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de lcaza calls OOXML a "Superb Standard"
you-bet-it's-not-out-of-context writes "A blogger on KDE Developer's Journal has found an interesting post by Miguel de Icaza, the founder of GNOME and Mono, in a Google group dedicated to the discussion of his blog entries. Six days ago Miguel stated that 'OOXML is a superb standard and yet, it has been FUDed so badly by its competitors that serious people believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with it.' In the same post he says that to avoid patent problems over Silverlight, when using or developing Mono's implementation (known as Moonlight), i's best to 'get/download Moonlight from Novell which will include patent coverage.'"
The developers had a conference on the Brain Slug Planet. Miguel liked it so much he decided to stay of his own free will.
You don't have to put on that Silverlight...
Little things like this in the spec make it less than superb:
Table like Word95
Only Microsoft has that information. No one else can implement this "superb" standard like MS can.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
-But, why must you confront him?
-Because, there is good in him. I've felt it. He won't turn us over to the Emperor. I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side. I have to try.
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
First Mono. Now he wants us to download stuff from a specific vendor to get patent protection. And finally he thinks a standard that has hundreds of pages of backward compatibility modes for 10 year old apps is a good standard? Is there anyone not ignoring him completely yet?
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It's his own blog.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Miguel has been fascinated with Microsoft since long before he started writing Gnome, and that fascination shows no signs of having waned. Unfortunately, while it allows him to see the good things MS has done in a clearer way than many of those in the free software world, it also tends to give him a bit of a blind spot where some of their deficiencies are concerned.
It should be added that de Icaza is a Novell VP. So in light of the Microsoft/Novell patent agreement, I think we should all take his opinions with a dose of skepticism. That's not to disparage in any way his work in Free software, of which there are many and great, and I thank him for this. But that does not exonerate him from future badness and/or idiocy.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
. . . here before starting a flamefest.
I'll paste it here to make sure those averse to clicking on links can read it too (anonymously even so you don't say I'm karma whoring):
Hello,
On 9/10/07, martin.schlan...@gmail.com wrote:
> On 6 Sep., 07:37, "Miguel de Icaza" wrote:
> > OOXML is a superb standard and yet, it has been
> > FUDed so badly by its competitors that serious people believe that
> > there is something fundamentally wrong with it. This is at a time when
> > OOXML as a spec is in much better shape than any other spec on that
> > space.
> Michael Meeks didn't seem to think so at FOSDEM 2007.
That is odd. Michael and I have discussed this topic extensively. He certainly would like clarification in various areas and more details in some. But Michael's criticism (or for that matter, the Novell OpenOffice team working with that spec) seems to be incredibly different than the laundry list of issues that pass as technical reviews in sites like Groklaw.
The difference is that the Novell-based criticism is based on actually trying to implement the spec. Not reading the spec for the sake of finding holes that can be used in a political battle.
Finally, Michael sounded incredibly positive after the ECMA meeting last month when all of their technical questions were either answered or added to the batch of things to review. I know you are going to say "The spec is not owned by ECMA", well, currently the working group that will review the ISO comments is at ECMA.
For another view at OOXML look at what Jody Goldberg (no longer a Novell employee) has to say about OOXML and ODF from the perspective of implementing both:
http://blogs.gnome.org/jody/2007/09/10/odf-vs-oox-asking-the-wrong-questions/
I find it hilarious that the majority (not all) of the criticism for OOXML comes from people that do not have to write any code that interacts with OOXML. Those that know do not seem to mind (except those whose personal business is at risk because Microsoft moved away from a binary format to an
XML format, which I also find hilarious).
> >Will I have to suffer
> > > the shadow of Microsoft patents over Silverlight when using or
> > > developing Moonlight?
> > Not as long as you get/download Moonlight from Novell which will include
> > patent
> > coverage.
> You're saying two things here that really shock me. Please tell me I
> misunderstood.
1) You're saying that people _will_ have patent problems - i.e.
> Moonlight "infringes" MS patents and doesn't work around them. Even
> though Novell promised never to ship code that infringes MS patents -
> but always avoid them one way or another.
First of all, am not aware of such Novell promise to "never ship code that infringes MS patents". You can not make such statement because for one, the patent system is broken. Novell statements are wildly different, they are of the form "we do not believe that we infringe" and am sure they say something along the lines of "we dont plan on infringing, and we plan on removing infringing code". But I am not aware of all the promises Novell has made, and I can not comment on other parts of the organization. If you want an official answer, my personal blog on politics and poor attempts at humor is not the place to get an official answer. Contact Novell public relations for that.
But you might be referring to the policy that we use for Mono, and I will be happy to discuss those with you. The policies are on our FAQ, so you might want to read that before you post in panic again.
Moonlight does not have the same policy that Mono does in terms of us working around to remove infringing c
Now, to put this in perspective: Jim Mason (of Oak Ridge National Laboratory) isn't on one side or the other, but has been doing document-format specifications for a looooong time -- he was, I believe, the founding chair of SC34 and had a hand in the creation of SGML. The dude knows documents, he knows standards, and when he writes
I'm inclined to take his word for it than Miguel's.Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Some reasons why OOXML is unacceptable:
:P
OOXML is wholly un-XML-ish.
It doesn't re-use existing ISO and W3C standards, whose behaviors have already been publicly vetted.
Its licensing is still quite unacceptable, especially in its lack of clarity.
Look, Miguel, I know you love MS and all, and I guess I can at least partially tolerate that, but keep the fellatio behind closed doors, OK?
Read the fucking link, instead of ripping on the guy for selectively chosen comments without their supporting context and explanation.
(a) He says OOXML is great not because the specification itself is a work of engineering genius, but because out in the Real World is easier to implement than ODF. That might not be for a good reason (OOXML is similar to existing World formats in structure, and so existing code is easily modified to use it, where ODF requires an entirely new approach and so is far harder to add to existing software), but it's certainly a different story than Miguel just blindly loving the OOXML spec.
(b) The patent protection claim is exactly what it sounds like, except for the fact that there are NO known parents which Moonlight or Mono infringe. It's a simple of matter of, "if something comes up, we won't sue your customers." Those same companies (Microsoft and the MPEGLA group) are still totally free to sue the developers and companies behind FFMPEG, Linux, GNOME, KDE, Apache, X.org, OpenOffice.org, etc. Nothing about the protection Novell offers will increase the risk of those lawsuits - all it does is decrease the risk for people who download from them. It's a nice gesture that some suit-wearing types give a fuck about, and the rest of us are free to ignore just like we ignore the patent minefield for every other project, all of which are guaranteed to be infringing _something_.
(c) The article submitter is a sensationalist jackass.
I have been following the OOXML saga fairly closely; from Rob Weir's blog, to the NO-OOXML site (admitedly that is a rather partisan site, but I've found the technical arguments presented there generally to be both verifiable and compelling), and the Standards Blog, by Andy Updegrove who seems to know his stuff (which is bizarre since he is also a lawyer, but I guess he came from a parallel universe). I've also looked at sections of the spec myself, and I agree with the major technical criticisms; aside from being redundant in that there is already an ISO standard that could -- with well defined extensions -- cover everything Microsoft wants to include (ie, the backwards compatibility stuff), the OOXML document is a poorly worded draft of a 'standard' that is incomplete, inconsistent, and not ready for standardization.
By usual ISO standards (if it hadn't been submitted on the fast-track), it would be at the stage of a 'committee draft', with at least a couple of years of serious effort into working it into something useable. This is the process that ODF, along with most other ISO standards, went though, and if OOXML makes it through without a similar amount of scrutiny, ISO will have egg on their faces.
For Miguel to say it is a 'superb standard' means he either hasn't read it or followed the technical discussions (in which case he deserves the panning he will get for making such a clueless statement), or he really has sold out, in which case he deserves exile.
Well, let's take a look at one company's deployment of Office 2007 to 25,000 workstations. Oh, what's that? It's still crap? Figures.
Yes, the information should help people interoperate with Microsoft. But all the parts they're keeping from us are important. They want to control de facto standards and keep all other ISVs at second-tier status without having to make good products.
People would be better off with standards not controlled by any one company. Even if Microsoft were the most benevolent company in the world, there's no excuse for giving another company the power to hold your documents hostage in this day and age. And it's about time that people realized that, especially when Microsoft has intentionally perverted standards like ACPI to harm Linux.
The PDF link above is just for proof. Here's a transcript of the PDF so you don't have to view it unless you don't believe me:
Yes, he said this: "ODF's model of 'chartness' didn't fit well with Gnumeric. In contrast XLSX may be ugly, but it''s concepts were very familiar from XLS. We already had much of the code required to handle it."
He didn't say it's a great standard. He said it's a great spec upon XLS serialization in XML, and hence it's easier for him to port XLS importer to XLSX importer. Is anyone even arguing about this here? If there is I never saw him/her.
May I entertain the possibility you have difficulty understanding the fundamental difference between good spec, and a good standard?
This, and comments like "OH MY GOD THEY USE A BITFIELD THAT IS JUST SO-NOT-XML (am using caps to encapsulate the outrage in an actual discussion when an acquaintance of mine lost it)" doesn't help your position stand up.
When you publish your opinion, people read this opinion and you get feedback on it. If you were an average Joe, probably no one would care. You're not however, this is why people like you should put more thought into what they put out in the public than you did, and then now whine that someone "obsesses" over it.
Yeah, starting with an ad hominem makes me want to take your arguments seriously.
Yes, very interesting. Jody says: "I did not comment on the quality of the formats. That will come up later."
What did Jody actually say? That OOXML was easier to support because Gnumeric already supported the XLS format. Which does nothing to address the relative merits of having a format like OOXML standardized under the terms with which Microsoft wishes to standardize it.
Oh my God, they used a bitfield to encapsulate Microsoft-proprietary extensions like VBA rather than standardizing them as well. (Proper capitalization used to represent more somber tone of retort.)
That's right. It's Microsoft's job to pay off officials, exert political pressure, and abuse due process to ensure that OOXML is forced into consumer hands before ODF catches hold.
A disingenuous argument at best. The ODF format supports those same four applications, plus a bit more. 1,500 per application is huge in comparison. Even if we assume that it's 700 per application, it's STILL huge when compared to 867 for ALL applications.
That being said, I don't mind long specifications if they are long for a good reason. Being long because ancient cruft is being supported for no real reason is not a "good" reason at all.
ODF is predicated on the ideals of KISS, interoperability, and long-term data storage and retrieval. OOXML is predicated on the concept of converting Microsoft formats to an XML description. While the latter may be a nice goal for Microsoft, it does not conform the the former ideals required for an international standardization effort.
I'm sorry Miguel. I've disagreed with you in the past, but I can't even begin to fathom your position in this matter.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I'm going to have to say that yes, yes it is. Although it may be somewhat sensationalized, the man DOES own a Zune. I repeat, Miguel de Icaza owns a Zune! If that isn't worthy of a pointless Slashdot flamewar, or at least a paddling, I don't know what is.
> but we have to support them both *anyways*, so its not like its a big deal.
... but can't read the documents we're creating at the start of the 21st century. How will we learn from our history if we can't study it fully?
Holy mackerel.
First: I really don't care to get into a pissing match about the deficiencies of OOXML as a possible standard (they are legion and often fundamental; and whether or not you understand that and/or choose to minimize the severity of these things changes nothing). I will say that I'm very happy to finally see at least *some* open documentation for the new Microsoft Office format; that has to make things easier for the people implementing filters. As such I am completely unsurprised that those people are happier than they were a couple years ago. In fact, I'd be surprised if they weren't. That part is probably something you and I agree on =)
However the quote above is utterly shocking. Let me explain what I mean:
You are right that we have to support both OOXML and ODF out of practicality. But you know what? That sucks. It would be best for everyone if there was only one format to support. Nobody would lose in that scenario, except perhaps the owners of companies with business models that depend on format variance to sell their product.
In the case of document format storage, a standard is truly important because formats (poor or not) that eventually lose implementations over time carve out blank spaces in our history once we can't read them properly. These same formats are also the source of certain information inequalities in society (e.g. those who can't obtain an implementation for financial, social or political reasons). This may not matter so much for Acme Inc's quarterly reports but it sure does for government, health and other socially vital information. Remember when some hurricane Katrina victims couldn't use the FEMA website because they had slightly older computers? This isn't a made up boogyman, this is stuff that bites us as a society fairly regularly. Now imagine a hundred years from now when we can still read the constitutions of our countries, research papers, poetry and other examples of human kind's great literary works that are hundreds or even thousands of years old
Getting proprietary formats out of the way as soon as possible so that we do not extend this mess any further than necessary is absolutely the responsible thing to do in light of our (hopeful) future.
By allowing OOXML to pass from "specification" to "international standard" would be doing exactly that: extending the problem as it will give years if not decades more life to the format. If OOXML was rationally implementable and properly documented, it wouldn't be as big of an issue. It would be, as you put it, simply suboptimal. The fact of the matter is that OOXML is not rationally implementable and not properly documented. That's why it lost the recent vote; it wasn't because of lobbying (and trying to imply that when Microsoft got its hand caught in the cookie jar is pretty ballsy, by the way). Are some interests acting out of concerns for their business models or pet projects when they rally for ODF and against OOXML? I'm sure they are; but that alone isn't reason to dismiss the fact that OOXML is problematic and that we don't need two standards (any more than it is to dismiss OOXML just because it comes from Microsoft).
So please, admire OOXML for what it is: a step forward in documenting what historically has been one of the more pernicious sets of file formats we've had to deal with; but don't mistake that for being a reason to make it an international standard which will only prolong the issues that are part and parcel of the Microsoft Office formats, even in this current version of the specification.
I know that having a bunch of people shit on you in public sucks major donkey nuts and certainly would put most rational people into a rather ungracious mood, but please think above that noise and consider with your intell
First it was Gnome, an attempt to build a desktop Just Like Windows.
Then it was Mono. We've had slashdot stories on Miguel's pleas for Microsoft to please not constantly break compatibility to push people towards their implementation.
Now this.
Miguel, we care about you very much, and you need to understand that Microsoft doesn't love you. Microsoft will never feel about you the way you feel about Microsoft. Your pure heart is not enough to suddenly make Microsoft embrace any kind of genuine open standard. Microsoft has never had any goal but the ruthless elimination of any possible competition, and all you're doing is enabling the abuse.
You need to stop, and you need to walk away. You need to get into therapy, and start thinking about what's good for you, and what's good for the people who care about you.
Microsoft will never love you. They will not adopt open standards to make you happy. They will not try to make interoperation with you better. They will occasionally say just enough to string you along and make you write thousands of lines of ugly, bloated, crappy code in servile imitation of their unholy crap, but they will never actually care for you.
It's not gonna happen.
Look, face it: Bill Gates appears to be happily married. It was never meant to be. Just move on, and for the love of God, stop shipping multi-megabyte "frameworks".
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