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ISO Rejects OOXML Protest Appeals
snydeq writes "ISO and IEC gave OOXML the greenlight after organization leaders rejected appeals from four countries to protest the vote that approved OOXML as a standard. According to an ISO press statement, appeals by the national bodies of Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela did not garner support from two-thirds of the members of the ISO Technical Management Board and IEC Standardization Management Board, which is required by ISO/IEC rules to keep the appeals process alive."
See NoOOXML, OpenDot, NoOOXML">Boycott Novell and Groklaw for better analysis. People are very angry about this and they should be.
Keep using OpenOffiec? I know, it sounds drastic but if everyone did and didn't give a damn about what ISO does, wouldn't that be enough?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't get why MS really even *cares* about OOXML passing or failing. The .doc "standard" (and I use that term loosely) was still used even with it being very closed. If MS wants to use an open format then there is nothing wrong with using the more open (and vastly superior) Open Document Format. But I don't really see the motivation in trying to get OOXML to pass...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
RIP ISO 2008
Correct NoOOXML link. This was one of the first and best of the bunch.
Historically, it always ends in fighting.
Armed revolution.
Foreign takeover.
Collapse into anarchy.
Breed like rabbits, vote against the current leaders, and get labeled undesirable and attacked.
Pick your poison.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Nice to see that the price for ISO members was high enough to prevent appeals from going through.
Standards for sale.
Act now before the prices go up.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
So inertia is going to dump more crap on the world, so it seems. How a 'respected' body like ISO can let this slip through, particularly in the face of all the wheeling and dealing (corruption?) that's gone on during the voting process is depressing.
The IE6 of office software is upon us.
Smivs on the intertubes!
Thats how we got into this mess in the first place. Rather than accepting ISO decision to make ODF the international standard. Micrsoft decided everyone already uses office, so we'll use that instead. Microsoft doesn't really give a damn if OOXML passes or not. They just want to be able to say they are standards compliant(easy to do when you define what that standard is). ODF is still a standard as well though, although I don't know what good will come of there being two standards.
So, the ISO needs to allocate a defense budget now. Excellent; let's hope they use Excel to crunch the numbers.
The ISO press statement continues:
"... We're corrupt, and we're proud!"
It wouldn't be enough (though it's certainly better than nothing). I doubt that MS actually expects anyone to use OOXML, as it is pretty close to impossible to implement. But when they have to go before government agencies in various countries to answer for their monopolistic, unfair business practices they get to say, "we contributed an open document standard, and we're a big contributor to the Apache Foundation. Heck, we're all about open source and freedom!" And since government bureaucrats are not exactly the hardest people to trick when it comes to technology issues, that will carry a lot of weight. And "membership" has other benefits, which can be leveraged to poison the whole pot.
MS is simply buying its way in to "OSS", just as it has done with so many more traditional competitors before destroying them. This is very, very bad.
Caveat Utilitor
What can you do? Pick one: soap box, ballot box, natalie portman's box, ammo box. Note that the first 2 have been ineffective, and the 3rd is overrated.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Keep using OpenOffice? I know, it sounds drastic but if everyone did and didn't give a damn about what ISO does, wouldn't that be enough?
Thing is, it OOXML were a good standard, or even a standard in the sense that it actually documented something which was implementable.. then there wouldn't be such an outcry.
ISO exists because of an information/communication bottleneck which no longer exists to quite the same extent today. The need to have a central repository of standards outweighed the requirement for fitness of those individual standards.
But, given the multiple documented abuses of process, ISO is actually propelling us rapidly towards a future where more standards are able to be created and maintained outside of the vast bureaucratic machine. I'd credit F/OSS before ISO, but the latter are accelerating the process.
The damage to the standard has been done. There has been so much negative press swirling around OOXML that ISO approval at this point is largely symbolic and meaningless.
Microsoft shot itself in the foot by trying to bribe national ISO members instead of keeping it on the downlow and improving OOXML to appease those obsessive standard-freaks. But then again, this is Microsoft we're talking about.
I'm not a luddite and would gladly try new things (including Microsoft things), but my perception of OOXML is so low based on all the news stories I've read that I'd rather switch to papyrus than save a document in .docx
AC, your detailed technical analysis has convinced me to never trust Groklaws again. Thank you for such an insightful and objective assertion of opinion as, "unlike most readers, whenever the criticism was of a technical nature, I went to the spec itself and checked. ... those sites often lied about objective matters of fact." Such excellence is par for the course with AC comments. How can I ever thank you for saving me from "ignorance"?
I know which of those sounds more fun....
I wager that 95% of the members of Congress never heard about any of this. Write them. Tell them how you feel. Educate them on the issue. Maybe one of them will actually give a damn.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I think that the ISO just proved they are just another group of administrative people and have nothing to do with good reliable standards.
ISO/OSI 7 layer model, anyone?
its a paper thing but almost never real running code. CMIP anyone? no? you prefer snmp which actually WORKS and is a real standard?
yes, ISO is a laughing stock. the wars between the IETF guys and the OSI guys were funny to watch some 20 yrs ago. IETF did real stuff and OSI just measurebated (yes, intentional misspelling).
nothing really new here.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Exactly what would there be to investigate? Is paying an employee to write on a blog against the law?
To stick with your theme: Income Siphoning Organization.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Seems like "Because we hate Microsoft" isn't a compelling enough reason for the ISO.
True, but "unimplementable" should be.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Is that a carrot in your pocket, or...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
100% of the members of Congress won't give a shit unless there is a huge check attached to the letter you are planning to write.
It is not about "We head Microsoft", it is about the fact that something like WordWrapLikeWord95 should not exist in an ISO standard.
...
BTW: There was a very interesting graph in the German magazine c't. The essence was as follows:
XHTML: ~100 pages, ~400 days of standardization process
ODF: ~800 pages, ~900 days
SVG: ~600 pages. ~1050 days
SOAP: ~200 pages, ~950 days
OOXML: ~6500 pages, ~350 days.
You've no idea how incredible that looks in a graph...
I guess most of the countries' representatives ond't effectively govern as well as you could. Too bad you can't rule the world and bring us the Utopia in your head :)
Mine is Good
Anyone who has been following this story knows that OOXML needs a lot of work. That's not to say OOXML couldn't be a good standard someday but as of today it has many issues with it. Such an immature and incomplete implementation should not be a standard until those issues were resolved and should have not been fast-tracked. But instead of acknowledging the flaws, you're trying to introduce a red herring by complaining about an two people complaining on their own blogs about OOXML. How is this in any way relevant to OOXML being a poor standard?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Breed like rabbits
That's not really a viable suggestion for slashdot. Breed like robots maybe.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
What *we* can do when the goverments, corporations and organisations are corrupted and we cant turn to ask help from them, because those who has power, controls those who could help us....?
Despite the name, ISO is not an international organization in the same sense as e.g. WTO or WIPO are international organizations with countries as members. ISO is simply a cartel of national "standardization organizations". Everyone has the right to start an organization to compete with them. I believe that ISO is so strongly committed to acting in the best interest of the dinosaurs that there is no real alternative anymore to doing this. If you agree, please join us at OpenISO.org.
The net result of this mess looks like no program can claim to be standards compliant. No one other than M$ will be able to support OOXML due to the incomplete specification and M$ has shown no interest in supporting ODF.
I guess most of the countries' representatives ond't effectively govern as well as you could. Too bad you can't rule the world and bring us the Utopia in your head :)
Who do you think that these wonderful leaders are? They put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me. Most of the bureaucrats who prepare these decisions are no more educated than you or I. Governments, even authoritarian ones, are the people.
What's more, I live in a democratic republic, and in such a system, the people must participate or it fails. Questioning government positions is part of what you call a country's "political discourse," which is necessary for the society as a whole to come to a coherent decision that expresses itself in elections.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Last year I was in a car accident. Someone rear-ended me and totaled my car. The insurance agent called me, and without seeing the car or knowing any facts, said I was 15% liable for being rear-ended. I didn't speed, I stayed in my lane, etc. I called a lawyer who said I was screwed. There wasn't enough money to justify fighting the case in court. The body shop guy said he saw it ever day in my state, that the insurance company wouldn't pay the full claim and just screwed people if the case was small enough to stay out of court. He saw someone parked on the street had their car totaled, and the insurance company said they were partially liable for being parked on the street legally. If the car wasn't on the road, it never would have been hit.
I was furious, so I called my state senator to talk about the partial liability law. We have term limits, so he wasn't up for reelection and wouldn't personally benefit, but he called me back several times to get info. He researched the law, and several cases like mine where we were ripped off. Then he went into legislation and fixed the law.
Sometimes there are a few decent people in office who want to do good. But if you never bring these things to their attention, nothing will ever be done.
Contacting your elected officials may not work, but it beats doing nothing.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
You don't say "Call to them" do you? There are times that prepositions are optional. "Write them a letter" is acceptable grammatically, and so is "write them".
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
You are on Slashdot. I don't think seeing them first would be necessary.
CmdrTaco is a Twitter sock-puppet.
Maybe Twitter is a CmdrTaco sock-puppet. ;)
My blog
Microsoft doesn't really give a damn if OOXML passes or not. They just want to be able to say they are standards compliant
Ironically, they are NOT compliant with the version of OOXML that ISO/IEC approved, which isn't the same as the version of OOXML that ECMA originally handed them. (It's not even clear that the ECMA OOXML spec conformed fully to what Microsoft Office does, but that's a moot point now.)
-- Alastair
I understand that OpenOffice does not absolutely conform to the ODF standard. If we can convince a beancounter that the letter of the law must be obeyed and that what MSOffice makes does not meet that requirement, MS will be able to point out that OOo doesn't fit the bill perfectly, either. So is there a plugin or something for OOo that allows creating 100% compliant ODF files?
Maybe Twitter is a CmdrTaco sock-puppet. ;)
Recursive insanity ensues.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Microsoft doesn't really give a damn if OOXML passes or not. They just want to be able to say they are standards compliant
Ironically, they are NOT compliant with the version of OOXML that ISO/IEC approved, which isn't the same as the version of OOXML that ECMA originally handed them. (It's not even clear that the ECMA OOXML spec conformed fully to what Microsoft Office does, but that's a moot point now.)
I'm sure Microsoft are much happier with the idea of tweaking the XML output in a future service pack then they are with having to compete on a level playing field with OpenOffice.
No, because I've been reading all the articles. You'll find that there is plenty there to be pissed off about.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Furthermore, Microsoft said they won't even attempt to get Office 2007 to support it via a Service Pack. Instead, they won't attempt to support that standard until the next version of Office at the earliest, and that could mean at any point in that product's life span.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I tend to look at it like this...
If nobody speaks up, Microsoft has won. There are a lot of underhanded business practices that MS has "gotten away with" because nobody cared to speak up. If people just let it die off, it opens door for other companies to undermine the standards practices because "people will soon forget."
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I think what the numbers mean is: the more impossible something is, the less time I want to spend reviewing it. SVG is worth getting right; OOXML is worth nothing.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Most of the bureaucrats who prepare these decisions are no more educated than you or I.
And probably less so.
My brother wants to go into law, and is considering politics from there. While understanding of the law is great, I'd rather have a politician who could quit politics and immediately get employment in some form of skilled labor.
Von Neumann machines?
Good to see that technical merit is no match for dogged mediocrity. Or in this case Microsofts pocket book. Once they buy something it stays bought!
I think we should look at this as a property rights issue. When someone sends you information in a Doc format, and you don't own Office, then Microsoft should be concerned as denying your right to the information encoded on that document.
They can code all proprietary apps they like, but when my data is concerned, the means to access it should be open and public. Otherwise it's holding property for ransom, plain and simple.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
I so need to become a leader. I've been putting on my pants both legs at the same time just so that I can tell people that I'm not like them. I've also been working on a solution to put on both of my socks at the same time just in case it ever comes up.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Dang, just ran out of mod points. The idea of representatives being people who want to do the right thing is considered naive, but even if writing them once in a while would produce a result like this, it's worth it. Good for you!
It is not about "We head Microsoft", it is about the fact that something like WordWrapLikeWord95 should not exist in an ISO standard.
Sure it is, if the goal of the standard is to offer forward compatibility of legacy documents.
Most of the objections around here seem to beg the question of the goals of OOXML, which are different from ODF.
My video compression blog
Most people don't care enough about learning how to use a computer and I think in general most people don't like learning anything. They know Windows and will stick by anything Microsoft does because Microsoft is familiar.
That's true; it would suck for Microsoft if Open Office was able to compete on a level playing field. Fortunately for Microsoft (for now anyway), Open Office can't complete on a level playing field. It's only when you sway the playing field with pre-requirements like "must be open source" or "must run on Linux" or even "must use a legitimate ISO standard for file storage" that Open Office competes and wins. It doesn't win on Windows machines because, quite frankly, Open Office is inferior to MS Office today. May not be true in 4 years (read that "where will Linux be in 4 years story yesterday), but it is for sure true now.
Does Open Office meet a lot of home users needs? Yes, no doubt - it does.
Is it better than MS Office? In some cases, yes. The right tool for the right job and all that. MS Office may be overkill in some scenarios and Open Office sure wins on the budget front.
But in the business world the cost of MS Office doesn't outweigh the fact that MS Office can do more, and do it more quickly still today than Open Office can.
But then, Slashdot is now a pro-Microsoft camp - so why all the belly-aching? I see so much praise heaped up on Microsoft here nowadays that I wonder if they'd forgotten OSS and *nix which was their original focus and forgotten the damage Microsoft has perpetuated on the computing industry as a whole. After all, it's not FAT32.com - it's Slashdot.com - but then who here even knows what that stands for anymore?
Uh... WTF? Is this just stuff added onto the end of your post to get extra modpoints because your point is just that Microsoft bribed people.... with 0 evidence that bribery took place? I'm not saying that MS is squeaky clean in all this, but you just made a nebulous accusation without backing it up with substance, and then spent the bulk of your post on psychological misdirection to pander to Slashdot's moderators.... Hey wait! All flash and no substance, you don't write speeches for politicians do you?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
... continuing, Microsoft ISO will be re-branding and release thier flagship ISO product line:
ISO Office
- The professional version includes ISO Access
ISO Works
ISO Internet Explorer
ISO OS (previously called ISO Windows, removed the Windows name to help avoid confusion so corporate consumers will know "ISO OS" is an official ISO product.)
After the new product roll out, MS plans to re-evaluate its current acquired portfolio of ISO standard offerings and "...cancel or re-vamp those that are not in MS customers' best interest; to better suit the Microsoft ecology." as stated by an MS marketing rep.
(just in case someone is reading this, seriously, It's a joke, dude! Really!)
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
That is entirely true, which is why Plato argued that people should have superior education. Now, in the modern world, what constitutes superior eduction? Superior to what Plato knew of? Superior to what they have now? Or superior to the standard required to understand the basics of contemporary life, the technologies and societies within it, and the interactions between them? I would argue that that last option should define the minimum standard acceptable for anyone, that better should be encouraged but that since all people have some input to geopolitics, major business decisions, community policies that are likely to have a wider impact, and so on, we should never tolerate a standard of ignorance that perpetuates ignorance and harm.
Arguably, what I'm asking for is not going to be easy or cheap, but if you optimize the quality of the population, you must also optimize their ability to function together, their ability to make good decisions, and their ability to reduce unnecessary damage. At some point, the additional value brought will equal the additional cost to improve standards. That is the "ideal" point, as any more investment is burning money with no benefits and could be put elsewhere for better gain.
A "utopian" society is not a stress-free society by this standard, and there'll still be plenty of bigotry and abuse. Rather, a "utopian" society by this standard is the greatest ability and greatest freedom to choose a different path, with the least possible negative consequences for not being selfish and harmful, because people will have the understanding and tools to make genuine choices, not choices they have copied from someone else without really knowing why, or choices out of fear. To me, "utopia" isn't about perfection, it's about balance. Better understanding with no means of using that understanding isn't more "perfect" than a balance between the two. Nor is superior technology than our ability to understand what it does, why, and whether there are longer-term effects that need to be considered.
Technology should not be held back in fear, nor should understanding. By my definition of "utopia", if one is racing ahead, you should develop the counterpart until it catches up. (As a completely pointless exercise, I came up with six variables you'd need to push hard on, to keep them as close together as possible, to produce the most stable and most enlightened civilization that can be achieved at that time. I believe firmly that allowing any of those six variables to backslide will invariably destabilize society and corrupt understanding, and that all civilizations that have ever declined have done so with that being the core reason, the actual mechanics being a mere secondary effect resulting from this primary cause.)
I believe that the ignorance shown by the ISO board is a direct consequence of that board being unbalanced by my definition. It has poor understanding of the engineering and an even poorer understanding of the social consequences, simply so that it can play with shiny new toys. If there's such a thing as reincarnation, we now know what happens to cats when they die - they become board directors.
I fully accept that there'll be plenty of people who disagree with my notion of "utopia" being a state of optimized relative dynamic equilibrium, where the absolute states are always increasing, and it'd probably be a lot of people's idea of a dystopia, as it is inherently restless and requires active intervention rather than allowing the different markets to independently determine their relative pace. I also agree that a regulated balancing act of this kind may in fact not be achievable in practice, but I've yet to hear any convincing argument as to why not, only the usual stuff about big governments, which doesn't even apply to this.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You've no idea how incredible that looks in graph...
You've now have an idea how incredible that looks in graph...
At Slashdot, only if it's Microsoft...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Seriously. ISO has no power of any kind over anyone. ISO only has any power or value as long as people belive ISO is worth listening to. If we all simply ignore ISO in every way we can, then they will dry up and blow away. Problem solved.
If that's the goal of the standard, then it ought to actually define what "like Word 95" means, rather than effectively saying "how Word 95 word wraps is so convoluted that we can't define it here".
Can do more isn't a benefit to most anyone who can afford continual licensing. That is, they realise who it is in their organisation that really needs "more" and who need nothing more than a glorified WordPad. There are other things that provide value to the business (same program their clients/vendors use = interoperability; everyone has it so everyone knows it; brand recognition; ease of finding training for those who don't know it; someone to yell at if something breaks, aka support), and we can debate on how much value should be placed on each, but I don't think "can do more" is generally of any value to most users.
"That's true; it would suck for Microsoft if Open Office was able to compete on a level playing field."
Given that a level playing field would require history to change (i.e. a timeline in which most people didn't use MS Office), it might suck for a lot of people.
..and why exactly is the GPL unethical?
It is not about "We head Microsoft", it is about the fact that something like WordWrapLikeWord95 should not exist in an ISO standard.
Slashdotters are so ignorant on OOXML yet speak so authoritatively on the subject.
WordWrapLikeWord95 isn't in the ISO standard as an opaque concept like it was in the ECMA standard. WordWrapLikeWord95, et al, are fully detailed in the ISO standard as to exactly what you'd need to do to implement them, should you wish to do so. (Those settings have also been deprecated, only for use when reading the small percentage of old documents that originally used those settings; new documents should not use them, period.)
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2008/01/18/suppresstopspacingwp-compat-settings-1.aspx
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
because he said so
1) why would that warrant an investigation?
2) be specific about this "FUD" what did IBM say that was untrue? if you can not be specific, then it's clear to me that you are just lying.
Better yet, why don't you tell us the name of your (former?) insurance company, so that people know better than to do business with them?
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
I never understood this thing about putting your pants (we call them trousers over here) on one leg at a time. You sit on the edge of your bed, fold your legs up, and slide them simultaneously into both trouser legs. It's much easier than doing them sequentially - why would anyone do that?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The "messy" tags and features are non-conforming (AKA deprecated). They are in the spec only because they have to be documented somewhere for browser creators. If you wrote browser that doesn't support <font> & co., even google.com wouldn't render properly (try gaining market share with such browser).
software that is. the only people who decide what goes as standards are developers of software. if individual developers and software houses do not like OOXML and make their software accommodate it, it doesnt have a snowball's chance in hell, REGARDLESS of what you chant around. REGARDLESS of who microsoft or any other company bribes, regardless of which country mandates which standard, whichever standard wins the most support from programmers, developers, whomever creates software, will be the winner.
Read radical news here
And seeing as those legacy documents are stored in a format that is not, in fact, OOXML, how does WordWrapLikeWord95 help? A format conversion will be required anyway, so as long as the new target format has flexible enough word wrap specification, there is no need for something as specific as WordWrapLikeWord95.
The only case in which it makes any sense, and what probably is the case, is that OOXML is just a direct conversion of the old binary formats. The tag and attribute names actually often look like they were taken from the source code for old formats. Which makes it pretty easy for MS to implement the file format - they already had the code (with all the now standard-enforced bugs to boot). And about as hard for everyone else as the binary formats have been.
They also don't show the results of going the other way - saving in one of the other apps and opening in the 'reference implementation.' They are not comparing any product's implementation of either spec. If MS Office produced something completely unrelated to OOXML then you would likely get the same results due to reverse-engineering attempts by the other products.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Further, there are mathematical differences between the spec and what Microsoft Office does. Now which do you think an implementor will implement? Your interoperability study is based on reverse engineering, not on following any OOXML specification.
Yet further, there are defects remaining in OOXML that were not addressed and that prevent interoperability. When you try to make a specification in such a short period of time this is to be expected.
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
It seems that the next step should be for the objecting nations' standards bodies to withdraw from ISO and refuse to rejoin until the current management has been replaced. If more than half of the members withdraw then they should simply create a replacement body.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
did not garner support from two-thirds of the members of the ISO Technical Management Board and IEC Standardization Management Board, which is required by ISO/IEC rules to keep the appeals process alive.
Oh sure, now they start following the rules!
ISO Wakes from 350-Day Drinking Binge, Wonders What the Hell It Just Approved
(from the oh-man-what-a-hangover dept.)
ISO and IEC have just woken up from a 350-day drinking binge during which Microsoft footed the bill. ``It's great to be drinking with pals like ISO and IEC. Our bartenders told about 6,500 pages worth of stories, and they lapped up everything,'' stated a Microsoft spokesman. ISO and IEC simplied replied with, ``Wow, I've never seen such a liquor cabinet! Wait, did we approve something last night? Microsoft kept asking if we wanted another round of shots, and then if we wanted another round of word-wrapping styles. I can't remember what we were saying yes to... owww, my head...''
ISO and IEC lamented that there were ``these four dudes trying to crash the party'' who kept insisting that they stop drinking, sober up, and pay attention to that to which they were agreeing.
An anonymous Microsoft programmer wrote in: ``People have always just thought it was code and feature bloat, but the higher-ups have been strategizing about this for years. Nobody else can compete with a programming team of this size. Management always says more code is better... right?''
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Correction:
Is that you, Jason Matusow?
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
It wasn't my insurance company. The company insured the guy who hit me, and they were State Farm.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What you really need is a scatter plot. (Note: I'm deciphering the Google Chart API as I write this; check for a link in a reply to this post.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Also, I wonder if it would be better with a logarithmic scale (which the API doesn't appear to support)?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Is there a small claims court kinda thing in your state and would that have worked?
They're still stupid, though. Why? Because there are no old documents that originally used them because all those old documents are written in formats other than OOXML! And if you're converting them, why don't you just go ahead and do those "fully detailed" things and skip the deprecated tag altogether?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I would say the problem is the "design" of Open XML, not the details.
The sad thing is, all those people who "need nothing more than a glorified WordPad" don't even need that either. All they actually need is WordPad, or maybe even NotePad.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Maybe this is what you are looking for: the Hague Declaration for open standards.
In regards to the "WordWrapLikeWord95" part, I believe all those kinds of things have been removed from the spec.
As far as I can tell... it's not even in the Wiki article any more (or someone's moved it e.t.c)
Good point. Of course, if an app only needs ODF level accuracy to the original, any app implementing OOXML can just ignore those more esoteric tags. And it certainly never would need to write them. Think x86 assembly; the ancient instructions are still supported for backwards compatibility (albeit slowly), but only a subset is used in practice by modern compliers.
Sure, it'd be very difficult for any third party to implement support for the legacy tags. But it's there if they can figure it out, and it at least gives a way forward to make legacy files XML structured for easier searching and maipulation.
If you assume the goal of OOXML is to make a documented XML format that supports the features of all existing Office files, it makes a whole lot of sense. And it's a handy thing have, compared to the binary formats.
Some people may think that's not a worthwhile goal, but it's important to recognize what something is designed to do before complaining it's designed badly for how a particular person imagines using it.
My video compression blog
We didn't mind HD-DVD and Blu-Ray battling it out but when it comes to a Microsoft format... ATTAAAACK.
The idiom probably predates the common person owning an elevated bed. I've always assumed that it sprung from the fact that a manservant WOULD put their masters pants on both legs at once while their master was sitting on an elevated bed.
A commoner, having a flat pallet for a bed, would slide one leg of their breeches on and then the other as holding both legs off the ground at once is quite a challenge for most people.
What any of this has to do with ooxml I really have no idea.
http://www.unicam.state.ne.us/web/public/senators/bios/synowiecki
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Yes. I could have filed in small claims court. I'm not sure if I would have to go after State Farm or the agent individually. Honestly, I wasn't as concerned with the money (I bought a new car) as the principle. 15% of the claim didn't bankrupt me, but I didn't want to see this practice continue and affect others.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I think what the numbers mean is: the more impossible something is, the less time I want to spend reviewing it.
Then reject it. Approving it because you don't want to see it is almost like marrying someone because you hate him.
If rejected (through the longer process, rather than fast track), the ISO committee never has to see the spec again. If accepted, now they are responsible for maintaining it.
Both. Also the procedures used to get this mess officially anointed as a Standard. ("Standard" has to be capitalized in that sentence, because the only sense in which it is a standard is a a part of the name of the ISO.)
A standard is supposed to be the appropriate way to do something. The ISO fails this totally. It's not just that it favors one company over everyone else, it's that the standard as voted on was never seen by those voting. It appears that this "standard" will be something that can't be implemented by anyone (except in the trivial sense that allows a claim the cp is an implementation). An organization that approves such a farce as a Standard is not deserving of any regard or respect.
Note that the standard is so broken that, in a trivial sense, nearly anything can claim to be standards compliant, and in a stronger sense it appears that nobody can implement it. But there are also no tests for compliance, so anyone can claim to be complaint without fear. As such it's totally worthless. Two standards compliant programs cannot be relied upon to read and write the same files, and perhaps not even their own.
N.B.: This is not an argument based upon the standard as adopted. That apparently hasn't been written yet.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Deserves what they get.
To anyone even moderately clueful, even from 200 yards the whiff of SharePoint says: Run away! Do not walk, run! This is not going to help you or your business in any way! This is a tarpit from which you and your data will never escape. You will be tied into Windows and whatever other tortures arrive down the pike - if you don't Just Turn Around Now and RUN! Microsoft has PLANS for you and your money... Locking up your data forever is just a means to an end...
It's extortion. Theft. Deception. And it's time we stopped tolerating it, because we know better - the Open Web itself is proof of technology and ideals that are the civilised alternative to anything Microsoft ever plotted.
you had me at #!
Well, no, but you don't say "call down this message" or "the calling is on the wall" either. They're entirely different words used entirely differently.
"Write them" is lazy and wrong. It just is. It's from the same bunch that brought you "could care less" and "anyways".
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That's what she said!
2^5
ISO 9660 anyone?
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Yah, your chart may be technically accurate, but mine has more punch... I have a good friend that's a PhD brain that does statistical analysis for a living... he could fill in the blanks. The only issue is though it needs to show how sucky this situation is as well as be accurate... :P
To be honest, I was hoping it'd turn out a lot better than it did. I wanted there to be a nice diagonal line for the rest of the standards, with OOXML way off it. Unfortunately, the line was more vertical than diagonal, and it needs more data points. : (
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
http://www.robweir.com/blog/images/rick.png
i would say that people did speak up. even the members of the iso shouted about this and microsoft still won. speaking up just isn't enough when you're fighting a gorilla with 30 billion dollars profit each year.
ODF 1.0 has many defects as well and OASIS is only now trying to correct them several years after submitting the standard to ISO.
The Wraith http://ooxmlhoaxes.blogspot.com/
On the other hand: ODF was put trough ISO in 5,5 months OOXML took more than 15 months
The Wraith http://ooxmlhoaxes.blogspot.com/
Got a reference?
The ISO standard format for computer office suite online help systems: a talking paperclip.
Who do you think that these wonderful leaders are? They put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me. Most of the bureaucrats who prepare these decisions are no more educated than you or I. Governments, even authoritarian ones, are the people..
not mine, in the People's Democratic Wprker's Paradise Republic of Elbonia, Microsoft provides us with 3 employess, on holders our Glorious Leaders pants open while the other two pick him up and slowly lower him into his pants!
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Microsoft knows ISO/IEC is a big hurdle to get complete control over the software market, with this Microsoft has succeeded in corrupting ISO/IEC. Exactly the thing Microsoft wants to happen. Even worse, Microsoft managed to do this with a lot of attention from the community... which was exactly the plan of Microsoft.
The community conviniently went out of its way and made a *lot* of noise about this.
OOXML was intended to damage ISO/IEC, nothing more. And we took the bait, hook and sinker.
Questions remaining: who managed to manipulate the board into doing this? When is this corruption going to be investigated by some justice departments? What will Microsoft's next move be?
Microsoft submitted OOXML to the international standards body Ecma International in November 2005 as an attempt to fast-track it through the ISO. Despite protests and criticisms, that process eventually proved successful on April 1, when the ISO approved OOXML as a standard.
On Wednesday, Microsoft said it will not have support for the current ISO specific for OOXML until it releases the next version of Office, code-named Office 14. The company has not said when that software will be available. Update: Microsoft to support ODF, PDF in Office next year
I guess we'll see when they actually try to do it, we'll all laugh hysterically if it turns into another Vista disaster and they can't cut features because they are locked into an ISO standard!
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I was originally thinking along the lines you were - but now I'm not so sure. I think under the right conditions they could get bitten by this, and hard.
It certainly depends on how the laws and regulations regarding these standards are written. In the best places they'll have reviewed the standard and found it lacking, but obviously that's not most places. However, depending on the language, failure of the standard to REALLY be open may be a legally binding requirement on them - and that their software is actually compliant with the standards will almost certainly be.
Now, I'd be amazed if any govt org that was duped by OOXML in the first place would then later sue MS for breach of contract. But where they really might get screwed is that, I THINK, they wouldn't have to. Because the government per se isn't the only hurt party. Potentially a class of all citizens who pay taxes there are, if you get a zealous class action attorney.
But there ALSO is definite and direct harm to any competitor who was trying to peddle e.g. ODF, if an MS product wins a contract with an openness clause and you can demonstrate - which you can - that they didn't actually implement OOXML. Going up against MS isn't a lawsuit for the faint of heart, but for someone with a big enough pocketbook, the payoff could potentially be huge... OOXML could have precedent-setting bans against such use, which would leave a significant void for... *drumroll* a company who was peddling e.g. ODF - especially a company that just beat MS and presumably got press about it.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
it pretty effectively shows how little consideration time was put into each page of OOXML spec compared to other specifications
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you must be new around here, the OOXM/ISOL brouhaha was pretty mild for Microsoft; usually they kill the men, rape the women and eat the children.
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They both suck, LaTeX rawks forever! WYSIWYG is for L0s3rs, Kiddies and Old People in Korea; real men edit their LaTeX source files in ED!
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You sir have never watched rabbits breeding, they go like Michael Phelps for 20 seconds then fall over like they were pole-axed; doesn't look like fun to me, I think they died every time I see it.
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isn't that what they call guerrilla marketing?
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"You're a Slashdotter. Are you spouting ignorance regarding OOXML? Or are you spouting lies regarding OOXML? Those are the only two choices right?"
As a matter of fact, no, those aren't the only two choices.
Let me spell it out for you:
In the sentence "Slashdotters continue to spout either ignorance or lies regarding OOXML", "Slashdotters" does not mean "All slashdotters", it means "Slashdotters, in general". Anyone with a gradeschool level reading comprehension would understand that (it's very sad that that doesn't include you).
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
The laughs on you, I edit LaTeX source with Emacs you insensitive clod
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Ah, but OpenOffice explicitly doesn't support OOXML - it supports a reverse-engineered version of Microsoft Office's version of OOXML. Since they're creating the documents in MS Office, all that's saying is that a software that's put a lot of effort into being interoperable with Microsoft Office has managed to mostly achieve it. (Also, you'll notice that each list contains different software, and that where a piece of software is on both lists its compatibility scores for OOXML and ODF are very similar. It looks like the score depends more on the quality of the software than of the standard, which isn't surprising - it's probably mainly influenced by what features each piece of software supports, rather than by its support for the two document formats.)
My personal suspicion is that they've dug themselves into a hole. There's at least one minor change required for compliance with the ISO OOXML standard (a change in the strings used for true/false values in one place) that will render the document unreadable to any application not aware of the change, and I suspect that includes current versions of Microsoft Office. If they released a service pack that broke interoperability like that, their customers would not be happy.
Basically, they needed to either not implement OOXML before it was standardised or to keep a closer control on the standardisation process, and they failed on both counts.
I don't agree with Miguel's superbity claim but the spec is not that bad. The problem it the format's design and licensing conditions.
Thing is, if OOXML were not from Microsoft, then there wouldn't be such an outcry.
Fixed your typo for ya.
But seriously, OOXML (i.e. ECMA 376) is implimentable, and has been implimented, both in mainstream and niche products. Since ISO/IEC 29500 hasn't even been published yet, it's hard to say if the same is true for that too, but seeing as the two are supposibly rather similar, it prolly is.
I was under the impression that it was unimplementable as it referred to opaque things like "implement this feature like Word 95 does" -- but I haven't gone through the specs myself.
As to your other point - yes - some people will always love to hate Microsoft, but I don't think that is the sole reason for the outcry.
Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records!
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I was under the impression that it was unimplementable as it referred to opaque things like "implement this feature like Word 95 does" -- but I haven't gone through the specs myself.
As to your other point - yes - some people will always love to hate Microsoft, but I don't think that is the sole reason for the outcry.
I guess the problem is the difference between "implimentable" and "fully implimentable". Tags like autoSpaceLikeWord95 were only meant to be for legacy compatability, and aren't really necessary. (IMHO, they could of just set autospacing to whatever Word 95 had it, but perhaps it gets too tricky in places to handle/clean up later.)
Of cause, as a result of the BRM, ISO/IEC 29500 apparently now documents what tags such as autoSpaceLikeWord95 actually entail. So, that's a Good Thing. Eh.
About The Other Thing, I think there were some legitimate issues, but they got drowned out by the rest of us, who get a little too passionate at times. Our tendacy to attack or defend sometimes gets the better of us. It's what we do.