Unix Group Takes UK Standards Body To Court Over OOXML

superglaze writes "Halfway through the two-month window of opportunity during which OOXML's ISO standardization can be derailed by a formal objection from a national standards body, the UK Unix Users Group is trying to force the British Standards Institution to do just that. According to the Unix Users Group, the BSI used a flawed decision-making process when they chose to approve OOXML in the ISO vote. 'The UKUUG is also folding in many other complaints about Office Open XML (OOXML), such as unresolved patent issues and a lack of completion in the specification's documentation, and is calling for the High Court of Justice to force a judicial review of the BSI's decision.' This is not the first time a country's ISO vote has been challenged."

Comments

*nix

[bobwrit]

Why unx based systems will win over MS: http://comprog.freeforums.org/why-microsoft-will-not-exsist-for-much-longer-t31.html

Re:*nix

[CSMatt]

Microsoft will not be able to stand much longer for a few reasons. One is that they have to alway's be on the defensive and eventualy they have to cave in. Another reason why they wont is that there too anti-competitive. They have already lost 4 antitrust lawsuits to the EU and a fith one is still pending. Also there is that the opposition to microsoft is soo strong and vast that they can't keep on doing what they are doing. Again there is the fact that there competing with the ultimite OS, Linux, and windows dosn't have the power in anything to be able to surpress in any way shape or form. 1. Being on the defensive isn't a problem when you basically have de facto control over the entire industry.
2. So far, it seems like Microsoft has only been getting slaps on the wrist. Nothing has yet threated to actually end their monopoly.
3. There are plenty of people who still love Microsoft and practically worship Bill Gates, and a much larger percentage of people (everyone else) who could care less.

Re:*nix

[wellingj]

This is offtopic...

Re:*nix

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry CSMatt, no particular anger aimed at you, its just that I have seen this a numer of times here now and thought I would join the anal grammer/word-police bandwagon (the meaning of "bricked" pedants, I'm looking at you)

and a much larger percentage of people (everyone else) who could care less The term is couldn't care less

Saying that the people could care less implies that they actually care about the issue to some degree, which is not what you mean. I see this a fair bit, and wonder why all the fucking nazis around here aren't all over it.

Re:*nix

[CmdrGravy]

It seems to be some sort of Americanism which despite making no sense is in quite wide usage.

Re:*nix

[psychodelicacy]

It's an idiom. They often don't make logical sense and don't partake of a fixed system of meaning, rather their meaning relies on an accepted cultural understanding. In contrast, modern English spelling is a fixed system, and you should know that the word is "grammar" and not "grammer" if you're going to make a complaint like this.

Re:*nix

[A nonymous Coward]

Relax. It's sarcasm. See bad, hot, cool, wicked, and any number of other examples.

You can get down off your grammar nazi guard tower now.

Re:*nix

[BOFHelsinki]

Um, no, it's not an idiom; "could care less" is just a typo. "Couldn't care less" is the idiomatic phrase, a poetic rendering of "don't care". Actually, show me an idiom that is the simple reverse of its literal counterpart... they tend to be more subtle, complex, or archaic than that.

(Besides, one could argue that there is no "fixed" system of meaning; it's all more or less reliant on accepted cultural understanding. But let's digress.)

Re:*nix

[psychodelicacy]

Um, yes, it is. The Oxford English Dictionary notes it as a valid idiomatic usage, documented since the 1960s, not a typo.

Idioms which are a reverse of their literal meaning could include "fat chance" (the chance is, in fact, very slim). "Sick" has come to mean "very good" in certain idiomatic usage, just as "bad" did in the early 90s. "Cool" and "hot" can mean the same thing. There is also the use of irony and euphemism idiomatically, of course. For example, the phrase "sweetness and light" is used to indicate that someone/something is quite the opposite. "Break a leg" means that you want the person to do well. And how about "head over heels"? How many of us don't have our head above our heels?

The point is that idioms are often figurative, and the "literal" meaning of their words doesn't add up to the pragmatic meaning the phrase has as a whole.

Re:*nix

[Anonymous Coward]

word is "grammar" and not "grammer" touche!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not confused about its usage, I now what they mean when they use the term, and I don't have a problem with it.

Its just that in alot of other instances, people jump all over this stuff and I was curious about this one.

Like the 'bricked' example. It is used quite often to describe a borked OS, and we all now what they mean, even though its not the exact, correct meaning of the word, but 300 people will get hysterical over its usage.

Re:*nix

[Richard_at_work]

I have never, ever heard the "could care less" version prior to very recently on the internet - everyone I know uses "couldn't care less" and also consider the "could care less" version wrong. I have never heard "could care less" on any TV show or movie, its always "couldn't care less". I have never seen "could care less" used in any book I have read (and I am a prolific reader - about a dozen novels in April alone), its always "couldn't care less".

A quick survey in a dozen IRC channels also find that "couldn't care less" is the preferred version, with most people saying "could care less" is wrong.

Another quick survey of the surround 5 tables in the pub I am currently sat also find "could care less" brings puzzlement, with everyone agreeing "couldn't care less" is the correct version.

Bearing all that in mind, while it may be 'recognised' by certain publications, common usage is apparently very small, with the alternative being much more common around the world.

Re:*nix

[psychodelicacy]

"certain publications"... yeah. You know that a survey of your friends is not scientific, I assume?

Re:*nix

[Richard_at_work]

You do realise that real experience beats textbooks hands down any day of the week, right?

Re:*nix

[psychodelicacy]

The OED bases all of its word definitions on actual usage examples, noting whether those usages are archaic, specific to a certain geographical area, only used in particular trades, and so on. Add to that the fact that you've just seen the phrase used on slashdot, and that while some here have found it odd, others are clearly quite used to seeing and hearing it. In fact, I think the original complaint was about the ubiquity of this phrasing. I'm British, but I've heard it often enough on American TV.

This suggests that your experience isn't broad enough to encompass the vernacular English spoken by every section of the population. Indeed, no-one's is, and that's why we use resources like OED to tell us whether a certain term or phrase is known in common usage or is a simple typo.

Re:*nix

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sarcastic.

At least SOMEBODY is doing something!

[Jane Q. Public]

Props UK, boo others.

Re:At least SOMEBODY is doing something!

[calebt3]

This is getting out of hand.

$ rm ~/ac_troll.sh

Re:At least SOMEBODY is doing something!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't like you talking about their disgraceful behavior with OOXML

Their marketing teams saturate discussions they wish to disrupt with sick trolls. It's done to frighten casual readers away and fork the discussion for the more robust readers.

Expect more red herring posts below whenever the conversation looks like becoming productive.

This molehill is gigantic!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Instead of focusing energy on the ISO vote, focus on getting implementations of the standard that *you* think is reasonable into widespread usage. If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market.

Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard is only counterproductive and makes you come off looking like a bunch of whiners. On top of that, because the whining is explicitly anti-this new standard, it is implicitly perceived to be against progress. So you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time.

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we all just get along...

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[deniable]

We can do both.

It's called teamwork. While one group is building the tools you mention, others are putting themselves in the path of an 800 lb. gorilla. It's not just the heroes who save the day, but all of the little people in red shirts that buy them time.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

No, you can't do both and expect to be successful.

Take a look at this year's Olympic torch run. It is quite reasonable that China's human rights record in Tibet be scrutinized and criticized and that pressure be brought to bear against them for their wrongdoing. However, the protests which have tried to derail the torch run have done little to legitimize the Tibetan cause. The legitimacy there comes from years of hard work on the ground fighting and publicizing the plight of the Tibetans. The legitimacy remains intact despite the antics of the protestors. The outcome of the protest is neither anti-China/pro-Tibet sentiment nor is it pro-China/anti-Tibet sentiment. It is merely anti-protestor sentiment, and that does no one any good.

So you are of course free to choose to protest OOXML all you like, but Microsoft isn't a big enough threat to anyone for anyone to care about such a pitiful protest.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market. That's being done, has been done. It was done before OOXML was even pretending to be a viable standard. It's the whole reason OOXML was pushed as a standard.

And it's not mutually exclusive with fighting OOXML.

So you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time. Wow, nice spin-doctoring.

The alternative is to say nothing, which would be seen as tacit acceptance -- and then we would actually be forced to implement this "standard". So we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. At least this way, there's a chance we'll get the decision reversed.

Because I care a lot more about actually working with ODF (and not working with ODF) then looking good by cooperating with OOXML in any way.

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product. See, the problem is, we tried that, and it didn't work.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I said:

you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time.

To which you retorted:

Wow, nice spin-doctoring.

I went on to suggest:

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product.

To which you responded:

See, the problem is, we tried that, and it didn't work.

So because you can't win, you will complain until your technically superior solution is accepted? That's called whining (or whinging in Britlish).

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market.

The problem with that idea is that specific formats shouldn't be mandated by governments. So long as a format meets certain criteria it should be acceptable.

The reason this distinction is important is that one of those criteria for many governments is that the file format be an open international standard. Reasonable enough. Until you get international standards bodies being paid off. That, in essence, circumvents the criteria laid out by government.

And no, the solution is not to campaign for a specific format. It's stupid for a government to mandate a specific format, that's something the marketplace should deal with. The correct solution is to deal with this attempted bypass of process instead of looking the other way and letting them off.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Max Littlemore]

The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

I thought the advantage of standards was to reduce divergence in systems. The more implementations of particular items, such as screws, conform to a standard, such as phillips head, the better it is for the people who use screws.

Instead of focusing energy on the ISO vote, focus on getting implementations of the standard that *you* think is reasonable into widespread usage. If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market.

Energy has/is being focused on implementations of another standard and there are already good implementations of the formats you mention from numerous sources including Microsoft.

The problem with OOXML is that it cannot be implemented by anyone other than a single vendor because the format as defined contains references to specific behavior without actually specifying said behavior.

Where a vote has been passed on an obviously incomplete specification and through such blatant corruption, it should be challenged. This is the duty of anyone who values freedom and democracy - and for people intelligent enough to appreciate the importance of the the rule of law. The fact that the format was pushed through by Microsoft in particular is irrelevant to this point.

Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard is only counterproductive and makes you come off looking like a bunch of whiners. On top of that, because the whining is explicitly anti-this new standard, it is implicitly perceived to be against progress. So you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time.

The UKUUG taking legal action over the corruption in the vote doesn't make them look like whiners. It makes them look like learned elders who are about to take a stick to a bunch of delinquents. And all power to them.

Protest against the standardization of OOXML doesn't appear technologically backwards when conducted in an appropriate forum and it portrays OOXML as the backwards step it truly is.

As the web makes it possible for more devices from more vendors to inter-operate seamlessly, along comes a format which is only really implementable by one vendor. If someone was to try this with heads or threads, they'd be totally screwed. Microsoft needed to pay to have this pass and by highlighting that at every step of the way, the more money they pour into this, the more corrupt they appear and the more they blacken their own name.

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product.

Oh nonononono. Silly little monkey.

This is not about a product. This is about a format to be implemented by anyone who can read a specification

A reasonable open standard already exists.

Using the judiciary to defeat corruption wherever it exists is entirely correct. That is one of the reasons for it's existence.

Toss pot

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

what you call whining other might call doing there job to protect there company or clients.

The reason you see it as whining is because your on microsofts side so it appears to you as whining where as on our side its fighting the good fight.

The key problem here is that you should have to fight to have your standard approved. If you can not defend your standard. If you can not close the holes in your documentation to shoot down all the challenges then you dont deserve to have it pass standardization.

Also you say its a step backward however we move technology forward by challenging existing and upcoming technology.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[dshadowwolf]

Instead of focusing energy on the ISO vote, focus on getting implementations of the standard that *you* think is reasonable into widespread usage. If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market. RTF is a de-facto industry standard, but it is actually controlled by MS and is updated in a systematic lock-step with the binary office document standard.

Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard is only counterproductive and makes you come off looking like a bunch of whiners. On top of that, because the whining is explicitly anti-this new standard, it is implicitly perceived to be against progress. So you shoot yourself in the foot by appearing to want to go technologically backwards and like whiny bitches at the same time. The problem is that they did buy the vote. This is the first I've heard of possible impropriety in the British vote. However... All the proof anyone should need that the vote was bought is available - just look at Norway.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[domatic]

While the good guys are building code and doing what you say, the elephant in the room is that MS is bribing politicians, pulling little tricks like having Bumphackistan join the ISO just to flog their abortion of a standard, saying publically they won't adhere to their own standard (which in fact they don't) and in general pulling every dirty trick in the book. A few people have the sheer unmitigated gall to turn the lights on these cockroaches and you call it whinging?

Um, no just building a superior product isn't going to cut it when your opponents will basically lie and cheat to get their way.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I thought the advantage of standards was to reduce divergence in systems. The more implementations of particular items, such as screws, conform to a standard, such as phillips head, the better it is for the people who use screws.

You'd be incorrect. The advantage of a standard is that it provides a set of guidelines that define an implementation. If an implementation supports a certain standard (or standards), then it can be reasonably expected to work as specified.

There is no reason to believe that only one specification may be supported in a product or (more generally) a market ecosystem. SGML still exists despite XML's rapid emergence. Even your beloved screw head has many different standards which are mixed and matched in products as necessary.

The only valid point against OOXML is that it contains unclear and/or unimplementable aspects, thus denying others from the ability to create supporting implementations. However, if this is the case, and MS is unwilling to create OOXML implementations for non-MS/Apple platforms, how successful do you really expect the standard to be?

In the end, government documents are write-only. The only thing that matters is the final output, so there's really no point in fighting over file formats since the documents will be archived in a completely non-RW format anyway (like PDF).

The UKUUG taking legal action over the corruption in the vote doesn't make them look like whiners. It makes them look like learned elders who are about to take a stick to a bunch of delinquents.

No, it looks like they are whining over a decision that didn't go their way.

Protest against the standardization of OOXML doesn't appear technologically backwards when conducted in an appropriate forum and it portrays OOXML as the backwards step it truly is.

No, it just says to onlookers that Microsoft's standard is so advanced that even the best and brightest of the computing world can't implement the difficult parts of it. Of course this is due to bad inclusions, but it doesn't make you come off any better by crying about it.

This is about a format to be implemented by anyone who can read a specification

Really? And you were expecting someone besides MS to implement OOXML? On top of that, you were expecting someone to buy an implementation of OOXML that was not developed by MS? Look at all these windmills, Don Quixote!

A reasonable open standard already exists.

Of course you mean PostScript, right?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[halcyon1234]

The problem with OOXML is that it cannot be implemented by anyone other than a single vendor because the format as defined contains references to specific behavior without actually specifying said behavior.

I ask the following question not as a troll, but as someone curious about this whole thing. I've heard this statement several times, and I was wondering if you could point out a concrete example of it. (I'd like to have such an example to point out to those who ask the same question as a troll =) )

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[jesterzog]

Instead of focusing energy on the ISO vote, focus on getting implementations of the standard that *you* think is reasonable into widespread usage. If you think it is ODF or RTF or HTML or any of the hundreds of file formats for document representation that should be the choice of governments, then get good, usable versions of software into the market.

I can think of at least two office suites (possibly three) off the top of my head which either use ODF as their primary document formats, or plan to in the near future. They've all done so because it makes sense for users to be saving in an interchangable and properly standardised format, and it means that somebody's application suite doesn't have to be decided by their archive of documents they have to be able to reliably open. Unfortunately the number of implementing office suites doesn't equate to widespread usage because the provider of the most popular Office suite, which controls the market and locks people in, has strong priorities that completely ignore what's best for customers.

Microsoft will never natively support ODF if they have anything to say about it, even if it is best for their customers. This is because their own unimplementable formats give it not just control over individual customers, but a virally* distributive control over everyone with whom their customers exchange documents. Consequently the most popular Office suite will always be decided by Microsoft's lock-in tactics rather than which suite is actually best for customers.

I'm sorry but if Microsoft's skewed priorities have led it to interfere with government processes and corrupt them at everyone else's expense, simply so it can keep control of the market and continue its monopoly, then I'm fully in favour of complaining and making it known as clearly and noisily as possible and every level where it occurred.

* If Microsoft can refer to the GPL as viral then I'm going to do the same for Office.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[X0563511]

Not everyone can "direct it towards building a better product." We do what we can, and if that means crying foul and bitching, so be it.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

It uses Word 95 and Word 97 as baselines for some stuff.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I went on to suggest:

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product.

To which you responded:

See, the problem is, we tried that, and it didn't work.

No, he said that the lawyers are trying that, while the coders work on a better product.

Or would you rather have the coders sue people and the lawyers write code?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[SanityInAnarchy]

So because you can't win, you will complain until your technically superior solution is accepted? Well, this is how we win.

Put another way: No, we can't win by throwing large sacks of cash around, the way Microsoft is. You found us out -- we simply cannot compete.

I, for one, would much rather win on technical merits. But technical merits can't buy people the way money can. The best we can do is take away their ability to simply throw large sacks of money around, by calling them on it.

Oh, and "suing" is not "whining" by a long shot. Suing is doing something about it.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[prockcore]

The problem with OOXML is that it cannot be implemented by anyone other than a single vendor because the format as defined contains references to specific behavior without actually specifying said behavior.

Care to give an example?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[c-reus]

what stuff? Bring an example.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to Google to make sure, but there's things like "do-spacing-like-Word-95" in the spec.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[johannesg]

Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard is only counterproductive and makes you come off looking like a bunch of whiners. This is the important bit, I think: M$ is trying damn hard to get people to believe that all this whining is simply because of *them* instead of their flawed standard or corrupt practices. And they are succeeding, unfortunately. "You are against OOXML? Oh, you are just another rabid Microsoft hater then" --> at that point you have already lost that discussion; no argument of yours will be listened to.

The question is of course, how to counter this?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[andruk]

For you and prockcore, stuff like (somebody correct me if I am wrong):

FormatLikeWord95

AutospaceLikeWord97

Well, how DOES Word 95 format stuff? And how does Word97 format stuff? People outside of Microsoft don't know because Word 95 and 97 store their data in binary formats (not human readable), and so we are forced to reverse engineer the formats to achieve compatibility. A standard is supposed to eliminate the need for one segment of a market to reverse engineer another segment, by specifying EXACTLY how everything should work, down to the minutest detail (like formatting). If you do not have all these details, the standard is incomplete, and must therefore NOT be considered as "already in place in the Market", NOR "implementable by external parties (without reverse engineering)".

The ISO process that OOXML passed was for completely specified, already-in-place (de facto) market standards, NOT the proprietary whims of a single segment of the market.

In addition to being incompletely specified, there is not guarantee Microsoft will not sue anybody who implements the format, which is also against the purpose of a standard.

All in all, OOXML was passed NOT on technical merits, NOR the freedom from legal proceedings (from lawsuits), NOR being the de facto market standard. There was NO reason for OOXML to pass, and yet it did, with highly irregular (cue the jokesters) voting procedures from a suspicious number of countries. OOXML should not have passed, and, because it did, we are all now asking for it to be formally challenged for an ISO standard.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Bert64]

The issue is that OOXML is an inferior "standard", which has been forced through the process using bribery, corruption and ignorance, and all while a superior standard for the same thing already exists. If microsoft were truly interested in standards and interoperability at all, they would have implemented the existing standard, and joined it's steering committee when they were first invited several years ago.

We don't want to be forced to use that inferior format, simply because microsoft bought and paid for enough people at standards boards, as this will hurt the industry as a whole. It's only microsoft who stands to benefit from OOXML, everyone else loses in one way or another.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[andruk]

With logic. Brutal, unforgiving logic. Delivered coolly and calmly, to the right people, in the right places, at the right times. Every mind at a time.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[swedd]

Care to give an example?

Since I'm not too lazy to look it up for myself:

-----

2.15.3.6 autoSpaceLikeWord95 (Emulate Word 95 Full-Width Character Spacing)

This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (Microsoft Word 95) when determining the spacing between full-width East Asian characters in a document's content.

[Guidance: To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard. If applications wish to match this behavior, they must utilize and duplicate the output of those applications. It is recommended that applications not intentionally replicate this behavior as it was deprecated due to issues with its output, and is maintained only for compatibility with existing documents from that application. end guidance]

-----

Now, can people please stop pretending that this stuff doesn't exist?
It's real, and it is laughable.
Thanks.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Bert64]

The only valid point against OOXML is that it contains unclear and/or unimplementable aspects, thus denying others from the ability to create supporting implementations. However, if this is the case, and MS is unwilling to create OOXML implementations for non-MS/Apple platforms, how successful do you really expect the standard to be? Very. That's the problem, despite the inferiority of the "standard", microsoft have the resources to push it far and wide, thus harming the industry as a whole. That's the problem when the market becomes distorted by one party having too much power.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[andruk]

Correction, should read: One mind at a time.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Wrath0fb0b]

Where a vote has been passed on an obviously incomplete specification and through such blatant corruption, it should be challenged. This is the duty of anyone who values freedom and democracy - and for people intelligent enough to appreciate the importance of the the rule of law. The fact that the format was pushed through by Microsoft in particular is irrelevant to this point. While I appreciate the sentiment, the ISO is not a government body (even if it's members are) and has no particular duty to conduct its operations either fairly, freely or democratically. Sure, it would be nice if they did, but it's not something I think that can be legally required of a private organization. Now, one can reasonably argue that your country should not be a member of this organization unless it upholds some standards. Such an argument would have to made politically and not judicially since it is a matter of policy, not law.

I think there is a broad over-reliance on legal remedies for political problems. Part of that is the fact that, due to the ignorance of the electorate (rational ignorance, IMHO) and the substantial influence of corporate interests on the elected officials, legal action looks like the most promising avenue for progress. This is a false hope. Courts will not vindicate the ideals of the FOSS movement.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[ORBAT]

How about this?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[howlingmadhowie]

i thought one of the major problems of ooxml is that it will only be implemented by other companies, not by microsoft, who will come out with a product that supports a broken version of ooxml and renders ooxml documents created in staroffice (for example) incorrectly.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

IndentLikeWord97

I think it was on page 20 something of one of the documents(yes the specifications are actually SPLIT into multiple documents so you can download them more easily)

Sorry for the lack of accuracy, but it's been a while since I tried to check out OOXML

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[cardpuncher]

"I thought the advantage of standards was to reduce divergence in systems"

Hardly. The CCITT (and later ISO) networking standards encompassed two separate flavours of network layer, 5 classes of transport protocol and a couple of protocol layers that no-one has ever had much need for. Implementation of those standards would pretty much guarantee divergence.

Standards are in the end created for vendors who want to sell implementations. Where multiple vendors are involved, the standard will be a messy compromise resulting from horse-trading over perceived entrenched advantages of particular companies in particular marketplaces.

In this case there's only one vendor involved essentially and the standard is not really implementable in its entirety by anyone else. So what? No-one else is obliged to implement it any more than Slashdot is obliged to run CCITT Transport Class 2 over X.25.

Standards aren't produced in an academic environment. People who work on them have to have their time and travel paid for - and their membership fees. They're there to sell product and in the end the dominant product will determine the dominant standard. It's naive to imagine anything else.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Dahan]

For you and prockcore, stuff like (somebody correct me if I am wrong): FormatLikeWord95 AutospaceLikeWord97 Well, how DOES Word 95 format stuff? And how does Word97 format stuff? ... A standard is supposed to eliminate the need for one segment of a market to reverse engineer another segment, by specifying EXACTLY how everything should work, down to the minutest detail (like formatting). The things you mention were problems in the early drafts that were submitted. MS agreed that a detailed spec of exactly what those means is needed, and provided such a spec. So you're complaining about stuff that has been fixed already. FYI:

2.15.3.6 autoSpaceLikeWord95 (Incorrectly Adjust Text Spacing for Specific Unicode Ranges)
This element specifies adjustments (detailed below) which should be applied to the spacing between adjoining regions of non-ideographic and ideographic text when the autoSpaceDE (Â2.3.1.2) and autoSpaceDN (Â2.3.13) elements have a value of true (or equivalent). This algorithm typically results in the following:

• An increase in the inter-character spacing added between non-ideographic and/or number characters and certain full-width characters
• No inter-character spacing between non-ideographic and/or number characters and certain half-width characters

Typically, applications apply additional spacing between ideographic and non-ideographic characters/numeric characters when the autoSpaceDE / autoSpaceDN properties are applied. This element, when present with a val attribute value of true (or equivalent), specifies that applications shall apply the following adjustments to this logic:

• Characters in the following Unicode ranges should be treated as ideographic, even though those characters are full-width forms of non-ideographic text: U+FF10-U+FF19, U+FF21-U+FF3A, and U+FF41-U+FF5A. [Note: This results in the unnecessary addition of space. end note]
• Characters in the following Unicode ranges should be treated as non-ideographic, even though those characters are ideographic: U+FF66-U+FF9F. [Note: This results in the omission of the intended additional space. end note]

[Example: Consider a WordprocessingML document with two paragraphs containing a mix of East Asian and Latin characters:
<w:p> <w:r> <w:t>ab</w:t> </w:r> <w:r> <w:t></w:t> </w:r> <w:r> <w:t></w:t> </w:r> <w:r> <w:t>cd</w:t> </w:r> </w:p> <w:p> <w:r> <w:t>ab</w:t> </w:r> <w:r> <w:t></w:t> </w:r> <w:r> <w:t></w:t> </w:r> <w:r> <w:t>cd</w:t> </w:r> </w:p>
The first paragraph contains characters with Unicode value U+FF66 (). The second paragraph contains characters with Unicode value U+FF12 (). If autoSpaceDE is true , spacing is added in the first paragraph (between the ideographs and the non-ideographic characters), but not in the second (all four characters are not ideographs):
If this compatibility setting is turned on:
<w:compat> <w:autoSpaceLikeWord95 /> </w:compat>
Then, although it appears incorrect, applications should not add space in the first paragraph and should apply it in the second: end example]

Any other objections?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[GotenXiao]

truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6 (Emulate WordPerfect 6.x Font Height Calculation)

Without access to WordPerfect 6's Font Height Calculation routines, it is impossible to exactly replicate this behaviour, thus rendering your application non-conformant to the OOXML "standard".

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[MMC Monster]

Save the energy you want to spend on protests and lawsuits and direct it towards building a better product. See, the problem is, we tried that, and it didn't work. Actually, we tried that and it wasn't enough.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Macthorpe]

Now, can people please stop pretending that this stuff doesn't exist? Probably at about the same time that other people will stop pretending that it hasn't been fixed.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[hey!]

I thought the advantage of standards was to reduce divergence in systems. . The more implementations of particular items, such as screws, conform to a standard, such as phillips head, the better it is for the people who use screws.

Actually, the advantage of standards is that it makes it easy to compare prices charged by different vendors. So if you've been buying screws from a certain vendor, and you get a lower bid from Acme Tool and Die. Well, it's a hex head, 12mm, and it comes with a matching bolt. It looks good. How strong is it? How did you measure the strength?

The problem with OOXML is that it doesn't do anything to help you choose between vendors.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not aware if these two problems have been fixed. But once upon a time, autoSpaceLikeWord95 and useWord97LineBreakRules were present in the specification. That may give you a lead if you want to look around.

Also, there is no spec-compliant implementation of OOXML.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[swedd]

Probably at about the same time that other people will stop pretending that it hasn't been fixed.

If this has been "fixed" then I'm honestly interested as to how it was done. Microsoft themselves appear to admit that it is impossible to document.

I proveded evidence for my assertions. Care to return the favor, or do you prefer unsubstantiated one-liners?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Macthorpe]

Here, from all of about 6 posts up the page.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[KiltedKnight]

The only valid point against OOXML is that it contains unclear and/or unimplementable aspects, thus denying others from the ability to create supporting implementations. However, if this is the case, and MS is unwilling to create OOXML implementations for non-MS/Apple platforms, how successful do you really expect the standard to be? Which in and of itself is a reason ISO should've rejected it in the first place, based on their own requirements... that a proposed open standard have a fully working implementation. No such thing exists for OOXML.

The UKUUG taking legal action over the corruption in the vote doesn't make them look like whiners. It makes them look like learned elders who are about to take a stick to a bunch of delinquents.

No, it looks like they are whining over a decision that didn't go their way.

No, it makes them look like they've looked at the ISO procedures, requirements, etc, and said, "Hey, this is completely out-of-the-ordinary!"

No, it just says to onlookers that Microsoft's standard is so advanced that even the best and brightest of the computing world can't implement the difficult parts of it. OMFG, do you even believe what you're posting? Anything that's too advanced for anyone to implement has no business being in a standard. A standard should be explaining the interactions, not obfuscating them. If the standard cannot be implemented, IT IS NOT A STANDARD .

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[swedd]

I admit i hadn't heard about that, thanks for the heads-up.
So that just leaves the staggering complexity of the format and the fact that it cannot be legally implemented by commercial open-source projects (unless there has been some change in the latter regard that I am unaware of).
Still, that _is_ an improvement. Of sorts.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[man_of_mr_e]

For someone that has such a strong opinion, you don't seem to follow it very well.

What you're talking about was changed in the "corrections" submitted to the BRM. So why are you still using it as an excuse?

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Macthorpe]

I'll give you the complexity of the document, because it is complex - and I don't think anyone is here to argue against that.

Unfortunately the incompatibility of GPL3 with Microsoft's patent promise has been subject to a bollock-load of FUD from the start, especially because as the Wikipedia article on it notes:

The limitations of a one-sided patent promise only applying to covered specifications is also present in the IBM Interoperability Specifications Pledge (ISP) and Sun Microsystems' OpenDocument Patent Statement. So the 'problems' with FOSS implementations of OOXML also extend to any and all implementations of ODF that Sun themselves don't author.

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[swedd]

The article you quote is referring to the specification rather than the implementation. At the current version, ODF is freely implementably by all vendors, including open-source. OOXML is not.

Specifically, the ODF page says:

The Sun OpenDocument Patent Statement applies to any implementation of the Open Document Format for Office Applications, or of any subsequent version of the format thereof only if Sun Microsystems participates in development of the subsequent standard version

Notice the language: Any implementation under the current version. Future versions only if Sun is involved in making the new version of the standard.

With regard to implementations, IBM defines their "covered implementation" as:

"Covered Implementations" are those specific portions of a product (hardware, software, services or combinations thereof) that implement and comply with a Covered Specification and are included in a fully compliant implementation of that Covered Specification. Reference to IBM (or you) includes entities controlled by, controlling, and under common control with IBM (or you), based on majority control.

Which is referring to Sun participating in subsequent versions of the standard, not participating in creating the implementation of the current standard. This is a very different thing.

and the ODF Patent pledge reads:

Sun irrevocably covenants that, subject solely to the reciprocity requirement described below, it will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 Specification, or of any subsequent version thereof ("OpenDocument Implementation") in which development Sun participates to the point of incurring an obligation

So as far as I can tell, IBM and Sun have explicitly waived their ability to sue any implementation of the current ODF standard for patent infringement.

Unfortuantely I can't find a clear definition of "Covered Implementation" on the applicable Microsoft page, but the objections to it have been fairly well documented (ie. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html).

Re:This molehill is gigantic!

[Max Littlemore]

That's a good point. One that I obviously missed earlier. Thanks.

No way

[XanC]

OOXML is such a foul, repugnant anti-standard, and it will be pushed so hard, that if it's accepted it will severely damage the whole idea of interoperability standards.

ODF implementations have been written for countless office apps. Getting that out is not mutually exclusive with fighting OOXML.

Re:No way

[Anonymous Coward]

Sample Remaining Technical Issues in OOXML.pdf

Re:No way

[pembo13]

If Microsoft was really interested in standards at all they would simply have filed complaints against ODF so those involved could fix them.

Re:No way

[man_of_mr_e]

If Microsoft was really interested in standards at all they would simply have filed complaints against ODF so those involved could ignore them.

There. Fixed that for you.

Anyone else

[ArchieBunker]

Not really give a shit about OOXML? I mean just reading the wikipedia page makes me sleepy. Countries are actually arguing over this? This has to be last on my list of things that need sorted out.

Re:Anyone else

[grcumb]

Not really give a shit about OOXML? I mean just reading the wikipedia page makes me sleepy. Countries are actually arguing over this? This has to be last on my list of things that need sorted out.

That's nice, dear. Why don't you go look at some nice kittens?

Now if you don't mind, those of us who do give a shit would like to discuss this latest development.

Re:Anyone else

[ArchieBunker]

So far it sounds about as efficient as the UN. Wake me when all the member countries stop bickering and all agree on something.

Re:Anyone else

[edalytical]

Because those of us that have and are sent Word documents in email give a shit.

Because those of us that go to school and are told to type our papers in Word and to turn in .doc files give a shit.

Because those of us who take online classes and have to download Word documents give a shit.

Because those of us that work in governments and want to be able to exchange information with other agencies give a shit.

Because libraries that believe in open and easily accessible information give a shit.

Because those of us that don't want to use MS Word give a shit.

Because those of us that can't afford MS Word give a shit.

Because makers of other office suites give a shit.

Because those of use that use FOSS give a shit.

Because historians don't want to rely on a MS rosetta stone give a shit.

Because I give a shit.

Re:Anyone else

[rtb61]

You also left out the single most important issue because of the importance of international standards in providing standards by which the quality of goods and services can be measured and quantified to ensure reasonable quality and safe use.

The blatant visible corruption of the international standards will only lead to substantially increased costs to validate goods and services across international borders as ISO would have to be abandoned due to the fear that any nonsense standard to be used as B$ marketing would start getting approved.

So it goes far beyond just a computer document standard, it has an impact upon every other industry, every other product and every other service that makes use of international standards, it has cost ramifications across the board. M$ executive team and board of directors willingness to continue with the process after they had already been caught out speaks of their total arrogance and utter disregard for every other business or person on the planet.

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a whinny child.

Re:Anyone else

[Mongoose Disciple]

Serious question: Do you think MS-Office's essential world domination will go away if OOXML takes it in the pants?

I don't. It's got to die eventually, but I doubt this will have anything significant to do with it.

Re:Anyone else

[hawkinspeter]

Can I ask why are you reading and posting on this discussion if you have no interest in it?

Re:Anyone else

[h4rm0ny]

This is massively significant.There are rivals to MS Office products that would take market share away from them very quickly and the only thing really preventing that is if they can keep the standard file formats something that only they control. If OOXML doesn't get approved as a standard, it's really going to hurt MS. That's why the enormous pressure and attempted corruption. The stakes are actually pretty high for MS.

Re:Anyone else

[fluffman86]

This argument isn't about Microsoft. Some people legitimately like MS Office better than Open Office, or Apple's offerings, or Abi Word, or whatever. That's fine.

The point is you should be able to use anything you want to create a document, and then anyone you give it to should be able to view it properly. That's what standards are about; that's why they exist.

As a History Major, I particularly like my GP poster's point about the Rosetta Stone. We were very lucky to fine one to interpret the Ancient Egyptian language. One only needs to look at another Civilization like the Pre-Contact Incas, Mayans, or Aztecs to understand the importance of translation and language. We've lost a wealth of knowledge because there is simply no way to understand their writings.

Let us not follow in their footsteps. One day, we will be destroyed, or else our society will evolve and move on. And eventually someone will find the documents we've left behind. We should do everything we can to make those readable 10,000 years from now. Since they aren't carved or printed, they have to be translated by a computer.

With ODF, all of the tools are available to translate the document; with OOXML, they aren't.

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

And long before we are destroyed it will be 25 years from now, and reading a docx file that your mother wrote could be very very hard.. you know, there is that silly round thing they called a CD and you put it into some kind of box and then something is supposed to happen.....
Try reading a document from 25 years ago from a 5.25 inch hard sectored CPM floppy that was created with WordStar.. You probably hope you can stil find a printed copy of that file..

Re:Anyone else

[Macthorpe]

Sounds like you're not complaining because OOXML is a bad standard, but because Microsoft has achieved ubiquity.

So, instead of allowing a documented standard to go through and let you open these documents with any implemented standard, you're standing tall and obstructing something that could actually solve pretty much everything you've complained about.

Good job, sport.

Re:Anyone else

[EvilRyry]

OpenOffice (and others) have had a pretty darn good Microsoft Office compatibility for quite a few years before OOXML came around. Although it would be nice to have a formal and proper standard rather than a moving black box, I don't think it would cause a mass migration away from Microsoft Office. Why? Outlook for one. Outlook is the only real client for exchange which many businesses/schools/governments happen to use for email and calendaring. Another reason is sharepoint which is also becoming increasingly popular. As far as I know, Microsoft Office is the only suite that offers real working and reliable connectivity to these Microsoft systems. We won't get into retraining or the matter that OOo is hideous... I don't think that those are that huge of a hurdle.

Re:Anyone else

[Mongoose Disciple]

There are rivals to MS Office products that would take market share away from them very quickly and the only thing really preventing that is if they can keep the standard file formats something that only they control.

We'll agree to disagree there. File format compatability isn't really a bar to adopting OpenOffice today; the OpenOffice developers have done a pretty fantastic job on that front.

Death of OOXML = death of MS-Office is more something people would like to be true than something that is actually true.

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or do I sense a lot of apathy in your statement...

Re:Anyone else

[Ant P.]

Except, as has been pointed out here in the past by people who actually went through and read it, the OOXML "documented" standard is full of references to microsoft office internals, which _aren't_ documented in it.

Re:Anyone else

[Macthorpe]

Except, as pointed out by people in comments on this article, those items have been flagged and fixed as per the comments raised on the initial draft.

Re:Anyone else

[NickFortune]

Serious question: Do you think MS-Office's essential world domination will go away if OOXML takes it in the pants?

Ah, but this is not all about Microsoft. It's about having standards that are actually fit for purpose, and about not having the international standardisation process corrupted to serve the short term purposes of a single corporate entity at the expense of everyone else.

Microsoft like to frame the argument as a plot to destroy the Redmond giant because then they can go telling everyone how unfair it is for us all to make so much fuss. Poor little Microsoft, you gotta feel sorry for them.

The bottom line though is that if MSOOXML was a worthwhile standard, there wouldn't be a fraction of this opposition.

Re:Anyone else

[NickFortune]

Except, as pointed out by people in comments on this article, those items have been flagged and fixed as per the comments raised on the initial draft.

Would that be TFA, of this slashdot discussion? I can't find any references to flagging or fixing in TFA, and a vague reference to an ongoing slashdot debate is hardly authoritative. A quote or a link might be helpful.

Personally, I haven't heard about any comments being addressed in the MSOOXML spec. I know the issues from the BRM were flagged to be fixed, but when last I heard we were relying on Microsoft's willingness to do the right thing in order to get them fixed. Historically, trusting Microsoft in this matter this rarely not been a winning strategy, and that odd noise you can hear is the sound of IR professionals the world over not holding their breath.

And of course, due to the very large number of issues raised, only about 10% of the comments at the BRM were actually discussed. So even if they fixed all the issues flagged that doesn't mean the spec is now for for purpose.

But let's suppose that they've been busy boys indeed over in Redmond, and have fixed not only the issues from BRM, but also the ones that were raised by the various nation standards bodies that didn't get discussed due to time pressure. Even then, it doesn't really help. There are still issues with the patent promise that would prevent anyone from using the specification to interoperate with MSOffice - and if not for that, what good is it?

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

Neigh, I think not.

Re:Anyone else

[Macthorpe]

I can't find any references to flagging or fixing in TFA, and a vague reference to an ongoing slashdot debate is hardly authoritative. A quote or a link might be helpful. Are you serious? You're too lazy to read all the comments on the Slashdot post that you're commenting on?

Jeez.

Re:Anyone else

[NickFortune]

Are you serious? You're too lazy to read all the comments on the Slashdot post that you're commenting on?

Luckily for me, you're setting a shining example by linking to the comments you're claiming in support of your point and thus demonstrating your moral superiority.

...

I'll just hold my breath while I'm waiting, shall I?

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, man.

Re:Anyone else

[Dahan]

Personally, I haven't heard about any comments being addressed in the MSOOXML spec. I know the issues from the BRM were flagged to be fixed, but when last I heard we were relying on Microsoft's willingness to do the right thing in order to get them fixed.

While I haven't seen a copy of the final standard that got approved, since I'm sure it'll cost $$$$ like just about every other ISO standard, I have seen the corrections MS proposed in reply to the comments raised by the various national standard bodies. And I seriously doubt MS is going to spend the time to write up documentation for that stuff, then go, "Psyche! This isn't going to go into the standard after all!"

The "Proposed Disposition" tab of this page has documentation on these formerly-undocumented/underdocumented elements: autoSpaceLikeWord95, footnoteLayoutLikeWW8, lineWrapLikeWord6, mwSmallCaps, shapeLayoutLikeWW8, suppressTopSpacingWP, truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6, uiCompat97To2003, useWord2002TableStyleRules, useWord97LineBreakRules, wpJustification, and wpSpaceWidth.

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are a short sighted idiot.

Re:Anyone else

[edalytical]

If the standard is flawed the it "could" actually solve nothing. However the standard doesn't have to be flawed. If the standard is not flawed it could simply leave some details up to implementors. The later happened with the ISO JPEG standard. If you read the IJG's readme file distributed with their JPEG library you'd come across the following anecdote:

Some JPEG programs produce files that are not compatible with our library. The root of the problem is that the ISO JPEG committee failed to specify a concrete file format. Some vendors "filled in the blanks" on their own, creating proprietary formats that no one else could read. (For example, none of the early commercial JPEG implementations for the Macintosh were able to exchange compressed files.)

So I'm actually not complaining about Microsoft's ubiquity at all. What concerns me is that this so-called standard was fast-tracked and that there were very public and very blatant anomalies in the standardization procedures.

Re:Anyone else

[d_i_r_t_y]

noone should be forced by any school or university to submit work in .doc format unless the school or university is willing to pay for licenses of MS word for all students.

openoffice is free, and outputs documents using the .odf format, which is now an international (ISO) standard.

do NOT accept the 'must be in Word .doc' argument -- write a letter/email/phone the relevant people and do not accept this bullshit.

Re:Anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that they'd all already agreed to take bribes from Microsoft to push this through and ignore any real problems with the proposed standard.

I am lost?

[KGIII]

Before I am called a shill or anything else, read what I have said, I want to know... Without regard to fanatics - don't bother responding - what has Microsoft done wrong with this? What has the ISO body done wrong? I see that people are unhappy, I see that people think that this is bad, and yet not one person has been able to put their reasons why in to logical reasons that I can comprehend. It always turns into a religious view and not one where there's any technical merit or reasons that hold up as to why they couldn't have ratified the standard. I just want to know WHY damn it... One, just one, shard of evidence (not belief) will be just fine. The way I figure it, well, it could just be ignored as we ignore the HTML 3.0 standards now if we wanted. You got a wallet, haven't you?

Re:I am lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XM
includes both reference to technical criticism of the standard and the process.

Re:I am lost?

[yahooadam]

Because the standard is missing lots of information, There are large parts of the Office XML files that contain chunks of binary, which we do not understand, this should be in the specification somewhere - but it isn't

This basically means that no-one else except Microsoft are capable of writing their OOXML files (and i don't think others can read them either)
Why do you think Open Office still doesn't support the new OOXML files?

Also, probably just because its made by Microsoft and their history speaks for itself.

Re:I am lost?

[McGiraf]

It's Microsoft, Microsoft for christ sake! What part of Microsoft you do not understand?

;)

Re:I am lost?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

what has Microsoft done wrong with this? What has the ISO body done wrong?

Frankly this is obvious to anyone who's read anything about this - I'm going to assume you're a troll if you're still asking the question.

Just in case you're not trolling; ISO standards should be independently implementable by anyone. OOXML cannot be independently implemented. Therefor MS should not have submitted & ISO body should not have approved.

Re:I am lost?

[mrchaotica]

what has Microsoft done wrong with this?

Very likely bribed various national delegations so that they'd approve OOXML. In fact, quite a few third-world countries joined the standards process specifically to vote for OOXML, and then do nothing else. Bribery is the only plausible explanation, because approving OOXML otherwise goes strongly against their own self interest (because OOXML is unimplementable by anyone other than (and perhaps even including) Microsoft, and therefore they would be tying themselves to a "standard" controlled by a foreign corporation with no free implementation.

What has the ISO body done wrong?

ISO let the bribery and committee-stuffing happen, fast-tracked the process when there was no good reason to do it and many good reasons not to, completely ignored its own processes and procedures during the approval process, gave woefully too little time for comments and debate, ratified the standard despite voting irregularities in several countries, and ignored the public when they pointed all this shit out!

Any other silly questions?

Re:I am lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the standards board member that released how the voting occurred and a single person main the decision. This was on slashdot maybe two weeks ago max. The man who decided in this country ignored the what the experts on his board where saying. I know this is only one case however if it happens once theres a good chance of it happening in other locations too.

Personally if it was a well formed standard i wouldn't care who made it. I use windows, linux, and mac each day and my key worry is being able to work with my files across all platforms. Not only that but i would like to be able to send the files to my clients without worrying if they have a program to read it.

Re:I am lost?

[mlwmohawk]

OK, to understand why this is wrong, you need to accept some facts.

(1) Microsoft illegally maintains their monopoly on P.C. type commodity computers.

awe, fuck it. I can't write this one more time. Listen, if you have to ask the question it is most possible that the answer won't do you any good.

Secondly, if you have to ask the question, it is quite likely that you do not take responsibility for your opinions and treat the things you say with the same level of care that would be used by a parrot.

Re:I am lost?

[mcsporran]

and yet not one person has been able to put their reasons why in to logical reasons that I can comprehend.
Possibly you are lost, a person as willfully ignorant as you wouldn't look at map or anything.

Re:I am lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, contrary to the posts above this, there's a good chance (s)he's not a troll, and simply enjoys forming opinions after hearing perspectives from all sides.

From a technical side, the most relevant argument I have heard is that the standard is not fully explained, and as a consequence can not be fully implemented without additinoal information. If Microsoft has a unique position to implement the standard, then this specification becoming a standard in itself causes an overwhelming burden (and potentially makes it impossible) for others who would implement the standard, while allowing the proposing company to implement it without issue.

Re:I am lost?

[andreyvul]

s/XM/XML/

Re:I am lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, be at least a little fair. I know, /. is not the best place for people honestly asking questions, but it is a fair question. I'm far more a network guy than anything else, and the drafts for network stuff I find interesting puts me to sleep. (They _REALLY_ need better writers for those drafts.)

So, I'm curious about the technical details of why this fails as well. To be honest, even though my google-fu is weak, all I could find on this was a holy flame war akin to Linux v. Windows. And I'm assuming it's the same problem, there's good information about it out there, but it's all hidden behind the fanboy bullshit.

All I want to know, is is the actual specification decent. From what I read here, it's a hole-filled specification, absolutely un-implementable, and approved by what can only be called questionable methods. Fair enough for me.

My curiosity, due to my decisive lack of google-fu and the fact that format specifications put me to sleep, is does the format that OOo uses have any of the above problems. Especially binary data, that just strikes me as odd in a XML format for documents.

(Badly configured public terminal = anonymous posting.)

Re:I am lost?

[MacDork]

I just want to know WHY damn it

It isn't that hard to understand. The whole point of OOXML is the XML part... you know, the clean, readable, anyone with a text editor can read and understand it, format? Microsoft has included proprietary data formats inside of XML tags, defeating the whole point of having the format in XML in the first place. Wrapping Word .doc data in an XML tag doesn't suddenly make it readable.

what has Microsoft done wrong with this?

Bribed or attempted to bribe standards bodies in every major nation.

What has the ISO body done wrong?

That's an easy one. Imagine if 80% of the US voted for one presidential candidate only to have the opponent declared the winner. That's what happened here.

Well, I hope that helps you understand the issue a little better :-) It's anything but an anti-MS religion at work. It's about MS trying to block interoperability of competing products.

Re:I am lost?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Microsoft haters had hoped to get governments to mandate exclusive use of ODF based on its ISO status, and in so doing codify into law ODF's feature set, thus making it illegal to use features that ODF doesn't support. The result of this would be to codify OO.o's feature set into law and make it illegal to use MS Office features that OO.o lacks (because the exclusively mandated ODF lacks support for said features). This would put an end any and all competition on based on features (where MSO kicks OO.o's ass) and just let the competition be on price (where OO.o kicks MSO's ass).

OOXML getting ISO approval undermines the call to standardize on ODF based purely on ISO status, thus undercutting the above strategy.

Slashdotters hate to have anyone spell out so plainly, so they'll mod me down into oblivion (and won't offer up a cogent argument against what I've said). They prefer a big circle jerk, especially on this topic.

Re:I am lost?

[calebt3]

this specification becoming a standard in itself causes an overwhelming burden (and potentially makes it impossible) for others who would implement the standard, while allowing the proposing company to implement it without issue. Not that MS has bothered.

Re:I am lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly does Microsoft maintain this "illegal monopoly?" Do you have to somehow smuggle Apple PCs or Linux distros over the border where you live?

Re:I am lost?

[harlows_monkeys]

Because the standard is missing lots of information, There are large parts of the Office XML files that contain chunks of binary, which we do not understand, this should be in the specification somewhere - but it isn't

That is simply not true. If OOXML opponents had stuck to criticism that was actually true, instead of blatant lies like the binary chunk claim, they would have had a better chance of winning.

Re:I am lost?

[harlows_monkeys]

Just in case you're not trolling; ISO standards should be independently implementable by anyone. OOXML cannot be independently implemented. Therefor MS should not have submitted & ISO body should not have approved.

OOXML can and has been independently implemented.

Re:I am lost?

[johannesg]

Sure, that's part of it. But what bothers people is that they couldn't even be bothered to do it properly: write a decent standard, follow proper procedure. They had to go and write a crappy standard, one that is hard to implement, protected with patents, and isn't even followed by their own software, and they resorted to corruption and fraud to get it pushed through the various national standards bodies and ISO.

This is not just about the 800 pound gorilla protecting his turf, it is doing it in a way that shows just how powerful they are. And all those procedures and institutions that are supposed to protect the little man, to ensure fair play? Well, I guess this gorilla is just a little bit to big for them.

Re:I am lost?

[yahooadam]

Care to show some evidence?

I'm not an expert, but last i heard this was the claim against it ....

Re:I am lost?

[jx100]

Had MS come up with a truly better standard and had attempted to see it passed legitimately, I doubt we'd see the complaints we do now. I have seen no one with a specific problem over the VC-1 standard, despite the fact that it is based off of an MS-created codec. If they had truly been interested in actually furthering the state of the art and technical quality, I would personally defend them for actually doing a good job.

Re:I am lost?

[Bert64]

There is plenty of documentation of voting irregularities, which at the very least should be investigated before OOXML can be ratified.

The fast track process is for existing "defacto standards" that are widely used and implemented, and only really need a rubber stamp. OOXML is not widely implemented nor widely used at this point, it should have gone through the normal process. Perhaps the recent standardisation of PDF as ISO32000 was through the fast track, and would have deserved being fast tracked.

According to ISO guidelines, standards should reuse existing standards, preferably ISO ones... OOXML does not, it does mostly the same thing as ODF but in a completely different way, it also stores dates in a way conflicting with existing ISO standards, stores country codes in a different way, stores measurements in a different way and more. Thus it is in violation of ISO guidelines and should not have been approved.

There are other more specific issues, plenty documented out on the web... But the 3 above show where they have violated ISO rules, which should at the very least be enough to kick ooxml off the fast track and into the regular process.

As for ignoring it, unfortunately microsoft are large enough that they can force their inferior format on the market, so it will be impossible to ignore. If the market were free, and people were able to choose products based on technical merit microsoft wouldn't be anywhere near as big as they are.

Re:I am lost?

[howlingmadhowie]

microsoft could implement odf and suggest improvements to the standard. these would be considered live all other calls to improve a standard.

the only connection between your transferal of odf/ooxml on to OO.o/MSO is that MSO does not implement ODF. this is microsoft's free choice. it is regrettable, but microsoft is a public company which is allowed to ignore standards. if microsoft had decided to implement ODF we would not be having this conversation.

the people who want governments to communicate with the citizens and store information in standardised formats do not want this because they hate microsoft. they want this so that the information can be read by all and continue to be able to be read by all for ever. it surprises me that you do not know this.

Re:I am lost?

[DarkOx]

The real problem with ooXML is that its a bad standard. Its bad because it really fails to specify how to encode a document. It fails in essentially two major place. The first could be corrected, its simply that there are a number of ambiguities around the formating(display),percision(display), and storage(document) of non integer numeric values. A spread sheet should calculate and spit out the same results regardless of the software you open it in.

The second issue is ooXML allows large binary blobs of virtually any type to be encoded in the document. Binary in XML and in office documents is not all bad. Certainly for multi-media type things like pictures and sounds its appropriate. I would argue however that there should be limits on WHAT binary formats are allowed. Those should reference other standards. Being able to parse out the stucture of a document only to discover all the content is locked up in some binary format you have no idea what the stucture of is, is downright useless. The reason for standards is so that people can interoperate if you can't do that then the standard is broken.

Before people jump all over me about how being able to interoperate does not mean that you can display he document exactly as it is in Word or whatever let me say "I know that". The content should be accessible though. Rendering should be about how the user wants to display it. A blind person might want a text to speach enginge to read a document to them. The standard should allow them in all cases to dump out the text data from the document. It should be possible to run into the binary objects and have the software say "there is an image here" etc etc. That's usefull "Document, contains unkown data" is not.

Re:I am lost?

[harlows_monkeys]

You are the one making the positive claim, so you are the one that has the burden of proof, under all normal standards of argument. Show us the binary chunks.

Re:I am lost?

[TheSunborn]

There are 3 things.

1: The entire coruption problem. Giving money and other benefits for people/companies so they vote for you is not ok.

2: The entire rush is a big problem. The right way for microsoft to design OOXML as a ISO standard for text documents, would have been to
start the ISO standard work at the same time they started their work on the format. That way Microsoft could have incorporated changes in the standard in their word 2007. Right now what Microsoft word 2007 call OOXML is not really the exactly same document standard as have been declared a standard by iso. The entire point of an iso standard is not "Here is how we at microsoft do things in Word, please declare it a standard"
but insted "How can we design and implement a standard for word text documents, that can represent the things we want".
Example: The standard include a lot of "please behave bug for bug compability with this specific old version of Word. The most infamous example beeing the flag that signal that the document should be layouded exactly with the margin rules that word 95 uses.

The problem here is also one of motivation. The normal motivation for an ISO standard is that a group of vendors and users need a standard they can all use and implement. But microsoft is not really interested in making OOXML the document standard that all word processors use. The only reason they want to make OOXML a iso standard is that they need it for polical reasons because some goverments and companies don't want to use Word unless it save in a "standard format"

3: Nobody know if OOXML can really be implemented by an independent software program. The problem beeing that Microsoft still control patents for parts of the standard that others might not be allowed to use. So it's a standard but Microsoft might still control who can and can't legally implement it.
(The solution for this is simple: Microsoft should just grant the right to use any of their patents that are needed to read and write ooxml software to anyone, but they don't for some reason).

And the standard itself is rather bad some places, but that is to be expected when you try to fasttrack a 8000 pages standard quality do suffer.

Did that explain it?

Re:I am lost?

[surmak]

I agree with your statement, and with the parent, but there is one other piece which has I have not seen addressed anywhere.

It seems that Microsoft has convinced a number of organizations, that unless OOXML is approved, governments will be unable to used the MS Office software which they have been dependent on for years. Add in training costs, and user resistance to anything new IT organizations within (and without) various governments are convinced that they need ISO approval for OOXML so that they can continue to use MS Office.

Of course MS could, if they wanted to, add an ODF filter to office, and make it as good as the native format. They could propose a TC (ISO speak: technical corregendium) to include missing features, but it is better for them not to do so and instead threaten IT organizations around the world with losing a piece of software they depend on (due to a potential requirement to use open / standard file formats), and in that way have recruited them to the MS cause.

Re:I am lost?

[Zeinfeld]

Just in case you're not trolling; ISO standards should be independently implementable by anyone. OOXML cannot be independently implemented. Therefor MS should not have submitted & ISO body should not have approved.

Nope, not even close. Nobody ever created an interoperable implementation of X.500 from the spec. It was actually impossible to implement X.25 as specified and there are numerous other examples.

This is not the first time that a group of competitors have ganged up to screw a competitor using the standards process. Some people think that its actually part of the game. But there is no need to insult our intelligence by claiming that blocking OOXML is about anything other than attempting to force ODF onto government users.

It is pretty difficult to get a judicial review of a non-government body in the UK. The BSI is a member organization. It is not apparent that the group bringing the claim was even a member.

The members of BSI are companies rather than individuals and most are more interested in specs for rivets or such than internal IT industry politics.

Re:I am lost?

[Real1tyCzech]

"That's an easy one. Imagine if 80% of the US voted for one presidential candidate only to have the opponent declared the winner. That's what happened here."

Nice. Did you not bother to check you facts (like everyone else jumping on that bandwagon)?

Here's a thunk for ya:

Had ISO member nations, during the ODF vote, submitted, in writing, statements that they would vote against ODF, without discussion, without allowing comments to be addressed or even accepting that comments *could* be addressed, would you still be bitching at ISO...or the members?

The idiots from Norway that got booted from the vote did just that. They plainly stated, in writing, that they would not be open-minded, or even consider the possibility; In effect, removing themselves from the process. The only folks left were the one's who voted. Norway responded with this the *day* OXML was approved. It was widely reported (and summarily ignored by the Anti-OXML crowd)

Go figure.

I know, I know...we don't like facts here on /., but I juts can't help myself.

Re:I am lost?

[mlwmohawk]

Microsoft's "monopoly" has not been declared illegal as you suggest. Their methods and behavior in maintaining it have been.

Nice try.

Re:I am lost?

[Mad Leper]

Thank you for that post, I had lost hope that anyone on SlashDot could see beyond their OSS zealotry to see the ODF/OOXML fight for what it really is, an attempt to eliminate a closed-source competitor.

Re:I am lost?

[jpvlsmv]

OOXML is not widely implemented nor widely used at this point In fact, OOXML is not implemented AT ALL in ANY product, according to the leader of ISO Alex Brown: http://www.griffinbrown.co.uk/blog/PermaLink,guid,3e2202cd-59a3-4356-8f30-b8eb79735e1a.aspx

--Joe

Re:I am lost?

[man_of_mr_e]

Very likely bribed various national delegations so that they'd approve OOXML.

Repeat it enough, and people will believe it. There is no evidence of such bribery, other than the ODF side not getting it's way and assuming it must be Bribery.

In fact, quite a few third-world countries joined the standards process specifically to vote for OOXML

Actually, it's exactly the opposite. More of the members that joined in the last year voted against OOXML than for it. You know, countries like Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Iran, etc.. not to mention that many of the last minute additions to the NB's of various countries were from IBM, Oracle, and Google (who are all opposed to OOXML).

This is another case of repeating something enough and people will believe it.

Re:I am lost?

[fritsd]

WHAT features? Link please? I keep hearing this but it's all noise and no signal.

Evidently if the committee that drafted ODF missed features essential for text processing, or even necessary for interoperability with the much-used old MS .doc formats, it might be a good thing to add those features. So, tell me what are they?

Re:I am lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Three off the top of my head:
1. Spreadsheet formulas
2. Irregular tables
3. Ink
And there are many others. There are also ODF features that OOXML lacks (like "blinking" text).

BTW, there was an effort to include Microsoft Office features into ODF, but Sun explicitly rejected it, saying that ODF should not go beyond StarOffice/OO.o features.

Beyond just "features", there are implementation details that OOXML is better than ODF:

ODF also lacks the ability to embed OLE objects as XML. ODF only stores OLE objects as binary blobs, while Microsoft OFfice allows OLE object to be stored as XML is possible (and binary blobs if not). This makes it possible to traverse a hierarchy of embedded OLE objects using XML parsing.

OOXML also loads much faster than ODF (its not even close, particularly for spreadsheets).

ISO OOXML uses a single format for spreadsheet dates (the ISO standard), while ODF uses 3 different date formats.

Lots of other examples.

Re:I am lost?

[KGIII]

Nope, well hopefully not, trolling. I truly am missing it. Why can't OOXML be independently implemented? (I do see the reasons people didn't like that it was rushed through and I have to wonder if that was done for financial or political reasons but I lack the information to judge.)

Re:I am lost?

[KGIII]

That was pretty good. I'm still getting a lot of conflicting information and very little factual information and it is still a flame war. *sighs* But at least I understand why people are as unhappy as they are though I'm not sure if they should be or if their unhappiness is even justified. Hell, I'm more confused than I was earlier but at least I see why people think the way that they do so thank you to all.

Re:I am lost?

[fritsd]

Spreadsheet formulas were apparently added with much effort in ODF 1.2 (OpenFormula, draft).

I think I get what you mean with irregular tables. Paragraph 8.1 says

Table rows may be empty, and different rows might contain a different number of table cells. This is not an error, but applications might resolve this in different ways. Spreadsheet applications typically operate on large tables that have a fixed application dependent row and column number, but may have an unused area. Only the used area of the table is saved in files.

If this is insufficient to specify an "irregular table", e.g. to nicely layout its outer border, you'll have to be more specific..

I don't know what you mean with ink.

BTW, there was an effort to include Microsoft Office features into ODF, but Sun explicitly rejected it, saying that ODF should not go beyond StarOffice/OO.o features.

Wow.. that's rich..

Even if Sun played nasty in OASIS, which I can't comment on because I'm an outsider, don't you think that a lot of new companies suddenly could have joined the OASIS Office committee who all miraculously voted in favour of these Microsoft Office features? I'm sure a way would have been found, and it would have been cheaper than lobbying 87 nations. Without the approval vote of Kazakhstan, CÃte d'Ivoire, and Trinidad and Tobago OOXML wouldn't have passed :-(

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

ODF also lacks the ability to embed OLE objects as XML. ODF only stores OLE objects as binary blobs, while Microsoft OFfice allows OLE object to be stored as XML is possible (and binary blobs if not). This makes it possible to traverse a hierarchy of embedded OLE objects using XML parsing.

I don't understand this point: if it's a blob, all it needs is a descriptor (such as SMIL), and if it's not a blob, why isn't it in the standard, or referred to with its own international standard?

ISO OOXML uses a single format for spreadsheet dates (the ISO standard), while ODF uses 3 different date formats.

Um.. from ECMA's disposition of comments, about OOXML's 1900- and 1904-based dates:

Regarding the requests that we adopt a single date base, we do not see this as a viable option given the corpus of existing binary documents requiring support for the existing 1900 and 1904 date bases.

I think I'll stop answering your points now.. I'm tired.

Re:I am lost?

[MacDork]

They plainly stated, in writing, that they would not be open-minded, or even consider the possibility; In effect, removing themselves from the process.

You know, that sounds strangely like casting a vote... and then having it ignored.

I know, I know...we don't like facts here on /., but I juts can't help myself.

Speaking for yourself, I see.

Re:I am lost?

[julesh]

The way I figure it, well, it could just be ignored as we ignore the HTML 3.0 standards now if we wanted.

HTML 3 isn't a standard. Neither is HTML 4, or any version of XHTML. We call them "standards" as a shortcut for "technical recommendations made by an industry body that is not an officially recognised standards organisation".

The ongoing process is to make OOXML an actual standard. ISO is the world's best recognised standards organisation. If OOXML is made into an ISO standard, it will likely become a legal requirement to use it in numerous situations. Certainly many current ISO standards are subject to such regulations.

As for technical merit, the OOXML standard is overly complex, described in an extremely long document that doesn't fully explain the meaning of all the terms in use within it, some of which are probably not adequately understood by anybody who doesn't work on the MS Word codebase. It is impossible for anybody other than Microsoft to produce a conforming implementation, and apparently not even Microsoft have bothered to do that. As far as standards go, this one would be broken.

Re:I am lost?

[julesh]

BTW: why does it say "Status: deleted" (with an icon of a garbage can) on the ISO 29500 page? I must be hallucinating.

Because that document has been superceded by these four documents.

Re:I am lost?

[isilrion]

Actually, it's exactly the opposite. More of the members that joined in the last year voted against OOXML than for it. You know, countries like Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Iran, etc.. Cuba voted against OOXML, you say? You should check again the result of September's vote and how hard it was for us to reverse it.

Re:I am lost?

[Warbothong]

Had MS come up with a truly better standard and had attempted to see it passed legitimately, I doubt we'd see the complaints we do now. I have seen no one with a specific problem over the VC-1 standard, despite the fact that it is based off of an MS-created codec. If they had truly been interested in actually furthering the state of the art and technical quality, I would personally defend them for actually doing a good job. Microsoft do not own 90%+ of the multimedia world, thus they are forced to entice people over to them by making something useful.

In the office world Microsoft is the vastly dominant player and can shovel out whatever crap they like if it means some organisations will stick with them.

Re:I am lost?

[Real1tyCzech]

No, that sounds like not participating in the body. Kind of a requirement to be *able* to vote one would think.

Well, those who *can* think, anyway.

Parent post is a troll. Mod it down

[Anonymous Coward]

> The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

You're damn right. But OOXML is not a standard. A standard has to be documented properly and (which is more important) completely. OOXML satisfies neither of these conditions. So it's not a standard.

> Standing around crying because Microsoft bought a standard...

I'm tired of people like you. Look buddy, we're crying not because "Microsoft bought a standard". We're crying because a half-baked specification got recognized as a standard. We're crying because, in the near future, people will distribute documents in a format that is "according to ISO xxxx-yyyy" but in reality incompletely defined.

Re:Parent post is a troll. Mod it down

[Anonymous Coward]

you're still crying. doesnt matter why, and the grandparent didnt express any views that i can see are trolling. in effect, he's asking you to stop flaming everything left and right and do something positive.

try checking out the last paragraph here: http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-06-28-023-10-NW-SM-0051

Re:Parent post is a troll. Mod it down

[Macthorpe]

Actually, Office 2007 only errors at that level against the 'strict' specification requested by all those who ratified the standard.

Against the 'transitional' specification, it only produces errors against one part where the flag was changed from 'on' to 'true'.

Re:Parent post is a troll. Mod it down

[Narpak]

We are crying because ISO made ODF a standard and then they made OOXML a standard because somehow Microsoft convinced ISO that ODF and OOXMl were two different things and that there wouldn't be a conflict. So now we have two standards for storing documents; except one is out there being used; the other is as of yet more or less unused and unseen.

Not to mention that having two document standards is a conflict of terminology.

*NIX on a differnt scale: Mostly Harmless

[CDMA_Demo]

Why unx based systems will win over MS: http://comprog.freeforums.org/why-microsoft-will-not-exsist-for-much-longer-t31.html Thats a nicely written url. A one liner.

on the flip side

[ILuvRamen]

And do you think Microsoft can't convince some country's group to object if theirs gets booted and the other one gets chosen?

This is whiney nerd crap.

[joocemann]

Since when is this important? Sounds like a few people whining about things, and others whining back at them. People should whine less and work more. 10,000 news-worthy things happen every day, yet this insubstantial lard of a 'problem' is on here? Surely there are more important things to talk about, like the availability of banana laffy taffy. cry/whine/sue, thats all most people know how to do nowadays. What a shame of an existence.

Re:This is whiney nerd crap.

[IchBinEinPenguin]

Standards are important.
My car is made by $COMPANY1.
I can buy tires for it made by $COMPANY2.
I can put them on wheels made by $COMPANY3.
I can tighten the weelnuts with a wrench from $COMPANY4.

You get the idea?
I'm sure that $COMPANY1 would just love to sell me everything to do with my car from the tires on up, but they can't because it's all STANDARD.
STANDARDS are good for consumers, Monopolies are not.

Re:This is whiney nerd crap.

[edalytical]

This is whiney nerd crap.....10,000 news-worthy things happen every day

But this is "News for Nerds." Are you not aware of what site you are posting a comment on?

Re:This is whiney nerd crap.

[temcat]

...and the you come here and whine about those who whine about whiners. Whiner!

Re:This is whiney nerd crap.

[Narpak]

I suddenly envisaged this comment on the CCN forum (if there even is one). "This is whiney trivial crap.... 10,000 news-worthy things happen every day".
"This is the Cable News Network; we're reserve the right to select and present the news we want. Are you not aware of what site you are posting a comment on?"

Sorry, total digression; but it made me laugh :P

Re:This is whiney nerd crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was so insignificant, why did Microshaft bribe hundreds, if not thousands of people so that it can get it implemented. If standing up to corruption and wrong doing is insignificant to you, then you belong in America, land of the ignorant.

Where are the mods?

[Quinn_Inuit]

I've got some karma to burn, so here's something blatantly off-topic. Where are the mods? I've hardly seen any comments above a 2 for the last several stories. Is nobody moderating anymore? Do I have my preferences set wrong? Feel free to reply as AC so you don't lose karma answering me. I'm just curious here.

Re:Where are the mods?

[martin-boundary]

Slashdot switched yesterday to the new ISO modding standard. Unfortunately, the rules for when to mod are incomplete, so most modders refrain from using their points. There's also a very small number of modders who understand the new standard completely, but every time they press [Moderate], their computer crashes...

Re:Where are the mods?

[The Evil Couch]

I usually get mod points about once a week or two and haven't seen any come my way in about the past three weeks. It's kind of weird, but it didn't occur to me that the same might be happening to other people until you mentioned the relatively low level of moderation lately.

Re:Where are the mods?

[edalytical]

Thank $DEITY, I'm not the only one. I thought I was going crazy or switched on some horrible ignore moderation mode.

Re:Where are the mods?

[themacks]

Or there could be a lack of intelligent comments...

Re:Where are the mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all very strange. I am in the same boat as another poster mentioned. I usually have mod points weekly. I haven't seen any in 3-4 weeks though. Which is strange. I see myself as contributing positively when I have mod points but thought I'd done something bad to lose the priviledge.

Re:Where are the mods?

[TheThiefMaster]

If that was the case we'd just have 39 "+5 Funny" (that often aren't funny really) comments instead.

I have to go with the GP, moderation is a bit thin at the moment.

Re:Where are the mods?

[photon317]

Who gives a crap about karma anyways? I can't believe anyone (myself included) even bothers to commenting here anymore, although somehow it keeps happening.

Re:Where are the mods?

[Zarhan]

I got 10 mod points about a week ago (I've used to get batches of 5), but since then I've observed same thing as you - scores of >3 are very rare, so there must be too few mod points going around.

Re:Where are the mods?

[_Shad0w_]

I had some recently, but frankly nowadays I have trouble finding posts worth modding up. There's always plenty to mod down, but really there aren't enough mod points in the world for that. Plus modding down always seems kind of a waste of mod points.

Re:Where are the mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing here has been worth modding up. All the first 49 posts have been moronic shill/troll posts asking what's wrong with OOXML, and a lot of people reposting old information which was here months ago.

OFC, this is off-toopic too, so it won't get modded up either.

Re:Where are the mods?

[bennybertow]

I just got 5 points and used one to mod you up...

Re:Where are the mods?

[bennybertow]

... which took the point away again. D'oh.

A possible explanation might be the labour day and its use for a longer weekend...

Re:Where are the mods?

[chris_sawtell]

The mods have overdosed on jingoism and xenophobia, and are in a coma as a result

Re:Where are the mods?

[daffmeister]

But you can't mod and post in the same thread, so your mod will have been nullified (not sure if you get the point back)

Re:Where are the mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm beginning to wonder if it's borked - I got ten mod points a few weeks ago and haven't seen any since.

Re:Where are the mods?

[protactin]

Something's (more) broken than usual. Currently the drop-down for this story says 6 comments with score 3, but if you select it, only 1 comment appears.

The years-old bug of not showing the correct number of comments at lower scores is still there too (e.g. currently reading at score 3 and the drop-down claims there's 6 comments for *all* scores 3 and under).

Re:Where are the mods?

[number17]

I went to bed early last night. Sorry to let everybody down.

Re:Where are the mods?

[hansamurai]

I have five mod points, I'd bump you up but I here I am posting. Whoops.

Re:Where are the mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed this too. I've also noticed that over the past couple of weeks the quality of comments have suffered, probably because moderation tends to guide were conversation goes.

I have mod points right now (apparently the system gives people 10 points now), hence the AC.

Re:Where are the mods?

[m50d]

I think the "new discussion system" has a stupidly low limit on the number of comments it shows, to hide the fact that all the pointless Javascript makes the site really slow. And the "fetch more comments" link doesn't work; they probably only tested it in Firefox.

Re:Where are the mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I can tell you - I am modding at the moment. The MS shills are out in full force today. Many of us know them by name now. I am kept so busy modding the down the trolls that seek to detour the discussion that I have had little opportunity as yet to mod people up. Now the guide lines say we should look for people to promote more than we look for ppl to mod down, and that is exactly what I normally do. However, today we are faced with a full frontal onslaught from Micro$hills. Still, I can only mod them down if what they say is indisputably flame bait or trolling, and many of their comments avoid that, so I have to take my time and read carefully. ...just to give you some insight from one experienced moderator who takes his job seriously.

Re:Where are the mods?

[Ambidisastrous]

Same here. I've also been reading the headlines via RSS first, and almost all of them have been clearly flamebait lately, so I don't bother looking at the comments on those. Still not sure what the root cause is, but maybe flamebait headlines -> pointless, reactionary comments -> bored mods -> editors see site traffic dropping and post even flamier headlines.

Or else the regular mods are rebelling against the new discussion system. I like the inline posting concept but the implementation is hella slow.

Re:Where are the mods?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also a very small number of modders who understand the new standard completely,

Ridiculous! The 2293 pages of changes with the old standard have clearly been on display for more than 3 months on an authorized-personnel-only ipsj.or.jp ftp server in Japan. Are you saying you didn't read them yet?

Re:Where are the mods?

[martin-boundary]

I've had trouble locating my towel, have you seen it somewhere?

Re:Where are the mods?

[julesh]

I usually get mod points about once a week or two and haven't seen any come my way in about the past three weeks.

That's about how long it took me to notice too. I haven't had any mod points for somewhere in the region of 3 years now, despite persistently having high karma over this period. Welcome to the ranks of the mod-banned, slashdot's elite secret society.

Re:Where are the mods?

[julesh]

And the "fetch more comments" link doesn't work; they probably only tested it in Firefox.

Funny. As a Firefox user, I was thinking they'd probably only tested it in Explorer...

Re:Where are the mods?

[TheThiefMaster]

Speak of the devil, I now have FIFTEEN mod points to spend.

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

As the article post said, " the BSI used a flawed decision-making process when they chose to approve OOXML in the ISO vote."

Though "flawed" was a nice way of saying "corrupt," as the accounts we have been given by people who participated in the proceedings make it clear that the vote was directly manipulated in at least one case (technicians kept being dismissed, and the vote re-counted, until everyone was in favor). You can read details about that in prior slashdot articles on the subject (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I don't feel guilty about that, since it is because of your own laziness that I am even writing this). Also, for what it is worth, the standard has known flaws and is not complete, which is another reason why it shouldn't have been selected (at least not yet).

Also, the standard cannot be implemented by anyone but Microsoft. It is designed to be Microsoft-only. That makes it useless as a standard. ISO's job is not to give one company a monopoly over an industry standard, but rather to pick a standard that everyone can use. In this task, they have failed, to the detriment of the entire industry.

first line correction

[edalytical]

Forgot to type 'jobs' for the first sentence. It should be:

Because those of us that have jobs and are sent Word documents in email give a shit.

Forgive the reply to self...

hehe

[Jane Q. Public]

Or modding down? :o) They're the same everywhere, aren't they?

Re:hehe

[Anonymous Coward]

Jane. You have a strange habit of critisizing the moderators when you are modded down. I'd go as far as saying you have a bit of a cry when it happens--from your comments it seems that you believe you are always correct and the moderators must be wrong or harassing you. Let me tell you something. You are NOT always correct. Stop whining everytime somebody says something contrary to what you believe. Try and listen. Thanks.

Re:hehe

[Jane Q. Public]

It wasn't even me who was modded down. I was referring to someone else! The other respondent and I were just having a little joke. Or didn't you pay attention to the whole thing? Maybe you should read the thread over again. I don't have a problem with being modded down... as long as it is not for the wrong reason. For example, I have been modded down for "off topic" because the modder was incapable of understanding the joke (even though everyone else seemed to understand without much difficulty). I have been modded down for "troll" for the same reason... somebody just did not get the joke. Again, even though most others seemed to. And so on. If a moderator mods me down for something REAL, I am much less likely to take offense. For example, you seem to have missed the recent exchange where I told the other party TWICE that we should take the discussion elsewhere because it was getting modded down as off-topic, and that I agreed in full with the moderators because it WAS off-topic. If you are going to criticize, please make sure you know what you are criticizing and why. You see, the discussion that you mentioned in your post above was not even an example of what you were criticizing! (You misunderstood.) So too bad if you think my objecting to your criticism is inappropriate. But in fact that is precisely the issue I have with some (many) moderators. I am capable of taking, and willing to take, criticism that is accurate. But as long as people continue to criticize inappropriately (as you just did... once more, please read the thread again and pay attention to the mods), then I will continue to push back, and feel perfectly justified in doing so. Another practice that DESERVES criticism is modding down for comments that criticize the modders (again for the simple reason that the mods are often more "political" than factual). Too often, someone will mod down a criticism of a mod as "off-topic", when in fact such a comment is never off-topic. That practice is nothing more than mental jerking off by the modders themselves.

haha

[Jane Q. Public]

I don't pay too much attention to people who don't even know a Jane from a John...

Re:haha

[BOFHelsinki]

Welcome to Slashdot.

The least ISO could do is drop ODF

[pembo13]

If the people over at the ISO have any level of logic left within their collective, they would have some respect for ODF and the people who worked on it and drop it. It is impossible for ODF to exist favorably in the face of of MS-OOXML for several, non-technical reasons

Re:The least ISO could do is drop ODF

[Anonymous Coward]

But frankly the idea that "ODF is already the ISO standard for office documents" is at best just bullshit.

Event OpenOffice has moved on to support the OASIS ODF 1.2 consortia standard, the ISO version of ODF was not enough to support the project. It is hard to see why Microsoft or any other office suite vendor should support a standard (IS26300) which is implemented by nobody and not even supported by the most influential projects in the OS community.

Re:The least ISO could do is drop ODF

[Narpak]

If the people over at the ISO have any level of logic left within their collective, they would have some respect for ODF and the people who worked on it and drop it. It is impossible for ODF to exist favorably in the face of of MS-OOXML for several, non-technical reasons I would like to see what arguments you have behind these "non-technical reasons". Because as I understand it ODF is an Open Standard and a vastly better choice for education and library services; since it is a standard that does not require you to have expensive Microsoft software. The Minister of Government Administration and Reform in Norway has declared that ODF and other open standards and products will be used predominantly in Norwegian Education, Public Services and Administration. Simply because it is the standard most suited to the needs of the people (free, available, solid).

When in Rome...

[unixbugs]

Why doesn't SCO just have the Federal Reserve bail them out. Dumbasses.

OOXML can and has been independently implemented.

[mikeb]

Would you care to give an example of such an independent implementation? According to Alex Brown, the person who convened the Ballot Resolution Meeting for ISO/IEC, Microsoft's own current current implementation does not conform to the 'standard'

Ah, NOW I see what you mean. Why, in fact, I've just implemented the standard myself right here:
main(){exit(1);}

What do you mean my implementation doesn't conform? Neither does Microsoft's.

Re:

[clint999]

OK, to understand why this is wrong, you need to accept some facts. (1) Microsoft illegally maintains their monopoly on P.C. type commodity computers. awe, **** it. I can't write this one more time. Listen, if you have to ask the question it is most possible

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Why "No" to ooxml

[blind biker]

Because only MS can implement it. Which means, nothing will change and your ooxml documents will still be hostage to MS, which will still force you on the upgrade treadmill.

And even if you completely accept you fate and buy upgrade after upgrade, your old documents may still not be time-proof. For example, MS decided that I should not be able to open my thesis files anymore.

Re:OOXML can and has been independently implemente

[harlows_monkeys]

If you are going to be as picky as Brown was there, then you run into the problem that ODF suffers from the same problem. OpenOffice often produces ODF documents that do not strictly follow the standard. The deviations of Office from transitional OOXML are no more severe than the deviations of OpenOffice from the ISO version of ODF.

If, on the other hand, you are going to cut enough slack to allow OpenOffice to count as implementing ODF, then anything that implements ECMA-376 is also at least a transitional OOXML implementation, and then besides Office and Office Mac, there is Pages and Numbers from Apple, NeoOffice on the Mac, TextEdit on the Mac, at least three open source OOXML/ODF translators, Thinkfree Office, Dataviz, and Google.

The irnoy of this

[Bananenrepublik]

The irony of this is that your post will never receive the editors' attention because they browse at +5.

Expect Microsoft to stuff the board of UKUUG now..

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone can join the UKUUG.

It only takes a very few active members to change their policies.

Expect some changes in the coming year.

Read the standard

[symbolset]

If you want to understand this thoroughly and completely, the most reasonable thing to do would be to just read the standard. It's only a few thousand pages. You should be able to grind your way through it in a few days. ISO did.

Someone tag this ..

[ThirdPrize]

OOXML_IS_BORING

Merits review

[kingturkey]

The summary struck me as odd, in claiming that the Unix group are suing for a number of complaints including the patents. Judicial review in the common law jurisdictions is generally limited to review for legality (ignoring proportionality and human rights for the moment), as opposed to review on the merits, and the patents complaint would be merits based. The claim is actually on the basis that the BSI didn't follow the processes they were required to follow, the patents issue is something the Unix group is upset about but not a ground for judicial review. I just thought I'd point this out, not that it really matters or that anybody cares.

*yawn*

[abigsmurf]

As many other people who are posting have suggested. This whole situation is getting rather tiresome. The time spent campaigning to get ISO to change would be better spent coming up with APIs and utilities to enable developers to more easily create OOXML files. Neither format is going to go out of usage because of ISO's decision so the best solution for everyone is to support both formats as best as possible.

As for this civil action. I don't think they have a leg to stand on. What I know of the BSI (who are very well respected) is that they don't come to decisions lightly. There's no real evidence their process was flawed.

Yes in the past it's failed their criteria but that was because it didn't take into account ODF in the format. In a direct "pick ODF or OOXML" choice, it isn't fair to use "it isn't like ODF" as reasoning for not picking the format.

With regards to patents, all the defendants will do is say "there's no garentee that ODF is patent free either"

Re:*yawn*

[Narpak]

The time spent campaigning to get ISO to change would be better spent coming up with APIs and utilities to enable developers to more easily create OOXML files. Neither format is going to go out of usage because of ISO's decision so the best solution for everyone is to support both formats as best as possible. Thew view held my many is that supporting both formants is counterproductive and benefits no one but Microsoft in the end.

As for this civil action. I don't think they have a leg to stand on. What I know of the BSI (who are very well respected) is that they don't come to decisions lightly. There's no real evidence their process was flawed. I can not speak for BSI, who I have little familiarity with, but there is reports from both Norway and Sweden about vote manipulation. And so far there has been little to no official review of these cases;
http://stupid.domain.name/node/382
And the technical leader for Standard Norge (the body responsible for Norways ISO vote) quit in protest after the decision. Because of what he called unethical behavior.

Further more there has been other allegations against the process; like new countries joining the ISO and only voting in this one case. It would be undemocratic to at least not have a serious review of the process and the core truths of the case; starting with ones own country. I applaud the UKUUG.

Re:*yawn*

[NickFortune]

As many other people who are posting have suggested. This whole situation is getting rather tiresome

I expect it's past your bedtime. Why don't you go have a nap in the corner? The grownups will carry on without you.

What I know of the BSI (who are very well respected) is that they don't come to decisions lightly. There's no real evidence their process was flawed.

The issue of evidence is for the courts to determine, don't you think? I mean that's what the legal process is for.

As to the BSI, they are highly respected. And the reason for this is that they usually do an excellent job. The lawsuit is being raised because, in this specific instance, that does not seem to be the case.

Equally, the body bringing the action is the UK Uinix Users Group, a somewhat respectable body in its own right. We're not talking about not some penny ante local LUG full of hotheaded teenagers here, and I rather doubt they'd be wasting the groups resources on a potentially expensive lawsuit unless they'd first taken legal advice, and determined that they had a case.

Re:*yawn*

[abigsmurf]

These same grown ups who've been whining "it's not fair" and stamping their feet whenever something didn't go their way? They certainly didn't wait for the courts to determine if it was above board or not.

The BSI deal with huge, rich multinationals on a daily basis. I've never heard of them being done for corruption in the past and they've had a pretty long history of being under public scrutiny. For them to throw their reputation away for this one thing seems unlikely.

The UK Unix Users Group may be respectable but with this lawsuit they've little to lose (especially compared to the BSI), especially if they sign on a no-win no-fee lawyer or a member who's a lawyer donates his time. The burden is on UKUUG to provide good solid proof. All they've released so far is hearsay and conspiricy theories. They may well have some solid evidence they're keeping mum about until the trial but if that is all they have, the trial won't even last a day.

Re:*yawn*

[NickFortune]

These same grown ups who've been whining "it's not fair" and stamping their feet whenever something didn't go their way? They certainly didn't wait for the courts to determine if it was above board or not.

Talking about the UK UUG? I haven't seen them whining or stamping their feet. They do have a position on whether or not the process was correctly followed in this case, which I believe is allowed. And they are indeed waiting for the courts to make a ruling. It's difficult to see what else they could do,

Unless of course you have evidence of the UKUUG dispensing bloody retribution to MSOOXML adopters in a series of vigilante style raids, or something equally outlandish. In fact if you have anything tangible at all to contribute, I'm sure we'd all love to read it.

Re:*yawn*

[fritsd]

DIN also has an excellent reputation (DIN A4, anyone?). And yet, their decision to vote YES wasn't really an example of technical unanimity, either:

From DIN website

NIA's Steering Committee was NOT called upon to review, and possibly override, the working committee's technical decision - it does not have the authority to do so. It was, however, involved in a decision as to whether or not the voting procedure at ISO correctly adhered to the formal criteria. Because the Steering Committee's decision did not relate to any technical issues or the content of the standard itself, but dealt solely with the formalities of the JTC 1 "fast track" procedure, i.e. adherence to procedural rules in the standardization process, DIN felt it was necessary to take a position on this matter. This is the reason the DIN staff member participated in the voting procedure and did not abstain, as is the rule in questions of technical content.

On 27 March 2008 the NIA Steering Committee members who were entitled to vote did NOT vote on approval or non-approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500 as an International Standard, but SOLELY on the regularity of the voting procedure itself. With a majority of 7 to 6, and 7 abstentions, the Steering Committee deemed the procedure as being in conformity with the rules, and thus had no reason to override the working committee's "YES" vote. Had the majority of the Steering Committee been convinced that the procedures for developing and voting on ISO/IEC DIS 29500 were in any way irregular, the German vote would have been changed to "ABSTAIN".

I read this to say, that the technical question "is Germany in favour of this standard?" degenerated to a vote on technicalities of the voting procedure, this gave a "tie" (6-6, 7 abstentions), and then, disregarding the usual protocol, the DIN representative gave themselves a vote and broke the tie in favour of standardizing OOXML on the fast track anyway, whereas the only effect of a no vote would have been, that it would have to be standardized on the normal track.

Would you trust a standard for food safety, if it was decided upon in this way?

OOo 3 *does* support OOXML, as do lots of others.

[SEMW]

This basically means that no-one else except Microsoft are capable of writing their OOXML files (and i don't think others can read them either). Why do you think Open Office still doesn't support the new OOXML files? . Ummm, the upcoming version of Openoffce (3.0) does support OOXML.

And NeoOffice supports it now.
As does Corel WordPerfect Office.
And Apple's iWork '08 (and Textedit. And the iPhone).
And Thinkfree Office.
And Gnumeric.
And QuickOffice.
And Dataviz' DocumentsToGo.
And Datawatch Monarch.
And Zoho Writer.
And Xpertdoc Studio.
(Shall I go on?)

Are you trolling; or just very, very misinformed?

At least SOMEBODY is throwning a temper tantrum!

[Anonymous Coward]

Waaaaaah! We didn't get our way! Waaaaaah!

Waaaaaah! Let's sue! Waaaaah!

Waaaah! The system only works when it agrees with us! Waaaaah!

Re:OOXML can and has been independently implemente

[man_of_mr_e]

You are aware that it's not even possible for Office to be compatible yet, right? What's OpenOffice's excuse, though? Why aren't they compatible with ODF 1.1 or 1.2?

Why do so many Slashdot members prefer ignorance?

[SEMW]

I do love Slashdot, but the apparent wish of the entire community to remain wilfully and childishly ignorant, insofar as Microsoft is concerned, is really quite disturbing.

The fact that content-free posts like " OOXML is such a foul, repugnant anti-standard " are repeatedly modded 'insightful' -- as are the myrad identical "OOXML is unimplementable because it includes undocumented tagss like autoSpaceLikeWord95" replies that inundate anyone who dares question the dogma of OOXMLBADBADBAD -- whereas any posts, such as the parent, which try to point out that autoSpaceLikeWord95 is actually documented perfectly well (albeit in the appendix rather than the main body due to its status as deprecated, as mandated by the ECMA), and give the relevent part of the spec are quickly modded down to Score: 0 and stay there...

It does make you wonder how many people are just ignorant, merely repeating what everyone else is saying because they haven't read the spec themselves (it is, after all, quite long); and how many are actually perfectly aware of the relevent facts but just don't like them.

Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/-1.

[SEMW]

Except, as has been pointed out here in the past by people who actually went through and read it, the OOXML "documented" standard is full of references to microsoft office internals, which _aren't_ documented in it. Except, as pointed out by people in comments on this article, those items have been flagged and fixed as per the comments raised on the initial draft. Would that be TFA, of this slashdot discussion? I can't find any references to flagging or fixing in TFA, and a vague reference to an ongoing slashdot debate is hardly authoritative. A quote or a link might be helpful.
Personally, I haven't heard about any comments being addressed in the MSOOXML spec. The reason you haven't seen any of the relevent references in any Slashdot discussion is that they're invariably modded down to 0 or -1, because Slashdot modders don't like it when reality disagrees with their anti-Microsoft POV. E.g., here's a link to someone quoting from the documentation for autoSpaceLikeWord95. Since, as any Red-blodded True Slashdotter will tell you, autoSpaceLikeWord95 is undocumented, quoting from the documentation is liable to disturb Slashdotters' world-view; it's easier to just stick your fingers in your ears, moderate down, and pretend it didn't happen.

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[NickFortune]

The reason you haven't seen any of the relevent references in any Slashdot discussion is that they're invariably modded down to 0 or -1, because Slashdot modders don't like it when reality disagrees with their anti-Microsoft POV. E.g., here's a link to someone quoting from the documentation for autoSpaceLikeWord95

All the more reason to link to the post in question if you're using it in support, as you quite rightly have in this case.

If I might just address a few words to Macthorpe (since he apparently reads every post in any conversation in which he posts) See, Macthorpe? How hard was that?

Coming back to your point, let me quote from the post you reference:

2.15.3.6 autoSpaceLikeWord95 (Incorrectly Adjust Text Spacing for Specific Unicode Ranges) This element specifies adjustments (detailed below) which should be applied to the spacing between adjoining regions of non-ideographic and ideographic text when the autoSpaceDE (Â2.3.1.2) and autoSpaceDN (Â2.3.13) elements have a value of true (or equivalent). This algorithm typically results in the following:

• An increase in the inter-character spacing added between non-ideographic and/or number characters and certain full-width characters
• No inter-character spacing between non-ideographic and/or number characters and certain half-width characters

Now, the trouble I have here, (and I say this as man who writes software for a living), is that while I see reference to an algorithm here, I don't see the algorithm specified. In the post you reference I see a description of what will typically happen in two (or possibly three - the wording seems unclear) cases, and it offers a single example.

Now this would be adequate for an in-house functional spec, where I might be asked to produce something kind-of-sort-of like what it says in the spec. But for an international standard that is supposed to enable interoperability between independently authored applications, the quoted passage is woefully inadequate.

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[Macthorpe]

Ohnoes! I didn't spoonfeed you freely available information, someone else did, and therefore you win the internets!

Grow up.

Re:Why do so many Slashdot members prefer ignoranc

[fritsd]

autoSpaceLikeWord95 wasn't documented in the original OOXML document; IIRC it was clarified for the first time by ECMA in their Disposition of Comments from Januari 2008 (response 34, page 223):

Agreed; we will fully define the information necessary to implement each compatibility setting which was not previously completely described. ...

Note the future tense.

Maybe, Slashdotters are just slow readers and haven't finished reading the 2293 pages of the Disposition of Comments in the past 3 months :-)

Besides, I'm not sure if it is actually a publically readable document: the version on the SC34 website (document #980) is locked and I'm not authorized to download it: DIS29500-2008-002.pdf

There's some meta-info about the document by Rick Jelliffe here: Interestingly, Jelliffe wrote:

There is a small chunk of comments that are out of scope (typically concerning IPR or procedural comments.) There is a small chunk which the Editor has decided are issues for the maintenance phase, not the fast-track process: these are typically how comments like âoeODF has feature X, why doesnâ(TM)t OOXML support it?â There is another chunk of issues where the Editor disagrees with the substance of the comment, but wants to address the issue by adding clarifying or helpful text to the specification: for example, the issue of bitmasks is handled by giving examplars of how to handle them in XSD, RELAX NG, Schematron, DTLL and XSLT.. And finally, another chunk where the Editor disagrees, and gives the rationale for the disagreement. These are typically where the comments cross ECMAâ(TM)s line in the sand: that no currently valid OOXML document should become invalid.

So I say: go UKUUG! Sue their pants off! (and I'm not even a Brit).

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[SEMW]

Now, the trouble I have here, (and I say this as man who writes software for a living), is that while I see reference to an algorithm here, I don't see the algorithm specified. The actual algorithm is:

Characters in the following Unicode ranges should be treated as ideographic, even though those characters are full-width forms of non-ideographic text: U+FF10-U+FF19, U+FF21-U+FF3A, and U+FF41-U+FF5A.
Characters in the following Unicode ranges should be treated as non-ideographic, even though those characters are ideographic: U+FF66-U+FF9F. Everything else is commentary.

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[NickFortune]

Grow up.

After you, sir.

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[Dahan]

Now, the trouble I have here, (and I say this as man who writes software for a living), is that while I see reference to an algorithm here, I don't see the algorithm specified.

Um, the algorithm is specified in the documentation for the autoSpaceDE and autoSpaceDN elements. What they're trying to say is that those two elements define spacing behavior for the gap between ideographic (i.e., Chinese/Japanese) text and non-ideographic (English, French, Russian, etc.) text. If the autoSpaceLikeWord95 compatibility setting is on, certain non-ideographic characters should be treated as if they were ideographic for the spacing algorithm's purposes, and vice versa.

As everyone on /. likes to say, the OOXML spec is 6000+ pages long. You're not going to get enough detail to implement the spec in a couple of paragraphs. My point was that all the undocumented "do such-and-such like some obsolete version of Word" that everyone points out as an example of how horrible the standard is have since been documented since those objections were raised. I wasn't trying to give you enough information to implement OOXML in a /. post.

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[NickFortune]

Actually, on a second reading, that does indeed look suitably precise. I would like it worded a little less ambiguously, especially given some of the creative interpretations of standards MS have made in the past, but yeah, that looks like it might be sufficient.

I'll still be very surprised if they've addressed all the issues considered at the BRM, let alone all the comments from the national standards bodies.

Re:Of course you haven't seen them, they're all 0/

[NickFortune]

Um, the algorithm is specified in the documentation for the autoSpaceDE and autoSpaceDN elements.

Yes, yes, conceeded.

I wasn't trying to give you enough information to implement OOXML in a /. post.

No, and I wasn't trying suggest that quoted passage was inadequate for any purposes beyond implementing the autoSpaceLikeWord95 behavior. My apologies for any confusion on that point.