Firstly let me start by saying the Apple II and the Apple MAC had far more hype surrounding it when they were first released than the IPhone does today. Without a bail out from Microsoft in the late 90's Apple and its platform would have perished.
The measure of IPhones success will be 20 years from now, not at the time it's launched.
As was the case with the PC market in it's early stages, from the user perspective there have been lots of issues and problems with Windows Mobile phones. Marrying an OS platform from one company with hardware and software from another is not simple, and pretty much impossible to do right until after repeated attempts. As with the PC market eventually it will be right for the average consumer, to date it's really only been a satisfactory for the technology enthusiast.
The problem with Windows Mobile, is that it has attempted to apply the same ideology to the mobile market as what was done in the PC market, and it has experienced similar technical problems to the PC market in it's early stages. Adopting companies are small, inexperienced, lacking quality control, they are technologically lagging major players, lacking marketing and distribution channels. Windows Mobile is waiting for it's Dell, Compaq etc. Unlike the PC market the competition in the mobile market is well established and the user base is far less tolerant of the glitches that have plagued many of the Windows Mobile devices.
So in the short term, yes you're right, Apple should feel right at home competing against the like's of Sony, Nokia etc who share their closed system ideology. But do you really believe this sort of ideology will last forever?
Why hack when you can simply develop on one of the many more open mobile development platforms? Like for example Microsoft Windows Mobile?
It's the classic tale that Apple seems to have not yet learnt, the only way to gain long term success in a market is to allow 3rd parties to develop under your platform and support you. If you fail to provide the appropriate level access to your systems your competition will, and those looking for a mobile development platform will move to the competition.
Apple should be the ones providing the development platform for the IPhone to third parties not hackers.
I think most developers at least do smoke tests of their sites within the major browsers, or at least download the browser and save it with the intention of doing tests at some stage. Of course most sites out there do not behave the same across browsers. Most developers I know love having a a collection of installation packages for various browsers.
I was just agreeing that most people who download browsers without any itention of actually using it regularly.
What percentage of that 1 million would be developers? Most developers will download it to test their sites compatibility in it as they have most other browsers.
And this reply like each of your others is of someone who doesn't have one. If the only way you can win an argument is to ignore the essential points of the other person's argument I think it makes it clear that what you're saying is based on emotional bias and denial of reality.
I think this is more about you wanting your ideas legislatively enforced.... quite frightening, thank god you're not a politician to go back to the Nazi Germany/Communist Russia analogy you might end up being another Hitler or Stalin.
At the point where laws, regulations, and courts define it to be. All other areas of commerce have regulations that make such distinctions, only computer software developers think they can get away with treating products as one big, amorphous, unregulated mass. Computer software is going to get regulated sooner or later, just like cars, drugs, components, chemicals, food, and everything else; it's inevitable. And the sooner that happens the better, because it would stop the kind of abuses that Microsoft is engaging in.
Cough... yea OK...
You left all the really difficult questions unanswered again such as how you manage to determine between software that is part of the OS or an application running on the OS. Seeing as you a technical expert seem reluctant or incapable of making such distinctions how would you expect someone who is primarily an expert on law and not technical systems to be able to discern these differences? If you left it to courts to make these decisions you might as well toss a coin to decide whose new business model will be surpressed or allowed to survive.
The truth is that its pretty arbitrary and the most concise technical defintion of an OS would be one that doesn't even supply a GUI interface neverlone services such as Windows Search or interfaces you use to manage those services such as a command prompt or MMC interface.
As far as I'm concerned whilst at a very technical level things such as applications and an OS exist but from a user perspective there shouldn't be such a distinction, the system is just that, a fully integrated system acting as one logical entity. The ground you're standing on is only going to get more shakey as todays as systems evolve and become more distributed and integrated.
Not at all, which is precisely why Microsoft must be stopped: Microsoft today is shipping an OS that has the same feature set as desktop operating systems in 1986, and unless something is done to force them to change, they'll continue to do so.
This is just a ridiculously false statement, I could write about 10 pages on things available in XP/Vista that were not available in any OS in 1986. USB, DirectX, Networking connectivity, systems integration, hardware support etc etc.
As far as how Microsoft is doing, I think they probably love the bad publicity they're getting. The truth is they're just fine, the development resources Microsoft has been churning out over the last 7 years has been totally mind blowing, you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg from them yet. Technologies available in.NET 3.5 like Silverlight and WCF are truely mind blowing, the long term ramifications of this technology is going to change the way people think about the internet, both in terms of it's use and development.
At what point do you start classifying executeable code on a computer as being an application or being part of the OS?
You think we should all be forced to buy an OS which has a simple messaging kernel with no interface and then be forced to purchase all other components from third parties, e.g like a command prompt shell, the GUI, winsock, browser, device drivers, etc etc. ?
I know that's taking things to an extreme but where do you draw the line?
News Bulliten: MOST PEOPLE HATE TINKERING WITH COMPUTERS. Unlike you they get no joy out of it. They just want to walk into a department store, buy a box, switch it on and be able to do stuff, like browsing the web, browsing/editing photos and videos, reading email, etc etc, and that list of things people want grows every month. They don't care how their computer does it, or what does it, or how the computer was made to do it, as long as it does what they want it to do.
If people really wanted what you want then Linux would be a whole lot more mainstream and popular than it is today.
So what exactly is your idea of an OS ?
Same as it is today; same as what Microsoft ships today
Do you really think 10 years from now people are going to be interested in purchasing an OS with the same feature set as today? You basically want Microsoft to legislatively forced to stop development work and be made to freeze the features available to people using their platform? In effect what you really want is for Microsoft to be legislatively eliminated from the market.
I noticed you totally skirted mentioning Apple. So you would argue that Apple be forced to stop bundling all their software and internet subscription services with their MACs ? Because it's a fact you get more software bundled on a MAC than you do with Windows. And how about allowing people to choose the operating system loaded on to their Apple MAC hardware?
Is this really about fair competition or just hating Microsoft?
And if you want to talk about communism and dictatorships, then you're really talking about people forcing their views on to others. If you don't like Microsoft don't buy it, simple.
Should this framework ever get popular enough that it becomes a target, of course spammers will have a go. I'm hoping it will always be the case that the popularity of the framework outstrips that of the interest from spammers and accordingly that the effort required from a spammer to attack a site using the framework just isn't worth the reward.
The goal of the framework is to provide mechanisms for securely presenting and validating answers to text based CAPTCHAs in a way that is easily customised, configured, monitored, and extended. A key feature of the system is a plugin enviroment that allows developers to easily add, configure and write plugins for the system. For each request the system chooses a random plugin to generate the CAPTCHA. Each plugin for the system as you say with time and effort can be countered. However every plugin implemented for the framework provides an additional permutations for spammers to counter.
So basically its a simplistic brute force approach, as long as there are more developers writing plugins for this framework than spammers coding against it, a site using the framework should relatively "safe" from attack.
But as you say, nothing is fool proof. I think that is certainly true for traditional image captchas. It's only a matter of time (and probably not that much of it) before spammers start using OCR to attack sites using image based CAPTCHAs and in the mean time there are millions of visually impaired people being unfairly denied access to content on the net.
P.S I've already posted this once on slashdot in reply to another story about CAPTCHAs only to be thorougly and completely flamed by those who felt compelled to do so. I guess I'm a sucker for punishment...
Visually impaired people rely on computers to interpret content on the web page for them.
Any CAPTCHA which uses content that is impossible for a computer to interpret fails the basic requirements for a spam protection system. So the use of images in any form is not the right solution.
Windows Search services have been in every Microsoft OS since Windows95. This complaint from Google is totally ridiculous. I guess their moto "Do no evil" has a caveat which says "unless we're doing it to Microsoft".
I'm quite happy for Microsoft to bundle as many features into Windows as possible... I hope one day it does everything for me, my VOIP calls, my answering system, my cable TV, home security, child care and pours me a cup of coffee in the mornings and I don't want to have to go out, and choose amongst 5 or 6 average selections, I'd rather deal with one vendor.
And if what I want is out of touch how do you explain why everyone goes yay when you get a Mac bundled with ITunes, Safari, Mail, Organiser software, pda sync software, etc etc? You practically get more bundled on an OS X install than you do with Windows these days, yet all the complaints about bundled software remains firmly focused on Microsoft. It's complete hypocrisy.
Microsoft should decide whether they want to be an OS manufacturer or an OS component supplier; they should not be permitted to be both because it is clearly anti-competitive and anti-innovation.
So what exactly is your idea of an OS ? Is Windows Media, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, the Control panel, Windows Service msc, or the Windows Indexing Service, part of the OS or an application? Do you really think the idea of an OS you have has any relevance to the 95% of the populous who don't even understand what an OS kernel is? Do you think anyone among the remaining 5% who has half a clue about the direction personal computing is taking would think this concept of application and OS you have has any relevance in next gen personal computing?
I think these notions you are talking of - OS and application stem from very dated ideas about personal computing. As Van Jacoboson says in a video on next generation networking and data systems"The Earth is not the center of the universe". Computers are not going to stay as they are now forever, they are going to change very rapidly over the next 100 years and it is more than likely the very dated notions of OS and application, client and server that you have will be completely blurred into something totally unrecognisable from today.
Microsoft has every right to viguourously compete in this rapidly changing space, the kinds of restrictions you are talking about would eliminate any player (including Microsoft) from playing a part in the creation of next generation personal computing systems.
I demand that your next car be bundled with no steering wheel, gear shift or accelerator pedal.
Switching off Windows Indexing service (which I might note has been around in one form or another since Windows 95), is just a matter of shutting down a service.
It's been around for many years. You can switch it off.
Google is basically demanding Microsoft pull a service that has been around for pretty much ever. Well before google desktop search was even around. I think the US justice department is actually being quite sensible.
Nice try Google. I guess that'd be "Do no evil" with the caveat "Unless it's Microsoft then kick em where it counts."
Microsoft Office 2007 saves docs as docx - OpenXML.
Docx is actually binary, however that binary format is just a standard zip archive containing a number of related XML files. The schema of docx is backwards compatible with the data in legacy binary MS Office docs, however the reverse is not true. With a freely downloadable patch older versions of office can read and write OpenXML. You can do more with docx in Office 2007 than what you can do with it in Office 2003/XP/2000. So it's pretty clear they're NOT going back to closed binary formats, this is the future of MS Office.
As for ODF how can it be "the real standard" when most people are using software that does not support it or supports it but often fails to reproduce their legacy docs as is in ODF format?
The functionality you're talking about exists purely to support legacy MS Office documents. Office 2007 will not create new documents that require applications to implement 2.15.3.6. However, legacy systems are an unfortunate reality. Any document format that is going to deal with reality shall have to work with legacy issues required to correctly translate the billions of legacy documents out there in MS Word, WordStar, Wordperfect etc etc formats.
OpenXML is currently going through the ISO standardisation process. ISO standardisation is a democratic process, countries can vote Yes/No, or alternatively No with a list of changes they would like to see made to the standard, if those ammendments are made to the standard then that No becomes a yes.
I don't think such details are insurmountable obstacle. I'm sure the ISO standardisation process will bring the OpenXML standard into line in any places where it is out of line with what is required to meet all the criteria for ISO standards such as allowing free trade and communication.
Microsoft has repeatedly said they're not going to sue in multiple public statements and legally binding declarations. The sort of claims you're making are simply ludicrous.
OpenXML files are just zip files containing xml files with specific schemas, just what exactly has been patented by microsoft? I've searched for this information and I've seen plenty of people making claims similiar to your own, but they all fail to mention any specifics. Without details I can only assume such claims are FUD designed specifically to scare off people from using OpenXML who want their data in open formats.
Basically I think there's a lot of people who firstly don't like Microsoft and secondly are pissed off that Microsoft have created to compete against ODF as an open format. Considering ODF was by its definition an alternative to Microsoft formats, and was developed purely for OpenOffice without any consideration of Microsofts requirements for file formats, it's not at all surprising that Microsoft simply can't use ODF as format that is fully backwards compatible with the massive amount of data out there in legacy Microsoft Office formats. So it's not surprising that Microsoft faced with demand for a open file formats for office documents would be forced to champion it's own standard.
Microsoft is not supporting ODF because ODF is just a standard, it's not "the standard". For ODF to be "the standard" it should have been developed in collaboration with the industry leader in Office software and not simply based on the format of documents used in a competing product.
As for the scare mongering about litigation from Microsoft over OpenXML, it's just that scare mongering, litigation on Microsoft's behalf would be self defeating and end any hopes it has for turning OpenXML into "the standard".
Says you! There are billions of Microsoft Office documents out there in legacy formats. Any standard that fails to support these documents is irrelevant to the majority of people out there.
As can be seen in this article it's pretty clear there is demand for open file formats. Unfortunately for ODF its creators never had any intention of providing backwards compatibility support for Microsoft Office documents. ODF is a cross industry standard to the exclusion of Microsoft and its customers, this is ODF's greatest failing and why there is a demand for OpenXML - a freely licensed file format for office documents backwards compatible with Microsoft Office legacy documents and supported by Microsoft.
No one is going to be sued by Microsoft for implementing the OpenXML standard. It would be totally self defeating.
OpenXML is definitely a response to ODF.
They day Microsoft sues a company for implementing OpenXML is the day OpenXML becomes completely irrelevant to anybody wanting their data in free, flexible, open formats. It would put ODF and packages implementing it back on the table as the only option available to these institutions. It's simply not going to happen.
You have information that says Novell has access to "secret" documentation regarding OpenXML?
I think it is your argument that is disingenuous and lacks all validity. You're in denial that Microsoft could possibly open up it's Office formats in the same way that Sun has done with Star Office. This is exactly what they have done.
Docx documents are simply zip files containing simple xml files, it's not even half as complicated as people are implying. Creating docx documents is actually quite simple...
I've seen it all on slashdot today, half of the comments rated up against posts I've made are claiming the 6000 pages of documentation is too complicated and difficult to follow, the other half claim they are incomplete and I bet not a single one of these people have even looked at the documentation:
It doesn't matter what cross platform specification there is out there, there are always be difficulties producing identical replications of a standard between platforms, just look at SOAP and HTML for examples, everyone knows the problems developing HTML applications that work across multiple browsers. Does that mean HTML or SOAP are not valid standards? Of course it doesn't.
The truth is there is an abundance of information and examples on how to create, read and modify Office 2007 OpenXml documents.
With Office 2007 Microsoft has opened the floodgates for developers and turned it into a full on document processing development platform. I think Microsoft has done this because they genuinely believe they can offer a commercial product that will be bought based on the merits of the application versus applications such as Star Office and/or Open Office.
I looked at the first two links from the search engine results linked to in the original post. I'm not ignoring anything.
When/If OpenXML is accepted as an ISO then I think this argument will be settled and you will have to accept ODF and OpenXML are equivalent.
I think you will have to accept it one day, it's pretty clear that Microsoft accepts that people want their information in easy to work with document formats, that are freely licensed and developed against.
Slashdot Mirror
Firstly let me start by saying the Apple II and the Apple MAC had far more hype surrounding it when they were first released than the IPhone does today. Without a bail out from Microsoft in the late 90's Apple and its platform would have perished.
The measure of IPhones success will be 20 years from now, not at the time it's launched.
As was the case with the PC market in it's early stages, from the user perspective there have been lots of issues and problems with Windows Mobile phones. Marrying an OS platform from one company with hardware and software from another is not simple, and pretty much impossible to do right until after repeated attempts. As with the PC market eventually it will be right for the average consumer, to date it's really only been a satisfactory for the technology enthusiast.
The problem with Windows Mobile, is that it has attempted to apply the same ideology to the mobile market as what was done in the PC market, and it has experienced similar technical problems to the PC market in it's early stages. Adopting companies are small, inexperienced, lacking quality control, they are technologically lagging major players, lacking marketing and distribution channels. Windows Mobile is waiting for it's Dell, Compaq etc. Unlike the PC market the competition in the mobile market is well established and the user base is far less tolerant of the glitches that have plagued many of the Windows Mobile devices.
So in the short term, yes you're right, Apple should feel right at home competing against the like's of Sony, Nokia etc who share their closed system ideology. But do you really believe this sort of ideology will last forever?
Why hack when you can simply develop on one of the many more open mobile development platforms? Like for example Microsoft Windows Mobile?
It's the classic tale that Apple seems to have not yet learnt, the only way to gain long term success in a market is to allow 3rd parties to develop under your platform and support you. If you fail to provide the appropriate level access to your systems your competition will, and those looking for a mobile development platform will move to the competition.
Apple should be the ones providing the development platform for the IPhone to third parties not hackers.
I think most developers at least do smoke tests of their sites within the major browsers, or at least download the browser and save it with the intention of doing tests at some stage. Of course most sites out there do not behave the same across browsers. Most developers I know love having a a collection of installation packages for various browsers. I was just agreeing that most people who download browsers without any itention of actually using it regularly.
What percentage of that 1 million would be developers? Most developers will download it to test their sites compatibility in it as they have most other browsers.
And this reply like each of your others is of someone who doesn't have one. If the only way you can win an argument is to ignore the essential points of the other person's argument I think it makes it clear that what you're saying is based on emotional bias and denial of reality.
I think this is more about you wanting your ideas legislatively enforced.... quite frightening, thank god you're not a politician to go back to the Nazi Germany/Communist Russia analogy you might end up being another Hitler or Stalin.
.NET 3.5 like Silverlight and WCF are truely mind blowing, the long term ramifications of this technology is going to change the way people think about the internet, both in terms of it's use and development.
At the point where laws, regulations, and courts define it to be. All other areas of commerce have regulations that make such distinctions, only computer software developers think they can get away with treating products as one big, amorphous, unregulated mass. Computer software is going to get regulated sooner or later, just like cars, drugs, components, chemicals, food, and everything else; it's inevitable. And the sooner that happens the better, because it would stop the kind of abuses that Microsoft is engaging in.
Cough... yea OK...
You left all the really difficult questions unanswered again such as how you manage to determine between software that is part of the OS or an application running on the OS. Seeing as you a technical expert seem reluctant or incapable of making such distinctions how would you expect someone who is primarily an expert on law and not technical systems to be able to discern these differences? If you left it to courts to make these decisions you might as well toss a coin to decide whose new business model will be surpressed or allowed to survive.
The truth is that its pretty arbitrary and the most concise technical defintion of an OS would be one that doesn't even supply a GUI interface neverlone services such as Windows Search or interfaces you use to manage those services such as a command prompt or MMC interface.
As far as I'm concerned whilst at a very technical level things such as applications and an OS exist but from a user perspective there shouldn't be such a distinction, the system is just that, a fully integrated system acting as one logical entity. The ground you're standing on is only going to get more shakey as todays as systems evolve and become more distributed and integrated.
Not at all, which is precisely why Microsoft must be stopped: Microsoft today is shipping an OS that has the same feature set as desktop operating systems in 1986, and unless something is done to force them to change, they'll continue to do so.
This is just a ridiculously false statement, I could write about 10 pages on things available in XP/Vista that were not available in any OS in 1986. USB, DirectX, Networking connectivity, systems integration, hardware support etc etc.
As far as how Microsoft is doing, I think they probably love the bad publicity they're getting. The truth is they're just fine, the development resources Microsoft has been churning out over the last 7 years has been totally mind blowing, you haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg from them yet. Technologies available in
At what point do you start classifying executeable code on a computer as being an application or being part of the OS?
You think we should all be forced to buy an OS which has a simple messaging kernel with no interface and then be forced to purchase all other components from third parties, e.g like a command prompt shell, the GUI, winsock, browser, device drivers, etc etc. ?
I know that's taking things to an extreme but where do you draw the line?
News Bulliten: MOST PEOPLE HATE TINKERING WITH COMPUTERS. Unlike you they get no joy out of it. They just want to walk into a department store, buy a box, switch it on and be able to do stuff, like browsing the web, browsing/editing photos and videos, reading email, etc etc, and that list of things people want grows every month. They don't care how their computer does it, or what does it, or how the computer was made to do it, as long as it does what they want it to do.
If people really wanted what you want then Linux would be a whole lot more mainstream and popular than it is today.
So what exactly is your idea of an OS ?
Same as it is today; same as what Microsoft ships today
Do you really think 10 years from now people are going to be interested in purchasing an OS with the same feature set as today? You basically want Microsoft to legislatively forced to stop development work and be made to freeze the features available to people using their platform? In effect what you really want is for Microsoft to be legislatively eliminated from the market.
I noticed you totally skirted mentioning Apple. So you would argue that Apple be forced to stop bundling all their software and internet subscription services with their MACs ? Because it's a fact you get more software bundled on a MAC than you do with Windows. And how about allowing people to choose the operating system loaded on to their Apple MAC hardware?
Is this really about fair competition or just hating Microsoft?
And if you want to talk about communism and dictatorships, then you're really talking about people forcing their views on to others. If you don't like Microsoft don't buy it, simple.
It's an arms race.
Should this framework ever get popular enough that it becomes a target, of course spammers will have a go. I'm hoping it will always be the case that the popularity of the framework outstrips that of the interest from spammers and accordingly that the effort required from a spammer to attack a site using the framework just isn't worth the reward.
I agree, which is why I wrote a framework for text based CAPTCHAs that allows web developers to combine their effort to counter spammers.
...
The goal of the framework is to provide mechanisms for securely presenting and validating answers to text based CAPTCHAs in a way that is easily customised, configured, monitored, and extended. A key feature of the system is a plugin enviroment that allows developers to easily add, configure and write plugins for the system. For each request the system chooses a random plugin to generate the CAPTCHA. Each plugin for the system as you say with time and effort can be countered. However every plugin implemented for the framework provides an additional permutations for spammers to counter.
So basically its a simplistic brute force approach, as long as there are more developers writing plugins for this framework than spammers coding against it, a site using the framework should relatively "safe" from attack.
But as you say, nothing is fool proof. I think that is certainly true for traditional image captchas. It's only a matter of time (and probably not that much of it) before spammers start using OCR to attack sites using image based CAPTCHAs and in the mean time there are millions of visually impaired people being unfairly denied access to content on the net.
P.S I've already posted this once on slashdot in reply to another story about CAPTCHAs only to be thorougly and completely flamed by those who felt compelled to do so. I guess I'm a sucker for punishment
Visually impaired people rely on computers to interpret content on the web page for them.
Any CAPTCHA which uses content that is impossible for a computer to interpret fails the basic requirements for a spam protection system. So the use of images in any form is not the right solution.
Windows Search services have been in every Microsoft OS since Windows95. This complaint from Google is totally ridiculous. I guess their moto "Do no evil" has a caveat which says "unless we're doing it to Microsoft".
I'm quite happy for Microsoft to bundle as many features into Windows as possible... I hope one day it does everything for me, my VOIP calls, my answering system, my cable TV, home security, child care and pours me a cup of coffee in the mornings and I don't want to have to go out, and choose amongst 5 or 6 average selections, I'd rather deal with one vendor.
And if what I want is out of touch how do you explain why everyone goes yay when you get a Mac bundled with ITunes, Safari, Mail, Organiser software, pda sync software, etc etc? You practically get more bundled on an OS X install than you do with Windows these days, yet all the complaints about bundled software remains firmly focused on Microsoft. It's complete hypocrisy.
Microsoft should decide whether they want to be an OS manufacturer or an OS component supplier; they should not be permitted to be both because it is clearly anti-competitive and anti-innovation.
So what exactly is your idea of an OS ? Is Windows Media, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, the Control panel, Windows Service msc, or the Windows Indexing Service, part of the OS or an application? Do you really think the idea of an OS you have has any relevance to the 95% of the populous who don't even understand what an OS kernel is? Do you think anyone among the remaining 5% who has half a clue about the direction personal computing is taking would think this concept of application and OS you have has any relevance in next gen personal computing?
I think these notions you are talking of - OS and application stem from very dated ideas about personal computing. As Van Jacoboson says in a video on next generation networking and data systems "The Earth is not the center of the universe". Computers are not going to stay as they are now forever, they are going to change very rapidly over the next 100 years and it is more than likely the very dated notions of OS and application, client and server that you have will be completely blurred into something totally unrecognisable from today.
Microsoft has every right to viguourously compete in this rapidly changing space, the kinds of restrictions you are talking about would eliminate any player (including Microsoft) from playing a part in the creation of next generation personal computing systems.
I demand that your next car be bundled with no steering wheel, gear shift or accelerator pedal.
Switching off Windows Indexing service (which I might note has been around in one form or another since Windows 95), is just a matter of shutting down a service.
It's called the windows indexing service.
http://www.xefteri.com/articles/show.cfm?id=2
It's been around for many years. You can switch it off.
Google is basically demanding Microsoft pull a service that has been around for pretty much ever. Well before google desktop search was even around. I think the US justice department is actually being quite sensible.
Nice try Google. I guess that'd be "Do no evil" with the caveat "Unless it's Microsoft then kick em where it counts."
Microsoft Office 2007 saves docs as docx - OpenXML.
Docx is actually binary, however that binary format is just a standard zip archive containing a number of related XML files. The schema of docx is backwards compatible with the data in legacy binary MS Office docs, however the reverse is not true. With a freely downloadable patch older versions of office can read and write OpenXML. You can do more with docx in Office 2007 than what you can do with it in Office 2003/XP/2000. So it's pretty clear they're NOT going back to closed binary formats, this is the future of MS Office.
As for ODF how can it be "the real standard" when most people are using software that does not support it or supports it but often fails to reproduce their legacy docs as is in ODF format?
The functionality you're talking about exists purely to support legacy MS Office documents. Office 2007 will not create new documents that require applications to implement 2.15.3.6. However, legacy systems are an unfortunate reality. Any document format that is going to deal with reality shall have to work with legacy issues required to correctly translate the billions of legacy documents out there in MS Word, WordStar, Wordperfect etc etc formats.
OpenXML is currently going through the ISO standardisation process. ISO standardisation is a democratic process, countries can vote Yes/No, or alternatively No with a list of changes they would like to see made to the standard, if those ammendments are made to the standard then that No becomes a yes.
I don't think such details are insurmountable obstacle. I'm sure the ISO standardisation process will bring the OpenXML standard into line in any places where it is out of line with what is required to meet all the criteria for ISO standards such as allowing free trade and communication.
Microsoft has repeatedly said they're not going to sue in multiple public statements and legally binding declarations. The sort of claims you're making are simply ludicrous.
OpenXML files are just zip files containing xml files with specific schemas, just what exactly has been patented by microsoft? I've searched for this information and I've seen plenty of people making claims similiar to your own, but they all fail to mention any specifics. Without details I can only assume such claims are FUD designed specifically to scare off people from using OpenXML who want their data in open formats.
Basically I think there's a lot of people who firstly don't like Microsoft and secondly are pissed off that Microsoft have created to compete against ODF as an open format. Considering ODF was by its definition an alternative to Microsoft formats, and was developed purely for OpenOffice without any consideration of Microsofts requirements for file formats, it's not at all surprising that Microsoft simply can't use ODF as format that is fully backwards compatible with the massive amount of data out there in legacy Microsoft Office formats. So it's not surprising that Microsoft faced with demand for a open file formats for office documents would be forced to champion it's own standard.
Microsoft is not supporting ODF because ODF is just a standard, it's not "the standard". For ODF to be "the standard" it should have been developed in collaboration with the industry leader in Office software and not simply based on the format of documents used in a competing product.
As for the scare mongering about litigation from Microsoft over OpenXML, it's just that scare mongering, litigation on Microsoft's behalf would be self defeating and end any hopes it has for turning OpenXML into "the standard".
Such as?
Says you! There are billions of Microsoft Office documents out there in legacy formats. Any standard that fails to support these documents is irrelevant to the majority of people out there.
As can be seen in this article it's pretty clear there is demand for open file formats. Unfortunately for ODF its creators never had any intention of providing backwards compatibility support for Microsoft Office documents. ODF is a cross industry standard to the exclusion of Microsoft and its customers, this is ODF's greatest failing and why there is a demand for OpenXML - a freely licensed file format for office documents backwards compatible with Microsoft Office legacy documents and supported by Microsoft.
No one is going to be sued by Microsoft for implementing the OpenXML standard. It would be totally self defeating.
OpenXML is definitely a response to ODF.
They day Microsoft sues a company for implementing OpenXML is the day OpenXML becomes completely irrelevant to anybody wanting their data in free, flexible, open formats. It would put ODF and packages implementing it back on the table as the only option available to these institutions. It's simply not going to happen.
http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_curren t_work/TC45-2006-50_final_draft.htm
...
... statement?
I've actually looked at OpenXML, read the licensing and have some development experience with it.
How much time have you spent looking at OpenXML before coming to your
That's all there's to it
You have information that says Novell has access to "secret" documentation regarding OpenXML?
6 49007.aspx
n t_work/TC45-2006-50_final_draft.htm
I think it is your argument that is disingenuous and lacks all validity. You're in denial that Microsoft could possibly open up it's Office formats in the same way that Sun has done with Star Office. This is exactly what they have done.
Docx documents are simply zip files containing simple xml files, it's not even half as complicated as people are implying. Creating docx documents is actually quite simple...
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2006/06/27/
I've seen it all on slashdot today, half of the comments rated up against posts I've made are claiming the 6000 pages of documentation is too complicated and difficult to follow, the other half claim they are incomplete and I bet not a single one of these people have even looked at the documentation:
http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_curre
It doesn't matter what cross platform specification there is out there, there are always be difficulties producing identical replications of a standard between platforms, just look at SOAP and HTML for examples, everyone knows the problems developing HTML applications that work across multiple browsers. Does that mean HTML or SOAP are not valid standards? Of course it doesn't.
The truth is there is an abundance of information and examples on how to create, read and modify Office 2007 OpenXml documents.
With Office 2007 Microsoft has opened the floodgates for developers and turned it into a full on document processing development platform. I think Microsoft has done this because they genuinely believe they can offer a commercial product that will be bought based on the merits of the application versus applications such as Star Office and/or Open Office.
Pure FUD.
I looked at the first two links from the search engine results linked to in the original post. I'm not ignoring anything. When/If OpenXML is accepted as an ISO then I think this argument will be settled and you will have to accept ODF and OpenXML are equivalent. I think you will have to accept it one day, it's pretty clear that Microsoft accepts that people want their information in easy to work with document formats, that are freely licensed and developed against.
Here's the explanation...
/ 12/comparison-of-openxml-math-and-mathml.aspx
m athml-from-office-20007.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/10
You can get MathML out of Office docx documents quite easily using XSL transforms...
http://dpcarlisle.blogspot.com/2007/04/xhtml-and-