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Microsoft Votes to Add ODF to ANSI Standards List
RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "In a puzzling move, Microsoft today voted to support the addition of the OpenDocument file formats to the American National Standards List. OpenDocument is used by many free-software office suites, including OpenOffice.org. Microsoft is still pushing its own Office Open XML format, which it hopes will also become an ANSI standard. Is Microsoft serious about supporting ODF, or is this a merely a PR stunt to make Office Open XML look more like a legitimate standard?"
In an epiphany, Bill Gates realized that the lackluster sales of Vista were due to all the bad things he's done in his life. So now he's got a list of them on a sheet of yellow paper and he's going around making up for them. Having Microsoft back ODF is helping him make up for #38 on his list: "Screwed over consumers with proprietary formats."
:-)
Come on, couldn't you see Ballmer playing Randy?
--Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Not that strange, when you think about Microsofts "it's good to have more standards" argument. Knowing that the standard would be added anyway, they probably voted for it, to make that argument more credible, when OOXML is up for the ISO vote, besides ANSI is more or less irrelevant when ODF is already ISO certified. I would be very surprised if Microsoft doesn't later use this as part of an argument for accepting OOXML, directly or as a response to critics.
But still, as long as customers dont know the difference between interoperability and "microsoft compatibility" they win these games. Sad.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's like the "peaceful co-existance" the Soviets were all in favor of. They want to then be able to say they support is even as they choke the life out of it.
If you can't read the "standard" documentation and develop a program that properly works for that standard, then it is not a standard. The "standard" still has things like "will support rendering of Office97 table format", and never define what the "Office97 table format" exactly is and how it works.
Until each and every thing in the standard is properly defined and explained, it is not a standard.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Apparently M$ can do no right. It reminds me of a quote from Jesse Jackson. He once said that if he walked across one of the Great Lakes, the next day the newspapers would report that "Jesse Jackson can't swim". Methinks some of you take your evil empire conspiracy too seriously.
Life needs more saving throws.
No, I think it has to do with the fact that more and more governments are requiring ODF to be adopted.
MS was scared by this, as Office wasn't designed around it, so they're trying to put themselves in a position where they can supply what the governments want AND fulfill legislative requirements. They've learned that from the ongoing EU dispute, imo.
The fact that they're still pushing for their own format just shows that they want to retain dominance in the office world, and perhaps regain complete monopoly of the office programs suite. However, it's going to be harder and harder, as OpenOffice will implement a way to read and write MS's XML format, since it HAS to be documented if MS intends to satisfy government customers.
It's a business move, nothing less! I just hope that OpenOffice will catch up on the feature list quickly (there's some basic stuff that OO's still missing) so that the decision really does come down to TCO for the IT managers, and then OO will truly shine, as there is no license fee, only support cost, and I'm guessing it'll be cheaper than MS Office support.
Just my $0.02 of opinion on this matter.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
This vote is good for Microsoft. It can work this way. With ODF on the list, and later with others like PDF on the list, plus their own OOXML added to the list, it can make the list itself look legitimate. Then they will argue that governments can meet their obligations for open documents by choosing any one format from the list, making it seem that OOXML will be at least as good a choice as ODF.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Actually, Microsoft does stand in the way of ODF adoption, just not of it becoming a recognized and official standard. I can see some good reasons from a PR standpoint to go this route. With Microsoft, you have to be very careful with the word "standard." MS is all in favor of standardization. They fight tooth and nail against anything that gives users most the benefits of open standards. When most people think of a standard, they think of something like SAE bolt specifications; something anyone can make standardized for the purpose of allowing interoperability. Everyone can see the benefit of such a standard for the construction industries, manufacturers, and end users.
When MS talks about standards, however, they are more commonly referring to something where they are the sole gatekeeper, and often the sole creator of items that follow said "standard." OpenXML, for example, is not a "standard" in the same way ODF is and it sure doesn't bring end users the lion's share of the benefits normally associated with what we call an open standard. This is because of the application of patents, the ties to secret information, because it is copyrighted, and because MS has a monopoly in the desktop OS space, a "standard" from MS is not just a "standard" as it would be referred to in most other industries. You could call ISO 898, industry members believing there is room for more than one bolt standard, because that is what ISO 898 is, another standard equivalent to SAE. Saying, however, that OpenXML, is just another standard is misleading to the majority of people, because openXML and ODF are not equal, in terms of what sort of standardization benefits they bring to the industry.
Um, you've completely misunderstood the network effect. Deliberately? None of the things you have mentioned are specifically meant to be used as a communication medium to transport information.
Instead examples should be networking protocols, spoken/written language, mobile phone protocols, DVD formats etc. Things which are designed to convey information. These are all highly standardised.
Deleted
I disagree. The purpose of standards is not to create something that everybody uses. Rather, it's to sufficiently document something such that anybody could use it. A diverse collection of competing standards is nothing new. If one standard becomes dominance, there are nice efficiencies that you get, but it's not the purpose of standards -- it's just the gravy.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
You're missing the point of a standard. There can be multiple implementations of a single standard. There is a standard for a webserver (which, funnily enough, MS also break). It should speak the standard HTTP, and mostly likely that's layered on the standard TCP, and so on.
Same with the OS. The OS should follow the standard POSIX calls (which Windows sorta manages to do), and so on.
As for programming languages.. well that's too broad. For particular languages, there are standards. There is a standard for C, there is a standard for C++, and so on.
The problem isn't whether M$ supports a standard's adoption. They supported HTML but...
Remember: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Plus, then they will "comply to open standards" removing a EU/Mass./Whoever-else objection to using their software.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
And in possibly related news Police in Seattle are reporting that Tom Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft, was hit by a flying chair whilst out walking his dog. Police don't yet have any firm leads but are seeking to question a bald, red-faced caucasian man who was seen fleeing the scene.
Really???
n alContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1144104,00.html
.doc (or whatever extension is next) make it _really_ hard to use anything but .whatever.
Then what the hell happened in Massachusetts wanted to switch to ODF?? Here's a long-winded citation: http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/origi
No, they'll do what they already do with everything that's not a
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
'Why is it, by the way, that having 300+ Linux distro's and dozens of GUI is "choice" and a good thing, but having more than one document format is "stupid"?'
Because those distros and GUI's adopt standards that allow them to all interoperate and exchange information. A document format is a means of storing and conveying information. All means of storing and conveying information should be standardized. It makes sense to have different document creation applications but they should all store the results in the same format so that your preferred application is interoperable with mine.
Well, unless there are things like "Specifies whether to layout footnotes as is done in Word 6.0/95 and Word 7.0/97", where the implementation to be copied is protected by copyright and, therefore, secret.
I disagree. I've followed this battle in pretty close detail. My observation is that Microsoft has only stood in the way of ODF being adopted to the exclusion of any other format. They seem to be perfectly happy with any case where ODF and other standards being allowed.
ODF is not supported by MS in Word natively. Thus, ODF adoption usually means MS is losing a sale. Further, it means it is easier for their customers to migrate away from MS Office. You really don't think MS is doing anything to stop people from moving to ODF. You don't think they're offering price cuts to stop migrations away from MSOffice to say Openffice and ODF?
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I highly doubt your premise. Sure, Microsoft wants standards to benefit itself, but you claim that Microsoft is gainst anyone else benefitting from them.
Open standards traditionally bring certain benefits including:
All of these things are benefits MS would prefer their customers did not have, because MS is overwhelmingly the leader in the market, possibly (probably) to the extent of weilding monopoly influence in the word processor market.
Funny you should mention that. How many different standards are there for bolts? Several.
Umm, what is the point of your comment? You're just repeating exactly what I present an example of. The point is, when you talk about ISO and SAE standards for bolts, you're comparing similar items from the perspective of the industry and of the end user. When you're talking about ODF and and OpenXML you're talking about items that are very, very different in the benefits they bring to the industry and end user. Now it would probably be better for the industry and end user if either SAE or ISO won the war and was the only remaining standard for that type of bolt size, but it doesn't much matter which one from an objective perspective. Both would and currently do provide similar benefits. This is absolutely positively not the case when comparing ODF and OpenXML.
ODF is no more "open" than OXML is.
Yes, it is.
It too is covered by patents (and required a patent covenant by Sun, just like OXML).
The restrictions needed to get patent protection from Sun are the same as PDF from Adobe, you just have to follow the spec. That is not the case with MS. Technically, there is nothing stopping MS from releasing a new version of OpenXML and telling all current software vendors implementing it that they are no longer in compliance with the license since they implement the "old" version and shutting down each and every competitor. That is not the case with ODF.
It too is largely championed by a single organization (in this case Sun), with several other organizations involved.
No, ODF is currently implemented by software from dozens of companies and no one company can stop another from implementing the spec. So long as they are following the spec there is nothing Sun can do, including releasing a new version of the spec, to stop someone like the WrodPerfect team from implementing it.
BTW, the very definition of a patent means the information is not secret. You might want to re-evaluate your argument.
Those were separate list items. Note the comma. OpenXML is encumbered by patents that can still be brought to bear. Additionally, OpenXML is tied by trade secrets. Parts of the spec refer to trade secrets and copyrighted implementations of other works. For example, in some instances it refers to behavior "like Word version X" but since only MS has the source to Word version X and it is both copyrighted and a trade secret, no one else can fully implement that part of the spec.
Ok, then you should
Okay, if you think it's due to MS Word that OOo looks bad, try this one on for size: a document saved as ".odt" with OpenOffice.org v2 for Linux (Kubuntu) is mangled when opened in OpenOffice.org v2 for Windows (Win2k). There was no MS Word involved anywhere.
This was a document for which formatting was important: I had designed a greeting card to be printed onto thick paper and folded into quarters, so positioning was critical. I did this on my Linux box, but the printer was hooked up to the wife's box, and she only wants Windows on it. I saved the file on Kubuntu, FISh'd it over to the Win2k box and opened it, and the text formatting had screwed up, spilling over onto the next page.
If OpenOffice.org can't standardize their own document formatting, what's the point having a standard like ODF in the first place? (I finally exported to PDF in order to get it onto the Win2k box without messing it up.)
I'm grateful to Sun for all the contributions they've made to Open Source, but I have to say, OOo is a steaming pile of crap.
Okay, that was a bit too blunt, and I'm glad they have an integrated office suite with spreadsheet, presentation application, I appreciate the work they've put into this, grateful that they distribute OOo under an Open Source license, etc. etc., so let me do my best to be more subtle.
Erm, er, OpenOffice is
Sorry. I tried.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]