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Microsoft Releases Office Binary Formats
Microsoft has released documentation on their Office binary formats. Before jumping up and down gleefully, those working on related open source efforts, such as OpenOffice, might want to take a very close look at Microsoft's Open Specification Promise to see if it seems to cover those working on GPL software; some believe it doesn't. stm2 points us to some good advice from Joel Spolsky to programmers tempted to dig into the spec and create an Excel competitor over a weekend that reads and writes these formats: find an easier way. Joel provides some workarounds that render it possible to make use of these binary files. "[A] normal programmer would conclude that Office's binary file formats: are deliberately obfuscated; are the product of a demented Borg mind; were created by insanely bad programmers; and are impossible to read or create correctly. You'd be wrong on all four counts."
that the hell would rather freeze over - well, looks like Satan is now skating on frozen magma lakes...
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
So that XP get exploited and thus puts Vista in better light...
Quite correct, an FAQ is indicative but hardly binding. OK, let's look at the promise itself then:
Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification ("Covered Implementation")
The "to the extent" clause covers partial implementations and optional sections, which was the first concern. The second concern was logically null - clearly external references that aren't covered, aren't covered.
That's pretty simple, then. Was there a real point you were trying to make, or is pointing out the obvious the extent of your insight?