Microsoft under fire for ODF glitch in Excel
Microsoft has come under fire for spreadsheet interoperability issues in its recent release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2, but the company says it is an issue inherent in OpenDocument Format 1.1.
The software giant released last week the second service pack for Office 2007, which provides support for documents saved in the ODF 1.1 format.
However, Rob Weir, chief ODF architect at IBM, posted a report on his blog saying SP2 had problems reading some ODF spreadsheets saved by OpenOffice.org and lost data by "silently stripping out formulas" from cells. The resulting spreadsheet displays "the last value that the cells had," Weir said.
Weir explained: "If the formulas are stripped, then this cell no longer updates, and will return the wrong value."
He added that with SP2, Excel--the Office suite's spreadsheet program--instead saves spreadsheet formulas into an Excel namespace. "This namespace is not what OpenOffice and other ODF applications use. It is not the ODF 1.2 namespace," Weir said.
Another blogger, who claimed to belong to the OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) ODF technical committee, posted a report later, saying this move by Excel fragments ODF and locks users into using Microsoft's Office product.
The blogger said the new namespace will make new worksheets only understood by Office 2007, "eliminating the possibility that any other existing application could be used to usefully read the document."
Microsoft's response to the issue has been to say that the problem lies in the ODF 1.1 standard, which does not include formula syntax.
Doug Mahugh, senior program manager on the Office interoperability team at Microsoft, posted a response to Weir and said the issue was foreseeable because ODF's earlier specifications did not define spreadsheet support sufficiently--a point raised three years ago, he said.
"Because ODF 1.0 and 1.1 do not support formulas, all ODF spreadsheet implementations are application-dependent," Mahugh said.
Mahugh confirmed in his post that Excel preserves the old values in the cells when encountering unknown formulas but asserted that this would allow regular office users to still read the spreadsheets. He added that IBM's Lotus Symphony spreadsheet software, which keeps and displays unrecognized formulas, would render spreadsheets unreadable to the novice user.
He said ODF 1.2, when ready, is likely to address this issue through a new Open Formula syntax. Mahugh noted that Microsoft chose not to support this version because it has not been passed as a standard by OASIS, yet.
"But we're not there yet; ODF 1.2 is not done, and not even ready for public review," he said.
Oliver Bell, regional technology officer at Microsoft Asia-Pacific, said in a Web chat with ZDNet Asia that the company is trying to balance the task of complying with standards, while ensuring its products work with documents from older versions of Office.
"We want our ODF implementation to work and be interoperable. We also want to conform to the standard," he said.
Bell alluded to the issue being application-dependent as well.
"Today, the only way to do that is to fully understand what every ODF implementation has chosen to do, and compensate for that," he said. "It is a multiple-step journey. Today, anybody can open and understand those documents. With (ODF) 1.2 the (formulas) become interoperable as well, and we all get to where we want to be."
Victoria Ho of ZDNet Asia reported from Singapore.
These folks are complaining that Excel doesn't follow an ODF specs that doesn't even exist yet.
When the ODF people get their act together, they can start complaining.
Microsoft followed the ODF specifications. The specifications do not address formulas. Microsoft raised that issue 3 years ago. They have produced a very successful spreadsheet application, so they probably know what they are talking about.
Just because something is "Open Source" does not make it the be all end all. There is no magic Open Source fairy that sprinkles magic dust on a program and make it magically work. A developer needs interoperability standards, or all solutions will be proprietary.
"ODF 1.0 and 1.1 do not support formulas" How the hell is Microsoft supposed to write for a "standard" and not follow the standard? Are they supposed to create thier own proprietary way of formatting formulas into ODF1.1?
Everyone barks for an open document format, MS converts (at major risk) all of thier suite to an XML based format that can easily be read by other applications... everyone gets pissed off for numerous reason as to why MS should have done it better.
They decide to support native viewing of an HIGHLY INFERIOR format, people get grumpy because that format doesn't do something they want, but another application kludged the feature into the design.
Standards are standards so that everyone can follow them and have thier crap work together. You get MS to follow the standard and people are still cheesed off.
MS shoulda stuck with thier own proprietary formats.
Yes, they did obey the specification, but they did it just to claim that they did, not to make it inter-operable. So everybody is using the "oooc" namespace for formulas, but because the standard omits to enforce this namespace, Microsoft is somehow "forced" to use the "msoxl" namespace. Compliant? Yes. Useful? No...
That is a clear sign of malice. Don't tell me that they didn't test, that they didn't see how other write the ODF files, that they only looked at the standard.... I won't ever believe that.
MS Excel, .xls and .xlsx specs are either closed (.xls, MS Office) or buried in 6,000 pages of muddy documentation (.xlsx), which even Microsoft itself has a hard time following.
It isn't hard to figure out who holds the blame here...
ODF specs are open and legible (and OpenOffice's implementation of it is completely open at the source-code level for clean-room reference).
MS Excel, .xls and .xlsx specs are either closed (.xls, MS Office) or buried in 6,000 pages of muddy documentation (.xlsx), which even Microsoft itself has a hard time following.
It isn't hard to figure out who holds the blame here...
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It is when you're a mindless slave trying to defend your cruel master. "He whips me because he loves me."
ROFLMAO. M$ r-tards deserve what they get.
Amen
BogusBasin = Clueless Idiot.
Your point?
Amen
Isn't open office 'open', MS could have look to see how the Oo software dealt with these files....
Given a widely available and most widely used implementation with all the source code available (what, they couldn't clean-room it with all their billions?) which anyone could choose to standardise on if told which implementation was referenced for maximum interop, Microsoft chose to do it in such a way as to make it difficult for everyone else with their own brand of Not Invented Here (and therefore not monopolisable).
Once again, they Embrace & Extend.
It's hardly a surprise that this 'interoperability' makes it easy to get data into Excel, but not out again.
Because MS followed the standard and didn't implement a non-standard extension they are wrong?
Let me guess, you start every argument at the conclusion (MS is wrong) then work your way back, right?
A few months back all you MS arselickers were shouting that MS defined the standard with OOXML contrary to the ISO by dint of popularity and everyone else should be bending over backwards to do things the Microsoft way. Now that MS has ignored the most popular, widely available and _open_ implementation of ODF in favour of their own incumbent namespaces the standards are all important.
You really do want to eat your cake and have it too.
Something tells me it'll do just fine. NO ONE CARES about open document formats.
...and don't start on OOXML, there are black-boxes within the documentation and problems with patents so no-one outside MS or Novell is going to be implementing that 'standard' anytime soon.
There is one suite in the world that can properly handle properly handle MS file formats and that's produced and sold by MS because apparently they don't quite get the 'open' part of 'open standard' and have to bamboozle and bribe people into passing it.
Saying don't buy it is like saying don't get the only train to the coast when its the only viable means of transport. What is required is fair competition not monopolies and that is fundamental to capitalism working. The banking and finance systems show what happens when too much power focuses in a supply cartel so try an understand capitalism and some of its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
And; this is why this was known that such an interoperability issues would have emerge sooner or later:
Re: "As a point of reference here is an extract from a 1998 Lotus Development Corporation communication; Re: Concerning the issues with 1-2-3 that are talked about in the documentation you gave me, most of the issues are related to converting files between older and newer versions of product and converting documents between Lotus and Microsoft. Anytime a file is saved backwards or saved with an older file format than the format the file was created under, such as saving a 1-2-3 , 97 file for Windows 95 into a WK1 format for DOS, then naturally we are expected to loose certain features due to technology and features that are present now that were not present 8 - 10 years ago. Similarly, if we try to convert a file from Lotus into Excel or Excel into Lotus, due to differences in the products not every feature will be converted perfectly with the file filters that are available. Both Lotus and Microsoft create similar spreadsheet programs; however, there are several differences in both programs and these differences will remain to distinguish the products apart. We do try to design conversion filters that will allow as much of the file formats as possible to be exchanged and converted without disrupting the actual file design and format.
In one of your letters you made mention of the @IRR and @ERR functions in the 1-2-3 product. By design the @IRR (notably "absent" in Open Office) will calculate the Internal Rate of Return; where the @ERR is used in conjunction with other formulas, posted was an "ERR" showing an error was received in the calculations. As far as I can see in the program I cannot find an @ERR function that will allow us to calculate an Economic Rate of Return"
Should we say we told you to watch out for the "stripping out of formulas from cells" (as was mentioned about) a loooooooo...................ng time ago!
So, once again - "Party Like It Is 1998"!
It's dead, Jim.
Get over it.
1.1 is the current version, 1.2 has not been accepted yet.
Now lets consider this:
Microsoft creates a formula scheme to cover for the missing standard.
Will they then be accused of "railroading" the standard???
Think about it.
It would be interesting if CNET would display IP addresses next to names... ;-)
Amen
It's just an operating system, not a way of life. Don't get so worked up over it. Have a nice jello pudding cup instead and laugh a little, BogusBasin. :)
check this http://blogs.gnome.org/mortenw/2005/06/16/opendocument-for-spreadsheets/
Fact: Other companies have not and released features that are application dependant- that are not standards compliant.
Result? Microsoft gets blamed for following the rules that other companies are ignoring.
Somehow I think that if the other companies had followed the standards and Microsoft was the one guilty of adding features that were application specific and not compliant with the standards, then folks would be complaining about that too.... if only because it was Microsoft that was involved.
It's classic case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2009/05/follow-up-on-excel-2007-sp2s-odf.html
So, it's neither interoperable or conformant. Amazing.
As for the second part, Google, Sun, Novell and Cleverage all use the oooc namespace for ODF 1.1 documents so it's not a single vendor extension, no matter whether it may have been once. No getting around that. Maybe it's because, unlike Microsoft's extensions to open standards, this one's well documented and publically available.
I'll just quote Rob since he puts this so well
"First, we might hear that ODF 1.1 does not define spreadsheet formulas and therefore it is not necessary for one vendor to use the same formula language that other vendors use. This is certainly is true if your sole goal is to claim conformance. If your business model requires only conformance and not actually achieving interoperability, then I wish you well. But remember that conformance and interoperability are not mutually exclusive options. An application can be conformant to a standard and also be interoperable, if you use the legacy formula namespace and syntax. So the desire to be conformant is not an excuse for not also being interoperable, or at least not a valid excuse. One might also wryly note that Microsoft has several Directors of Interoperability, not Directors of Minimal Conformance, and they workshops are called Document Interoperability Initiatives, not Minimal Conformance Initiatives. The difference between minimal conformance and interoperability is well illustrated in these tests."
You can't write comedy this funny. Stupid is as stupid does, M$.
- by Ingotian May 11, 2009 1:43 AM PDT
- Microsoft only has itself to blame. They had opportunities to be involved in ODF development from its first days in OASIS. They fought like mad to establish their own XML format deliberately and misleadingly calling it OpenOffice XML. They did massive lobbying and a number of dubious tricks to rush through their rival format to ISO to try and reduce the requirements of governments under World Trade Agreements to use ODF (and by implication OpenOffice.org) . In the end public and governmental pressure forced them to adopt support for ODF. This forces them to compete with OOo on price and function. Now they will do the minimum to stay credible while preserving the dominance of their proprietary formats as long as possible. Its obvious why - and most people in their position would do the same. However, as a consumer of office products it is in my interest to inject as much real competition into that space as possible. Why? Because I will get cheaper and better products as a result. The big problem for MS is that in a World where you can get all the software tools you need for free from the web and that that becomes the expectation, their business model is shot to pieces and replacing 80% profit margins on a global scale is going to be close to impossible.
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