New York Jumps Into Open Formats Fray

cyrusmack writes "Hot on the heels of the bad news regarding the defeat of all open formats bills, New York has become the latest in an area that has seen a flurry of activity already this year. In the article on InfoWorld, it's pretty clear that this bill is significantly watered down from what other states have attempted to do this year. You can bet Microsoft will be there in force, just as it has been elsewhere."

Comments

Bias Showing

[speaker of the truth]

Bills that would have required state agencies to use freely available document formats in Texas, Connecticut, Florida, and Oregon were shot down mainly due to the pro-Microsoft lobby Incorrect. They were shot down because of the FUD spread by both IBM and Microsoft.

From Computer World:

Wyne said, "this really is a battle among large commercial interests" -- a comment that was echoed by other people engaged in the political fighting.

The other problem, Mathers said, was the jargon-laden disinformation that committee members felt they were being fed by lobbyists for both IBM and Microsoft. Although lobbyists would tell the committee one thing in private, they got cold feet when asked to verify the information publicly under oath.

That undermined the credibility of each side, but it particularly damaged the position of ODF proponents. Perhaps this time round IBM will keep its mouth shut and the government will be able to see this isn't a battle for commercial gain, but a battle for information freedom and the rights of the people to view what its government has to say.

That's why M$ Sucks.

[Erris]

What, do you think Office is incapable of supporting ODF or something? That can be changed quite fast. I work on the Live Meeting team, and we are constantly working on communication/productivity tools...

Great, we all know that M$ could use ODF. The standard is complete and easy enough to implement that everyone else has already done it.

The problem is that your company would rather waste money on their own special format and propaganda so they can keep their little format franchise. Where was your bragging in Mass. when M$ was complaining that ODF would hurt blind people? If ODF is so easy to implement, was it really worth smearing Peter Quinn's out of job and reputation? It's this kind of arrogance that will cost M$ everything. People remember what you do.

Re:bullshit

[ozmanjusri]

You say stuff, but nothing on how it's either closed or proprietary.

I provided you with a link to explanations clearer and more concise than anything I could include here.

I'm aware you're not prepared to look at evidence which would conflict with your view, but for the convenience of other readers, I've posted the headers to the Groklaw articles which contain the complete explanations.

# 7 Ecma 376 contradicts numerous international standards

* 7.1 The Gregorian Calendar
* 7.2 ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times)
* 7.3 ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages)
* 7.4 ISO/IEC 8632 (Computer Graphics Metafile)
* 7.5 ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (OpenDocument Format for Office Applications)
* 7.6 W3C SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
* 7.7 W3C MathML (Mathematical Markup Language)
* 7.8 ISO/IEC 10118-3, W3C XML-ENC, and other cryptographic hash standards
* 7.9 W3C SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language)

# 8 Ecma 376 is immature and inconsistent

* 8.1 Fabricates units of measurement
* 8.2 Internal inconsistencies: the w:sz element
* 8.3 Internal inconsistencies and omissions: ST_Border
* 8.4 Confusing and inconsistent definitions of lengths of hexadecimal numbers
* 8.5 Unspecified terms: plain text
* 8.6 Poor names and inconsistent naming conventions for elements and attributes
* 8.7 Inflexible notation for percentages
* 8.8 Inappropriate non-document settings (application settings)
* 8.9 Non-XML formatting codes
* 8.10 Inflexible numbering format
* 8.11 Uses a Microsoft-specific namespace

# 9 Ecma 376 uses bitmasks, inhibiting extensibility and use of standard XML tools

* 9.1 Background: bitmasks
* 9.2 Bitmasks in Ecma 376
* 9.3 Bitmasks are not extensible
* 9.4 Bitmasks cause significant validation problems
* 9.5 Bitmasks defeat XSLT manipulation
* 9.6 Bitmasks conflict with the Ecma TC45 charter

# 10 Ecma 376 relies on undisclosed information

* 10.1 Undisclosed proprietary specifications
* 10.2 Cloning the behaviour of proprietary applications
* 10.3 Relies on application-defined behaviors

# 11 Ecma 376 cannot be adequately evaluated within the 30-day evaluation period

* 11.1 Ecma 376 has not met the stability requirement

# 12 Ecma 376 cannot be reasonably implemented by other vendors

* 12.1 Ecma 376 requires implementation of undisclosed specifications
* 12.2 The "compatibility with legacy formats" can only be implemented by Microsoft
* 12.3 Patent rights to implement the Ecma 376 specification have not been granted
o 12.3.1 The Microsoft covenants not to sue grant no rights
o 12.3.2 Microsoft licensing documents are ambiguous
+ 12.3.2.1 The Microsoft Open Specification Promise is ambiguous
+ 12.3.2.2 The Microsoft Covenant Not to Sue is irrelevant and ambiguous in any event
* 12.4 End-User License Agreements (EULAs) may forbid full implementation

Anyone wishing to understand the full risks of implementing OOXML in their own software should read the Groklaw page very carefully.