Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government

angry tapir writes "Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML.)"

Comments

And?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Norweigan government matters, why? They're probably a drop in the bucket for Microsoft's revenue.

Re:And?

[Darkness404]

If Microsoft can get enough lock-in, even a small market can end up making them a lot of money with long term support and maintenance.

Re:And?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Because software costs money to make; but virtually no money to reproduce.

The Norwegian government likely spends somewhere between some hundreds of thousands and some millions on software that must interpret their chosen document format(ie. actual copies of an office suite, server-side components that generate documents in response to web input, data archive widgetry that needs to be able to read inside the files it stores, etc.) Those who must exchange documents with the Norwegian government presumably spend some millions more.

If that money is being spent on ODF-supporting software, the cost of ODF-supporting software goes down for everybody(or, more precisely, if they chose to build on OSS foundations, the cost for everybody stays the same, and the amount and quality available rises. If they end up going with something commercial, that commercial offering now has more customers across the same roughly fixed cost of development).

It isn't so much that Norway is a vital source of Microsoft revenue, as they likely aren't. It's that their future software demand is going to subsidize improvements to Microsoft's competitors, rather than being high-margin purchases of licences to code that Microsoft has already developed.

Re:And?

[obarthelemy]

When trying to debunk an obvious lie (such as "OOXML is a standard"), one reasonably visible dis-believer might be enough. All governments and organizations believing, or pretending to believe, that OOXML is a standard now know they're fools, and/or not fooling anyone.

Plus hopefully the Norwegian government has produced a document explaining their position, that will be quotable for reference.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's symptomatic.
The neat thing is, as more and more European governments make large scale use of ODF, the tool support should improve to match their needs. This makes it practical for more organizations to switch.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

For Norwegians, quite a lot I guess. As for giving Microsofts revenue, I'd say still to big but improvAs aing.

And of course having an investmentfond able to buy Microsoft, twice, gives the Norweigan government a possition not to be affected by potential MS strong arm tacticks.

Re:And?

[MrHanky]

It means something to those who care less about Microsoft's failure than they do about free formats' success.

Re:And?

[Gadget_Guy]

When trying to debunk an obvious lie (such as "OOXML is a standard"), one reasonably visible dis-believer might be enough.

Except nowhere does the original article say that OOXML is not a standard. It does say that it "is not a standard that's in sync with the way one looks at documents in 2010", but that is actually refering to it as a standard. It is a strange claim too, given that the standard must really be in sync with the way one looks a documents because it is used by the most popular office application out there.

Re:And?

[Scrameustache]

When trying to debunk an obvious lie (such as "OOXML is a standard")

The first thing to do is to look up the definition of the word.

For instance, A technical standard is an established norm or requirement.

Then you look up the facts relevant to the question. Office Open XML (also referred to as OOXML or Open XML) is an ISO/IEC standardized ZIP-compatible file format originally developed by Microsoft.

Now, I know your confusion stems from the many uses of the word "standard" (OOXML is clearly not a type of flag), but you're the one that sound like a fool when you say it's a lie that OOXML is a standard.

P.S. I hate Microsoft, I also hate disinformation. This is a fight between standards, don't pretend otherwise.

Re:And?

[phantomcircuit]

There are many parts of the OOXML 'standard' which refer to documents not available to the public, or which say something along the lines of 'do this the way office 97 does it'. A standard must contain all the information necessary to implement it, or else it is incomplete and thus not a standard.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus hopefully the Norwegian government has produced a document explaining their position, that will be quotable for reference.

But nobody else can read it because they all use Microsoft Office :-P

(this is a joke)

Re:And?

[BrokenHalo]

Except nowhere does the original article say that OOXML is not a standard.

One thing that's always struck me about the name OOXML ("Office Open XML") is the confusion it stirs up with OpenOffice. Seems to me that it would have made more sense for Microsoft to highlight a distinction from its OSS competitor.

Unless, of course Microsoft's marketing department has been taking its cues from Monty Python:
"Are you the Judean People's Front?"
"Fuck off! We're the People's Front of Judea!"

Re:And?

[wvmarle]

One of the core principles behind a standard I think is that it is immutable. It is a fixed, a priori known way of doing things. So that as long as you write a document following the standard, everyone can read and lay-out that document correctly by just following that same standard. Even if the document is from 10 years ago, or longer. Such as the standard with which a CD is recorded.

But obviously not so for Microsoft:

"It's natural in the development of standards that the standards evolve. That's the nature of standards,"

says a MS representative as quoted in TFA. This as reaction to the allegation by the Norwegian committee that OOXML is "unstable" and thus unsuitable as standard.

Of course during the DEVELOPMENT a standard evolves, that's what development is about. After that it becomes a standard, and it becomes frozen to that standard. One can of course continue development, but that is going to be a new standard. An OOXML1.1 or so. Like with HTML which now and then gets an update in the form of a new standard.

It seems to me that MS with such a statement confirms that from the beginning didn't plan on this to be a true standard, but that it would be a basis for them to start tacking on proprietary extensions, that then would prevent the standard to work across platforms. Luckily Norway saw through that, calls the standard "unstable" and refuses to included it in "recommended formats" for government use.

The standard being proprietary has obviously nothing to do with it, as they happily do include Adobe's pdf format.

Re:And?

[PitaBred]

Were you not around when Microsoft bribed and stacked the ISO meetings when voting for OOXML as a "standard"? Not only that, but it doesn't pass any kind of rigorous review as a standard... it is all but an XML representation of the original .doc format, just re-jiggered around, and is so convoluted that nobody but Microsoft has a hope of actually interoperating with it properly. And by the time someone might do so, they've got the next version out.

Seriously, just google around a bit:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/10/norwegian-standards-body-implodes-over-ooxml-controversy.ars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML

Re:And?

[johnw]

because it is used by the most popular office application out there

Really?! At the time OOXML was approved as a "standard", no conforming implementation existed. Microsoft expressed an intention of implementing it at some point in the future, but AFAIK they haven't yet done so. They also announced that they'd be supporting import/export of ODF before they supported OOXML. Have they changed this?

Re:And?

[Gadget_Guy]

Were you not around when Microsoft bribed and stacked the ISO meetings

All this has absolutely nothing to do with what the grand parent asserted. Obarthelemy claimed that the author of the report didn't think that OOXML was a standard. This was not backed up by the article. Also, at no stage did I make any judgement on whether OOXML was a standard or not, so telling me to go look up Google is not relevant.

As it happens I am well aware of what went on during the standards approval process. I suggest that a flawed standard is still a standard. The current ODF standard has its own flaws too, which is how Microsoft was able to stick to the letter of the standard in their implementation and still get chided for not being compatible with OpenOffice.org. This means that ODF contains its own versions of the famous "do like Word97". Does that make it not a standard too?

Fortunately, the next version of the ODF standard will fix these limitations. I think a lot of the problems stemmed from not specifying the spreadsheet functions. While I can understand why they wouldn't want to fix the standard to a specific set of functions (thus limiting what each program can add), but they should at least have some base functions in it, and also have a known way of implementing program specific extra functions.

Re:And?

[Maow]

Plus hopefully the Norwegian government has produced a document explaining their position, that will be quotable for reference.

Newsflash from Oslo. In a press conference today, the Norwegian Gov't said, "Bjork Bjork Bjork."

And that's *after* translation.

Original text: "Bjork Bjork Bjork."

/sorry

Re:And?

[omglolbah]

Amusing little story:

"Norwegian" is split into two languages. "Bokmål" and "Nynorsk". Directly translated one is Book-language and New Norwegian.

Bokmål is based on danish with norwegian pronunciation (overly simplified of course).
Nynorsk is based on a multitude of dialects from a large area of Norway.

Microsoft used to only support office for Bokmål. They were told as long as it wasnt available as Nynorsk it could not be used in the public sector. They quickly produced a localized version in Nynorsk.

So the market has to be of -some- importance.

Re:And?

[JohnBailey]

And the Norweigan government matters, why? They're probably a drop in the bucket for Microsoft's revenue.

Then why do Microsoft pursue any dissent in their corporate customers so strongly? And no.. I'm not going to cite examples. We have all heard of the crack sales teams descending on companies and governments who dare to leave the MS embrace, armed with the authority to practically give the MS products away rather than lose an influential customer. You are absolutely correct. A government switching away from Office is trivial. But only if you are counting licenses. If you count influence, then MS are in for a decidedly nasty future. And another government rejecting MS file formats is a bad thing for MS. Even a city local government is enough to make MS bring in the heavy negotiators. If the file format goes from essential to optional, then so does Office. Right.. Said my piece. Astroturf away.

Re:And?

[lxs]

The Domino Effect

Re:And?

[Robert Zenz]

The pattern is pretty similar to dictatorship and revolution...if one guy stands up against it, everybody is laughing, but somewhere someone is also standing up "Hey, if he can do it, I can do it, too!", and that's the point where the Domino-Effect kicks in.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder instead if the government after this reevaluation will go on an ass-kicking spree on the iso committee that allowed it to exist in the first place http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/10/norwegian-standards-body-implodes-over-ooxml-controversy.ars

Re:And?

[CGordy]

Original text: "Bjork Bjork Bjork."

Are you sure you don't mean "Björk Björk Björk"?

Re:And?

[temcat]

No, must've meant "Bjørk Bjørk Bjørk". They're Norwegian, after all.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

You chose your nickname wisely.

You ARE full of shit.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

The standard being proprietary has obviously nothing to do with it, as they happily do include Adobe's pdf format.

PDF was approved as an ISO standard before OOXML was.

Re:And?

[daem0n1x]

The most advanced country in the world is a trend setter for the rest. Bangladesh has tens of times the population of Norway, but I bet Microsoft doesn't care a lot about it.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Birch birch birch" -- sounds like an eager beaver.

Re:And?

[Scrameustache]

Then how the hell did they get an ISO certification? :S

Oh, crap, ISO is in the pocket of major industry players? :(

Re:And?

[wvmarle]

Well if you followed the story on /. that is indeed quite true. Many MS-allies became member of ISO shortly before this vote (enough in numbers to swing it), and it caused serious controversy in the ISO committees of a.o. Norway. There have been many stories on /. about this voting process and, yes, alleged corruption and loss of integrity within ISO. The whole organisation's image has taken a serious hit with this saga. And these quotes from the MS spokesman confirm many people's fears: MS doesn't see standards as standard, but merely a guideline or starting point to implement their own way.

Re:And?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that there are three basic factors there(these would be the same for any similar software outfit, not just Microsoft).

1. Localizing costs money, so you'll generally avoid it/drag your feet on it if you can(with the specific exception of charities whose mandate includes "maligned group X and the digital divide"). However, localizing doesn't cost all that much money, so for markets of any reasonable size, it will be in your economic interest to give in and localize(at least to some minimal standard) if you get the sense that it is, in fact, a hard requirement.

2. Even if localizing looks like an economically dubious idea, you really don't want to force your potential customer to develop an alternative to you. Because software is expensive to write and cheap to copy, the incumbent can almost always offer a price that, even if it is lower than they would like, makes developing an alternative economically stupid. The extreme case, of course, is just tolerating piracy. Up from there, is virtually any site licence discount that fits the situation. If, however, some not-strictly-economic factor(like some sort of government language accessability mandate) intervenes, than your potential customer may be forced to develop an alternative to you, no matter how nice the price you give them. And, once they develop their alternative, it too can be given away at virtually any price, since its development is now a sunk cost.

3. "Evil American Multinational spits on picturesque local language" just isn't good PR.

Re:And?

[Maow]

Original text: "Bjork Bjork Bjork."

Are you sure you don't mean "Björk Björk Björk"?

Actually, I *did* mean that, but didn't think SlashDot supported those characters.

I see from a follow up reply that both of us appear wrong, it's "Bjørk Bjørk Bjørk".

I guess THAT was the BEFORE translation text...

Fredonia

[Anonymous Coward]

The government of Fredonia chooses .txt, ASCII, with \n line endings.

Re:Fredonia

[kitezh]

I think you spelled Fedora wrong.

Re:Fredonia

[jjbenz]

The one south of Sheboygan?

Re:Fredonia

[cerberusss]

The government of Fredonia chooses .txt, ASCII, with \n line endings.

Unfortunately, US-ASCII does not contain all characters that Fredonians use.

has a larger backstory

[Anonymous Coward]

The OOXML-standardization backstory is pretty convoluted, so I'm not sure I can give an accurate summary, but as far as I can tell this is basically another round in the ongoing fight that seems to have, for some reason, been more active in Norway than elsewhere. The article mentions that the main author of this report was involved in the controversy at the ISO, and there was also a related controversy in one of Norway's national standards bodies.

Re:has a larger backstory

[MightyMartian]

As much as I think OOXML is a joke (hell, most of the people I've seen using Office 2007 are setting their defaults back to 2003 document formats, and not using docx or xlsx at all), I don't think you're going to get a completely unbiased assessment on OOXML's suitability from a guy who has already made his mark as being opposed.

Despite all of that, OOXML is at least partially supported in OpenOffice, and hopefully in future versions support will be more complete. I think ODF is by far the superior standard if you have build an application to read it from spec (looking at OOXML's specs, it must be a frickin' nightmare).

What I don't think OOXML opponents should do is resort to Microsoft's tricks.

Re:has a larger backstory

[Nefarious Wheel]

Government and industrial institutions, once they reach a certain size, are notoriously risk-adverse. If there's a change in the weather, they'd prefer someone else to be the weathervane. Things that happen in Norway can have a disproportionate amount of influence across the world.

It's not a phenomenon limited to the office software industry, either; in the electricity distribution industry, for example, many very large organisations are watching what's happening in Portugal and Spain and have stated they want to incorporate that experience before they launch their own programmes of change.

Why? Simply because they're doing it first. I guess it's because they're smaller and a bit more agile, I don't know. But it's much cheaper to watch someone else make mistakes and follow blind alleys rather than take the risk on yourself. Risk is expensive.

So, the electricity world watches Iberia. The bureaucracies of the world will be watching Norway, make no mistake.

What's in a name

[Red Flayer]

DIFI's[1] report was written by Hypatia, a Norwegian consultancy specializing in standardization and software accessibility.

Strange, that the name of the consultancy is Hypatia. She, after all, was a mathematician-philosopher who ascribed to Plotinus's ideal... that empirical research is inherently flawed, and only logic and mathematics can achieve truth.

I mean, there's a clear relationship here that I find very amusing. Microsoft's OOXML, while sure to be empirically more interoperable with most users due to the pervasity of Microsoft Office, is not logically more interoperable due to the nature of what MS has done to the "open" standard.

Delicious allegory.

[1] DIFI is the Norwegian Agency responsible for the decision.

Re:What's in a name

[Darkness404]

Microsoft's OOXML I don't even think is true OOXML it is similar to OOXML but its different.

Re:What's in a name

[martin-boundary]

Microsoft's OOXML, while sure to be empirically more interoperable with most users due to the pervasity of Microsoft Office,

Doesn't interoperability mean ability to work with diverse systems?

If users of MS Office share documents, that's not interoperability since they all use the same software family. You have to look at users who transfer documents back and forth between diverse software systems, eg MS Office, Open Office, Lotus Symphony, AppleWorks, etc.

Interoperability is about making faithful conversions easy.

Re:What's in a name

[euxneks]

This has got to be one of the most geeky and wonderful posts I have read on Slashdot in a long long time.

Re:What's in a name

[Red Flayer]

Every now and then I think perhaps I'm a pretender on slashdot, since it's been ages since I've done computer stuff as a hobby or profession. Sure, I use computers constantly, but only really as an end-user. At home, I spend more time on carpentry, or even painting, then I spend tinkering with my PCs or media server.

Then someone like you comes along and reaffirms my membership in the greater geek community.

Thanks.

Re:What's in a name

[Stumbles]

To summarize; Microsoft sabotaged the standards body with their own people to solidify OOXML as t h e standard. Despite their boldness in daylight to buy a standards body, the irony is; of all groups of people, governments are recognizing Microsoft to be nothing more than a Mobster/racketeer in shrink wrap.

Re:What's in a name

[vux984]

Doesn't interoperability mean ability to work with diverse systems?

Yes and no. The hiccup is the semantics of 'diverse'.

I could, for example, argue that a random sampling of end users computers make for a collection of 'diverse systems'.

The wikipedia article you linked for example contains this bit of doublespeak:

According to ISO/IEC 2382-01, Information Technology Vocabulary, Fundamental Terms, interoperability is defined as follows: "The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units"

If you were to interpret 'functional units' to be end users PCs, then the most interoperable format is the one that works seamlessly on the most PCs.

Interoperability is about making faithful conversions easy.

Interoperability is about making faithful conversions *unnecessary*.

Re:What's in a name

[willabr]

Norway, hm..... How about Open Object Foundation Document Architecture (OOFDA)

Re:What's in a name

[DoofusOfDeath]

If users of MS Office share documents, that's not interoperability since they all use the same software family.

Sure, OOXML works with both Country and Western!

Re:What's in a name

[harlows_monkeys]

I mean, there's a clear relationship here that I find very amusing. Microsoft's OOXML, while sure to be empirically more interoperable with most users due to the pervasity of Microsoft Office, is not logically more interoperable due to the nature of what MS has done to the "open" standard.

Read both specs. Given two independent developers who have to implement entirely from the spec, they are for more likely to produce interoperable implementations if they use OOXML than if they use ODF.

Re:What's in a name

[Anonymous Coward]

The OOXML that can be seen is not the true OOXML.

How delightfully zen of Microsoft...

Re:What's in a name

[Arker]

Microsoft's OOXML, while sure to be empirically more interoperable with most users due to the pervasity of Microsoft Office

Actually that is not correct. Most Microsoft Office implementations found "in the wild" are *less* interoperable with the new MS Office than with Open Office.

Re:What's in a name

[Arker]

Read both specs. Given two independent developers who have to implement entirely from the spec, they are for more likely to produce interoperable implementations if they use OOXML than if they use ODF.

Incorrect. Section after section of the OOXML spec give insufficient information for implementation.

Re:What's in a name

[Anonymous Coward]

The people using the software are the diverse systems in his example.

Re:What's in a name

[rtb61]

To cut a long story short http://news.cnet.com/Office-2007-fails-OOXML-conformance-test/2100-7344_3-6237855.html, M$ Office fails it's own standards test, so as regards the monopoly office application the standard is obviously not standard to anything, even within it's own purpose designed program suite. I suppose for that you have to buy the next upgrade or even perhaps the one after that etc. etc..

For M$ to adhere to ODF is simply a choice, for others to adhere to OOXML represents high risk of patent infringement, licence fees, of the standard saying one thing whilst their program does another, ensuring all competitors will never end up being totally compatible and remain a bit buggy.

Re:What's in a name

[mahadiga]

I think Interoperability without Open source is Oxymoron.

Re:What's in a name

[MightyMartian]

Oh look, the Microsoft shill has come along to lie. Shocking, I tell you, shocking!

Re:What's in a name

[PitaBred]

Anybody that does anything other than consume media for a hobby can claim at least a passing level of geekiness, IMHO and to take this even further off-topic. It's really only the people who are leeches, who consume but never produce except to enable more consumption, that are not geeks. Making and changing and fixing things for the sake of doing so and improving one's knowledge and skills is what I would think is the hallmark of being a geek, whether it be PCs, software, furniture, cars, electronics, whatever.

Re:What's in a name

[gbjbaanb]

Read both specs

As the OOXML 'spec' is over 6000 pages, I don't think anyone has. Definitely not the ISO standards body for sure :)

Re:What's in a name

[harlows_monkeys]

Such as?

Re:What's in a name

[harlows_monkeys]

A large part of that is because it gives many examples and gives detailed specifications for spreadsheets functions (several pages per function for some of the more complicated functions).

ODF is quite a bit more concise, by completely leaving such things out.

Re:What's in a name

[ThePhilips]

M$ Office fails it's own standards test

C|Net is way to politically-correct to spell it openly.

Large software standards are hard to conform to. Both OO.o and KOffice have problems complying with ODF here and there too. But they try to and the incompatibilities are treated as bugs.

The crucial difference is that M$ openly stated that they are not going to hold M$O release nor change its development model to ensure conformance to their own still-born standard.

Re:What's in a name

[ThePhilips]

Here you go. Search for "undisclosed information".

Re:What's in a name

[ThePhilips]

... detailed specifications for spreadsheets functions ...

LOL. They had to give examples because what supposed to be mathematical and logical is ridden with decades of bugs.

ODF choose wisely to do it right way.

Re:What's in a name

[harlows_monkeys]

Lots of FUD there. Let's take one, truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6, and compare to how it is done in ODF.

Let's say you have a bunch of WP6 documents. You have reverse engineered the WP6 format. You have tools that take documents in that format and do interesting things with them, like typeset them for the magazine you publish.

You want to switch to using ODF in your workflow, and are writing a converter to convert WP6 documents to ODF. However, when you run across things in WP6 that just aren't representable in ODF, you want to somehow preserve them, so that (1) your converter can convert back to WP6 without losing anything, and (2) your internal tools recognize and format things correctly when using the ODF form of your converted docs.

So what you are going to do is use one of the mechanisms ODF provides to embed information beyond the standard, and use this to embed the extra information. That way, your converted WP6 documents work fine for you, and if they are ever sent to someone else, the extra information will be ignored.

Suppose that I have done a similar thing--my workflow also revolved around WP6 format, and I'm converting to ODF, with extra info for the WP6 that doesn't fit.

Wouldn't it be nice if my ODF+WP6 documents could work with your workflow, and your ODF+WP6 documents would work with my workflow? But alas, we probably picked different ways to add the WP6 info--and even if we picked similar ways, we probably named things differently. Sucks, doesn't it?

All truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6 and similar in OOXML were doing is trying to address that last part. Basically, what truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6 in OOXML is saying is "hey! anyone out there who has figured out WP6 font height stuff and is going to embed information about that in their OOXML document, use this name for it, so that you'll all be on the same page. Everyone else, ignore it".

Re:What's in a name

[harlows_monkeys]

This is what you consider the right way?

Others have argued that, while the specification is less specific than one might like, the intent is fairly clear (especially since formulas tend to follow decades-long traditions), and also because the vast majority of spreadsheets only use a small set of functions (such as SUM) which are universally supported by all spreadsheet implementations anyway. In practice, many developers look to OpenOffice.org as a "canonical implementation"; since its code is public for anyone to review, and its XML output can be inspected, this can resolve many questions

Re:What's in a name

[AntiDragon]

Check out http://noooxml.wdfiles.com/local--files/arguments/TheCaseAgainstOOXML.pdf for an interesting breakdown of the problems with MS OOXML.

For example one setting is defined as "useWord97LineBreakRules"

The standard defines implementing this thusly:

“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.”

I'll leave describing why this makes fully implementing the "standard" as an excercise to the reader!

Re:What's in a name

[ThePhilips]

In the context - file format standardization - your response makes absolutely no sense. Not in slightest.

Re:What's in a name

[ThePhilips]

No, this, you dummy:

OpenFormula attributes

Key attributes of the OpenFormula specification and development process, many of which are unique to OpenFormula as a recalculated formula format, are:

* Developed by many different implementors.
* Developed with experienced users.
* Open development.
* Fully open standard.
* Implementors are already implementing it.
* Focused development.
* Not rushed.
* Future-proofed format
* Embedded test cases.
* Rigorous definitions
* Doesn't mandate mistakes.
* Innovations from many sources.
* Room for innovation by anyone.
* Internationalization.
* Subset support.

The "Doesn't mandate mistakes" alone made the whole debacle worth the pains.

Re:What's in a name

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not a standard if you have to "figure out how WP6 did it". A standard should detail how to do something. A recipe saying "Make the sauce the way KFC do it" cannot be followed by anyone except KFC. Similarly, OOXML contains instructions only Microsoft can follow exactly (although, funnily enough - they still fail at it.).

Nowhere in ODF does it say "Do it like they way we did it in that secret thing only we know about". Thats what makes it a standard.

Re:What's in a name

[shutdown -p now]

Strange, that the name of the consultancy is Hypatia. She, after all, was a mathematician-philosopher who ascribed to Plotinus's ideal... that empirical research is inherently flawed, and only logic and mathematics can achieve truth.

She was also murdered by a mob of Christians, who accused her of being a pagan (she was), and trying to convert other Christians (she didn't) - flayed alive by oyster shells, then burned while still alive.

Not sure if there's any clear relationship here. And definitely not amusing, if there is one.

Re:What's in a name

[Anonymous Coward]

OOXML does not tell you to "make the sauce the way KFC do it". What it tells you is that if you make a sauce the way KFC does it, then you should call it "KFC sauce", so people who know KFC will know what your sauce is.

Re:What's in a name

[mahadiga]

Pls ignore

Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[lotho brandybuck]

OOXML.. I'm a regular user of Openoffice. I'm pretty interested in it succeeding, and was pretty aware of the OOXML v. ODF issues a year ago. And still, when I saw the title of this article, my first thought for 10 seconds was... oh shit.. they're ditching Openoffice in Scandanavia! Almost like someone deliberately named OOXML to create a little confusion, isn't it?

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[IICV]

Yeah, I'm 90% certain that OOXML/Open Office confusion is the basis for the name. I mean seriously, Office Open XML? Why not Word Open XML (WOX)? Microsoft Open XML Interchange (MOXI)? There's a million more marketable names than OOXML, that wouldn't cause any confusion with Open Office.

But then on the other hand, this is the company that brought us Bing.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but it combines "OO" and "XML", two of the most powerful buzzwords the computing industry has ever seen.

I'm not trying to be funny, either. You wouldn't believe the number of managers I've had to deal with who see those terms, and go apeshit crazy about how good something is. Tell them your technology is "object-oriented", and they're sold. Then tell them it involves "XML", and they absolutely can't resist it.

Mind you, these people tend to not know a thing about the technical aspects of software development. They don't know any programming languages, but are convinced that "object-oriented" is the ONLY way. They haven't got a clue what an XML document even looks like, but insist that it can do anything.

The only thing managers these days slurp up more than "OO" and "XML" are "Web Services". If Microsoft had named it OOXMLWebServices instead of just OOXML, ODF would've been destroyed years ago.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Anonymous Coward]

BOOBS also combines OO and BBS. Whats your point?

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[grcumb]

Why not Word Open XML (WOX)?

I agwee, because Micwosoft Wuhd totawwy wocks!

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[click2005]

It still leaves them time to add OOXML Cloud 2.0 in a future release.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[JohnFluxx]

Try to start a movement to call it Microsoft's OOXML. Or MooXML :-)

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Trepidity]

Thank you AC for your post, for I feel I've now understood something deep about the universe.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Trails]

It's not just Bing. You have to say BING!!! Like it's a bell. BING!!!

Say it! Fuck you, you're fired!!!

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[rattaroaz]

BOOBS also combines OO and BBS. Whats your point?

BOOBS are more popular that ODF and OOXML. That was the GP's point.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[value_added]

It's not just Bing. You have to say BING!!! Like it's a bell. BING!!!

It's time for ...

      What's brown and sounds like a bell?

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Gadget_Guy]

Office Open XML? Why not Word Open XML (WOX)? Microsoft Open XML Interchange (MOXI)?

I agree that OOXML is an unfortunate name, but naming a standard after a specific product or company name will not lend itself to becoming a standard format used by all your competitors. After all, ODF does not mention its pedigree either.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[IICV]

I agree that OOXML is an unfortunate name, but naming a standard after a specific product or company name will not lend itself to becoming a standard format used by all your competitors. After all, ODF does not mention its pedigree either.

Office Open XML.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Gadget_Guy]

Office Open XML.

As in:

• Microsoft Office
• OpenOffice.org
• Star Office
• Corel Wordperfect Office
• Gnome Office (I use this one)
• Ability Office (ah, that takes me back!)
• KOffice
• Siag Office
• Kingsoft Office
• SoftMaker Office
• Breadbox Office
• ... and so on ...

Yes, by the end I was pulling them from the Office Suite page. The point is, office is a generic term for a suite of software.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Anonymous Coward]

> What's brown and sounds like a bell?

Ubuntu BING?

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[linebackn]

Calling it "OOXML" certainly can be confusing since it is easy to not know or remember what the "OO" stands for. But on top of that, the average person knows this format only as the "Microsoft Office 2007" format.

And rightfully, the "Microsoft Office 2007" format is all it is.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Barsteward]

yeah, but slashdotters have got more chance playing with ODF/OOXML than they have with BOOBS

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[bwbadger]

I always refer to it as MOO-XML (Microsoft Office Open - XML). It makes things clearer.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you Kripke?

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[ais523]

Pretty much every nontechnical user I know just calls it DOCX, after the file extension Word 2007 uses by default. And they hate it; to them, it just doesn't work (i.e. they can't load it on their Word 2003 systems) and they don't know why.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Xtifr]

No, DOCX is a separate de-facto standard--the XML format used by recent versions of MS Word. It is only tangentially related to MS's OOXML, the ISO-approved XML format not in use by anything or anyone.

Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so.

My calculator displays 80085 quite nicely.

Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Why does this matter so much? Once one (now two) countries reject OOXML, it means it cannot become *the* international/European document standard for the public sector.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[KarmaMB84]

Can't the same be said for ODF if any countries choose it instead?

But won't the top office suites just end up supporting both anyway?

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[jhol13]

Err ... Norway has nothing to say in EU. That is, about as much as Canada has about USA.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[janrinok]

He didn't say the EU - he said Europe. Norway remains a part of Europe regardless of whether it decides to join the EU or not.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[Undead Waffle]

Can't the same be said for ODF if any countries choose it instead? But won't the top office suites just end up supporting both anyway?

They already do. You just have to worry about inconsistent behavior between the suites. And stupid crap like Office telling you you're a horrible person for not using the latest Microsoft document format.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[wvmarle]

Besides that Norway is not a member of the EU, they are too small to dictate an "international standard". If the EU would opt of OOXML instead then Norway would surely give in and follow by at least exchanging documents in OOXML with other EU partners.

However as the rest has not (yet) made a choice, there is a good chance that instead they will have a close look at Norway, see how it works out for them, and follow the now tried and tested option. As long as no other country opts for OOXML instead this alone will be an advantage for ODF.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[Chrisq]

In that case talk about a European document standard makes about as much sense as if you talked about a satandad for the continent of America or Asia or something like that

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[xaxa]

Norway is in the European Economic Area, so is more important than Canada, at least on economic issues.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

More Important,eh? yah right! we be more important, eh. being next 'ta 'merica and all, eh.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit about a market as small as Europe? Go enjoy your commie software and generally very low productivity.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[shutdown -p now]

And stupid crap like Office telling you you're a horrible person for not using the latest Microsoft document format.

It's trivial to configure MSOffice to use ODF as the default format when saving documents. The user needs not even be aware that it's set.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[Tubal-Cain]

I just set it to default, and it still gave me the "are you sure?" message. Yes, there is a "never ask again" checkbox, but I don't feel like doing that to every computer and I don't trust the users to handle it properly themselves.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[Thinboy00]

It's trivial to configure MSOffice to use ODF as the default format when saving documents. The user needs not even be aware that it's set.

ODF produced by Office fails to work properly in any suite other than Office AFAIK, including OOo (as well as e.g. AbiWord, KOffice, Google Docs, etc.). Yet it is supposedly more "compliant" than OOo, due to a variety of technicalities. OTOH, ODF produced by OOo works in almost all of the other major suites. So, yes, it is trivial to do that, but no, it doesn't accomplish anything.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[shutdown -p now]

ODF produced by Office fails to work properly in any suite other than Office AFAIK, including OOo (as well as e.g. AbiWord, KOffice, Google Docs, etc.).

I believe that you're referring to the spreadsheet formulas problem (be sure to follow the links to blog posts there as well). Two things to note here: this only applies to formulas in spreadsheets; there is no standard covering those in scope of ODF 1.1 (which is the final published ODF standard at this moment - 1.2 is still a draft); and it wasn't a problem just between MSOffice and OO.org, there were other implementations which had incompatible formula representations - it's just that OO.org pushed all of the latter to conform to itself (specifically, to ODF 1.2 draft which it uses for formulas even in ODF 1.1 documents), but MSOffice stayed where it was.

There are other issues, but this is the single biggest one. Here is a list of all criticism with respect to implementation of ODF in MSOffice today. In particular, it's worth noting that there are no complaints referring to text documents in particular, so those are fully interoperable. The other two features that MSOffice doesn't properly support are change tracking, and password protection. I don't know the reason for not supporting password protection. With respect to change tracking, the official explanation is that it is notimplemented because it's underspecified and non-interoperable between other existing ODF 1.1 implementations.

Yet it is supposedly more "compliant" than OOo, due to a variety of technicalities.

I haven't seen any claims that MSOffice is more conformant to the spec than OO.org. The official claim is that it is merely conformant. Do you have any references for broader claims?

OTOH, ODF produced by OOo works in almost all of the other major suites. So, yes, it is trivial to do that, but no, it doesn't accomplish anything.

I think you're substituting definitions here. An open format, by definition, is the one that has an open specification - not the one that can be opened in a particular Office suite. In case of MSOffice, it implements ODF standard to the letter except for two features, it clearly defines the features that it doesn't implement, and it provides an open spec for those parts where the standard is underspecified, and format is implementation-defined. What this all means is that you can always fully extract any information contained in an ODF document saved by MSOffice by using only open specifications as a reference - there's no format lock-in.

Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible

[jhol13]

USA and Canada belong into same economic area too .. it is called "NAFTA".

So "as much as Canada has to say about USA matters" is pretty close.

It isn't OOXML..

[canuck57]

It isn't OOXML, it is MOOXML.

Re:It isn't OOXML..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or even MSO O XML, with the spaces. MSO since "Office" in practice means MS Office, even if on paper its not. O separate since the meaning (or at least intention) of Open is different to the other popular use of the word. XML since its just XML. So just call it MSOOX.

Re:It isn't OOXML..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's an Aztec deity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Aztec_gods

Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[steveha]

MS is just as free to implement the OpenDocument format as anyone else; and they have in fact implemented ODF support.[1] So, if ODF is chosen as the standard in Norway, the Norwegian government is still free to buy copies of Microsoft Office, as long as it can do a good job of reading and writing ODF files.

Of course, Microsoft will still view this as some kind of defeat, because they would prefer their own standard be adopted; OOXML will be just as much of a lockin trap as the older binary Microsoft formats. If OOXML is adopted, everyone has to buy Microsoft Office; if ODF is adopted, everyone can choose from among many alternatives, several of which are completely free.

It is obvious why Microsoft would prefer OOXML adoption for government (and everywhere else). It is less obvious why government should adopt OOXML instead of ODF.

[1] Microsoft resisted the inclusion of ODF import/export filters for some time, but finally decided to include them:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050930181153972
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software

steveha

Re:Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft resisted the inclusion of ODF import/export filters for some time, but finally decided to include them:

There are these things called plugins. And apparently anyone can write a plugin for reading and writing to their own format in MS Office. Its all the rage now. All the cool kids are doing it. BTW Microsoft isn't obliged to bundle support for any formats other than what they want. And yet at times, when the do (e.g. PDF) people (Adobe) sue them.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/02/613702.aspx

"Ha ha M$ sucks they don't support X,Y,Z formats!"

"M$ monopoly!! Remove support for X,Y,Z format! Antitrust! Antitrust!"

Re:Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[ThePhilips]

BTW Microsoft isn't obliged to bundle support for any formats other than what they want.

True. But when they refuse to do so when offered money for it - then it might become a different matter.

"Ha ha M$ sucks they don't support X,Y,Z formats!"

... happens when they refuse to make their product interoperable with rest of industry what hampers competition.

"M$ monopoly!! Remove support for X,Y,Z format! Antitrust! Antitrust!"

... happens when they bundle stuff nobody asked them for, use that to justify increased prices and later claim to have "90% market penetration thus it is a standard de facto!"

Re:Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[Anonymous Coward]

True. But when they refuse to do so when offered money for it - then it might become a different matter.

Context? Not sure what you mean here.

happens when they refuse to make their product interoperable with rest of industry what hampers competition.

It already is.

e.g.

[ File Reader for .doc ] -> [ MS Word Editing Engine/App ] -> [ File Writer for .doc ]

No, you wont get support for your own pet format for free from MS. You have to write the plugin yourself like many people have.

.. happens when they bundle stuff nobody asked them for,

Untrue. Customers were demanding PDF support. MS puts it in, and Adobe threatens to sue or collect money from MS, while there already exist thousands of PDF writers, commercial and opensource outside of Word.

Re:Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[ThePhilips]

True. But when they refuse to do so when offered money for it - then it might become a different matter.

Context? Not sure what you mean here.

After ODF was ratified, some gov'ts were asking M$ what would it take for them to implement ODF support. Requests were refused based on M$' past mantra - "nobody needs ODF support."

happens when they refuse to make their product interoperable with rest of industry what hampers competition.

It already is.

e.g.

[ File Reader for .doc ] -> [ MS Word Editing Engine/App ] -> [ File Writer for .doc ]

No, you wont get support for your own pet format for free from MS. You have to write the plugin yourself like many people have.

Uhm... What are you smoking???

For all the time WinWord exists, M$ was asked/begged/etc to release the filter API. They consistently refused.

Again: there is no filter API published/available to 3rd parties which would allow to implement seamless integration of another file format into M$O suit.

There is a lot of crap floating around, but most of it works through various hacks. (E.g. my friends did implement special import/export for one company - through clipboard copy/paste functions. Sun's ODF plug-in does it by telling M$O that it actually has an EOOXML and does the translation on the fly.)

.. happens when they bundle stuff nobody asked them for,

Untrue. Customers were demanding PDF support. MS puts it in, and Adobe threatens to sue or collect money from MS, while there already exist thousands of PDF writers, commercial and opensource outside of Word.

Likewise customers were asking for ODF and M$ was flat out refusing even acknowledge existence of such requests.

Later they were pressed against the wall and forced to do something on their own - and did it extremely poorly.

Office 2007 is not OOXML compliant

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I read about it, Office 2007 does not generate documents that comply with OOXML. Microsoft admitted that they would have to change their software to comply with their standard, and I think that might happen with the next release of Office.

Re:Office 2007 is not OOXML compliant

[KarmaMB84]

The first proposed amendment to the ISO standard will actually restore Office 2007 documents (which ARE ECMA-376 compliant) to being compliant OOXML Transitional documents. Because the entire point of the Transitional schema for OOXML was to make ECMA-376 documents ISO compliant as well, the modifications made that broke compatibility made absolutely no sense. If they were going to make ECMA-376 documents non-compliant, they should've thrown out the Transitional model and just made the Strict version the ONLY standard.

The change that made ECMA-376 non-compliant was allowing booleans to only have the value sof "true" and "false" rather than also allowing "on" and "off". A boneheaded change especially considering it was made to the portion of the standard intended to make legacy documents also ISO compliant...

Re:Office 2007 is not OOXML compliant

[ThePhilips]

They changed a standard to make it compliant with a software??????

Re:Office 2007 is not OOXML compliant

[Anonymous Coward]

They changed a standard to make it compliant with a software??????

Read this and weep: The Final OOXML Update: Part III.

It is so bad as to be almost unbelievable. If this is really true, to call OOXML a standard is just a lie. Standards don't suddenly retroactively change.

"...only logic and mathematics can achieve truth."

[John Hasler]

So she was into string theory, was she?

Parent = FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn. Keep repeating this FUD. Don't you anti-ms trolls come up with anything new? The standards document does have everything necessary to implement it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_supports_Office_Open_XML

Re:Parent = FUD

[toQDuj]

Except that not even Microsoft was able to write an OOXML-spec document writer. So no, it does not have everything necessary to implement it.

Re:Parent = FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

And how do you know this was because of incomplete standards doc? Were you on the MS Office team that was tasked with writing it?

I know this is Slashdot, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have a link to the darned report itself?

Preferably, in English?

Thanks in advance if someone can help out.

Two corrections

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Norway has decided to use ODF allmost a year ago
2. Denmark has NOT choosen ODF, "we" made a positive list which contains one item, ODF, but may be expanded if the requirements a met. ...and several other countries has choosen ODF too.

Add recursion, but to a DAG

[jonaskoelker]

A standard must contain all the information necessary to implement it, or else it is incomplete and thus not a standard.

Or point to other documents which are standards.

For instance, you could have the Microsoft VBA Specification. If that was complete, then both the OOXML/Document spec and the OOXML/Spreadsheet spec could refer to it, kinda' like a subroutine. (Note: I said if. I don't know, and don't think, that Microsoft has done this.)

Don't some of the RFCs do something like this?

Re:Add recursion, but to a DAG

[ThePhilips]

Don't some of the RFCs do something like this?

RFCs can do it, because they are Request For Comments, not STDs. And only few of RFCs are even designated to be a standard in the future.

Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of suckers the U.S. has become. On domestic issues, the Slashdot crowd is all gung-ho on open source. But as soon as someone mentions a foreign nation discarding some proprietary Merkin B.S. software, all principles and freedom ideals are thrown overboard. LOLOLOLO RETARDS!

Re:"...only logic and mathematics can achieve trut

[Permutation Citizen]

Max Tegmark, an eminent physicist, describes himself as an extreme platonist.

You'll never find an unbiased source then

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll never find an unbiased source then. Your requirement is that someone must, ABSOLUTELY MUST, accept any and all proposals else they are partisan.

MSOOXML isn't even supported by Microsoft.

THAT is how unsupported MSOOXML is.

Microsoft POX

[AliasMarlowe]

Microsoft's Proprietary Office XML

I suppose it could just be MS incompetence.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose it could just be MS incompetence. Do you have a better explanation of why MS haven't managed to get their own "standard" in their own product, despite years of work on that product whilst the standard was written?

Re:I suppose it could just be MS incompetence.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't have an explanation for X. I am going to make up shit that fits my world view that M$ is evil, evil evil!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_supports_Office_Open_XML

The fact that so many people have managed to implement it, tells us something. Hmm what could it be? I'm sure your anti-ms paranoia can come up with something fun.

That's the machine that goes...

[Anonymous Coward]

BING!
And that's the most expensive machine in the whole hospital. Aren't you lucky?!
The administration is coming!
Quick! Turn everything on!

Credits Re:Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[Anonymous Coward]

MS is just as free to implement the OpenDocument format as anyone else; and they have in fact implemented ODF support.[1]

[1] Microsoft resisted the inclusion of ODF import/export filters for some time, but finally decided to include them:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050930181153972
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software

steveha

Credit where it's due. MS did not write the original MS Office ODF support. Sun did. And they open sourced their plugin for MS Office. What I'm curious about now, is: was microsoft dumb enough to re-write the ODF support when they did cave, or did that at least run with what they had? Re-writing would be my guess, just so they could claim ownership and also introduce bugs.. but I'm really curious. And it would appear I guessed right.

Re:Credits Re:Don't forget, MS is not locked out

[steveha]

Credit where it's due. MS did not write the original MS Office ODF support. Sun did.

I remember a Microsoft spokesman, in his official capacity, saying that it would be "impossible" to support ODF in Office. Then Sun went and did it. Oh yeah, I'll give Sun the credit for doing it first. (And if anyone can give me a URL to one of the news stories quoting that Microsoft spokesman, please do. I've been trying to find evidence to support my memory...)

What I'm curious about now, is: was microsoft dumb enough to re-write the ODF support when they did cave, or did that at least run with what they had? Re-writing would be my guess, just so they could claim ownership and also introduce bugs..

Look, I'm ready to shoot arrows at Microsoft over the whole OOXML fiasco, but you are being really unreasonable here.

First, Microsoft needs to have clear ownership over their converter, so they can ship it legally with Office. Unless the original plugin was released under a BSD-ish license, Microsoft could not possibly use it at all. And the Sun converter is not under a BSD-ish license. (I don't even think Sun is releasing the source code; it seems to be free-as-in-beer.)

Second, Microsoft Office applications already have a whole framework for import/export converters, and Microsoft would want to use that. I don't believe Microsoft ever published open specs so that people could write free software converters, so I don't think Sun used the Office converter framework.

Finally, I am not quite paranoid enough to think that Microsoft would deliberately introduce errors with their ODF converters. It's not like Norway is going to just take Office, never test it, buy ten million copies, and then say "uh oh, ODF doesn't work". Norway would test Microsoft Office, find that it does not handle ODF well, and say "this software is not qualified for our use. We will just have to adopt OpenOffice.org and not pay anything, instead of buying Microsoft Office." Thus, any attempt by Microsoft to screw up the ODF converters would only keep Microsoft from ever selling Office to ODF users. And Microsoft isn't stupid enough to think this would work.

What I could easily believe is that Microsoft might put only one or two developers on the task, then internal Microsoft politics could lead to the developers being yanked away when the converter was only half-baked. That's stupid, but stupid is more plausible than the deliberate errors scenario.

steveha

That happened thanks to OpenOffice

[jegerjensen]

When Microsoft suddenly saw the need for a nynorsk version of Office after ignoring it for 20 years or so, it was because OpenOffice had already been translated. For a very short while, OpenOffice was the only legal option for schools. Its a great example of the leverage FLOSS can provide when wrestling with a monopolist.

MS OOXML: the white elephant on the menu

[denis-The-menace]

Correct.
MS' OOXML file format is different from the ISO/IEC 29500 OOXML file format that MS bought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooxml#Application_support

MS will either have to change Office or buy yet another ISO standard to have a product that creates ISO compliant files!

For now, when you go for MS' lunch special, it's a white elephant on the menu.

Satan dad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Satandad? Would that be George Bush, senior?

No, no: "Bjørk"=Icelandic singer, "Bork"=Swed

[zooblethorpe]

Geeze, doesn't anyone brush up on their Muppets anymore? ;)

Cheers,

Hur, de hur de hur, dee dee, bum - Bork Bork Bork!

Amen, brother!

[zooblethorpe]

But seriously, you make a very powerful point here:

Making and changing and fixing things for the sake of doing so and improving one's knowledge and skills is what I would think is the hallmark of being a geek, whether it be PCs, software, furniture, cars, electronics, whatever.

I'm not Jewish (heck, I'm not anything religion-wise), but my wife spent some years teaching at a Jewish school, and I learned quite a lot about Judaism that I didn't know before. One thing I very much respect (for those that follow it) is the principle of tikkun olam , or the idea of repairing the world. I don't happen to think the world is busted, but the underlying ideal of being an involved and productive participant is very close to my own thoughts on at least part of what makes someone a good person.

Adding to the complexity, beauty, and learning of the world at large -- and not because you're forced to by any external factor, but because you are compelled to by your very nature. That sounds to me like a geek. :)

To go all Shakespearean on you...

[zooblethorpe]

... a POX on both your mouses!

Try the veal, I'll be here all decade...

Cheers,

OOFDa

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just waiting for the OOFDa standard to be finalized!