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Microsoft Deprecating Some OOXML Functionality
christian.einfeldt writes "According to open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver, Microsoft will be deprecating certain functionality in its Microsoft Office Open XML specification. Ossendryver says the move is an attempt to quiet critics of the specification in the run up to the crucial February ISO vote. The Microsoft-led industry standards group formally offering OOXML confirms in a 21 December 2007 announcement that issues related to the 'leap year bug', VML, compatibility settings such as 'AutoSpaceLikeWord95' and others will be 'extracted from the main specification and relocated to an independent annex in DIS 29500 for deprecated functionality.'"
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play mygoatsecity.com here
Outside this frigid tumble-down shack, dry leaves before the wild winter hurricane fly. Here within, at the corner by the cold hearth rests an empty stool. A crutch without a master stands perched against the wall. These forlorn and lonely objects serve as mute reminders of their deceased owner, *BSD.
This crutch and vacant stool have become orphans, not unlike the now dead *BSD. No longer will *BSD hobble about on its cripple's crutch. Like the empty hearth, and the vacant stool, *BSD lies cold and still. *BSD's corpse, lifeless beneath frozen earth and December snows, will see no more Christmas cheer. No, there will be no Christmas ever again for *BSD, for *BSD is dead.
Goodbye, *BSD. The pain of life forever stilled, sleep for all eternity in that long winter's nap. Fade gently into Earth's frozen bosom where in dreams even cripples walk and blind men see.
Let's see if anybody changes their mind now that most of the criticisms of OOXML are being addressed. I'm interested to see how many people were opposing it for technical reasons and how many were opposing because it's Microsoft.
The article, for those you don't read it, is definitely in the latter camp.
If MS deprecates it but makes support for the deprecated features the default option in their software, they'll still be contributing to people spewing incompatible files that don't render correctly in software following the standards. It'd be better to just rip out the parts that shouldn't be there and resubmit the standard. Having to recognize and either support or report lack of support for a maze of twisty little semi-standard features for sake of backwards compatibility is not going to help the situation much,
It's abundantly clear now that the format is critically flawed and cannot be implemented by anyone, not even the Office team themselves.
ECMA 376 is a bomb disguised as a standard. It redefines functions and components just to retain ties to the undocumented legacy formats. Therefore a number of things that should be fixed by now, thanks to better engineering, and existing ISO standards, are left not only unfixed, but even perpetuated by ECMA376. The fact that Microsoft continues to push this fake "standard" shows how little they care about their customers and how much their business is predicated on lockin."I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Sounds consistent with the way Microsoft works. Promise the moon and deliver a crater. It was their intention all along. Propose something that smacks everyones senses with a bat, then back off with something that sound more reasonable, even though it is not.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Am I the only one that read the story title as "Microsoft Defecating Some OOXML Functionality"?
...
Certainly seems more appropriate
In another move to spread more FUD, now they're trying to hide the UGLY part of the specification. But, what use is hiding it? They claim the deprecated features will be used only for the migration of old binary formats, and that they should not be used by new documents... But considering that the whole point of this document format standardization effort is to be able to open any document in 20 or 30 years time, and if the old binary format documents will be converted using deprecated features, that just means that any software implementing the standard will have to support the deprecated features anyway...
Although they keep manipulating, manipulating, and manipulating more, I still think their format stinks, they're only using it to spread FUD over other formats, and I really hope they can't pull this stunt.
I'd just like to remind everyone that OOXML is a superb standard.
-- Miguel
According to Merriam-Webster, "deprecate" doesn't seem to equate with "remove." Maybe I'm missing something.
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
deprecated; deprecating
Etymology:
Latin deprecatus, past participle of deprecari to avert by prayer, from de- + precari to pray -- more at pray
Date:
1628
1 aarchaic : to pray against (as an evil) b: to seek to avert
2: to express disapproval of
3 a: play down : make little of b: belittle disparage
the AutoSpaceMonaLisasGapBetweenHerTeethButOnlyWhenShesSmilingLikeWord95BBQ compability?
> settings such as 'AutoSpaceLikeWord95' and others will be extracted
Lets just hope they keep the 'WaveYourArmsInTheAirLikeYouJustDontCare' setting.
I've done quite a bit of reading, and listening on the topic of OOXML, and I have come to the conclusion that there is no good (at least of the technical kind) in OOXML. Yet, people seem convinced that Microsoft is a "good" company. And a good company wouldn't actively push something that was obviously without any good for the industry... so I must be missing something. I generally just think that it is for the purpose of profit and control, but every now and then I like to give opposing views a chance - since I may be the one wrong.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Just like with Vista, they just drop features until it's "releasable."
Here's the obvious problem:
They will claim a feature is deprecated, or not part of the spec, but their software will continue using it. Meanwhile, other programs that try to read and write OOXML format following the "official" spec, will result in the documents created or edited by other programs not being fully compatible with MS Word. This will be seen by the user community as a deficiency in the alternative software and no as a problem with Microsoft's software.
We have seen this before and we continue to see it. People think that because a web site works with MSIE and doesn't work with Firefox that there's a problem with Firefox... Microsoft continues to damage the competition in this way and will persist in the same. I hope that the voters in the ISO decisions are aware of this potential problem.
I'll take the grammar Nazi hit..."deprecating"? One usually deprecates oneself in every use I've ever read. While the use might be technically correct it certainly isn't current usage. I'd think "minimizes" or "plays to lowest common denominator" might be a whole lot more understandable.
From m-w.com
"Entry Word:
deprecate
Function:
verb
Text: 1 to express scornfully one's low opinion of -- see decry 1 2 to hold an unfavorable opinion of -- see disapprove"
bah...humbug...
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
Some friends of mine currently work at IBM or did within the last year or two. They all used (Microsoft) Office.
I assume some departments of IBM eat their own dog food, but they definitely don't all do it.
To be more clear, they used Office at work. It was the software that their IT department provided/installed for them.
Pretty much S.O.P.
It is highly doubtful that the "deprecated functionality" will be removed from Microsoft Office. Therefore if they get the revised OOXML passed as a standard, anyone who uses Microsoft Office based on its claim to be OOXML will have been the victim of a bait-and-switch tactic.
.doc/ppt/xls for the free world to reverse engineer.
But I suspect that was the goal all along. Orgs that just wanted to use Microsoft Office in the first place would be able to say "see, this is open" and keep doing what they were doing.
Well, at least it's somewhat documented, making it somewhat easier than
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This seems sneaky to me. Remove controvesial stuff from the standard, but put it in an Annex, that MS will implement and people will rely upon left and right, so it will become a de-facto microsoft embrace-and-extend standard.
I really try to fight the kneejerk anti-microsoft sentiment around here, but lordy, all of their moves seem so calculated and evil. It's not just single actions, it's a pattern of actions. Humans are great at recognizing patterns. And even with good moves and bad moves, one can generally see a positive attitude behind Google, for example (some may disagree, but I think the general consensus is that they're not dastardly.) But with MS, every move seems like a piece of a puzzle showing a nasty, calculated, aggressive, anti-competitive entity. Everything seems consistent with that. The way the US rolled over on everything for political reasons is shameful. Hopefully the EU will right some of those wrongs, at least in part of the world.
I guess to try and find the bright side, one could say "at least it's documented" (without an exorbitant fee and crazy restrictions, like SMB et al.)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
boomers have their faults, but consider some of this
.......miniskirts, hmmmm????.......
...videogames and the dot bomb economy crash..that was..interesting enough I guess..for drools.....
;)
got rid of the draft
got racial and gender equality laws on the books
got us an EPA with some teeth and at least made an attempt to clean up the environment
got us much better product safety laws and awareness
got the alternative energy ball rolling (in fierce opposition from the "greatest generation" oil fatcats (and are still the biggest adopters of same, not x or y generation, who just talk about it)
built the net as you enjoy it today
built all the best early personal computers and did a lot of the best open source programming
the best evar kick ass rock and roll
skateboards
mountain bikes
frisbees
and, through sheer force of demonstrating numbers, just relentless political action, we got not one but *two* asshole "jerks in chief" to just quit.....
and so on. Gen X gave us
gen Y got us...tattoos as standard, piercings and youtube....OK,OK, you got one, all the young babes posting their tits on the web is cool enough, score one for gen Y there...we boomers had to make do with seeing it live at concerts and out camping and down on the commune and stuff....man, I tell ya it was rough having to deal with all those horny gypsy princess hippie girls..rough I tell ya
boomers still have some faults,plenty, I am a boomer and acknowledge it (boomers did that ridiculous economy killing outsourcing business movement-we had/have sellout yuppies-we called them preppies or continentals- back then too, MBAs unfortunately infest every generation..we are truly sorry for that...), but until we see some true "planet altering for the good" actions from x or y, your post is at best stones and glass houses
But, of course! What else could they deprecate?
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
by simple 7ucking disgust, or been iirecoverable hand...don't windows, SUN or election to the
If you agree that this is a real risk, and you're willing to help with doing something about it, please join us at OpenISO.org and help put together a "problem report" document about OOXML that explains the main issues clearly.
The correct link is here: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/06/is-vml-in-or-ou.html
.htm instead of .htmnl; which results in a 404.
I see you have it as
Nice to see that the comments thread on OOXML is shrinking as the debate matures. Of course that means that the usual trolls are either bored or on holidays but I think that we may collectively be starting to better understand what's going on.
I attended the UNSW Cyberlaw centre forum on OOXML http://www.cyberlawcentre.org/2007/ooxml/ as an interested observer and I liked what I saw. Smart people engaged in a positive discussion. Yes, the viewpoints were polar, but the words were civil and a real exchange of ideas took place.
Pia Waugh was an organiser of the event and had this to say about it: http://tinyurl.com/32zfsr
Roll on the BRM in Geneva and may reasoned debate rule over Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
--
digipres, a No voter
There was, and probably still is, a powerful pro-Microsoft faction at IBM. That said, the office version your friends used, given the timing, was almost certainly not saving documents using MSOOXML.
This is about formats, not software packages. It doesn't matter if people use MS-Office. It matters that the default document format is properly standardised, and not under the control of a single vendor.
Neither is the issue about companies: IBM can use MS-Office all they like; it doesn't have the slightest bearing on this discussion.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
That URL isn't working.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The format is, in effect, still in development and there is already an independent annex dedicated to deprecated functionality. How exactly is it possible for a decent format to have deprecated features even before it exists?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
I assume you mean disparage when you say deprecate. Microsoft indeed often deprecates other vendors' products, but I can't think of any of their own products they've strongly criticized.
Catch 22, remember? Milo, msft, what's the difference?
Unbelieveable.
Someone spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about a TinyUrl link in reference to a discussion about Microsoft trashing standards.
Meanwhile, the full link is:
http://pipka.org/blog/2007/12/18/initial-report-from-ooxml-technical-and-legal-workshop-last-week/
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Well, While we're at it, why not deprecate the whole shit and get the problem solved for good?
In a moment now he will start worrying about precious fluids.
So: The results of this deprecation could be (in the worst case):
- Developers will be deluded into believing that MS isn't going to be using this functionality (e.g. how Ashton Tate was convinced, by Microsoft to focus their Lotus 123 efforts on OS/2, while MS was focusing their Excel development on Windows 3).
- Developers who develop for those capabilities could face enhanced legal exposure
- documentation for this functionality could be decreased rather than increased (which is what most people want -- given that MS is currently using this functionality).
It's getting harder and harder to deny that MS is attempting to create a standard that their software will neither read nor write properly -- but that they can claim that they're using (because they control both the trademark and the "defacto standard" implementation of).Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Thanks a lot for posting this contribution. I'm feeding it into the process for producing the "problem report" document.