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National Archive File Format Time Bomb

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cleaning-up-your-own-messes dept.

geordie_loz writes "The BBC is reporting that the UK National Archive is warning of old formats being a 'ticking time-bomb' where data is going to be lost because of incompatibility in newer versions of software, and software not existing at all. More surprisingly, Microsoft has offered a solution via the OOXML format."

6 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. The big lie... by advocate_one · · Score: 5, Informative
    they keep repeating this everytwhere they go... "Open XML"... their format is not Open... it's closed off with licensing and other restrictions... all the really good stuff in the specification has been obfuscated out and hidden behind indirections to the behaviour of legacy apps that only microsoft know the real ins and outs of... not only that, there's still an easy means for them to merely use XML as a wrapper for binary blobs...

    to give it a proper name, the format is "Microsoft Open Office XML", they deliberately went to a lot of trouble to pick a name that's as easily to confuse as possible with OpenOffice

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  2. Re:MS should not own the standard by dvice_null · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is no such thing as Open Office format. Perhaps you mean OpenDocument Format, which is used by several different applications ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_applications_ supporting_OpenDocument ), including OpenOffice.org.

  3. Doesn't open source solve this by wile_e_wonka · · Score: 4, Informative

    It seems to me that this is really a nonproblem--OOo is compatible with lots of "dead" formats (or, can read them at least), as well as many other open source office programs. I can't imagine they're going to begin throwing away this compatability--it isn't like it takes extra coding (as far as I know). Also, I have found Microsoft Word's "Extract text from any file" to work pretty well (I had a roommate with a corrupted Mac-formatted disk that had his deceased grandmother's journal on it in some old Mac Word file (a format still readable in Word, but the disk was corrupted so I couldn't just open the file). I popped it in my parents' now deceased iMac and the only program I found that opened it was Word, using the "Extract text from any file" function. I emailed him the journal and he thanked me profusely).

    Also--as noted, the OOXML format is a nonsolution for this nonproblem. It seems like it would be a waste of effort--why convert a bunch of files to a format that may die just as quickly as any other format, when you can just leave the file as is and open it in OOo (assuming I'm correct that they won't stop read support for dead formats)?

    Also, it seems to me that no current format or any future format will ever solve this nonproblem because formats will always change as new functionality is continually added. The better solution is to keep this a nonproblem by having open source software that can read old file formats.

  4. Re:MS should not own the standard by esmrg · · Score: 3, Informative

    OpenOffice.org does have its own native format; "OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text", extension: .sxw. It was introduced with the original release, but no longer the default since the introduction of OpenDocument.
    While the GP may or may not have been exactly sure what they were referring to, it doesn't make them wrong.

  5. Such precise terms as by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Spacing like WP6"? "Caclculate incorrect leap year like Excel"?

    Becuase if you want to include bugs etc, then no, it doesn't support each and every 2007 feature.

    If you mean supporting tables, nested documents, embedded graphs, scripting and so on, yes.

    It may not be "click the same buttons" feature correct nor probably the "run the same VB code" compatible.

    Take a look at some of the people on the board that devised ODF. They include the US National Archives. Print media. Archivists.

    Y'know, people who KNOW DOCUMENTS.

    As to the remainder of your questions, there is a process, it does have to go through comittee (else how does everyone else know how to implement the new standard? MS doesn't have this problem since they only want themselves to know their updated standard). It is XML so it is extensible (decode the initialism). The process will take as long as it takes. Much the same as Vista will take as long as it takes to get SP 1 out.

    I don't see how these latter issues are something that is a part of ODF and not any form of standardisation that OfficeXML will have to have to go through for anyone other than MS to implement...

  6. Re:One thing I'd like to know (ODF question) by a.d.trick · · Score: 4, Informative

    Does the ODF specification support each and every Word/Excel/Powerpoint 2007 feature?
    Thank goodness no. "Auto Space like Word 95"? That's in the OOXML spec (and there's no explanation on how Word 95 does spacing either).

    If not, is it extensible?

    Yeah, it's XML. Also, unlike OOXML, ODF uses namespaces, so you can create a separate standard if you don't want to muck around with ODF.

    If it is extensible, do changes have to go through some sort of committee to be incorporated? How frequently are changes incorporated? How long is the process?

    It would depend. The thing about changing standards is that it causes problems for all sorts of people. There is a real need for a stable and standardized document format that just doesn't change, or if it does, very slightly.