format or you supply the access library.

At its core it is because they do not design formats, they code them as needed. Need a feature or special case? Just add a struct, an ID, and a chunk of read/write code and it works. How the hell do you document the outcome of that process? This isn't a bad methodology for internal state or temporary files, but it is a disaster for any sort of long term accessibility and interoperability.

Microsoft develops software like a small company because as long as they have the monopoly, they don't *need* to supply document format information in order to compete. Everyone else has to understand their formats and they aren't going to help at all. Their 'XML' format shows they have not changed one bit. Rather than "design" the document format, they are merely documenting what they have which is just a bunch of special cases.

Second: A true open office document format, usable by everyone, will spawn amazing amounts of innovations. Everything from document searching to intelligent document processing. When anyone can read and create documents on any platform or programming language than everyone else's programs can use as well, just think of what people will come up with. If that's going to happen, Microsoft has to make sure that they are the only benefactor, because except for the monopoly, Microsoft has no inherent value in the face of Linux and OpenOffice.org. At least Apple makes a nice computer.