You are wrong.RandomProductions wrote:Although OOXML is now an ISO standard (I believe), no-one will implement it because it is NOT open.
...which is one of the objections made to ISO against the proposal, and probably one reason why it's not yet finally approved.RandomProductions wrote:In fact, over 10% of the examples provided with the standard do not validate as XML (according to noooxml.org).
In fact, many companies and individuals have forked out the cash to have MS Office 2007, which is the software suite when it comes to using OOXML. Ignoring it would be stupid for most of us. Some have the liberty to ignore a format that has gained a major impact. For the rest of us, the viable approach would be accepting the facts while encouraging use of the approved standard.RandomProductions wrote: I say we ignore the thing. People are already using ODF, and I hardly think they're going to pay hundreds of dollars to use OOXML. I refuse to touch it.
Well, IIRC someone from Microsoft gave a statement to the effect that ODF "has won the first battle". Accepting that, and attempting to lead the development of ODF towards supporting all functions of MS Office (which MS claims that ODF doesn't at the moment) is the logical next step. (That doesn't mean we should extend unlimited trust. Wariness is always in order when dealing with large commercial entities.)RandomProductions wrote:And on top of it all, Microsoft has recently joined the ODF committee thingy. Rather suspicious.
Partial implementations of standards is quite common, weighing needs against cost when implementing each feature in the standard.
E.g.: Most SQL servers use a subset of a SQL definition, and hardly any RS232 device uses the full RS232 specification.
acknak wrote:Partial implementations of standards is quite common, weighing needs against cost when implementing each feature in the standard.
E.g.: Most SQL servers use a subset of a SQL definition, and hardly any RS232 device uses the full RS232 specification.
And it's no coincidence that those two technologies also bring huge problems when you try to interoperate with them.
I've yet to find a network connection over 10/100baseT/RJ45 cable that didn't "just work", but the same is absolutely not true for SQL statements and RS-232 connections.
Any standard that is so complex or off-target that it leads to wide-spread subsetting or supersetting is a broken standard.
Broken (and sometimes badly patched up) standard or not.
Villeroy wrote:Microsoft's next save-as dialogs may look like:
OfficeOpen XML (*.docx) full featured since 2007, everybody uses that!
Office binary (*.doc) full featured since 1997
OfficeOpen XML strict (*isox) compatible with 3rd party applications, raise warning on save!
ODF (*.odt) beware of the freaks, raise warning on save!
Villeroy wrote:ODF (*.odt) beware of the freaks, raise warning on save!
petras wrote:What will happen now?
That's bull, I just opened an ODS full of formulas in Excel 2007 and all I got were the static numbers that had been the last results of those formulas - the formulas themselves were all gone.Hagar de l'Est wrote:An interesting move: MS Office 2007 to support ODF in SP2.
donjoe wrote:That's bullHagar de l'Est wrote:An interesting move: MS Office 2007 to support ODF in SP2.
Although the EC says the Open Document Format (ODF) to stand you up to date, for example, the text of the Digital Agenda not available in ODF (or in the closed Microsoft. Doc format).
not available in ODF (BUT in the closed Microsoft. Doc format)
Villeroy wrote:It is not in the Microsoft's interest to be compatible with any document formats other than their own ones.
saying no to OOXML is even more necessary today than it was in 2007; please let’s all make this as clear as possible...
Villeroy wrote:I do not understand why LibreOffice helps spreading OOXML by writing this pestilence of a file format. There is no technical reason to do so. The MS applications will support the old binary formats for the years to come and OOo's feature set is much closer to the binary formats. OOXML includes lots of features that are specific to the latest office versions.
Update: Novell's Michael Meeks has responded, although it's a personal response, not a Novell one. I find it profoundly disturbing. Boiled down to its essence:
Of course, those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and caution is useful, however - the Novell association is via a published agreement whereby Microsoft helps to fund the development of improved interoperability between the Free Software desktop world, and Microsoft Office - which at least on the face of it appears to be the opposite of creating incompatibility.
Why would they do that ? and is Novell per-se evil for writing this software ? In part, it is true that having a second implementation of OOXML is helpful to improve the standard, and make it more acceptable. Given their need for that, I prefer a Free Software second implementation (available to all under the LGPLv3) instead of a proprietary alternative. Novell has different needs: to serve its customers, who have real interoperability requirements which this work helps to meet.
Another, interesting charge is that this creates private interoperability between only Novell and Microsoft's Office suites at everyone else' expense. Indeed by reading the repeated mention of things like "Novell OpenOffice productivity suite" you could easily be annoyed into that conclusion. Of course, this is not the case. Since we cannot promise something that other people deliver - it is necessary to phrase everything in terms of an abstract Novell Office product; obviously. However, all of our code is publicly available to others under the LGPLv3. Furthermore, there is no private or special information we have on the standard or implementation beyond what is published and public.
It's a published agreement *now* but it was secret since March. It's now required to be public, because Novell is a public company looking to sell its assets. And the incompatibility I worry about is due to Microsoft's aggressive patent stance. Novell entered a "patent peace" with Microsoft, so they don't need to worry about patents. But the rest of us do. So the fact that the code is available for everyone isn't actually good news, if it's contaminated. Can Meeks promise it isn't? Can Novell offer the world indemnification?
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