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Google Pleased With ISO OOXML Decision
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.'"
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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