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Google Pleased With ISO OOXML Decision

Posted by Zonk on from the it-pleases-the-goog dept.

yogi writes "In a blog post from this Friday past, Google welcomed the ISO decision not to fasttrack OOXML. They also (once again) voiced their public support for the ODF standard. 'Technical standards should be arrived at transparently, openly, and based on technical merit. Google is committed to helping the standards community remain true to this ideal and maintain their independence from any commercial pressure ... Google supports one open document format and calls on industry participants to collaboratively work on ODF. With multiple implementations of one open standard for documents, users, businesses and governments around the world can have both choice and freedom to access their own documents, share with others and pass onto future generations.'"

119 comments

  1. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    steve irwin died trying to have sex with sting rays

  2. SLASHDOT SUX0RZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    8====D
    Reply to this

  3. google also pleased with bathroom sex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    A few years ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I
    had to take a piss. As I entered the john a big beautiful all-American
    football hero type, about twenty-five, came out of one of the booths.
    I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he
    washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was "straight" and
    married - and in any case I was sure I wouldn't have a chance with
    him.

    As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated,
    hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still
    warm from his sturdy young ass. I found not only the smell but the
    shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left
    behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It
    apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat,
    stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd
    - a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as a man's wrist.

    I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and
    wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd
    always been a heavy rimmer and had lapped up more than one little
    clump of shit, but that had been just an inevitable part of eating ass
    and not an end in itself. Of course I'd had jerk-off fantasies of
    devouring great loads of it (what rimmer hasn't), but I had never done
    it. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound
    turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy
    and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of the world's
    handsomest young stud.

    Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both
    hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled
    like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the
    consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit
    without the benefit of a digestive tract?

    I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it
    smelled. I've found since then that shit nearly almost does.

    I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into
    my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big brown cock,
    beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and
    bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet
    flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had
    chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed
    I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I
    soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd
    passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily,
    sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My
    only regret was the donor of this feast wasn't there to wash it down
    with his piss.

    I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the
    cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more
    delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with
    the rich bitterness of shit.

    Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But
    then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There
    was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished
    them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my
    briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the
    shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever
    unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an
    unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.

    I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using
    them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my
    mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit
    trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six
    orgasms in the process.

    I often think of that lovely young guy dropping solid gold out
    of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could,
    and at least once did, bring to a grateful shiteater.

  4. Me Too by zdude255 · · Score: 1, Troll

    I was also pleased with the result. But it's not on freaking Slashdot. What makes Google's opinions newsworthy?

    1. Re:Me Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      They have accomplished many things. You have accomplished nothing. You are a nobody that no one cares about. That's the difference.

    2. Re:Me Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I heard The Queen's ninja corgi's are also pretty chuffed with the result too. They should definitely be on the front page!

    3. Re:Me Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, no one's pointed out yet that zdude's opinion *is* on Slashdot. Just not in the headlines.

  5. About time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    About time we have some sense going on.

  6. Of course. by jeevesbond · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With multiple implementations of one open standard for documents, users, businesses and governments around the world can have both choice and freedom to access their own documents, share with others and pass onto future generations.

    Which is of course what Microsoft must stop at all costs. Also worth remembering is that were the shoe on the other foot, and Google had the business lockin and office suite monopoly Microsoft enjoy, they'd probably protect their proprietary formats at all costs too. So whilst Google's opinion may be aligned with most people here, do remember that they're a company whose sole aim is profit.

    This looks like a fortuitous PR stunt to me, I don't doubt that Google like ODF now but we shouldn't forget that Microsoft have been known to be open when they lack market share too.

    --
    I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
    1. Re:Of course. by daeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They are two separate business interests, really. Google's interest is in being able to search and index content. I'm sure they'd love a standard document format that isn't proprietary like their indexing of .DOC files.

      Microsoft could embrace ODF. They could integrate it with Microsoft Office, eliminate .DOC, and produce the best ODF tools in the market and maintain their dominance, even in Government. Open Office, while great for the breadth of its tools, is a complicated beast and can be overwhelming for general office staff.

      Instead, Microsoft plays these games, giving OpenOffice and others valuable time to play catch up while more and more governments around the world pull back away from the monstrosity Microsoft has created.

      As an example of a company with proprietary software doing well with open standards, look at Adobe and the PDF standard. You can download everything about the standard from Adobe's website. There are competing readers (for Windows and other platforms), other PDF tools galore, but people still turn to Adobe products. We still rely on Distiller. We still rely on (now) Live Cycle. When you want crisp viewing of PDFs with good options, you use Adobe Reader (Foxit and others are catching up). Even Microsoft has benefited (Export to PDF in Office 2007 - FINALLY after over a decade without it).

    2. Re:Of course. by cheater512 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah but Google provides all their stuff for free with ads.
      Microsoft charges for the same thing.

      Its a completely different business model.
      Google doesnt have to screw over customers to make money.

      IMHO they wont venture to the dark side of the force.

    3. Re:Of course. by MightyMartian · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Google doesnt have to screw over customers to make money.


      Unless those customers are Chinese dissidents.
      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Of course. by king-manic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft could embrace ODF. They could integrate it with Microsoft Office, eliminate .DOC, and produce the best ODF tools in the market and maintain their dominance, even in Government. Open Office, while great for the breadth of its tools, is a complicated beast and can be overwhelming for general office staff.

      From past experience MS realize that fair competition isn't good for the ones competing. Google isn't really competing in the same way as the profit off of something independent of what office suit you use. Just as MS previously didn't care which Windows loaded PC you bought. While MS has a vested interest which office suite you use now. So having a open standard gives other companies a way in to crowd into MS's business model.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
    5. Re:Of course. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I presume you are referring to the fact that Google is doing business in China, in compliance with the law. Since the law there is the Red Chinese government, this means Google is in compliance with a government that is, shall we say, unfriendly to Chinese dissidents.

      Methinks you are a bit too harsh. AFAIK Google has complied with the orders for censorship, but have not done anything that helps track and punish people. IIRC Google declined to offer Google Mail because they knew the Red Chinese government would demand access to the email data to help track down dissidents.

      Google had two options: don't do business in China, or do business in China. If Google didn't do any business in China, the Chinese would have had to use some other search engine, perhaps one put together by the Chinese government. Any other search engine would also have censorship imposed. And, as was pointed out on Slashdot in a discussion of this issue, Google did the bare minimum to comply: if you misspell Tien An Man Square you still get any web pages with the misspelling; and even when you spell it correctly, and Google is censoring your results, Google displays a message saying something like "some pages were not shown, to comply with government policy".

      Google in China doesn't blaze with the pure white light of the angels but it doesn't glow red with hellfire either.

    6. Re:Of course. by MightyMartian · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      I would think the moral option, if the shareholders had an ounce of morality in them, would be to refuse to do business in China. But of course, Google's shareholders are immoral, freedom-hating profiteers.

      The West has been betrayed by greed. The high ideals are dispensable when a buck is to be made. Google is doing evil. Maybe not as much evil as pathetic cowards like Microsoft and Cisco, but evil still.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:Of course. by dhasenan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google's interest mainly lies in being able to parse, represent, and produce files in the standard format, I think, regardless of who controls that format. They can certainly parse either format to get the majority of the textual content. It would be difficult to represent content in OOXML, but not ODF; and it is apparently significantly easier to modify ODF documents than OOXML, so I assume generating them is likely easier, too.

      That's sufficient reason for Google to back ODF. Of course, the fact that it detracts from one of their competitors helps.

    8. Re:Of course. by Sj0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thought experiment time!

      Let's say you make the best strawberry jam in the world. In one city, the government is run by assholes, and so everyone has to mix in a bit of mud.

      Even with the mud, you've still got the best strawberry jam in the world. It's the best the people of that city can get because of the assholes in government.

      If you believe preference utilitarianism, where you want to make the most people happy, then it's obvious which choice is more moral; The people of China are going to be persecuted by unjust laws whether they've got a Chinese version of Google or not. Google is still the best product available, and I'm sure people are made happier through the fact that they can use it.

      Now, you could say that Google could be propping up an immoral regime that oppresses it's own people, but it's unlikely that refusing to open Google.cn would suddenly make the communists see the error of their ways.

      Simple win. Happy Chinese people vs. shallow meaningless victory

      --
      It's been a long time.
    9. Re:Of course. by nospam007 · · Score: 2, Insightful


      Its a completely different business model.
      Google doesnt have to screw over customers to make money.
      --
      We are not their customers, the advertising companies are.
      We are Google's stock.

    10. Re:Of course. by Jaxoreth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microsoft could embrace ODF. They could integrate it with Microsoft Office, eliminate .DOC, and produce the best ODF tools in the market and maintain their dominance, even in Government.
      Microsoft simply cannot produce the best tools in the market. They lack the necessary design skill and development practices (at least within the Office business).

      Open Office, while great for the breadth of its tools, is a complicated beast and can be overwhelming for general office staff.
      Have you seen what it's intended to replace?

      --
      In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
    11. Re:Of course. by heinousjay · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Right now, they have the best I've used. The format lock-in is a nice bonus for them, but realistically there's nothing even close to Excel, and Word does the job at least as well or better than every competitor I've tried. Naturally, this is just my opinion, just as your post was only yours.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    12. Re:Of course. by Merusdraconis · · Score: 1

      ODF isn't backwards compatible with previous versions of Office, though. It's a huge technical challenge, and so it's probably easier for them to take the de facto standard and make it de rigeur than it is to reverse-engineer decades worth of design decisions.

    13. Re:Of course. by Aceticon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft could embrace ODF. They could integrate it with Microsoft Office, eliminate .DOC, and produce the best ODF tools in the market and maintain their dominance, even in Government. Open Office, while great for the breadth of its tools, is a complicated beast and can be overwhelming for general office staff.

      One of the strongest reasons for the continued market share of MS Office is the network effects that come from the majority of people using the MS Office. It works like this:
      • If a person or a company need to send a document to another person or company, they need to do it in such a way that the other side can at least read it and maybe even edit it.
      • Since most senders have MS Office and they expect most recievers also have it, they will likelly send the document in Word Doc format. If the receiver doesn't have MS Office, and because of the problems that other text editors have in fully supporting that format, he now has a strong incentive to get MS Office.
      • Conversely, a sender which does not have MS Office and sends a document in a format other than Word Doc, is likelly to be faced by a receiver which cannot read that document since they have MS Office and it doesn't support most other widespread document formats. The sender thus has an incentive to get MS Office.
      • Lastly, a sender which does not have MS Office and tries to send a document in Word Doc format, is likelly to have the document not being fully compatible with MS Office, again due to the problems that other text editors have in fully supporting that format, and thus be displayed incorrectly in the reciver's machine. Again the sender thus has an incentive to get MS Office.

      To maintain this virtuous circle (virtuous for MS, others might think of it as vicious), two factors need to be kept in place
      • The most widely used format (at the moment, Word Doc format) can only be properly read and written by MS Word
      • The most widely used document edition application (at the moment, MS Word) does not fully support any other competing document format.

      To maintain this MS needs to:
      • Try and avoid the emergence of another widely used document format.
      • Make it impossible for other word edition applications to properly support Word Doc format.
      • Do not properly support other widespread document formats in MS Word.

      I believe we all can find examples of all the above actions.
    14. Re:Of course. by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      In what way?
      What do old versions of msoffice do that cannot be represented by odf?
      Most of the so called "compatibility" present in ooxml is poorly conceived, and hinges on adding extra complexity to the format when it would be much easier to simply mimick the behaviour in the conversion program and store the results in a standard way.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    15. Re:Of course. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

      Since most senders have MS Office and they expect most recievers also have it, they will likelly send the document in Word Doc format. If the receiver doesn't have MS Office, and because of the problems that other text editors have in fully supporting that format, he now has a strong incentive to get MS Office. Or one of the free document views available from Microsoft.

      Besides, Microsoft Office now generates PDFs.
    16. Re:Of course. by daem0n1x · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I love Excel, but Word is a buggy piece of shit.

      So much that they gave up on trying to fix the crashes, now they have created some "crash recovery" stuff that will recover the documents you lost with the last crash. If you're lucky, the "recovered" document will not be filled with hieroglyphs.

    17. Re:Of course. by Warbothong · · Score: 1

      "Microsoft could embrace ODF. They could integrate it with Microsoft Office, eliminate .DOC, and produce the best ODF tools in the market and maintain their dominance, even in Government." On the other hand Microsoft could add ODF as an import format by default, and make any saving go to their own formats, that's what I'm more scared about. They can implement our open formats, we can't implement their closed ones, which means Office would be seen to have all of the advantages of OpenOffice (it can open those weird dot-O-D-T files that I found on the Internets) along with its unmatchable Microsoft format support. Same goes for their other software too, like adding Ogg playing support to Media Player but forcing all ripped CDs to encrypted WMA. The masses of users that use Microsoft's bundled products because they can't be bothered to get a replacement when they already have something which (appears to) works will be locked in for a good while yet.

    18. Re:Of course. by heinousjay · · Score: 1

      Sure, absolutely. I've never had it happen to me, but I've seen it happen while other people were using it. Still, nothing has risen up to take its place. That, to me, is just as important as the openness of the file format.

      Although to be completely honest, I so rarely use any sort of document generating software that I really don't care.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    19. Re:Of course. by bigpicture · · Score: 1

      Maybe you don't know that Google has a long time ago put their money where their mouth is. Google uses Open Source software on their servers. They contribute money and code to Open source projects. Sponsor students etc. (summer of code)

      Their Office offerings are Open Standard. Also your perspective tends to be different if you are a hardware manufacturer, or user, than if you are a proprietary software producer. Very different perspectives. But which perspective benefits the consumer more in the end? Because that's the only one that I care about. Just simply pragmatic. As is Google, because interoperability is fundamental to the success of their business, as it is to every other business, EXCEPT MICROSOFTs.

  7. Google vs. Microsoft by markdavis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "With multiple implementations of one open standard for documents, users, businesses and governments around the world can have both choice and freedom to access their own documents, share with others and pass onto future generations.'"
    EXACTLY what Microsoft does NOT want. I said it before, I will say it again... even if Microsoft does concede and add ODF support in MS-Office, one can almost bet it will be "broken" and Microsoft's formats will mysteriously work "better". The saga continues...
    1. Re:Google vs. Microsoft by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But is it different this time around? With HTML, CSS, Kerberos, Java, and all the other embrace,extend,extinguish campaigns they do, there is no ISO standard for HTML, CSS (Both w3c standards), Kerberos (just an RFC), and Java, (a standard which is just owned by another large corporation), for any of these other things. However, with ISO standards, isn't there a bit more enforcement of whether or not something adheres to the standard? Don't they actually check that products that say they meet some standard actually meet the standard? Don't they take legal recourse against products that use there standards incorrectly? Maybe I'm just wrong here, but I don't think that ISO has built up such a large reputation for standards by just letting things slide, and having their name slapped on products that don't adhere to the standard.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:Google vs. Microsoft by Zeinfeld · · Score: 5, Informative
      However, with ISO standards, isn't there a bit more enforcement of whether or not something adheres to the standard? Don't they actually check that products that say they meet some standard actually meet the standard? Don't they take legal recourse against products that use there standards incorrectly? Maybe I'm just wrong here, but I don't think that ISO has built up such a large reputation for standards by just letting things slide, and having their name slapped on products that don't adhere to the standard.

      Completely off base. Wrong on every count.

      First off I think you need to understand what ISO is, ISO does not set standards. All ISO does is to recognize standards that have already been set by other standards bodies. So ISO 3103 is actually the same as BS 6008. ISO 9000 is BS 5750 and so on.

      The IETF is actually accredited as an ISO member body and in theory RFCs could become ISO standards. They never have and never will as long as ISO charges money for its standards.

      There is a compliance program for ISO 9000 but it isn't run by ISO. ISO 9000 consulting is one of the things that Y2K vampires went on to do after Dec 31 1999.

      If you want standards go ISO 3103 is pretty critical yet you would be hard pressed to find any US companies that are in compliance. Still, least they don't use salt water any more.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    3. Re:Google vs. Microsoft by hixie · · Score: 1

      HTML became ISO/IEC 15445:2000.

    4. Re:Google vs. Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... there is no ISO standard for HTML

      Actually, there is. It's called ISO/IEC 15445:2000(E).

      However, with ISO standards, isn't there a bit more enforcement of whether or not something adheres to the standard?

      I think the number of nonconforming ISO 9899:1999 (or even 9899:1990) C implementations out there should answer that question.

      It's "just" a standard.

  8. OOXML... what's the point? by greenguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At my day job, my officemate just got Office 2007, which he was pleased as punch about... at first. Then he realized that no one else on any platform, using any software, can read Office 2007 files. He might as well write them in crayon, for what that's worth. He can select an earlier format, but then it saves as read-only.

    At this point, my endless nudging about this whole Open Document Format thing is starting to make more sense for him. In fact, he'd be pleased to replace Word. However, he and some other co-workers are power Excel users, and are very reluctant to even consider replacing it.

    Can anyone out there make a convincing case that Calc or Gnumeric are just as good as Excel, even for advanced users?

    --
    What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
    1. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 1, Informative

      If you and your friend are so bright you could go into the options and set Office 2007 to save in Office 97-2003 compatability mode. I'm all for piling on with MS, but lack of user effort does not equate to wrong-doing in this case.

    2. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Aminion · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have a similar story about MS Office (in)compatibility.

      A couple of weeks ago, I opened a PowerPoint 2003 file in PowerPoint 2007 (this loads PPT's compatibility mode), did some changes to the presentation and saved. Well, I tried to save when PPT complained that the changes that I've made to slides 1-12 weren't compatible with PPT 2003. Did I mention that the presentation only had 12 slides? Yeah, so no save for me. And what were those difficult to save changes? I changed the damn slides' design to one of the new fancy ones. That's all. I find it a bit ridiculous that not even MS can't make PTT 2007 compatible with previous versions.

    3. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by ushering05401 · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Can anyone out there make a convincing case that Calc or Gnumeric are just as good as Excel, even for advanced users?"

      Not I, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't install and play with the alternatives. Hell, if you feel so motivated you might even contribute some feedback to the dev community about what would motivate you to switch away from Excel.

      Long story short, Excel is one of the few areas that MS actually delivers the goods. There are issues with Excel, but nothing like the issues that plague most other MS products.

    4. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by evanbd · · Score: 1

      Can anyone out there make a convincing case that Calc or Gnumeric are just as good as Excel, even for advanced users?

      (I haven't worked with Gnumeric much, so this mostly applies to Calc)

      I would, except that they're not even close. I run Linux, I use OpenOffice.org, and at work I've done some serious Excel work. There are a couple features I like in Calc, but nothing major. However, there are a lot of things that Excel does better. Graphs are a big one. Circular reference handling and goal seek / solver are also important. And last but certainly not least... handling of giant spreadsheets. That even Excel could be better at, but it's less painful than Calc. Complicated math like statistics and Fourier work is also lacking, and VB scripting is important for function definitions (though I'd love to use something better).

      I've tried to do complicated stuff in Calc, but never for too long -- it just gets painful.

    5. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I find it a bit ridiculous that not even MS can't make PTT 2007 compatible with previous versions.

      Of course they could, but they won't. They make it incompatible so that everyone else also has to upgrade to 2007. Leaving it compatible means that they could just carry on using what they have and not throw more money at MS.

    6. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Antony.Muss · · Score: 1

      There is a compatibility pack for old versions of Office, and I think it even lets them edit the new XML format.

    7. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by lordofthechia · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I use calc for lab calculations for my engineering classes involving complex equations (as in imaginary numbers), lots of plots and all the fun equations that we get to play with, I haven't run into anything yet that I wasn't able to do in calc that I could previously do in Excel.

      I also use it for scheduling (calendar type functions with conditional statements, conditional formatting, strewn throughout) to automatically generate events if certain criteria are made. I know, I need to find something better than a spreadsheet for that... But yeah, I find it nice and robust.

      There were some minor adjustments as far as entering equations, but it's been so long since I transitioned that I don't even remember what syntax differences I had to adjust to.

      --
      Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
    8. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      At my day job, my officemate just got Office 2007, which he was pleased as punch about... at first. Then he realized that no one else on any platform, using any software, can read Office 2007 files. He might as well write them in crayon, for what that's worth. He can select an earlier format, but then it saves as read-only.

      My copy of Office 2007 works just fine. I currently only have 2007 on one machine but its working fine when I transfer files to the other machine.

      Only problem I have at the moment is that I would really like to be able to use the new citation manager feature and that is a new feature so obviously 2003 does not support it.

      And there is a plug in for down versions of Office to read office 2007 files in any case.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    9. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you and your friend are so bright you could go into the options and set Office 2007 to save in Office 97-2003 compatability mode.

      What part of "he can select an earlier format, but then it saves as read-only" did you not understand? Office 97-2003 compatibility mode has three different meanings in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, and the one in Excel prevents documents with "new features" from being saved to a file that can be edited by a previous version of Excel.

    10. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by calebt3 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hehe. I am taking a break from banging my head against the keyboard because of Excel 2007's incomparability. My files seem to be corrupted after being saved in 2003 format. I am glad I use OOo at home!

    11. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by p0tat03 · · Score: 1

      One problem that OSS still needs to overcome is backwards compatibility. I have no problems with converting to open source office apps, and help out the movement, so to speak, but I require back compatibility. That means Word and Excel documents that my peers create *must* work competently, and that inter-operability between the two apps must be near total.

      The last time I opened a Word 2004 doc in OpenOffice the result was a complicated mess. Stylings were messed up, spacing was messed up, fonts were changed, sizes were changed... That document would've taken ages to clean up into presentable format in OpenOffice, and that's time that I simply do not have. If you want people to seriously convert, you need to allow them to Open->Save As with almost NO perceivable visual and organization difference in their documents!

      I would be GLAD to migrate all of my legacy Word files into OpenOffice, but I do not want to hand-fix ALL of them.

    12. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by ushering05401 · · Score: 1

      All 2007 Office products are having some difficulties right now, which is why my production environments still run older versions. Here is a fun one: a client patched their SBS 2003 box last week after not doing it for a while. Now everyone using Office 2007 is intermittently losing server connectivity, but the users who are still on Office 2k have experienced no problems.

      Not only that, but a number of services disappeared from the SBS box and MS is apparently charging for a hotfix. I have not looked into this yet, but that is what my client told me this afternoon on the phone.

    13. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      You do realize, I trust, that people have similar problems when trying to open older Office documents in new versions of Office. Not even Microsoft can maintain absolute backwards compatibility. That being said, I've never had any problems opening Excel and Word documents in OpenOffice.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    14. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by RobBebop · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Can anyone out there make a convincing case that Calc or Gnumeric are just as good as Excel, even for advanced users? I've tried to do complicated stuff in Calc, but never for too long -- it just gets painful.

      You lose. You answered the wrong question. You receive +0 points.

      Here's a somewhat trivial thing that I found Calc did right, that Excel fudged up. I could copy from a table online and paste it into Calc in spreadsheet form. In Excel, it refused to go in despite various "Paste Special" attempts. I'm not going to say that this always fails in Excel - but during the specific instance I had last week - I was utterly stunned when (a) Excel didn't get it, then (b) Calc got it on the first try.

      For me, this is a reason that OO.o needs to be installed because sometimes it is invaluable to throw some data in and analyze it by running some formulas on it. At the same time, Excel is useful because of its macros. I wish it weren't so useful. I would rather see things implemented as LAMP Web Applications with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface... but it is much cheaper for a company to hire an intern to produce an "Excel Productivity Application" and the end result is the same - data gets inputted and stored or sent to where it needs to go.

      Of the various OO software, though, Impress (Presentation Software) is the piece that is the least mature. In 1.1, it was unusable. By version 2.x, it is much nicer. In fairness, anytime you create a presentation from scratch, unless it is really simple, you end up spending *some* time tweaking the formatting options no matter which tool you use, though.

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    15. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by AJWM · · Score: 1

      Just so long as you don't accurately need to work with dates prior to March 1, 1900. Excel thinks that was Feb 29, the rest of the (Gregorian) world thinks that was Feb 28. Earlier dates are screwed up (by Excel) accordingly.

      However, most people use spreadsheets as a quick'n'dirty database anyway. I bet in any given survey of .xls (or .ooc) files only a minority of them would actually contain any calculations.

      --
      -- Alastair
    16. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by AJWM · · Score: 1

      Argh.

      s/.ooc/.ods/ above. Must be past my bedtime.

      --
      -- Alastair
    17. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by larry+bagina · · Score: -1, Troll

      gnumeric is yet another one of miguel de Icaza's half assed MS knockoffs (like mono, moonlight, gnome. etc). It's like getting a handjob from a smelly hobo when you could be dropping a 3-roper in Natalie Portman's cunt.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    18. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by speaker+of+the+truth · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Calc simply isn't as good as Excel even for casual users. I cut and paste entire columns on a regular basis and Excel actually removes those columns and pastes the columns where I tell it to. Calc on the other hand simply cuts the data out and places the data where I tell it to, overwriting whatever data was originally there. So no, you can't convince an advanced user to switch from Excel to Calc as Calc being better if you're honest.

      --
      Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
    19. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by evanbd · · Score: 1

      Oddly enough, that's not something I've had an issue with.

      All the data I've needed to analyze usually comes in the form of nice simple CSV text files, or comes from a program that can optionally output as such. So the import is almost irrelevant.

      But then actually doing something with that data is where Excel wins out (I won't say it's good -- it's sadly lacking in some respects -- but it beats OOo hands down). I most emphatically don't want online LAMP type applications; nothing I've done has been of the "plug numbers in here, read answers there" form. It's all engineering problems, which usually end up as one-off spreadsheets intended for a specific purpose. I've done everything from electronic circuit design to data analysis to finite element analysis to thermodynamic modeling in Excel, without any particular difficulty. Some of those could have been done in OOo, though they would have been harder. Some couldn't have (at least, not reasonably). And the major differences are in the goal seek / solver tools, functions, circular references, and performance.

      I'm sure there are applications where OOo is comparable or better -- but none of them are the applications I work with, at least not when it comes to the "advanced" or complicated things. (There's a decent amount of quick and dirty scratch work that I do in a spreadsheet, and for that I don't really care which I'm working in, they're both fine.)

    20. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by nstlgc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So you explicitly state you used new features from 2007 ("the new fancy ones") and then you're surprised that all your slides are no longer 2003-compatible? Wow.

      --
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    21. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Fred_A · · Score: 1

      And what were those difficult to save changes? I changed the damn slides' design to one of the new fancy ones. That's all. I find it a bit ridiculous that not even MS can't make PTT 2007 compatible with previous versions. If they made it compatible then people wouldn't have to upgrade (duh). Haven't you figured out Microsoft's business model yet ?

      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
    22. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Fred_A · · Score: 1

      gnumeric is yet another one of miguel de Icaza's half assed MS knockoffs (like mono, moonlight, gnome. etc). It's like getting a handjob from a smelly hobo when you could be dropping a 3-roper in Natalie Portman's cunt. Frankly I wish we'd just stick with car metaphors when talking software if you don't mind...
      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
    23. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      OpenOffice calc likes to replicate excel bugs...
      Gnumeric goes for correctness...
      I use gnumeric, because i require the answers from my spreadsheets to be correct and accurate, and i won't consider using anything less accurate regardless of what features it has....
      That said, openoffice should give you the choice between "compatibility with excel" and "accuracy/correctness"

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    24. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Doesnt calc support writing of macros in several languages?
      From a quick look, it supports:
      openoffice basic
      python
      javascript
      beanshell (what is this?)

      Now, openoffice basic is probably a dead end, it seems stupid to use a language specific to open/star office as it's unlikely to be supported by anything else, and i'm not quite sure what beanshell is but i imagine it's some java based thing....
      Python and Javascript tho, are good well known cross platform languages, and there are many many people out there who are already experienced with these languages.
      Another plus, is that if you learn python/javascript for the purposes of scripting openoffice, you will be able to reuse your new skills for other purposes.

      Also, you can easily write external programs in any language to parse the ODF files outside of any application.

      If you have problems with calc, can you file them as bugs and get them fixed? List them for me so i can take a read of the bug reports and keep track of their progress... Or, if there are already bugs filed, go and vote for them to show that there's interest in getting them fixed.

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    25. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I don't understand there part where you aren't capable of going and downloading the Office Compatability pack that is available for Office XP and 2003 that solves this issue. I'm not really in love with Vista or Office 2007 but I love how /.ers always find links to support their anti-MS rhetoric but can never find links to solve their supposed issues.

      There are very few new features that can't be exported to older versions of Excel/PPT/Word with the compatability pack, so my original point stands, where is the issue?

    26. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a feature to keep compatibility with Lotus-123.

    27. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can anyone out there make a convincing case that Calc or Gnumeric are just as good as Excel, even for advanced users?
      No, because they are not as good as Excel. Not even close. Unfortunately spreadsheets on Linux just suck.
    28. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beanshell is scripting in Java.

      (unlike JavaScript which doesn't really have any thing to do with Java at all.)

    29. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      it's like driving an el cadillaco instead of a cadillac.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    30. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      My OpenOffice actually asks me if I want to overwrite data in that situation. It also has an anti-nag option to never show the warning again. Are you sure you didn't disable this yourself?

    31. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      "Can anyone out there make a convincing case that Calc or Gnumeric are just as good as Excel, even for advanced users?"

      Well, they lets older versions of Excel edit their documents. That looks like an important feature for your advanced users.

      Why don't they test tham and see for themselves if they are suitable for them?

      --
      Rethinking email
    32. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      I think the point the GP poster was making that to be truly backward compatible, you would not require users of previous versions of software to download a compatibility pack.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    33. Re:OOXML... what's the point? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      I really garbled my reply, let me try one more time!

      I think the point the GP poster was making is that you can't call something backward compatible if it requires users of older software to download add-ons or compatibility packs.

      Office 2007 should be able to read and write older office formats. Microsoft has always warned the user that some functions will be lost when saving to an older version, so why can't they continue with the warnings?

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
  9. I'll bite: by larry+bagina · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    It is also incompatible with the existing ISO standard ISO 26300:2006, the Open Document Format (ODF), which already offers a high degree of interoperability, wide support, and offers the level playing field the world needs. Google is a supporter of ODF and has successfully integrated this open format into Google Docs and Spreadsheets. ODF also enjoys implementation in over twelve other products.

    Looking at that list, I see primarily open office derivatives and web-based text editors. ODF was designed for Open Office, and web-based text editors have very limited capabilities.

    What if MS used ODF? I'm betting the slashdot crowd would complain that they don't keep MacWord95Margins when saving in ODF format because they want you to keep using proprietary .doc files. Just because ODF made it through ISO first doesn't mean it's all that.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:I'll bite: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of the reasons Microsoft said that ODF didn't meet their needs was that apparently there was no way to completely map their feature set into it. Not being a file format expert, I'm not going to go through and try to prove this one either way - however, knowing that ODF was basically designed for Open Office (or Open Office designed for ODF, one of the two) and knowing that Microsoft Office has a different (and larger) feature set than Open Office it seems fairly evident that MS would absolutely have to extend ODF in a way that would piss off people here on the /. in order to get their features in. I can just hear the "but it doesn't render right in Open Office Writer so Microsoft must have done something evil" now. How people would expect those features that Open Office doesn't have or that MS Office doesn't have but Open Office does to "just work" when two products with different feature sets are trying to use the same format is beyond me. Sure, they could both just chuck a lot of features and save to the equivalent of an RTF - but it looks like what is really needed is a format that is designed to house a superset of both products features that they can both use. Also a way to expressly define how a document should gracefully degrade if feature xyz is not supported on a certain implementation.

    2. Re:I'll bite: by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Does anyone have a factual list of Office features that can't map to ODF? I mean, besides "justifying the way Office 97 does", which doesn't meaningfully constitute a "feature".

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:I'll bite: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Embedding fully editable text/spreadsheet/images/databases/presentations/cad drawings and links into one file.

      Makes it handy to just give someone one file that contains the entire project. I like creating power point slides where everything is embedded into it. Marketing info slide linked to a spreadsheet containing the data and charts, a list of budget items containing product codes/descriptions/pictures linked to an embedded database that is easily updated and cad drawings showing where all the budget items and stuff go. (This is very useful for encapsulating projects such as new condos, hospital renovations, highways and bridge rehabilitation and construction etc.)

    4. Re:I'll bite: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. You embed everything? Do you just hand people a CDROM?

      Our company put a 10MB CAP on email attachments, which put an end to that practice. Files get too big, too fast.

    5. Re:I'll bite: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "One of the reasons Microsoft said that ODF didn't meet their needs was that apparently there was no way to completely map their feature set into it." This is what Microsoft claims. That doesn't mean however that the claim relates in any way to reality.

      In other words, this claim of Microsoft's is just spin.

      There is a Sun plugin for Microsoft Office that saves the in-memory document from Office as an ODF file. AFAIK it does a very good job. If there was any significant shortcoming of the ODF format, you would think that there would be significant data loss.

      The design of ODF started in December, 2002, and it was approved as an ISO standard in November, 2005. Microsoft sat on the design committee the whole time ... and approved ODF as an International interoperability standard at the end of that time ... without offering a single word the whole time.

      If Microsoft wanted a particular feature to be supported in ODF, they could have just said so. At any time ... in four years.

      Even now, the ODF standard (unlike OOXML) is designed to be extensible.
    6. Re:I'll bite: by hatchet · · Score: 1

      OOXML was designed by microsoft to be directly compatible with binary document formats. (.doc). This saved microsoft months and months of coding and testing.
      In general, OOXML as xml based format is pretty much useless. Many tags are one letter sized and totally unintuitive. Sure, it does it's job well, but you will need a proper editor for that.

  10. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish by turing_m · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Either that or they just embrace the ODF spec, extend it in proprietary ways that won't work in other office suites, and then extinguish it. That way MS Office will read everything but still produce documents that only work properly in Office.

    --
    If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
  11. Did I miss something? by Cassini2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The fast track process does not officially end until after the next ballot resolution meeting (BRM). According to the ISO press release http://www.iso.org/iso/newsandmedia/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070, if Microsoft scrapes together enough support at the BRM, then the OOXML standard will be accepted.

    On the other hand, if Microsoft doesn't get the support at the BRM, then OOXML is out of the fast track process and referred back to committee for development.

  12. So why don't they actualy support ODF in search? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    If google is in full support of the ODF format, why don't they support the ODF file type within its search engine? Try http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=filetype%3Aodf+the&btnG=Search

  13. badsummary by achurch · · Score: 4, Informative

    The fast-track process isn't over yet; all ISO has decided is that OOXML didn't pass the initial vote. There's still (probably, unless Microsoft backs down at the last minute) a Ballot Resolution Meeting to come, where the committee looks at all the comments received with the votes and tries to resolve them. If the various national boards decide that the result is good enough and vote for OOXML, it can still become a standard in the near future.

    1. Re:badsummary by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      The fast-track process isn't over yet; all ISO has decided is that OOXML didn't pass the initial vote. There's still (probably, unless Microsoft backs down at the last minute) a Ballot Resolution Meeting to come, where the committee looks at all the comments received with the votes and tries to resolve them. If the various national boards decide that the result is good enough and vote for OOXML, it can still become a standard in the near future.

      So you mean that Microsoft can lobby No votes to become Yes votes after meeting the issues raised in their comments?

      Sounds to me like anyone who voted no is going to be seeing some pretty stiff lobbying. The vote was very close.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
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    2. Re:badsummary by achurch · · Score: 1

      So you mean that Microsoft can lobby No votes to become Yes votes after meeting the issues raised in their comments?

      Indeed they can; in fact, turning "no with comments" votes into "yes" votes is the whole purpose of the BRM--though normally the no's will be "no, because there are a few things that need tweaking", not "no, this is a POS that shouldn't be a standard in the first place".

      On the other hand, "yes" votes can turn into "no" votes as well. I imagine the national boards that were fooled by Microsoft's "yes with comments" spiel will not be amused . . .

    3. Re:badsummary by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      On the other hand, "yes" votes can turn into "no" votes as well. I imagine the national boards that were fooled by Microsoft's "yes with comments" spiel will not be amused . . .

      That would be rather harder to manage, in OASIS I have seen no votes change to yes but not the other way round.

      The point of the ISO standards process is not to pick the one true standard, it is to recognize what standards people use. This type of behavior strikes me as very similar to the factionalism that kept the FORTRAN 8X standard in process for a decade. Rather than adopt the VAX extensions to FORTRAN that had long ago become the defacto standard competitors had to argue for advantage.

      They should recognize both formats as standards.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
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  14. one flew over the cuckoos nest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one will probably read this but here goes anyways. Though I can see that microsoft has a vested interest in its proprietary software and/or platform I guess I am somehow not quite understanding the problem. As one of my engineering textbooks says "A problem well stated is a problem half solved" kettering. So what are the fundamental differences in the standards? Can they be combined? I have heard alot of talk about the ooxml standard being fundamentally flawed. Could someone clarify how? Microsoft itself has backwards compatibility issues. I understand that microsoft wishes to lock in consumers to office and other applications but I don't see an open document format impeding towards that goal. I think it might even make the job easier of programmers working to improve office. I guess I don't understand why we can't all watch the baseball game.

    fesaj

    1. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It wouldn't under normal circumstances, but there are a growing number of organizations (in particular various governments) who are demanding open document formats to protect valuable data from being stored in proprietary formats that might, at some point the future, become very difficult to access. In other words, in 2050 AD, the state of Massachusetts doesn't want to maintain an old copy of Windows 98 running Office 95, or have to run one virtualized on new hardware (if you can find an old Pentium emulator around) just so it can open old, archived documents. With a *useful* open document format, it's at least feasible that you could get your programmers or hire programmers to write software to extract or translate the data.

      This is the importance to Microsoft of getting OOXML turned into an ISO standard. That way it can have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand they can declare to Massachusetts or any other government or organization demanding an open file format that they have this keen ISO standard, all the while having a format with so many patent-encumbered and proprietary hooks that no one but Microsoft could ever hope to write a program that could read or write it.

      One only has to look at how incredibly important it is to Microsoft to get this enormous, crappy and completely unimplementable standard through ISO by the sheer efforts and willingness to risk public exposure to buy votes. If they can't get this past the ISO post, then the long-term viability of their business model is severely compromised.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thanks for the reply. I still wish I had a clearer picture of the flaws without having to read a ton of documentation. I still cannot understand how microsoft which I do believe has a considerable amount of self interest is creating obstacles primarily for themselves. They bundle software packages and have the most predominant and (I find this repulsive to say ) reliable software package that the average user can use. They can still lock in consumers. Why don't they fix the standard so that microsoft products will improve? They could even make it annoying to convert legacy document files making it a necessity to buy the latest version. I still need to understand the flaws. I find that open source solutions tend to be very complex even for simple problems. Is this the case of the odf standard? I would love a clear explanation about why one standard is better than the other. I understand a decent amount of code I don't have the time to understand full implementations. What am I missing?

      fesaj

    3. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ODF is not a perfect standard. I don't believe there is such a thing as a perfect document standard. But what ODF is not is patent encumbered or encumbered by references to proprietary functionality.

      Simply put, a reasonably competent programmer could implement ODF from the documentation. However, to implement OOXML would require both licensing to take care of any patent issues and access to internal Microsoft formats.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by SL+Baur · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I still cannot understand how microsoft which I do believe has a considerable amount of self interest is creating obstacles primarily for themselves. You're missing a big point. So long as it's a problem that only Microsoft can fix and bill people for, it's in Microsoft's best interest to do it that way.

      I would love a clear explanation about why one standard is better than the other. <Monty-Python>That's a fascinating question and I'd like to answer it in two ways if I may ... the first in my normal voice and the second in a silly, high-pitched whine</Monty-Python> Oh wait ...

      Seriously, consider troff as a case example, a program which Brian Kernighan once called "50000 lines of uncommented unreadable C code written by the late Joe Osana" (I've tried to remember where I first read that, but haven't found it again and it's true enough as a reading of the source reveals).

      troff wasn't exactly open source as we now define the term, but the markup language specification was fully documented. As a result, it was reimplemented in a variety of forms including the GPLed groff and it is still possible to make hardcopy of troff documents written decades ago.

      Similarly, the TiVoized TeX (you are not allowed to make willy-nilly changes and redistribute them, but it's still open source), will also live forever.

      Even more so than open source, an open specification is something that can never ever be taken away from you and it will live in the form of working code that implements it for as long as it is useful.

      Contrast this with the OOXML "standard" which includes XML tags such as format this paragraph like Microsoft Word-95 (without explanation as to what that means) or use word spacing like Microsoft Word-97 for the Apple Macintosh (also without explanation as to what that means), etc.

      Can anyone name a single proprietary counterexample that has lived at least as long as troff (over 30 years)? Open standards work and we have the track record to prove it.

      If you are still confused ... since this is slashdot, I'll try a car analogy. A closed standard means you have to return your car to the factory in which it was made to have it serviced - a single point of failure and if the factory refuses to work on your particular car and says you must buy a new one instead, that is what you will have to do. An open standard means you can drive down the street and choose the nearest mechanic to work on your car. Fortunately, cars have open standards and the standard is only a Chilton's guide away http://www.chiltonsonline.com/
    5. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, instead it refers to other "standards" which aren't; formulas in spreadsheets for example. The ODF standard points to an incomplete, unratified standard. So what we have is a "standard" which relies on a moving standard to provide the most basic requirement of a spreadsheet. ODF is *not* a good standard for anything outside word processing and the politics of the open source movement pushed it through not because it's good, but because it would fuck over MS and that's not good for users in any way.

    6. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      An incomplete unratified standard yes, but one that is being worked on by multiple parties to ensure it meets the needs of all of those parties. Anyone is free to join and express their needs too.
      The difference is that OOXML has a quickly hacked together specification for formulae which is flawed in many ways, which only has input from and only satisfied the requirements of one organisation. A ratified flawed standard is a bad thing, because it will remain in that flawed state, that why the ODF people are trying to get the formula format correct.
      If the ODF spreadsheet specification doesn't suit your needs, why dont you read the spec thoroughly and suggest changes?

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    7. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't doubt that everything you have said about the standard is accurate. I am left wondering if odf is such a superior standard why has the rest of the industry not clearly allied itself with the standard. Maybe it has but if that is true I just don't get a sense of outrage for the putrid standard microsoft has offered. Can the standard be implemented without microsoft's compliance? Can microsoft be compelled to make office compatible for anti-trust reasons? If the microsoft standard is not adopted what happens next? If it is that the end of a universal doc format? If odf was adopted as a standard what would microsoft likely do in response to try to protect its interests?

      fesaj

    8. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Um, IBM just announced that they were going to start contributing to OpenOffice, and apparently are putting out their own ODF-compatible office suite based on OpenOffice. The industry is very much interested in ODF, because it represents for their development teams a fully accessible standard, and means the chance of not being beholden to Microsoft.

      If ODF is adopted in a large way, then Microsoft would likely adopt it, then either break it (as they did with Kerberos) or put in lots of vendor-specific extensions to assure that only Microsoft products could deal with it (in short turn ODF in the new DOC). The open question is what would those organizations that are demanding an open standard do. I guess it depends on how savvey they are, on whether Microsoft can continue to throw its weight around, etc. But the fact is that ODF, though still maturing, represents the single biggest threat to Microsoft's business model in a decade, and they are putting a substantial amount of political effort into getting their own unworkable standard in place.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    9. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2050? HA! it's happening _today_.

    10. Re:one flew over the cuckoos nest by LeadSongDog · · Score: 1
      Somebody please mod parent up! There's a nugget in

      Can the standard be implemented without microsoft's compliance?

      To whit, any standard's approval should be conditional on an existence proof. Require a clean-room reference implementation that works. Let them compete in the marketplace on cost/performance, not correctness. The world is sick of disfunctional software.

      --
      Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
  15. In fairness, of course by achurch · · Score: 1

    TFA itself talks about "not approving the fast-track", which isn't quite the same as "not fast-tracking" OOXML period but is still misleading. (Fancy little Preview button down there. I wonder what it does?)

  16. You know what this means? by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 1

    I, for one, welcome our like-minded, Google-employed brethren with open arms and open document formats!

    --
    The game.
  17. Google's "hypocrisy"...? by bogaboga · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Think about this...

    They also (once again) voiced their public support for the ODF standard. How come ODF is not among the file types one can search on Google's Advanced Search page?

    Have a look. http://www.google.ca/advanced_search?q=details.odf&hl=en

    Are they still the folks who will do no evil? I am beginning to doubt.

    1. Re:Google's "hypocrisy"...? by Rakishi · · Score: 4, Informative

      1. You're redundant: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=300601&cid=20646489
      2. You have no idea what you're talking about: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=300601&cid=20646837

    2. Re:Google's "hypocrisy"...? by Antony.Muss · · Score: 1

      Google Docs supports it.

    3. Re:Google's "hypocrisy"...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're joking, right?

      First of all, the document extensions aren't .odf. .odf is a format, actually, but it's for an entirely different type of document, for formulae and math equations. The extensions it most commonly does use are

              * .odt for word processing (text) documents
              * .ods for spreadsheets
              * .odp for presentations
              * .odg for graphics
              * .odf for formulae, mathematical equations

      "The governments of Belgium, Finland, France and Norway have been evaluating the adoption of the OpenDocument format. Other governments around the world are also considering the adoption of the format. In October 2006, a report commissioned by the then French prime minister Dominique de Villepin recommended that all French government publications be made available in OpenDocument Format. In July 2007, the Norwegian Standards Council recommended to the government the use of the OpenDocument format.[19]

      The Belgian federal administration plans to exchange all documents in ODF from September 2008. All federal administrations should be able to read ODF documents one year earlier.[20]

      In Japan, on June 29, 2007, the government published a new interoperability framework which gives preference to the procurement of products that follow open standards including the ODF standards.[21][22]"

      From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

      So a document that hardly anyone uses so far is going to be mentioned on Google's file extension filter search? I can understand if they weren't listing it when it was already adopted by a plurality of users, but it's not that common. If it were common, you certainly wouldn't have mistaken .odt with .odf, now would you?

    4. Re:Google's "hypocrisy"...? by Rakishi · · Score: 1

      ODF is the default filetype for openoffice.org so there are many users but simply not close to (I'm sure that's an understatement) as many as other formats have.

  18. Frost p1sDt!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    is wiped oof and

  19. Re:So why don't they actualy support ODF in search by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Because 'odf' isn't an actual file extension used for ODF documents...try odt (text), odp (presentation), etc...

  20. Google Pleased with MS smackdown by MrCopilot · · Score: 1
    No Kidding.

    --
    OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
  21. frist =stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    the mundane chores we aal know,

  22. Re:So why don't they actualy support ODF in search by emurphy42 · · Score: 1

    They don't support any of those either, alas.

  23. Re:So why don't they actualy support ODF in search by Rakishi · · Score: 3, Informative

    WTF are you smoking, yes they do:
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=filetype%3Aodt+the&btnG=Search

  24. ODF is as incomplete as OOXMLprobabl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ODF is as incomplete as OOXML. Google is just playing politics, like everyone else.

  25. A little premature. by AJWM · · Score: 3, Informative

    The ISO decision to not fast-track this won't be made until the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) in February, where they look at the comments, decide which can be resolved, and re-vote. If it passes that vote (and you can be sure MSFT is working on that), the fast-track succeeds. The ISO press release that TFA links to explains this. (I guess someone at Google has reading comprehension issues.)

    It ain't over yet.

    --
    -- Alastair
  26. Re:So why don't they actualy support ODF in search by emurphy42 · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the correction. That works with any filetype (try it), but their Advanced Search form only covers certain types (PDF PS DWF KML KMZ XLS PPT DOC RTF SWF).

  27. Re:So why don't they actualy support ODF in search by Rakishi · · Score: 1

    Except only certain file types get properly identified and parsed into html. The fact that it's not in the drop down list is a minor problem likely due to the relative lack of popularity of these formats right now.

  28. Real men do it in LaTeX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Enough with these stupid word processors and their stupid formats, real men do it in LaTeX.

    1. Re:Real men do it in LaTeX by LionMage · · Score: 1

      Funny, I always thought real men did it in straight TeX. (LaTeX being a set of macro packages layered on top of TeX to simplify document creation, etc. As I recall, Leslie Lamport invented LaTeX as a way of leveraging TeX to effectively replace Scribe. If you don't remember Scribe, it was a non-free document formatting system which used to be very popular at many universities.)

      In fairness, LaTeX is a lot more usable by mere mortals. Personally, I always found TeX to be a little less restrictive when it came to fancy formatting that didn't fit neatly into one of LaTeX's categories. Pity that TeX isn't XML, or it'd be a perfect portable document format that would be acceptable to nearly everyone. As it is, I'm sure a TeX to ODF converter (or vice versa) would be trivial to write.

  29. You faiL it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    A1nd as BSD sinks

  30. Embedding stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have you looked at ODF at all? It allows everything you say, and then some. An ODF document, regardless of how the word processing, spreadsheet, and graphics components are embedded into each other, is all one file (basically a zip file).

  31. This is news why?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear lord, Google doesn't like something from Microsoft? You are kidding me? Really? Quick, post it on slashdot! Venor piss match. Been there, done that. Post some friggen news for crying out loud you bone head editors.

  32. Recent ODF experience by shani · · Score: 1

    Normally I use OpenOffice.org Writer to edit documents. But I decided to try KWord from KOffice, since it is much faster.

    But KWord can't export to PDF (it can use KDE's "print to PDF" option, but my printing is kind of broken when I'm not at home). So I saved in OpenDocument format, and imported into Writer. No love - the formatting is totally broken! I tried to load into AbiWord, but it doesn't understand OpenDocument format at all.

    In the end, I saved it as Microsoft Word document - which all 3 programs load and save more-or-less accurately.

    1. Re:Recent ODF experience by WWWWolf · · Score: 1

      I tried to load into AbiWord, but it doesn't understand OpenDocument format at all.

      AbiWord does support ODF, but it needs a specific plugin. I was confused about it too, but realised Debian doesn't install that plugin by default; it was in abiword-plugins package. And even then, I've had to occasionally plead and beg AbiWord to notice that it has any plugins installed in the first place!

      So it's basically just like MSWord, only in smaller scale, a little bit less swearing, and actually understanding quite a bit of ODF formatting once you get it working =) (I didn't try too complex stuff, but it got my mostly textual, lightly styled document pretty much right.)

      I have yet to investigate whether AbiWord's scripting API qualifies as sane in any way; I have some macro stuff to make and OpenOffice.org's API is Not From This Planet. =/

    2. Re:Recent ODF experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've heard this before, is it because they use some kind of extensions?
      Or just diferent presentation?

      Isn't there some kind of ODF lib to handle the format?

  33. Wow.. this is hard to believe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow... how amazing is it that Google, an MS competitor, welcomes any roadblocks to a standard created by Microsoft! Quite shocking, really. Who would have imagined it?

  34. Calc Cal by CamoCoatJoe · · Score: 1

    I also use it for scheduling (calendar type functions with conditional statements, conditional formatting, strewn throughout) to automatically generate events if certain criteria are made. I know, I need to find something better than a spreadsheet for that... But yeah, I find it nice and robust. I'd like to see an example of that. (I'm really sick of Palm, though that's partly because I squished the touchscreen.)
    --
    This is not a signature.