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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.
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.
But it does make a difference. Microsoft isn't doing this just to promulgate yet another document format. This is about the long-term viability of one of their major profit centers; the Office suite. Sure, docx is out in the wild, and sure we're all going to have to deal with until it's dumped and/or heavily modified version-by-version just as the Office 97 formats have been.
As more and more organizations, and in particular various government agencies around the world start mandating that all documents be saved in an open format, this is where Microsoft's viability in the long term comes into question. If OOXML fails at the ISO (as it appears that it has a good chance of doing) then Microsoft has got a real long-term problem. Adopting ODF means opening up Office to meaningful competition. It means OO.org, KOffice, Google Docs and who the hell knows what else is coming down the pike over the next decade are going to start to eat into Office's huge market share.
Now I think it's safe to say that in the medium term, Microsoft will continue with OOXML no matter what the ISO does, and it will, even if it adopts to some degree ODF try to mutilate by the "adopt, extend, extinguish" doctrine, and a good many government agencies, regardless of the mandate by politicians and senior bureaucrats, will roll over, but not all, and as long as a few major government agencies in North America and/or Europe refuse to recognize OOXML or whatever Microsoft comes up with next as an open format, the long-term viability of Office is in question.
We're not talking about next year, or even in the next five years, but I think over the next decade or so, if Microsoft can't fool ISO into accepting its worthless, unimplementable format, then it's going to have a real problem. The whole structure of company is built on the operating system and Office divisions keeping the money rolling in. Everything else doesn't matter, and probably loses money, existing solely in the interests of brand name placement.
The long-term solution I suspect Microsoft will move towards is some sort of rubber stamp standards commitee to compete with ISO, just like ECMA. The ultimate question is how long governments are going to let it get away with all of this. The EU seems to have a distinct hard-on against Microsoft at the moment, but the US doesn't currently give a damn one way or the other.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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 ?
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.
Sorry, but only by stubbornly ignoring all of the facts could you even try to pretend to "flip OOXML and ODF".
- Only ODF is an agreed, consensus standard, approved as an ISO standard via unanimous vote.
- Only ODF has multiple implementations by multiple vendors working on multiple platforms.
- Only OOXML has no implementations at all.
- Only ODF can be validated against a test suite.
- Only ODF is truly open.
- Only OOXML has "exclusions" in associated "promises not to sue".
- Only OOXML is constrained via proprietary dependencies to run on just one platform.
- Only OOXML has failed at fast-track approval, and has 3500 as-yet-unresolved objections against it.