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Microsoft Standing Firm On OOXML ISO Vote
christian.einfeldt writes "Microsoft has responded via the industry trade group ECMA to some of the thousands of criticisms of its submission of Office Open XML as an ISO standard. Open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver takes a look at those responses to see if Microsoft has made significant changes in either the substance of OOXML or the manner in which the OOXML specification will be maintained going forward. Ossendryver concludes that Microsoft's position has not significantly changed, but only hardened in place in advance of the Ballot Resolution Meeting which is to occur from February 25 through 29 in Geneva. While no one can say for certain whether Microsoft will succeed in having OOXML win the nod from the international community, Ossendryer thinks that Microsoft's firm stance is likely to backfire."
I believe Microsoft made 5 billion in revenue from having customers worldwide locked into their proprietary office document format.
The vendor lockin from Office makes up almost half the company's yearly revenue.
Microsoft would cease to exist as we know it if the office document lockin revenue went away to an open format.
Fight? LOL! This is the type of shit Microsoft execs live for.
Fake grassroots efforts.
Standards body subversion.
Paid for media shills.
Shame studies.
Mysterious compatibility problems with the competition.
All in a days work.
All of the yes with comments votes now have it confirmed that their comments have noit actually been taken involved. The involvement of the EU in investigating MS's practices leading up to the fast track also means that they involved have to be more circumspect about gathering votes, so they really don't need to be annoying people like this.
Of course, the plan could just be to say "We would have got away with ISO approval, if it wasn't for that pesky IBM". It's a bit odd, but there we are. MS is losing the EU to open standards.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
the file format from global communications is too important to be left to a for-profit corporation that has a history of manipulating market for maximizing profits...
truly open file formats are the only resolution for ALL office documents used in business & government. for audio/video multimedia file formats too but office communications it is just simply too important to be left to a private corporation...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Guarantee to me in writing that you will update Office 2007 and Office 2008 so that the version of OOXML that they use will be exactly identical to your ISO submission in every way, and then carry out your promise, and I will join the OOXML camp.
Sincerely,
ODF supporter.
The horse has left without the cart. Office already saves thousands, if not millions, of documents in OOXML - today. MS cannot change their format - the spec is in the field. I'm somewhat surprised they haven't taken some things into consideration for future releases, but frankly the reality set.
OOXML is not a standard. It cannot be used to shield any entity from MS's product changes. Also, OOXML extends into nebulous areas where other implementors or translators will be unable to replicate the viewers or editors like Office. Governments or corporations must take it or leave it.
PS
I recently received a DOCX from an MS rep and wrote back asking for a DOC format (we've not upgraded). They sent me a PDF. Moral: OOXML isn't a standard. There's no turning back - its a conversion world, not an interoperable one.
The "Deluge of facts KOs OOXML" article says that the "ECMA [is] a RIAA-like industry group dedicated to advancing its members' interests". wtf? Hardly!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
We have discussed this before, and in the end it doesn't matter. Those DOCX Files are out in the wild. I see people at school saving their documents in DOCX all the time. The people using those MS Office can't open ODF Files. The Genie is out of the bottle. The ECMA can say OOXML is completely banned from becoming an ISO format ever and ODF is the true open format as it should be, in the end it makes no difference. M$ will just give the standards board the middle finger and people who use M$ Office will continue to use Office and like it because they have no other choice.
Relying on current application behaviour is not bad per se. It is bad not to reveal what the application does. Things like autoSpaceLikeWord95 are referenced but not specified. This is objectively bad. Just think of it: I give a new screw standards paper to the ISO. It simply says that the screw can easily be driven in with my old Bauhaus 95 screwdriver. However, the spec doesn't say what the dimensions of my screwdriver actually are. Do you think ISO should make this a standard ?
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
You confuse open with free. Both are great, but only the first one is important.
A standard is open for everyone to implement. ISO doesn't discriminate on who it provides copies to.
Sure, the third time I read it trying to figure out what internet explorer had to do with it.
Not punctuating that is hardly the most atrocious of grammatical errors I've seen here.There are entire books I've read that eschew punctuation and were still understandable. The problem isn't lack of punctuation. The problem is lack of punctuation and improper capitalization used in a context where it makes the phrase you're trying to express not the first thing people associate with your text, nor even the second thing. I generally don't care if people use incorrect grammar. This is a casual forum where I don't proof my submissions and don't expect others to. The problem is when grammatical errors obscure the meaning to a significant extent, such that it is actually difficult to tell what it is you're trying to express.
Yep, no kidding. A grammar Nazi is a person who strictly and dogmatically points out grammatical nuances that are fairly immaterial to the readability or understandability of the text presented. This is not such a case. In this case, the error was misleading and made it very difficult for both myself and others to even understand what the writer was trying to express.
The fact that there are work-arounds for all of these things doesn't negate the fact that they were locked down in the first place.
The iTunes DRM is roughly equivalant to a false positive for piracy in Windows Genuine Advantage. They've purchased the product, but now there are these digital hand-cuffs keeping them from using it. I doubt anyone saying that "false positives in WGA aren't too bad - there are work arounds. [link]" would get modded up too far, though.
The Burton Group responses are a joke. Are you sure you actually read them? To them, Microsoft can do no wrong.
It is completely disingenuous of them to go on and on about Sun controlling ODF and make no mention at all of Microsoft's control of OOXML. The ECMA TC45 committee charter explicitly stated (and the scope still does) that the OOXML standard had to be fully compatible with the file formats used in Microsoft Office. If that's not total control, then what is?
The OASIS TC for ODF had no such provision in their charter. There were and are no artificial application dependencies in ODF.
I am not saying you should move to OOo.
I am saying you really should have "official" allowed document formats list. And "what people happen to find in mail" is not the way to do this.