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ISO Approves OOXML
sTeF writes in, with the hope that this is an April Fools joke. Doesn't look like it though. An article up at Intellectual Property Watch claims they have obtained a document (PDF) enumerating the vote after Microsoft's OOXML won ISO standard status.
Microsofts statement hailed the appearance of extremely broad support for the standard at the end of the ISO voting process.
Broad? I think they mispelled bold faced fraud.
and what to avoid. and no, im not a bigoted fanboi of any camp - im just reflecting upon the series of stunts ms pulled to get that format validated. judging from the level they lowered themselves in dirty work to get this through with bribing and manipulating, i'd say that their format has to be total crap. else it wouldnt need that level of filthy campaigning.
Read radical news here
And with that - the "standards body" of ISO was effectively taken down. FUD shovelers everywhere will begin the slow, purposeful targeting of Government, school and corporations to use MS's products for long-term archival concepts.
/. comments down here?
Perhaps with only gnashing of teeth from the geek side, initially. After some time, say 3 or 4 product cycles, MS's formats, content and programs will have slipped into breaking changes - with various patches, pieces, conversion tools and sunsets. Then and only then, will the true colors of MS's saletroopers, who overrule the tech side, be shown. But you know this - why else would you be trawling the
In other news, the business of writing code to munge data from old MS formats into new MS formats is alive and well. Programmers rejoice! There is an endless market of chagrined middle managers who are willing to port old crap to new crap for good $/hour.
Assuming it's not a joke... Anyone using this standard for anything deserves a punch in the face.
The referenced comments from the NBs are .doc files. If ISO mandates the use of MS Word .doc files is its existing internal processes what hope that anything other this result?
Is the tag part of the ISO approved spec?
There is no April Fools today since the real news is comical enough (though in a tragically funny sort of way).
Similar to the upcoming US election results
* Microsoft's own Open Office XML (OOXML) format is now an ISO standard. This means anyone with software capable of reading OOXML can can read your documents.
Translation:
* Whilst OOXML is an ISO standard now, we still own the patents and the right to sue anyone who implements it (even if we issued a covenant not to sue; covenants mean nothing to Microsoft, just to let you know). Lastly, OOXML is open however we are only ones who know how to read the blob (binary) parts of the standard perfectly and no one else can.
Internal document at Microsoft:
* Finally we have an ISO and ECMA standard, just so we can say to you that we care about the future of digital documents, when we really just want more money. Saying OOXML is an ISO standard is a great way to have businesses automatically approve of our standard. And now we can put ODF and its hopes and dreams in the dark.
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I am very disappointed in ISO, OSI, and ECMA. I held them with high regard, until they started approving standards and licences of a company that has been holding back the PC industry all to make a little more money. I will ignore the three bodies for now, until they withdraw their positions on these Microsoft entities.
When will MIPS-based-CPU desktops running Linux at high speeds (much faster than any x86 at the same clocked speed) take over the home PC market? x86 and even x86-64 are dying faster than we can count in my opinion the way things are going.
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(Written on Gentoo Linux 2.6.24.3 AMD64, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.13, KDE 3.5.8)
Standards should be as brief, accurate and stable as possible, in order to be able to cost effectively apply them. This is just a sickening M$=B$ marketing exercise.
At least in Australia it looks like OOXML is dead http://www.standards.org.au/downloads/080331_Aust_maintains_abstain_position_on_OOXML.pdf as it has been rejected by the Australian Government.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Using "M$" instead of Microsoft makes you look like a seething idiot.
Perhaps because OO wants to keep as much MS Office compatibility as it can.
Well, that'd work if it weren't for tech specs that include "Wraplineslikeword95." As soon as you can tell me what the heck that means, then I'll make you a converter.
Then there's the whole issue that nobody has implemented the standard the ISO passed, not even Microsoft. So we have no way of telling if it's even possible from them, let alone anyone who doesn't have access to the 18 or so patents they have covering OOXML.
And they ask "why?" Because there's nothing to bolster your company like buying a standards committee or two. I wonder which one they'll shop for next? ISO is going to be a pretty tough bargain to beat.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It's a sad time when MS can lobby an international standards group on a closed, propriety format.
IBM, who have been shackled by MS with this vote and now the US government banning them from tendering, must be feeling the pinch.
The only way to fight back in my opinion is to keep using odf and proactively supporting the ODF standard.
Frankly, I don't mind if there are 2 document standards as well as PDF, as long as they are either fully interchangeable.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Like virginity, credibility is only something one can perserve or loose.
Unlike Voltare, who regarded virginity as a corectable perversion, credibility is the coin of the technical trade. Lose it, and watch ALL your works fade away.
If the ISO doen't move to retract OOXML as a "standard", their other standards will only be seen as gross manipulation of the technical industry, and be discarded and ignored.
Pity. Aside from how much work has gone into other ISO standards, I can't quite see the the people who have loaned their reputation sticking by a body so obviously bribed, coorsed, and schivvied into "accepting" such a "standard" to continue to support it.
I'd think that within a very short time, those who regard their honor as something more than coin to be traded to the corporation most likely to bid high, twist arms to breaking, and cheat at every turn will start to distance themselves from the ISO because of this.
It would be one thing if the offered "standard" met some acceptable technical goal. In my estimation, what we're seeing isn't a technical goal, but a lock in to assure undeserved profit.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
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This shows your ignorance (and that of the general slashdot population). The "auto space like Word 95" issue has been addressed in the latest spec (the spec that's beeen approved). That "auto space like Word 95" behavior, and the others like it, are now marked as "deprecated" (i.e. should not use for new documents) AND are fully spec'ed. Compatibility Settings - AutoSpaceLikeWord95
There has also been a lot of interest in the Compatibility Settings that include the famous "AutoSpaceLikeWord95" or "truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6". Ecma worked to provide in this batch the full information necessary to implement all compatibility settings without any dependency on any product. This documentation is provided for the completeness of the spec, but these features should not be used when creating new documents. I'll discuss the compatibility settings in more detail in my next post And here are further details.
See, this is the problem: So many of you that are railing against OOXML and against the ISO process are completely ignorant of the facts on the ground. The technical issues that you claimed to be concerned with have been addressed. So there's no technical reason to reject OOXML (there may be *political* reasons, but such reasons should have no bearing on ISO).
For example, the Czech Republic voted NO in September, but switched to YES. Why? Because nearly every one of their issues have been addressed now.
http://xmlguru.cz/2008/01/ecma-response-to-czech-ooxml-comments
Do you really expect the Czech Republic to continue to oppose OOXML when nearly all of its objections to the original spec have been fixed? Why would they do that? The problems were fixed, so they switched to YES, and this was the case with many countries (those without a political agenda).
It's like you guys are impervious to the fact that the OOXML spec has been quite improved (and that you're ranting about some old issue like "auto space like Word 95", an issue that has been resolved, *proves* it). Maybe, just maybe, if you took some time to learn the facts, learn how the spec has been changed since Sept, you'd not be so against OOXML (unless, as I suspect, your opposition is due to *political* reasons, under the mere guise of technical reasons).
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
So apparently it's not valid to complain that the new standard shouldn't need to support "truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6" in the first place? Wouldn't it be technologically superior to require MS Word to emulate "truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6" using standard formatting directives, rather than forcing every other implementer to code for compatibility with some file format that isn't even part of the spec?
Try this one one for size:
"15 years ago we had a file format that stored text using EBCDIC encoding. While we no longer write any files using this encoding, we propose that the new standard file format include an EBCDIC mode. We realize that traditional arguments for "backward compatibility" don't apply -- obviously none of our 15-year-old products ever produced any output in the new file format being proposed -- and we concede that we could just convert to UTF-8 encoding when saving old documents into the new format. But such conversions would require more work on our part than simply adding another encoding mode to the new file format and reusing our existing code to render in that mode. We acknowledge that this formatting directive will only benefit our product, as no one else can read our 15-year-old, unpublished format, so we'll note that the EBCDIC mode is deprecated. In spite of that note however, we will generate new files using EBCDIC mode, and therefore competing implementations must implement it as well to be functionally compliant."
explain to me why such a pragmatic decision should come as a surprise to anyone. or, to put the question another way, how many industrial standards simply rationalize practices of long standing?
Ah, that's very common. There will be various competing versions of something, and they vie in the marketplace as much as before standards boards, and eventually one is chosen as the standard. Including using dirty tricks to influence the process, to gain the advantage of it being your version which all your products already use that becomes standard.
Here's what's different:
At the end of the day, after the politics ended, the intent and result of these proceedings was to standardize and thus increase interoperability. The standards themselves enabled that, allowing multiple implementations of the standard that would work together. Even if one company gains an advantage in the near term, that doesn't last long and then things just start working better together, and choice and opportunity are increased.
This is the exact opposite. The intent and result of this process is to damage interoperability by creating a standard that nobody can duplicate, that not even Microsoft themselves have implemented. It's only purpose is to derail acceptance of a true open standard like ODF. There will be no market around OOXML tools and products, because the only one that will ever use it is MS Office, and they aren't even obligated to follow the standard they created. That doesn't matter. All they want to be able to do is shout "We're an ISO standard!" when the government rep starts talking about how they require "open" documents. That's all.
The enemies of Democracy are
If you'd like to comment on how some people are not aware of recent changes to the specification, and how those specific arguments against the spec aren't technically sound, be my guest. In some cases, such as the specific comment you replied to, you'd be perfectly justified.
But your language doesn't contest the validity of a particular comment -- even your most recent comment here accuses "most of [us]" of willful ignorance. And your prior comment likewise accuses the community at large of having only political objections to this new "standard". It's a bit hypocritical to make generalized accusations and then dismiss rebuttals as irrelevant because they didn't address the specific comment to which you general attack happens to be attached.
I think you're mistaken. There will be no applications that process OOXML perfectly. Would you, in all seriousness, prepare a slideshow for an important presentation using Office 2003 for Mac, when the presentation will be given by Office 2008 for Windows? Not twice, I'm sure. And of course, it's even worse if you do it the other way around. I'm sure glad I'm in a job where I have the luxury of simply deleting documents sent to me in MS formats and instructing the sender to try again.
Here's how I envisiage fighting this
first set up a web site with a simplish name that's anonymously funded and transparently run, indeed I am an MCP at a Microsoft only shop, i'd be happy to run the site but my priorities lie with feeding my children.
It needs to be factual and neutral. Never yelling, or preaching. It needs to be the (webstandards.org) acid test of the document suite / format world.
It needs to show clearly where each of several major office suites stand in relation to compatibility to both formats, and yes, it needs to highlight OO.os flaws neutrally and just as prominently as any other suite's.
It needs to link directly and clearly to plugins for each suite for each format (where available). It needs to explain each suites compatibility issues and explain workarounds for maximum platform compatibility.
It needs to show, clearly licencing against said office suites and support costs.
It needs to show patent issues, again, factually and clearly.
All of the above should be targetted not at the IT crowd but at the Pointy Haired Bosses of the world.
Then the task will fall to us lot, the OSS advocates, to make OO.o and ODF the clear, statistical winner in the above site.
captcha: infinity
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Nice flagrant lie.
Not about the deprecation. About its impact.
The impact of deprecation? ZERO.
Everyone still has to implement it, or they are not correctly implementing the standard for existing documents. Failure to implement that means failure to comply with the standard.
This is how we know OOXML is not a real standard. It's just a documentation of the state of MS software at a particular point. In a standard intended for actual use by more than one party, the historical things would not be a part of the standard at all; they would be extensions which most people wouldn't use.
Seriously, I went over this document not that long ago. It's still a joke. It's still not a technically viable standard. The "addressing" you point to doesn't come close to the minimal requirements we'd have imposed on one of the real standards.
I could be mistaken. I mean, hey, I only did about a decade of work on ISO C. Maybe nowadays we just slap any old thing together, and declare that it "fixes" a problem if we say that something is deprecated, and while everyone is absolutely required to implement it, we don't want people making it happen in new code anymore.
But I don't think so.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Hey, if you can repost that same crap drivel, back atcha homes:
You obviously have never had to implement anything that needed to conform to a defined, published standard. If you had, you would never in a million years defend a ragged mess which can't even deal with Julian dates without referencing a broken proprietary binary (Excel 97). And you wouldn't defend OOXML, in raving terms including liberal usage of boldface, all caps and ad hominem attacks, if you understood the difference between a properly written standard and one cobbled together in panic that large institutional customers would abandon a proprietary format over concerns of long-term data accessibility, bit rot and lock-in.
Enjoy your new spec.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Intel would love to buy AMD, and VIA, and be the only source of x86 compatible chips...
Intel, like any other company, don't want motivation to progress. They want to continue selling old products for as long as possible at the highest price point they can, not be forced to develop something new and reduce prices in order to compete. Lucky for us consumers Intel don't have that ability, thanks to AMD... The problem is that Microsoft do have that ability, and they abuse it as much as they can. In a competitive marketplace, ODF would be prevalent (supported by a majority of vendors) and OOXML would die a death (supported by only one) and microsoft would have been forced to implement ODF like everyone else.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Of course, the Czech Republic comments covered only a tiny fraction of what was wrong with the standard, so the actual improvement was, relatively speaking, fairly negligible - even when you take all the comments submitted by all the countries, there's still far more things left unfixed than there are things that have been fixed. (There just wasn't enough time to find everything.) It looks like several of the partially-resolved issues are still likely to break interoperability, too. To be honest, saying that "OK, we can approve it now" based on this seems a bit iffy...
Will be interesting to see who voted for what and what made them change if they did. Potentially there could be a lot of fallout for those involved as the facts come to light.
Personally I have lost faith in ISO because it seems the worlds largest computer software manufacturer can just buy their own standards from this organisation.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."