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Microsoft Pledges Conditional Support for ODF
Macthorpe writes "BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft has announced in a letter that they will support ODF as a format option, if it doesn't 'restrict choice among formats'. Citing their lack of opposition to the ratification of ODF as a standard, they go on to say: 'ODF's design may make it attractive to those users that are interested in a particular level of functionality in their productivity suite or developers who want to work that format. Open XML may be more attractive to those who want richer functionality [...] This is not to say that one is better than the other — just that they meet different needs in the marketplace.'"
A format richer.... with bugs!
Support a true independent artist - Leila Lopez
Yeah, right. Just like they "supported" Java: embrace, extend, and EXTINGUISH.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
'ODF's design may make it attractive to those users that are interested in a particular level of functionality in their productivity suite or developers who want to work that format. Open XML may be more attractive to those who want richer functionality [...] This is not to say that one is better than the other -- just that they meet different needs in the marketplace.
In plain English with a little bit of background.
The article reads like a full-page advertisement from Microsoft, with no attempt at actually examining the situation. Is this on par for BetaNews?
They say that one isn't better than the other...
But it certainly sounds like they're saying otherwise.
"Ours is richer, but its not any better." Come on.
I'll let the pundits look into this new opened up front from Microsoft.
But I wonder...why, don't Microsoft partner up with the ODF folks to develop one "killer" standard?
I am not sure why neither one of these formats approaches the consistency of Publisher files or Pagemaker files when it comes to retaining formatting across platforms and versions. pub files and pagemaker files (I forget what they were called) were much more consistent across versions back in 2002 (Last time I was an editor for anything was 2003). Anybody know why? Granted that pub files were enormous, but in today's day and age, size matters lesser than it did before (My girlfriend tells me that every night)
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
Is it just me, or do other people feel like gagging every time someone at Microsoft says something is "rich," has "richness," "rich user experience," etc.
It's like eating a whole stick of butter with mayonnaise to dip it in. MS "richness" can't be good for you.
*hurls into the wastebasket*
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
My guess would be "no." Based on the FUD that they periodically push about open source, I'm guessing they would want to add support through a project of their own so that they aren't "infected" by the "viral" open source licenses.
Microsoft Will Support ODF If It Doesn't 'Restrict Choice Among Formats'
:(
It is very noble of Microsoft to complain about all these restrictive document format that seem to be so pervasive in the IT world. I applaud them for looking out for my interests and freedom to choose. I have to say though, I am a little worried about them. All this goodwill stuff is well and good, but I can't help feel that until they start to get a little bit more militant about protecting their own IPR and file format, their business will never get off of the ground!
in Airplane II where the warning light is flashing with a man with a shovel behind a bull.
I hope I am wrong but I expect that they will have an import export functionality that has a deliberately crippled scope, for example not supporting all formats or only a certain level of table nesting. They will then state ambiguously that this is "unsupported with ODF", which along with marketing FUD will make it appear as a restriction of ODF rather than their implementation. I think that what has happened is that they see a possibility that OOXML will not be ratified as a standard. By supporting ODF they will still be able to supply companies and oganisations with a policy of using standards based formats. Their hope is that once Office is in there, if the implementation is bad enough, people will either unofficially use OOXML or lobby for a rules change to allow it to be used.
"richer functionality" = setSpacesLikeWord95
Hmm, maybe too flamebait or trollish here, but still.
.doc files. I don't care about MS Office being a standard, if it's so good, so be it. If MS can build a nice (and better than Sun's) tool to do so, I don't care... Just allow full interop, please
The good thing that could bring a MS-made ODT plugin would be 100% compatibility between ODT and OOXML. While the plugin for MS Office from Sun is just fine, it's not possible to migrate old MS Docs seamlessly. This means that people won't switch.
I do want to make people use OpenOffice, and I use it myself, but I need to make sure that old documents will be translated with no page breaks problems and with no human interaction. And I also need to make sure that MS can read what I produce using OO.org properly. Otherwise, people won't see the point, and go on using MS Office and saving
My 0.02
Daddy Microsoft will love his partner son (odf), only if the son will do what the daddy wants.
I think this is a load of crap. Microsoft doesn't want restrictions? More like, they don't want their views to be left behind if people are opened to different views. In fact, I wonder if Microsoft will try to throw some FUD once the options will come through.
Dear Microsoft,
Thank you for your input. However our needs in the marketplace seem to be different than your own. Most users don't find being locked into a Microsoft proprietary document format to be their most important need. How about you quit bitching about Apple locking people into their proprietary music player long enough to quit locking users into your Office document formats, or your Exchange email sever, or any of your products that refuse to support open standards. After all, Apple's MP3 player will let me play a standard MP3 and will allow me to rip a standard CD. How about you let us open an open standard document format?
Fuck you very much,
Your Users
The good news is that if Microsoft is changing their tactics, it means that they are admitting (partial) defeat in their previous attempts. Essentially they have lost the technical argument. Many groups have weighed-in on the subject and agreed that ODF is a more open format, and actually meets the needs of a standard. OXML is not winning that particular competition.
So they have a new tactic. This tactic basically amounts to saying: "Let's just have both standards, and let people pick the one they want. Oh... did we mention that OXML will be the default in all of our products?" Moreover, they are strongly implying that ODF is a lame duck, and that OXML has "more features" and is "richer." They are trying to paint ODF as the poor-man's format, with OXML being the format you use when you're serious.
The bad news is that this tactic will probably work. If OXML is the default format (in the dominant Office suite), people will view it as being the "serious" one and anything else as being "dumb." It doesn't matter that the additional "richness" is a bunch of features that these users will never activate. It also doesn't matter that the additional "richness" won't be maintained cleanly across platforms, during filetype conversions, and possibly even across software version changes. All that matters is building mindshare that truly believes that OXML is "the real deal" and that anything else is "that weird thing that geeks use."
So the counterattack from those of us who would prefer a true standard (such as ODF) to become the default need to use ODF as much as possible, and encourage others to do the same. ODF is the one that guarantees readability into the future, and that guarantees interoperability. We need to make this clear to everyone else.
If ODF support were perfect, I might consider buying an updated OS X version of Word when a native Intel version is available - I would want to try a 30 day demo first, however. I own licenses for older versions of Word/Office for Windows and OS X (I am an author and most of my publishers like manuscripts delivered in Word formats). I have written several books using OpenOffice.org, and at the last minute converted to Word.
That said, at least for my work on Mac OS X, the best writing tools are: TexShop with OmniGraffle for technical diagrams. Latex and OmniGraffle are a great combination!
A plug-in that supports Open Office formats in M$ Office. I would like to think that it works and that M$ cooperated in its development. I suppose it could have been reverse engineered. I would respect M$ a lot more if they just would stop breaking their previous products with so-called upgrades. Word processors are mature products, there is no reason that there should be any struggles over file formats.
Just as the automobile can co-exist with the airplane, ODF and Open XML can and should co-exist, the team writes. They go on to imply that standards agencies should not place themselves in a role similar to restricting transportation solely to the ground level.
Sorta like the Department of Homeland Security and the 'No Fly Lists' that they put out to limit people to ground level transportation? I'm sorry but if ODF becomes the standard everyone uses/wants then Microsoft can adapt or die like anyone else in the marketplace. We dont owe them any favors for half assed OSes with bugs all the way up and down the spectrum and trying to force DRM onto people and make themselves out to be the Piracy Police.
The fact they're putting so much time and effort into trying to kill ODF just goes to prove that the standard *IS* a much better designed one and that Microsoft cannot compete on a level playing field. Oh dont worry I fully expect that sooner or later they'll find a way to make it so you cant install open office or any alternative text editors onto their machines (what you thought that computer you bought was YOURS?)
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Personally, I think file formats will become irrelevant to the end user.
It's really dumb that (for instance) we produce documents in Word, convert them to PDF, email them to someone else, who will read them on a computer screen. We are stuck in last generation technology, and people growing up with the web today just won't do it. Although many of us find it hard to believe, on-line systems will eventually replace Microsoft Word, OpenOffice etc. completely.
When that happens, the file formats will be irrelevant to the end user, just as web page formats are pretty much irrelevant to current web users. This is bad news for Microsoft, since they have an incredible amount of lock-in at the moment due to their proprietary formats. However, they are not going to be able to transition that lock-in to the web.
Yes, OOXML is richer, specially when you want to represent dates: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/06/malaysias_ histo.html
The good thing that could bring a MS-made ODT plugin would be 100% compatibility between ODT and OOXML.
I guess you're not familiar with the shit pile that is the Microsoft sponsored ODF plugin then? Perfect ODF conversion, yeah, like Microsoft really want to see that happen..
Well, after reading TFA, I get the impression that Microsoft hasn't really gone for "active support" as such. What they have said is that they didn't object to ODF going through the standards bodies.
Of course, with ODF being a fairly well documented open standard, there wasn't really any convincing way that they *could* object.
What makes MS very, very scared is widespread ODF adoption. Once state governments started to mandate open standards in government documents, it looked pretty much like ODF would get adopted. Not because ODF was superior, but because they had bothered to go through ANSI/ISO etc.
Since then, there has been a two pronged solution for microsoft. One has been to get OOXML to become a "proper standard", and the other is to browbeat state governments into giving up their policies. The former ran into problems, when IBM and others pointed out to ECMA that the OOXML spec was anything but open.
Microsoft cried foul straight away. Their argument "We didn't object to ODF, why are you objecting to OOXML?". The answer from IBM et al. was -- the OOXML standard sucks, and can only be implemented by someone who has the source code for all versions of MS-Office. It's not open, and until it is, we are not supporting it.
This "announcement" by MS, is nothing more than a warmed over restatement of this position, and mentions some esoteric features of OOXML that are not in ODF.
I'm thinking they might use the Sun plugin under some special licensing deal that alows them to more closely refine the standards they are implementing.
Opensource scare MS in their own product because they lose the level of control they are used to having. If the community changes the development and the model behind it or even changes the license to something MS wouldn't agree with (the community or sun) MS would be left out of the picture or force into a situation they might not like.
I also suspect they would work for a better license then they got with Java where they can embrace and extend without complaints. This way they can blame stuff that isn't the same on others and their failures. They might like the shortcut in the effort but not the loss of control.
I do want to make people use OpenOffice, and I use it myself, but I need to make sure that old documents will be translated with no page breaks problems and with no human interaction. You are not guaranteed this even just with MS Office. If you pass an MS word document to another MS user with different fonts or a changed default template that you can get wrapping and page-break problems.
What units do you use?
a. Bob's screen
b. Joe's screen
c. Bob's printer
d. Joe's printer
e. something arbitrary, like EMUs or TWIPs
Whatever you choose, it'll look ugly nearly everywhere unless you relax the idea of exact formatting. Text layout normally fits letters to the grid of pixels. When you change the device, you need to redo the grid fitting (changing layout) or live with blurry/uneven text.
...They will then state ambiguously that this is "unsupported with ODF"...Then they will quickly add..."Saving this document in Open XML format will solve the problem...". Would you like to save in Open XML?
The default selection on here will be to select yes, and once one does that, it could become the default. Might I add...do not trust Microsoft.
OpenXML definition allows it to contain BLOBs (binary large objects) in undocumented formats.
This reduces OpenXML to just marketing bullshit with no real substance, because we all know Microsoft will just use/store their old formats as a BLOB in an OpenXML wrapper which continues to ensure no-one else can read it, yet allows them to say that they are using a publically available standard.
Too bad I posted in this discussion, I have mod points and you would have gotten one for that, I think you are right on.
In Capitalist West Microsoft embraces document code written by you.
In Soviet Russia extended Microsoft Open XML document written about you.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Since I can't find it in the article itself:c e.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/letters/userchoi
It's a month old, but who's counting..?
So.. it has come to this
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Which is why they've already made a converter that is licensed with a BSD-like license instead of a GPL'd one, right? They definitely don't like free software due to the GPL, but they've been known to release some things under an open source license (and I'm not talking about their bullshit attempt at open source software with the shared source license or whatever it's called).
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
It's like eating a whole stick of butter with mayonnaise to dip it in. MS "richness" can't be good for you.
It makes you think of "Super Size Me" doesn't it?
The only thing OOXML does for M$ that ODF won't is make M$ rich.
There's nothing really new here. M$ has issuing the same bullshit about translators and "different purposes" for months. They won't ever tell you what their different purpose is, of course, or what good translation that will never be perfect is. They just blather on about how "rich" OOXML is. M$ nonsense is never more obvious than when they are trying to force the market into their next generation of M$ only crap.
Fewer people are believing them. Lots of people grudgingly moved to 98 when forced. I can't print what they thought when forced from Word Perfect to Word. When XP rolled out, I was amazed to actually hear someone blithering M$ party line about how "XP was based on the NT kernel, so it's like solid." I have not heard anything but negative comments about Vista and Office 2007. Still, I'm sure there are a few softies that must have M$ and will cling to it at any cost.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> they meet different needs in the marketplace
Not quite correct. ODF meets the needs of end users while OOXML meets Microsoft desire to monopolize the market.
Microsoft did the same this with VC-1, they sat on all the MPEG committees but then took their own similar but semantically different standard to a different body.
Business will support it.
Microsoft is not changing their tactic. Their tactic was this: push for a proprietary standard and if one cannot exist, accept what does exist, and then start making suggestions so it becomes clear MS are experts in that field.
Very few large businesses have a single option when they're pushing hard for something.
Business will support anything that can be made profitable. History shows us this. Governments support both oppressive governments and civil rights, both conservative Christians and liberal Atheists, homosexuals and homophobes, globalism and local culture. Business doesn't have an opinion. It simply does what makes money.
I'm not really enthralled with ODF, but I can't see how having more XML-based interchange formats could hurt us.
technical writing / development
I really have to get the "For Sale" signs up on my bridges.
The consensus here seems to be that, for some reason, Microsoft is afraid of ODF. Does anyone honestly believe that Microsoft is not capable, or believes it is not capable, of delivering the best and most able word processor producing ODF files?
Thanks for the chuckle.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
The pledge to support 'ODF and other formats' is just a carrot - it's like
Besides, America is not the only country in the planet, so if the ISO is indeed the International Standards Organisation, it must not be influenced by a single commercial entity. Open XML may be more attractive to those who want richer functionality, the ability to integrate business data into their documents by defining their own document schema, or a format that was designed to be backwards compatible with existing documents. The XML spec does not need permission from Microsoft in order to be extensible and adaptable, by changing default schemas - in fact, I think the ISO must request Microsoft to rename the format without using the words Open and XML simultaneously.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Opensource scare MS in their own product because they lose the level of control they are used to having.
The only thing that "scares" Microsoft in this scenario is the removal of a mechanism that guarantees them upgrade revenue. They have never used their control to make anything easier/more powerful/adds features to their products. Instead they have used their control to guarantee that the next generation of software is not compatible with the previous version to force users to upgrade and pay Micropsoft more money.
As a quick example, features in Office Word format that forced users to upgrade from '97 to 2000 and will further force upgrades to 2007 are not fancy new features but changing implementation in the same old features like header/footer formatting, styles and paragraph formatting. These are the very features that it should have been easy to maintain compatibility with. If Microsoft did not kill compatibility with the things everyone used and only added new fatures that only a few would use, then there would be a helluva lot less pressure to upgrade.
If you look at it from this perspective, then the very last thing that Mircosoft wants is ANY kind of a standard that guarantees comaptibility with earlier formats.
ODF was created not as an open document standard, but expressly as a way to "get Microsoft". Just like GPL3 was created expressly to "get Microsoft".
It's truly a shame that FOSSies seem to be far more consumed with screwing over Microsoft than they are in creating software. I would say "quality software"... but FOSSies have never actually been too concerned about that. Only people who have incentive to create quality will do so, and FOSS has no such incentive. Loosing market share doesn't do anything... aside from making support easier.
So in a way, you could view FOSS itself as nothing more than a huge group of people looking to "get Microsoft". Which is really sad, because the stated goals are far more noble than how FOSS is currently practiced.
People don't care about which format is better, they care about who controls it.
Organisations are trying to move away from Microsoft controlled formats for their documents, simply so they can choose which software to run and not have to use Microsoft simply because they are forced to.
Given the huge cost of Office it's no wonder many are trying alternatives.
Last time I tried this: "old documents will be translated with no page breaks problems and with no human interaction."
wasn't even true for purely MS environments either...
I remember struggling with earlier word docs under the office suites that are numbered without dots.
It wasn't fun at all. Formatting broke in so many places I had to redo much of the formatting to make it readable.
I'm thinking they might use the Sun plugin under some special licensing deal that alows them to more closely refine the standards they are implementing.
I believe they tried that exact idea once before. I also remember it ending in a nasty lawsuit...
Math is a bear to express in ascii. Of course, it's inexplicably a bear to express in every MS office product I've used (up to 2003). Perhaps because I ought to buy MathType, a more powerful extension to the microsoft equation editor (You didn't know that office was adware, did ya).
It's not much better for openoffice, though. Entering equations is not particularly easier, but at least OO.org won't crash while you enter them, and provides somewhat of a mechanism for inputting symbols that aren't in the equation palette (toolbox, really, but in both suites, the collection of buttons to input equation symbols is stylistically and functionally similar to an artist's palette.)
So, I guess we're stuck with nice, easy to read LaTeX for the time being. And those files are ascii, so I guess I was wrong all along.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Open XML may be more attractive to those who want richer functionality...
The tone of this is not encouraging.
You ever import something into Word that it technically supports, but only as much as NT supported POSIX? The result is generally pretty craptastic. Who believes that even the simplest ODF document wont look like it was formatted by monkeys compared to the MS endorsed version?
Good job supporting the post you were trying to refute....
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I think that is where we got this part of the comment "I also suspect they would work for a better license then they got with Java where they can embrace and extend without complaints."
I dunno, are we talking about the same thing?
Welcome in the real world. It has never been about arguments, it's about beliefs, convictions and emotions. The arguments are always chosen to support whatever people already believe. Marketeers understand this very well.
Being analytical is more the exception than the rule.
This is not to say that one is better than the other -- just that they meet different needs in the marketplace.
Didn't a M$ VP in Europe say something to the effect 'there are those customers who find value in the community built around open-source. Then there are those customers who want quality and they come to us.'
So what M$ means here is if you want to be successful in the marketplace, you want to run with whatever M$ says you should.
Power to the Penguin!
Big surprise. I have been working on computers since Vicondin ES was displayed as the computer owner in Win9x because of a Word macro virus. Lets just put executable code in what suckers think is a passive document. Hooray!
"open source ODF format as perhaps trying to monopolize the standards process"
.. to achieve interoperability .. when the standards process fails, he said, the other three "toolsets" could be relied upon as a backup plan"
.. cycle of innovation that's more rapid than the cycle of standardization .. and shouldn't you look to some of the other tools that you have available to you, to address interoperability?'
translation: An open format that anyone can write to without conceding licensing restrictions to a single commercial company is in actuallity a monopoly.
"Certainly there's a place for ODF in the world, the interoperability team continues, and users are free to make that choice for whatever reasons they'd want to do so"
translation: We want to own the standard.
"We ensure our ability to add value by ensuring that we are masters of the schema"
"Microsoft perceives the standards process as one of four "toolsets"
translation: We'll pretend to support open standards while covertly working to push our own non-standard standard.
'Standards, Robertson told BetaNews, "are a very important tool to use to address interoperability
translation: We'll continue to play hunt the piñata with the formats as it's worked very well up to now in maintaining our monopoly on the desktop.
How about publishing an RFC the next time you 'innovate'?
davecb5620@gmail.com
From reading the article, its clear that the summary above is quite misleading - Microsoft will not "support" ODF in the sense that they will offer a version of their office productivity suite which allows for opening or saving ODF files.
Microsoft will "support" ODF in the sense that they will not contest the standardization of ODF as an ISO/IEC/ANSI standard if ISO/IEC also accepts OOXML as an international standard. Nobody at any point said anything about Microsoft releasing software that understands ODF.
Actually, they're saying something quite different. They're saying the ODF is too limiting, so they'll accept ODF if they can add MS Proprietary components (e.g. OOXML components or even OOXML embedded documents) into ODF and still call it an ODF document. This, of course, makes ODF worse different than OOXML, since if everyone could embed anything into an ODF document, no-one would be able to read anyone's document, but one thing is for certain. If 90% of people use MS Word, then non-MS Word ODF extensions will be considered to be "a file saving error" by most people, so only Microsoft will be able to pull this off successfully.
Basically, the standard: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish that they've used time and time again.
"Microsoft is scared to death of the free market. In a fair competition of various products, MS would still make money, but not nearly as much as they do now, where they have the entire market captured due to file-format lock-in. This is what makes Microsoft scared. This is why they are being pulled kicking and screaming into the world of open and standards-compliant file formats."
Yeah. Sure. Microsoft is scared of competition in a free market. Because they've failed at it so dramatically in the past.
This "running scared" motif is stupid. Microsoft lives for competition, and they're very, very good at it. If you think they're terrified of a standards format you haven't been paying attention. Their response is standard operating procedure, and nobody is losing any sleep over the subject.
They aren't scared of linux either. They acknowledge the threat, and they move against it. But that's not fear, that's just business.
I would think it would actually say
"Saving this document in ODF may result in the loss of formatting and/or content..." Cancel, Allow?
...when what MS says will be considered irrelevant by the majority of the computer using public.
Hold on a minute, *Microsoft* is worried about *an open standard* limiting peoples choice? Bunch of mealy-mouthed hypocrites...fuck 'em all. To say the things they did here requires a colossal set of balls, and the (unfortunately) sure and certain knowledge that not one in a thousand people actually understands what's really going on. I'm not surprised, just really in the mood to smack someone.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
this is because the protocol (HTTP), which is very relevant to current web users, is open and standard. the file format (HTML) isn't relevant to current web users, because it is hidden behind a wire protocol. whenever you turn a remote data source to a local one, however, the file format is exposed. and it then becomes relevant.
are you suggesting that in the future, we won't have any local repositories? or that the local repositories will be accessed via wire protocols? at some point, the distinction between a protocol and a file format seems unimportant.
That's right, it's time to move on up from the po open standad ODF to da MS bling!
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Given the size of the document it will need a cavity search to ensure nothing covert, um, "slips" through.
..
Such a search may also turn up some heads in people that still don't realise just how much they're taking for a ride by that company. Cranial invasions of the rectal cavity are almost compulsory to accept something as heinous and obviously ill conceived as worthy of the "Open" label, let alone call it a standard
Ignoring the fact that you can do the same thing using ODF, and Microsoft only uses BLOBs to store embedded images and other files, not actual document content... but I wouldn't expect you to know that unless you'd written an OpenXML reader (yes, I have).
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
MS said that they don't want to get "locked-in" with ODF... That's rather ironic, anyways:
Recipe for a good standard format:
The fact you are the largest software company in the world shouldn't mean you should "own" any "standard". We don't need an standard that would function exactly the same as the defacto-standard from old office, that would be useless and will only make the world waste resources in the migration from one closed defacto-standard towards a closed "standard".
ISO will show a lot of incompetence if they actually approve two standards for exactly the same thing... If that happens we will have to replace ISO, really
No offense to MS, they make great products and all, but I would love to see people use their products because they are the best products and not because they are the only ones that implement their format correctly, I hate self-feeding monopolies.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
cyber-dragon.net: Write a Linux version of your game, or else!
Game Developer: Or else what?
cyber-dragon.net: Or else I will be very, very angry with you. And I will write you a letter telling you how angry I am.
Game Developer: Okay, I'll write one for you, cyber-dragon.net! Ready? Stand a little more to your left. A little more.
*dumps you in a pit*
Game Developer: There you go, cyber-dragon.net! How you like that, you fucking cocksucker? Do you have any idea
how fucking busy I am, cyber-dragon.net? Well, fuck you!
Microsoft has consistently supported choice, so it took no steps to hinder ISO/IEC's ratification of ODF 1.0
barf. let's see.... 3/16 = 0.1875 lies per word [OOXML_feature__counted_as_word_6_counts_lies]
http://kered.org
Nice one.
I somehow completely missed that last part of your comment. Sorry.
This isn't a change in tactic, so much as the usual "part 2" of the Microsoft tactic.
Company X says they are coming out with something cool.
MS says they are going to have that too, in the Me-Too Y product.
When the cool product comes out -- if it survives the hype of having to compete with 800 lb gorilla (Microsoft) me-too PLUS! product Y and it is even successful. Microsoft will join the committee (to get all the tech and patent first as with MPEG4), or embrace the effort and pledge support.
So Me-Too Product Z is announced, and it will do everything that product X does -- because they are embracing openness. If the customer chooses to use Z, they get better performance and 20 extra features. Of course, like Microsoft's version of Java, needs an MS product to run.
After scaring the marketplace, they will buy enough of the depreciated company stock and vote not to sue Microsoft for stealing IP or anti-competitive tactics.
Of course, being Open Source, makes that tactic more difficult. Microsoft will just have to do MORE embracing and MORE extending than is usual. OXML will probably support 3D objects -- so if you want those in ODF, you are SOL.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Opensource scare MS in their own product because they lose the level of control they are used to having. If the community changes the development and the model behind it or even changes the license to something MS wouldn't agree with (the community or sun) MS would be left out of the picture or force into a situation they might not like.
I think what you meant to say was that open-source scares MS, because they would want to modify the format when community or Sun wouldn't agree. Open formats tend to change very little once all the bases are covered, and when they are changed it because new and necessary features are being added. Microsoft likes to change their inextensible formats with every new version of the program, since it helps to push new sales. They wouldn't be able to drag the reluctant customers along if everyone could get support from the next supplier on the list.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
It happens to the best of us ;)
doublespeak: "Deliberately ambiguous or evasive language; any language that pretends to communicate but actually does not."
Oh, right... We just want to make software to hurt Microsoft.
The whole FOSS movement is just about hurting Microsoft. Through crap software nobody would ever use save for political/religious reasons, i.e. hating MS.
Boy, aren't there hordes of anti-MS masochistic fanatics?
Take a look at the whole "browser wars" non-issue: MS was giving away a browser with their OS, just like Lunix does, just like Apple does, etc.First of all, typing Lunix is just about as pathetic as typing Micro$oft. Now that we got that out of the way, let's comment on this "non-issue".
So... I see that you don't understand that Linux is just a kernel, not a company. Furthermore, there are quite a few browsers available in any Linux or BSD distro. And none of them bring Linux money.
And it is not the giving away of a browser that is the problem; the unnecessary integration of the browser and the inability to remove it is more of a problem. As is the good old MS practice of extending standards in broken and incompatible manner.
MS was ADDING VALUE to their product, which EVERY company should have the right to do.You do KNOW that random CAPITALIZATION will not MAKE you any MORE right, right?
It's because of MS, and ONLY becuase of MS, that every consumer isn't forced to pay extra for a TCP/IP protocol, for a winsock, and for the browser.Oh, right.
There were no free browsers before IE, right? And there were no BSD implementations of TCP/IP stacks which Microsoft used in Windows, right?
I guess I should be thankful you didn't mention printer drivers.
That right there was at least $100 in additional software purchases, but MS said "screw that, if everyone wants it, it should be part of the OS". Just like the did with terminal emulation software. Just like they did with disk defragmentation. Just like they did with COMPUTER NETWORKING, and everything OS related.Well, would you look at that... I guess there was really no GNU or BSD code with the same functionality before that...
Pause not.
Then again, look at Linux... every distro gives you Gimp and OpenOffice.org and *D-ripping software, and just MS Office and Photoshop would be... how much in additional software purchases? If Microsoft included a Photoshop-killer app in their OS, claiming that it was an essential part of it, what would you say? And what do you think the courts would say?
The problem is that when FOSSies (and MS's competitors) can't succeed in the marketplace, or in the marketplace of ideas, their final resort to sociopathically forcing their will on everyone else is to try winning either in the courtroom or by convincing lawmakers.Oh, deary, deary me... I thought it was MS that was not only convincing lawmakers by heavy lobbying, but also very nearly proposing laws themselves... I must have been mistaken.
FOSSies bang the drum that "consumers should have choice", but what they really mean is "we feel that no consumer should be allowed to choose Microsoft, and are going to force everyone to not choose Microsoft", just like they are trying to do with the BBC. And the truth of that latter statement is being proven time and again, and being proven on in this forum every single day.Now, now... wipe that foam from your mouth or we'll have to call in a vet, Yeller...
Yes, when you have a monopoly, usually the freedom to choose is the freedom to choose something but the monopoly. This is the stage you try to get your freedom from something, so that you could later have the freedom for something.
Ignore this signature. By order.
This! Is! Slashdooooooooot!
Ahem.
Do carry on. I don't know what came over me.
Ignore this signature. By order.
It was split into other companies which did pretty good by themselves.
As far as getting locked into MS, I don't see how that can happen. Even during the monopoly hubbub, there were alternatives. Not very good alternatives (pay more for Apple, trust IBM to support a PC product), but alternatives none the less.
"It is important to realize that Microsoft has a position that has never been seen before in history. They control so much of the world's computers."
You must not know a thing about history. Big Blue ring a bell? Anywhile, I don't see how MS controls much of the world's computers, unless maybe you think all computers are PCs. Even then, I don't see how MS controls them. MS doesn't even sell computers for the most part. They are monopoly not because of any nefarious tactics, but because of economy of scale. Apple could have done the same thing, and tried briefly, but they didn't want to give up control of the hardware.
What I have never understood is how MS was declared a monopoly but Intel was not. There were fewer alternatives to Intel at the time and they used similar tactics with the HPs and Dells of the world as far as discounts and exclusivity.
I am in sore, important need for a well-done study cutting through the self-serving marketroid buzz words (like "richer features" - ugh) and laying out clearly the plusses and minuses of ODF versus OOXML.
If such a study exists, my access to it could help jump start some important effects.
Any citations? Please?
You should no better than to drink the kool-aid. OOXML is not open, not xml, and not a standard. See http://www.nooxml.org/
MS OOXML is intentionally obfuscated to make implementing it difficult. It also has sections that are closed, to make implemention impossible to anyone without MS source code, or at least without reverse-engineering. You need various older MS programs to even be able to understand what it says.
MS's OOXML implementation (the only one) is probably broken (it's Microsoft). Even if all of the information necessary to make OOXML open was gleaned and published, and a perfect, third-party implementation was made, it would not be 100% compatable with Microsoft's implementation. We would be in a similar mess as we are now with HTML and IE.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
They are not related to your screen or printer, except indirectly via a twips-per-pixel conversion factor.
Other arbitrary units: meter, inch, furlong, chain, rod, parsec, lightyear, angstrom, pixel on somebody else's hardware, etc.
None of those are certain to neatly match up with device-specific pixels on every device.
The only truly non-arbitrary unit is the pixel on the current device.
For example, if the format doesnt support a watermark, then they wouldnt be able to support watermarks. If ODF didnt support formulas in their spreadsheet, then they wouldnt be able to have formulas.
Why would anyone on earth want to hamstring their own company like this? It doesnt make any sort of sense. All it does is guarantee that they will always be playing second fiddle to the people who own the spec (ie, OO.org).
Microsoft has been funding a SourceForge project developing an ODF plugin and converter for Office. You can read a bit more about it from Ars Technica (notice the date - this thing has been out for over half a year). It's stable and quite functional, produces small files, and includes a batch converter. Downloads here.
I've lost count of the number of times I've posted this...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Disingenuous? How friggin' inane can you be? MS formats are INEXTENSIBLE. Translation: they can't be extended.
There is no reason for a sane format not to be extensible without having to modify the spec. For ODF, being XML, Microsoft could add a MS-watermark or MS-formula tag. Everyone else could choose to ignore it, and it would be known that the tag was MS specific. There could even be a specified way to handle unspecified tags. Display a message, for instance.
All it does is guarantee that they will always be playing second fiddle to the people who own the spec (ie, OO.org).
First, you might want to take a second look. OO.org doesn't 'own' the spec. By definition, the spec isn't owned by anyone. That's what makes it a 'standard' spec. FYI, it's not the spec, but the STANDARD that is at issue.
Second, no company wants to follow the standard. The customer wants a product that follows the standard. Why would Acme Bolts want to make standard 1/4-28 Class 8 bolts, when they could make their own 1/4-27.25 Class 8.1574 bolts? Because, nobody would buy them. Acme wouldn't even consider manufacturing such a beast, because they know it wouldn't sell. The customer would take a look at it and say, "What da' hell? Acme, are you trying to lock me into an incompatible bolt standard? Screw you!!" Acme doesn't want to manufacture to the standard, but they know their customers would march next door to Beta-Bolts if they tried such a trick. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, we had such a situation. Every manufacturer had their own spec for bolt size and pitch. Customers got sick of it, and today you can buy a standard bolt from any hardware store without even knowing who manufactured it and have a reasonable expectation that it will fit. Microsoft has been operating a monopoly in a young industry, so they've been able to have their way with their customers. But the industry is growing up and adopting interoperability standards. Microsoft will have to do the same if they expect to stay around. At this point, "I want to change any thing at any time I chose" means either you didn't know what you were doing to begin with (watermarks and formulas are known quantities in the industry, for Pete's sake), or it indicates that you don't know how to write an extensible spec (watermarks are needed by a very small segment and shouldn't break the standard for the large segments).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba