Critics urge rejection of Microsoft 'open' format

International Organization for Standardization is balloting members on "worst-case scenario" of the "classic vendor lock-in."

The story "Critics urge rejection of Microsoft 'open' format" published August 28, 2007 at 7:00 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[tgrenier]

purpose of a standard???

Doesn't a standard mean that anyone can build the standard into thier product? If open XML were to become an ISO standard would Google, Open Office, WP, etc... be able to support it? Or do I have no idea what document standards are for?

Tom

[StargateFan]

No You Are Absolutely Right

If Open XML became a standard then all software companies would develope software which could read, modify, and develope open XML documents. This means companies like Google, or Apple and even Linux Distro's would developpe software using the same standard. It is the same for previous office formats. Macintosh and Google software alike can open .doc files can't they.

I don't understand what the fuss is about. And frankly I think the point of the article is to jump on the Microsoft Bashing Bandwagon, and I don't mean to insult CNET by saying that. A good example is "if the demise of Microsof" oh come on. Windows Vista may be having some problems but it is no where near the intensity of what people are complaining about, especially to go as far as say that Microsoft will go out of business.

OpenXML is a step forward by adding XML to the file equation, it now allows system to better search for files based on common human searh parameters that us the user set forth. This is one of the many technologies that XML opens up on a desktop OS.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "At the heart of the controversy are fears that Open XML...

... is not as open as it claims to be, raising the specter that customers using the word-processing format could become reliant on Microsoft for access to their own documents.

XML, short for Extensible Markup Language, is a standard for describing data in a way that is supposed to allow it to be shared across various systems and applications...." So, what about scenarios involving "Spread Sheets"!!!; and, the need for product "differentiation" as the below would undoubtedly indicate:

"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" (How to determine economically if it is better to produce ethanol in the U.S. and Brazil and have petroleum exporting countries "keep" their ever increasing high-priced products)

Just how on earth can an organisation like the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) approve (still-work-in-process) Spread Sheet Formats (in particular) from the Microsoft Corporation et al?

[maf07]

Exactly

Exactly.
For those who think it's good idea to have ISO
pls read the comments made by local standardizations authorities.
The MS "standard" points to other sources that are not in ISO. How can I implement it then?

[maf07]

Re: The problem with OOXML

sorry, My port should be under:

The problem with OOXML
rex007can -- Aug 28 2007, 9:52 AM PDT

[mwendy]

Critics decry choice

The critics decry CHOICE. That's the real story. And how odd, too?

Or, rather, it isn't so odd when you decipher what the critics/competitors actually mean. That is, the specious ODF mandates/hurdles erected by the phalanx of highly-paid, anti-MSoft lobbyists and special interests to wedge the software maker out of the market, haven't achieved their goal.

In this regard, one choice - i.e., ODF and their related "open" standards mandates - is the only way in which they can win. It's not about archiving, or "freeing the data", or interoperability. For the critics, it's simply about bludgeoning MSoft through bogus government rationale.

And so, when more than the critics' "one choice" choice emerges - as in Massachusetts - they decry it as confusing to the marketplace, unnecessary, etc.

The industry should decry the critics that traffic in this non-sense.

[rex007can]

Sigh!

Pushing ODF is not about "winning" over Microsoft. It's about having a fair and equal chance at entering the Market. It's about having a true open market where companies can compete on the merits of their Software.

If Microsoft's software was so much better than everyone elses, they wouldn't need to use these tactics to destroy everyone else. Their products would stand on their own and win on Merits.
Which is the LAST thing Microsoft wants to be forced into doing...because they'd actually have to compete.

Your argument is a lie.
Period.
How much do they pay you per post?

[`WarpKat]

Wrong

There is a BIG difference between standard file formats and choice of OS.

Microsoft has ensured for the longest time that people be reliant upon it for formats. Case in point: Outlook.

Outlook has the dumbest feature of all set by default: Rich-Text Formatting, which wreaks unnecessary havoc on standards-compliant email clients. I'm pretty sure you've seen it: the WinMail.dat file? Try reading it in Thunderbird, which uses standard encoding to attach files. And yet people think Outlook is "standard." No. It's not.

If Outlook was compliant out of the box with mail delivery standards, IT departments wouldn't have much of a problem deploying it. Or at least, I wouldn't have a problem deploying it. I actually like the features in it, but it's an example of vendor lock-in by not remaining standards compliant for a simple mail delivery format by default. Where's the STANDARDS spec for WinMail.dat? Why isn't it implemented in various email clients?

It's not about Anti-MS. It's about the way they try to force what they believe is a standard down everybody's throats.

ODF is an ISO standard. OOXML is not.

Microsoft Windows is a widely accepted OS. OSX is not. Linux is not. Yet Windows is not a "standard." It is a "choice," and one that is mostly made for you by someone else. Wireless standards are choices and mostly improvements on existing standards to apply enhancements such as speed and security.

Microsoft thinks OOXML should be a choice in standards for document formatting. No. OOXML gives you 6000 pages of what MS would like to impose as a standard, some of which is copied-and-pasted Office Help file sections.

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/07/formula-for-failure.html

Hmmmmmmm. Yea. I think I'll pick OOXML as my 'choice' of document format just because of that.

[DarkPhoenixFF4]

WTF?

The critics don't decry choice; the critics decry an obvious attempt by Microsoft to kill a truly open format by introducing a format intentionally designed to be only implemented by Microsoft in full. Office 2007 isn't even compatible with it, since Microsoft has already E&E'ed the spec!

In NORMAL XML, you can open the source file in a regular text editor and make adjustments. As long as the adjustments match the schema/document type definition, there shouldn't be any problems. But this is not so in OOXML, because it relies on behind-the-scenes binary adjustments made by Office on the fly. As a result, implementations need to either be able to see what Office is doing behind the hood, or have to guess at it.

[Commander_Spock]

Think OOXML Spread Sheet Is Ready For Prime Time....

... Think Again! It is like - been there, done that before...; Have a large Brazilian company evaluate (for financial, economic and technical analyses) a project proposal for the production of ethanol which is to be financed by an international financial institution - let us say the Inter-American Development Bank ( http://www.iadb.org ) Let's see how comfortable that Brazilian company enters that particular bank's doors after project preparation activities involving the usage of Microsoft's (Code-Based IBM 's Lotus SmartSuite) OOXML Productivity Tools!

[Troll Hard]

Eat your heart out

OOXML is being approved despite your strawman arguments and Anti-Microsoft rants.

If not OOXML, what about ODF? Well Sun controls ODF, and ODF spreadsheets don't support IRR/ERR either because they are based on OpenOffice.Org/StarOffice which does not support those functions.

Oh yeah, this isn't 1998, project proposals are not passed around in spreadsheet format. We use databases now with customized stored procedures and queues to calculate IRR/ERR values for us. If anything a Presentation program is used, with the values already calculated by the database and copy and pasted into the Presentation program in the form of a graph or something. Usually a pie or bar chart.

Using spreadsheets is such an amateurish thing to do anyway, in that only a small business would need to use one because they couldn't afford a database. But then this isn't 1998, and many databases are free like MySQL, PostgresSQL, Firebird, and some are commercial and low cost like MS-Access, Apple Filemaker Pro, Personal Oracle, Visual DBase, and Paradox.

[jekyl20]

Who cares?

Well, if my grandchildren were trying to prove ownership of some land, and the documents that they are trying to retrieve are in an old format that can't be read because they weren't totally open. That would be rather upsetting (maybe not to me since I might not be around). You seem to think that governments have all the time in the world to go through every one of their documents and migrate them forward when standards change. It doesn't happen that way. Have you ever received a "word" document from someone and it turned out to be works? Can't read it. Same effect...yes you can get bits and pieces of it, but not completely. (And I know works in a closed format, but it has the same effect. if you are parsing the data, you throw out what you don't recognize and hope you get the text from it, same as in OOXML format)

[Phillep_H]

"DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run"

The tools MS offers to create HTML documents use special code that only the MS browser can read properly, and HTML is supposed to be an open standard.

The MS hog has not changed it's stink.

[smilin:)]

Yawn

It's 2007. That argument was old and obsolete back in 1996.

Lotus can get full access to MS APIs and source (with agreements) yet they are still producing a product that barely competes with Office 2003 (again it's 2007)

[Troll Hard]

Do you really think so?

Yet another one of your brilliant but flawed strawman arguments, eh?

Many commercial Windows games use those special code HTML and XML libraries than are bundled with Internet Explorer in order to display graphics and hypertext in the graphics and text. Civilization IV, by the way is not made by Microsoft, but uses HTML and XML rendering using that code that you claim nobody but Microsoft can use. So does Everquest, Meridian 59, Worlds of Warcraft, GTA III: Vice City, etc.

[The_Decider]

Not only that

But there have been several cases in the past 5 years where MS would send unrenderable HTML to non-MS browsers.

MS will never change until those unethical and greedy morons leave. For the dense, the primary persons at MS that are controlled by greed and were born without moral are Balmer and Gates.

MS will never change until then.

[inachu]

One windows update can break compatibility

I have witnessed this before where something is updated and compatibility is broken and needs anotehr patch to fix it.

Open means OPEN forver and to change the open format in a continuing fashion is and can be construed as LOCKING IN user to that file type.

There is an example of this. Microsofts version of MP3 is different from a real mp3 that has the "mp3" file extention and is for the most part unplayable on devices that support & play REAL mp3 media files.

I suspect Microsoft of doing the same with this and any other future file format.

[samplesize]

Microsoft's conversion

So now Microsoft agrees that, "...competition makes for better products." I wonder when their conversion occurred?

Perhaps it is their recent alliance with once bitter enemy, Novell, that has broadened their perspective. Maybe it's just that Gates has grown wise in his older years. Whatever the reason or cause, I'm not yet ready to trust them to set another standard. Even an "open" document standard.

Let them offer it as an alternative and let any and all accept it who find it better. We can trust them that far. But as an important saying goes, "trust but verify". Make sure all the code necessary to use it is part of the public domain. Rely for Microsoft on NOTHING!

[Phillep_H]

Uhm?

"So now Microsoft agrees that, "...competition makes for better products." I wonder when their conversion occurred?"

Well, if you change the parsing a little, and ask if they are interested in what is involved in making a product the rest of us regard as better...

[Commander_Spock]

"Microsoft buys the Swedish vote on OOXML"

"How to buy an ISO"

http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14868/2/

Time will tell who the real winners are.

The (winning) "Consumers" anyone!

[cje_culver]

MS -- Bully or Bogey?

1. Create a standard
2. Relinquish control
3. ???
4. Vendor lock-in!!!

As a Linux user and confirmed OO.o afficianado, I'm sure no MS fanboy. But I just don't get how this works. If there are dirty little proprietary secrets buried somewhere in those 6,000 pages, handing them over to a standards body is just about the worst possible way to keep them buried, or guarenteeing they stay put.

And if OOXML is such a steaming pile of technological dung, then by all means open it. Let the world fix it, or decide it's not worth the trouble. Let it compete on technical merits; if it's as technologically worthless as some claim, then ODF has nothing to worry about. But, if it CAN be whipped into a decent standard, then I say whip it good. If it can't, it'll go the way of SoftRAM.

I just want the best technical solution -- even if it does come from His Billness.

CJE Culver

[Phillep_H]

LOL

"As a Linux user and confirmed OO.o afficianado" If I had a dime for every time some liar started out with that sort of claim...

There's too many shills here for me to believe you without proof.

As for "2. Relinquish control", yeah. Sure. Assuming MS really did that, the next step would be for MS to "extend the standard", and the extension would be proprietory.

[RWMcKinlay]

Do you remember . . .

. . . when the new version of Microsoft Word couldn't open the previous version's documents. Microsoft has just become smoother at being devious.

[Commander_Spock]

False Claims By "Orion Blastar" and "Troll Hard "...

... who both claim that "Orion Blastar" developed/resolved the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) Computerised Functionality in the late nineties when in fact these were already in use by UNIDO since the early eighties: Product Name - COMFAR. See link below folks:

http://www.win2biz.com/comfar/eng/comfar.htm

[Commander_Spock]

Also....

"What I wrote put things like Lotus Notes to shame, and from what I heard, IBM even licensed some of my ideas to improve it.

*The thing is - if Commander_Spock gracefully exits then the philosophy of the Economic Rate of Return (ERR) functionality will remain etched in people's mind thus the "message" will be delivered and well received. You may label the messenger (Commander_Spock) but you are literally helpless in all of your years to interrupt the message!".

Since when Lotus Notes and Lotus Productivity Suite (SmartSuite) were the one and same product? Do you care to tell us what were some of these "ideas" that you are talking about "Orion Blastar" that IBM used to improve Lotus Notes!

[anton.vanwamelen]

comply to international standards

as a former emplyee in the aviation industry you got to be in the Aviation Standrads, evenso in the IT industry. so here comes in the International Standard for Everything. So come guys get Microsoft by the ears and make them compley with Your rules instead of thems.

[Commander_Spock]

Lotus Notes 8.0 and OS/2 Warp....

... are likened unto the Non-destructive Testing (NDT) Equipment used in the aviation and space industries - they all confirm to "international standards" and can be relied upon.

http://www.olympusndt.com/en/

[Commander_Spock]

"proposed standard do not validate as XML;"

"Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard" as "More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard do not validate as XML;" according to this OS/2 World article, see the below attached link:

http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14776/1/

[2Cold Scorpio]

Now, wait a minute...

First people critisize Microsoft for not supporting open source, particularly with Windows (if Windows ever goes open source, I'm moving to a Mac; the open source community hasn't done a bit of good with Linix, obviously). And now people are mad becuase they propose an open source format?! You people are a lot of two-faced hippocrites who only want to bash and complain. MS can't even take a dump without somebody crying over it stinks, no matter how ch air freshener they use. Good God, people, get lives; there's more important things in the world (oth the computer world and the real one) than what Bill Gates is doing next. If you don't like it, don't use it, but don't force your misguided views on everyone else. Sheesh...

[Phillep_H]

You take a minute, and a look

Call bull **** "icecream" as much as you like, it won't sell at the counter.

MS is not proposing anything that is going to be open source. MS is lying.

[bhushan bhaagii]

The Same Old Story

6000 pages versus 800 pages... wonder if that does not sum up the whole story.
MS' 'open offering' is littered with links to its formats.

Remember Java? Sun took them to court because they sought to bend the language to lock it into
MS Windows? The case was eventually settled, but...

A 'pliant' Justice Department compelled AOL to open up AIM, because MS, THE PROVEN MONOPOLIST,
cried it was unfair.

Its really ironical, funny really, that MS offers 6000 pages of documentation for OOXML, but refuses to tell the world which of its 250+ patents are being violated and by whom.

I am willing to stick my neck out and predict that MS poisonous offering will be voted out.

[Phillep_H]

Optimist

"I am willing to stick my neck out and predict that MS poisonous offering will be voted out."

We can hope. If it passes, ISO will be destroyed.

[Commander_Spock]

Are you forgetting...

since you have mentioned; "A 'pliant' Justice Department compelled AOL to open up AIM, because MS, THE PROVEN MONOPOLIST, cried it was unfair" also; that, the Microsoft Corporation is facing daily fines from the European Commission if they do not share/open-up the SMB Protocols with/to competition. In either of these cases - consumers worldwide win! What is good for the gander is also good for the goose!

[Commander_Spock]

"The Swedish OOXML vote has been declared invalid!"

This just in (wow), please follow the below attached link:

http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14874/2/

[Commander_Spock]

Doing The Right Thing!

The The Swedish Standards Institute by tonight's "press release where they declared this weeks earlier vote regarding OOXML as invalid and by that Sweden don't have any official position regarding OOXML any more." now places the Swiss Cheese that is OOXML on the table to be "examined" by decision-makers using using well-tempered "Sheffield Steel" implements to determine internationally accepted standards!

HAVE CONCORDE - WILL FLY THIS BABY "ECONOMICALLY"!

DID OFFICE 2007 (WITH OOXML) SAY THAT!

[Sumatra-Bosch]

MSFT Says: All Your Documents Are Belong To Us !

Dawn. The first cup of coffee goes down rough, you slide on the cat barph in the hallway, fire up the PC and an undate notice informs you a Hypercritical Update and Security Patch has to be installed or the PC will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

You punch OK and listen as the PC grind and a dialog box pops up to inform you the patches have been installed. You try to open a Word document and another dialog box pops up informing you the document is unreadable by the new secured version of Word. A proprietary translator, secured by 152,000 US and international patents, is available for only $500.

ALL YOUR DOCUMENT ARE BELONG TO US!

Hahahahahahahahaha! OOXML is, guess what? A component of a security mechanism and to screw with it or documents made in it means suits under the DMCA!

A video of Steve Ballmer dancing in a raw animal disco feature starts playing in a new window and ends with a notice: this price is good for 15 minutes - thereafter increasing to $1500. Choose quickly! Choose wisely and remember:

ALL YOUR DOCUMENT ARE BELONG TO US!

[nicmart]

Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep

So, who is making you save docs in the Microsoft format? Are you
equally afraid of the Adobe PDF bogeyman?

Your notion is puerile.