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Office 2007SP2 ODF Interoperability Very Bad

David Gerard writes "Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 claims support for ODF 1.1. With hard work and careful thinking, they have successfully achieved technical compliance but zero interoperability! MSO 2007sp2 won't read ODF 1.1 from any other existing application, and its ODF is only readable by the CleverAge plugin. The post goes into detail as to how it manages this so thoroughly."

14 of 627 comments (clear)

  1. A good signal.... by DavidR1991 · · Score: -1, Troll

    ... that the whole "We're no longer evil" rubbish that has been coming from MS recently really is just that: rubbish. (Not that many fully believed it though)

    If they were even attempting to gain some external trust from FOSS communities and the like (which I believe they stated they were with the whole MS open source initiative etc.) this is an excellent way to soil it.

  2. 34 Years of crappy code. by 1s44c · · Score: -1, Troll

    Microsoft - getting rich with crappy code since '75.

  3. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You must be American *grin*

  4. Re:What did we expect? by theaveng · · Score: -1, Troll

    >>>While this is Microsoft and we all "know" that this was intentional, ODF is what should be fixed first.

    Here's a Kleenex (tm). You got some brown stuff on your nose.

    >>>We were all bashing OOXML specifications, but ODF 1.1's far from perfect, as we can see.

    Oh my gosh. What is this smelly stuff around my feet? Ugh. And it's rising!

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  5. Re:What did we expect? by theaveng · · Score: -1, Troll

    I like Apple. I put their OS X onto an old 400 megahertz/128 megabyte machine, not really expecting much, and it ran like a dream!

    Try that with Vista or XP and it either won't fit and/or will run like a snail through molasses.

    --
    FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
  6. Chickens are coming home to roost by benjymouse · · Score: 1, Troll

    So let me get this straight:

    • There is a problem with ODF being incomplete in several areas. Yet we hear ridicule over how the OOXML spec is 6000+ pages and ODF a mere 2000?
    • There are multiple problems with OpenOffice ODF compliance (inherited by derived suites). Yet, this is somehow a Microsoft problem?
    • One the one hand we require Microsoft to follow specs to the letter, and now we somehow fault them for doing so?

    What is wrong about asking OpenOffice to follow the specs? How about ODF getting an ovarhaul to weed out ambiguities and to properly

    What goes around comes around. ODF was initially just a clever assault launched by Sun and IBM. With one strike they propelled ISO into relevance and took Microsoft completely off-guard. But customers saw the light and started demand good standards. Only, it is now evident that ODF and the posterchild OpenOffice were never prepared for the success.

    OpenOffice and derivatives, Sun and IBM just have to eat their own dogfood. Admit that the "perfect" ODF was at least partly a hype.

    We've seen from the browsers what "lenient" parsing can lead to. It is called tag soup. Requiring all products to leniently compensate for ambiguities in the spec or faulty implementations are definately the wrong path!

    The chickens are coming home to roost. Suck it up. Fix it instead of point fingers.

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  7. In Chains... by Velska1 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Most of the world is in chains. They're chained to M$Office by their proprietary document, spreadsheet, presentation etc. formulas.

    They're chained to M$ Windoze by the fact that, although you can get a Mac M$Office, you are still screwed in oh, so many ways that eat interoperability.

    They are chained to either Windows or MacOs by their media files that can't be transferred to a new computer with another OS because of Digital "Rights" Management (whose rights? one might ask). Sure, iTunes Store dropped DRM, which appears to be a step in the right direction.

    If OS'es were interoperable, we probably would have more choice. That some low-level C/C++ code compiles on both Windows and some 'Nix is just that: low-level. The stuff with real portability is run on VMs, and you still have the trouble of translating 'Nix LF chars into Win CR chars or vice versa.

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    Every problem has a solution that is simple, easy and wrong. Selling our Liberty for a little Security is a much too de
  8. Re:What did we expect? by docmur · · Score: -1, Troll

    You have that backwards. But I'm sure your busy fixing your new blue screen memory error, once it's fixed reboot 100 times and then I'm sure you'll need to get new antivirus software and probley have to defreg. When your done all that come back here, because my production machine runs linux and it's had 4 months of uptime with out so much as a slowed down mouse. so you GET THE FACTS, Linux is a elite OS comparied to the toilet paper that is Windows.

  9. Re:I just hope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    They will be seeing correctly, though. Microsoft implements ODF to the fullest extent of the standard.

    It's just a pity that the standard is a pile of crap.

  10. Its worse than the Malaria in Africa by Bob_Who · · Score: 0, Troll

    I am beginning to think that Gates Foundation will have a better chance of irradiating malaria in Africa, than Microsoft does at ever satisfying its customers. It seems there is more effort placed in resisting the will of sensible expectations of interoperability and open source creative common, community code. The stupidity of this constant resistance persists like the yellow fever treadmill. This attitude is fueling anti trust lawsuits, Open source application standards, like open office. This futility is just senseless as the African Malaria epidemic that the Gate's Foundation vows to end. Maybe if we can cure all parasitical bloodsucking behavior we can move forward without getting tangled up in repeating the same mistakes and wasted opportunities.

    1. Re:Its worse than the Malaria in Africa by Culture20 · · Score: -1, Troll

      If the Gates Foundation could eradicate malaria while locking people into the malaria vaccines, they would. Thankfully, the vaccines are checked for addictive substances.

  11. Here's a simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    What's the big deal? Just use OOO as your primary. My work here is done.

  12. MS's fault? by ramzafl · · Score: 0, Troll

    The article states that the plug-in fails to read files created with 2 of the 6. Of the two it "fails" on, one is in BETA, the other is a RC.

    It MUST be Microsoft's fault that their proven product that's been on the market for years and is used everywhere, doesn't work when you try to feed it files created in unproven piece of shit applications. Yeah.

  13. Re:Never ascribe to malice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Remember that Rob Weir is a professional anti-Microsoft troll. Nothing Microsoft released could ever have been good enough for him to not complain.

    In this case, his complaint is that Microsoft's ODF support does not follow the de facto format for formulas used by other implementations. Normally, the trolls are complaining when Microsoft does use a de facto standard.