Slashdot Mirror
Standards Expert — "Microsoft Fails the Standards Test"
levell writes "Alex Brown, Convenor of the Ballot Resolution Meeting on OOXML, has written a blog post saying that Microsoft is failing the standards test. Mr. Brown notes: 'In its pre-release form Office 2010 supports not the approved Strict variant of OOXML, but the very format the global community rejected in September 2007, and subsequently marked as not for use in new documents — the Transitional variant. Microsoft are behaving as if the JTC 1 standardisation process never happened, and using technologies (like VML) in a new product which even the text of the Standard itself describes as "deprecated" and "included... for legacy reasons only"...' He also says that defects are being fixed very slowly and that 'Looking at the text, I reckon it is more like 95% that remains to be done, as it is still lousy with defects.' It's an insightful look at what has happened with OOXML since ISO approved it from someone who was not opposed to its becoming a standard."
Wow.... What a surprise. Just when I thought Microsoft was starting to get better. We really need to get away from these binary formats anyway... A LOT of security vulnerabilities come from binary formats.
Many previous posts said it was unrealistic to expect microsoft to implement proper support in Office 2010. I think what is unrealistic is expecting microsoft to implement any kind of standards.
The only time they will implement anything that is standards compliant is when they have no choice. Think about IE. It took 15 years to get them to implement standards in IE (In IE9) and they only did so because Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google forced them. Only after they lost significant marketshare against this companies that they implemented HTML5. And, remember, embrace, extend, extinguish. IE9 is only phase1 (Embrace). In a year or so, we'll see IE9 marketshare grow, and the proprietary extensions will start rolling. In a few years, It'll be 2001 all over again. IE15 will be as incompatible as IE6 was.
This is microsoft. That's what they do. They won't change. They are the most hostile company I've ever seen. They blatantly attack the rest of the industry, and as long as people put up with it and buy their products, they have no reason to change their tactics. They've worked well for them for almost 3 decades.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
For each and every project that specified that a standardized format should be used, they can now be hold liable. Lets hope that they get sued to bits over it. I'm not holding my breath though, the EU seems to have some random rights and wrongs they pursue.
I stopped reading when I got to this nugget - "It is also a worrying commentary on the standards-savvyness of the Office developers that the first amateur attempts of part-time outsiders find problems with documents which Redmond's internal QA processes have missed." Is the author really this naive? If so, how did this guy become involved in the process in the first place?
He's still in denial and lashing out at people who dast say "I told you so" too early for his liking.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Fortunately, not all governments have fallen for the ploy. Recently, the Socialdemocratic-Socialist opposition forced the Conservative-Liberal government in Denmark to pass a law, requiring the state to use truly open formats. One major battle were exactly if OOXML should be considered an open standard. This battle were won by the opposition, as it managed to force the government to make a series of criteria for for what an open format is, where only ODT were included, and it is highly unlikely that the OOXML version including deprecated functionality will meet the criteria.
Microsoft Office Open XML
Are you sure that is the official name? If so, why isn't the abbreviation MOOXML?
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
From the Copenhagen Post
State dumps Microsoft
Thursday, 04 February 2010 10:47 RC
Software giant Microsoft has lost out to ODF in the battle to serve as the state’s open source document provider
After years of deliberation, parliament has voted to stop using Microsoft’s Open Suite file format and switch to ‘Open Document Format’, reports financial daily Børsen.
Already in 2006, parliament had voted to abandon common Microsoft document programmes such as Word in favour of open source documents. But the choice at that point came down to using Microsoft’s own OOXML open source format or ODF, whose specifications were originally developed by Sun Microsystems. The ODF standard was created by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards.
MPs voting for the change said the new format will be cheaper than Microsoft’s and of a higher quality. They have allowed, however, for the future use of OOXML documents within the system.
The new format will take effect on 1 April 2011.