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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.'"
Yeah, right. Just like they "supported" Java: embrace, extend, and EXTINGUISH.
In plain English with a little bit of background.
.from the view of a rifle scope.
Microsoft made the business decision to watch this standard grow . .
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
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.
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.
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.
Probably not.
This looks to me like the type of jargon that is used to try to obscure a total lack of anything meaningful to say.
Stricktly speaking, it might say that ODF is fine but some people may want to use Open XML because it does more. The argument -- I believe -- is over whether the capabilities of Open XML are things that any sane person wants in a document standard.
Personally, I think the world would be a better place if Microsoft were forced to comply with an open document standard -- any document standard -- that they did not produce. When it comes to document formats, their constant, uncontrolled, (and largely unecessary?) format changes have cost users a fortune. Past time for their users to bring them to heel.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Personally, I'm well beyond the stage where I require my documents to have headers in tacky word-art and atleast 5 different fonts in 9 different colors for the body, surrounded by a border of ponies.
I think most of us can survive without "rich" features.
Besides, by "rich", Microsoft probably means it'll make them rich if you get locked in to it.
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In English, with background:
"We need people to think that OpenOffice.org and other programs that use ODF are inferior products. So, we will constantly position our product and our formats as being more flexible, having more features. So, without saying it, what we are saying is that ODF sucks and OOXML is much, much better, but we'll support ODF anyway because other people seem to want to use it. Maybe we'll do another 'embrace, extend, extinguish' thing like we did with so many other standardds."
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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.
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....
1. Twips are anything but an arbitrary unit. There are 20 twips to a point. 72 points to 1 inch.
2. The reason for the differences is the fact that very little in a document is stored in absolute positions. Almost everything is stored relative to other things in the document. Images are generally stored as some offset from a text anchor, for example. This allows you to make broad sweeping changes to the document easily as you can add text or other elements and the rest of the document will re-flow (since everything is stored relatively) nicely. The downside is that you are now dependent on the layout engine to ensure integrity between devices, and differences in layout in one portion of the document effect the rest of the document being positioned relatively to it. This is why word processor documents can be subtly (or sometimes hugely) different when viewed on different machines.
This differs from a absolute positioning view of the document (think publishing software) where everything in the document is positioned in absolute terms (more or less). This makes the editing process more difficult, since adding big content pieces often means you have to revisit the various document elements and reposition them accordingly.
At the end of the day, your word processor and your publishing tool are really solving different problems. Your word processor document isn't meant for distribution, it's meant for revision. Your PDF file is difficult to revise, but the layout is more or less guaranteed on every machine.
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The reason, of course, is that while Microsoft Office is a great product, it is also an expensive product. Many people are more than willing to buy it, because they like the interface, or need the features. However, many other people do not need all those features, or are not yet adapted to the interface of MS Office (or at least not MS Office 2007). For those people, a cheaper (or free!) product might be a better fit.
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.
No one here is arguing that MS could not write a decent ODF word processor. That is a strawman. The fact is that MS doesn't want to write a decent ODF word processor (or even plugin) because that would mean giving up a certain percentage of their devoted (read: captured) user base.
"...but expressly as a way to "get Microsoft""
Okay, if you say so. But any format that is intended for everyone, not just Microsoft customers, seems to hurt Microsoft. It shouldn't but that's their perception.
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.
Your sentiments are similar to those that surrounded Standard Oil many years ago. Now we don't have a Standard Oil.
Fortunately most of Microsoft's tactics have been revealed and companies are aware of them. They realize that cooperation with Microsoft ultimately means theft of their ideas, a violation of their ideas, and then their demise. Fortunately, though the rest of the world knows that these things have happened and know that there are alternatives. Whole countries use alternatives to Microsoft's products. Open source Linux is huge in other countries. Standardization on open technologies is extremely important to them. A country wishing to make a technology infrastructure needs to focus on open standards. That means the OS as well as the applications and the data formats. They realize they can't get that from Microsoft.
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. Countries know that it is important to not allow one company to continue. Even governments know it is important to not permit one company with a reputation of criminal activity to control their country's computers. Even in the US we are beginning to realize this.
No one is saying that Microsoft's demise will be immediate nor even noticeable for some time, but it will occur and it will occur because the rest of the world wasn't taken in by Microsoft's tactics. Battles will be won and lost by Microsoft and there will be times when it appears that Microsoft is winning again, but in the end common sense and a value system that is based in the rights of a country and the rights of the people instead of utter flagrant disregard for the rights and privacy of the people. Microsoft's 47 programs used to spy on the consumer as well as the WGA/WGN and other hidden tools in Vista should be enough to tell everyone that this inappropriate behavior on Microsoft's part must cease.
When all understand the building blocks that Microsoft uses (mostly proprietary technologies), such as DRM, such as DX10, such as closed document format, such as various programming APIs, then you'll understand that it is important to fight those technologies at all cost to ensure that we don't get locked into Microsoft's technologies which help to shore up their monopoly and to build monopolies in other technologies.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
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.
"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.
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"
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.