Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government 145
angry tapir writes "Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML.)"
Fredonia (Score:3, Funny)
The government of Fredonia chooses .txt, ASCII, with \n line endings.
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The government of Fredonia chooses .txt, ASCII, with \n line endings.
Unfortunately, US-ASCII does not contain all characters that Fredonians use.
has a larger backstory (Score:4, Interesting)
The OOXML-standardization backstory is pretty convoluted, so I'm not sure I can give an accurate summary, but as far as I can tell this is basically another round in the ongoing fight that seems to have, for some reason, been more active in Norway than elsewhere. The article mentions that the main author of this report was involved in the controversy at the ISO, and there was also a related controversy [slashdot.org] in one of Norway's national standards bodies.
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As much as I think OOXML is a joke (hell, most of the people I've seen using Office 2007 are setting their defaults back to 2003 document formats, and not using docx or xlsx at all), I don't think you're going to get a completely unbiased assessment on OOXML's suitability from a guy who has already made his mark as being opposed.
Despite all of that, OOXML is at least partially supported in OpenOffice, and hopefully in future versions support will be more complete. I think ODF is by far the superior standar
Re:has a larger backstory (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a phenomenon limited to the office software industry, either; in the electricity distribution industry, for example, many very large organisations are watching what's happening in Portugal and Spain and have stated they want to incorporate that experience before they launch their own programmes of change.
Why? Simply because they're doing it first. I guess it's because they're smaller and a bit more agile, I don't know. But it's much cheaper to watch someone else make mistakes and follow blind alleys rather than take the risk on yourself. Risk is expensive.
So, the electricity world watches Iberia. The bureaucracies of the world will be watching Norway, make no mistake.
What's in a name (Score:5, Funny)
Strange, that the name of the consultancy is Hypatia. She, after all, was a mathematician-philosopher who ascribed to Plotinus's ideal... that empirical research is inherently flawed, and only logic and mathematics can achieve truth.
I mean, there's a clear relationship here that I find very amusing. Microsoft's OOXML, while sure to be empirically more interoperable with most users due to the pervasity of Microsoft Office, is not logically more interoperable due to the nature of what MS has done to the "open" standard.
Delicious allegory.
[1] DIFI is the Norwegian Agency responsible for the decision.
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MS OOXML: the white elephant on the menu (Score:3, Informative)
Correct.
MS' OOXML file format is different from the ISO/IEC 29500 OOXML file format that MS bought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooxml#Application_support [wikipedia.org]
MS will either have to change Office or buy yet another ISO standard to have a product that creates ISO compliant files!
For now, when you go for MS' lunch special, it's a white elephant on the menu.
Re:What's in a name (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't interoperability [wikipedia.org] mean ability to work with diverse systems?
If users of MS Office share documents, that's not interoperability since they all use the same software family. You have to look at users who transfer documents back and forth between diverse software systems, eg MS Office, Open Office, Lotus Symphony, AppleWorks, etc.
Interoperability is about making faithful conversions easy.
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Doesn't interoperability mean ability to work with diverse systems?
Yes and no. The hiccup is the semantics of 'diverse'.
I could, for example, argue that a random sampling of end users computers make for a collection of 'diverse systems'.
The wikipedia article you linked for example contains this bit of doublespeak:
According to ISO/IEC 2382-01, Information Technology Vocabulary, Fundamental Terms, interoperability is defined as follows: "The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among
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Re:What's in a name (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, OOXML works with both Country and Western!
Re:What's in a name (Score:4, Informative)
To cut a long story short http://news.cnet.com/Office-2007-fails-OOXML-conformance-test/2100-7344_3-6237855.html [cnet.com], M$ Office fails it's own standards test, so as regards the monopoly office application the standard is obviously not standard to anything, even within it's own purpose designed program suite. I suppose for that you have to buy the next upgrade or even perhaps the one after that etc. etc..
For M$ to adhere to ODF is simply a choice, for others to adhere to OOXML represents high risk of patent infringement, licence fees, of the standard saying one thing whilst their program does another, ensuring all competitors will never end up being totally compatible and remain a bit buggy.
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M$ Office fails it's own standards test
C|Net is way to politically-correct to spell it openly.
Large software standards are hard to conform to. Both OO.o and KOffice have problems complying with ODF here and there too. But they try to and the incompatibilities are treated as bugs.
The crucial difference is that M$ openly stated that they are not going to hold M$O release nor change its development model to ensure conformance to their own still-born standard.
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Every now and then I think perhaps I'm a pretender on slashdot, since it's been ages since I've done computer stuff as a hobby or profession. Sure, I use computers constantly, but only really as an end-user. At home, I spend more time on carpentry, or even painting, then I spend tinkering with my PCs or media server.
Then someone like you comes along and reaffirms my membership in the greater geek community.
Thanks.
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Anybody that does anything other than consume media for a hobby can claim at least a passing level of geekiness, IMHO and to take this even further off-topic. It's really only the people who are leeches, who consume but never produce except to enable more consumption, that are not geeks. Making and changing and fixing things for the sake of doing so and improving one's knowledge and skills is what I would think is the hallmark of being a geek, whether it be PCs, software, furniture, cars, electronics, whate
Amen, brother! (Score:2)
But seriously, you make a very powerful point here:
I'm not Jewish (heck, I'm not anything religion-wise), but my wife spent some years teaching at a Jewish school, and I learned quite a lot about Judaism that I didn't know before. One thing I very much respect (for those that follow
Re:What's in a name (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's in a name (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually that is not correct. Most Microsoft Office implementations found "in the wild" are *less* interoperable with the new MS Office than with Open Office.
"...only logic and mathematics can achieve truth." (Score:2)
So she was into string theory, was she?
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Strange, that the name of the consultancy is Hypatia. She, after all, was a mathematician-philosopher who ascribed to Plotinus's ideal... that empirical research is inherently flawed, and only logic and mathematics can achieve truth.
She was also murdered by a mob of Christians, who accused her of being a pagan (she was), and trying to convert other Christians (she didn't) - flayed alive by oyster shells, then burned while still alive.
Not sure if there's any clear relationship here. And definitely not amusing, if there is one.
Re:What's in a name (Score:4, Informative)
Incorrect. Section after section of the OOXML spec give insufficient information for implementation.
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Such as?
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Lots of FUD there. Let's take one, truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6, and compare to how it is done in ODF.
Let's say you have a bunch of WP6 documents. You have reverse engineered the WP6 format. You have tools that take documents in that format and do interesting things with them, like typeset them for the magazine you publish.
You want to switch to using ODF in your workflow, and are writing a converter to convert WP6 documents to ODF. However, when you run across things in WP6 that just aren't representable in O
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In the context - file format standardization - your response makes absolutely no sense. Not in slightest.
Re:What's in a name (Score:5, Informative)
Check out http://noooxml.wdfiles.com/local--files/arguments/TheCaseAgainstOOXML.pdf [wdfiles.com] for an interesting breakdown of the problems with MS OOXML.
For example one setting is defined as "useWord97LineBreakRules"
The standard defines implementing this thusly:
“To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that
application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into
narrative for this Office Open XML Standard. If applications wish to match this behavior,
they must utilize and duplicate the output of those applications.”
I'll leave describing why this makes fully implementing the "standard" as an excercise to the reader!
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Oh look, the Microsoft shill has come along to lie. Shocking, I tell you, shocking!
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Read both specs
As the OOXML 'spec' is over 6000 pages, I don't think anyone has. Definitely not the ISO standards body for sure :)
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LOL. They had to give examples because what supposed to be mathematical and logical is ridden with decades of bugs.
ODF choose wisely to do it right way [wikipedia.org].
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No, this, you dummy:
Such a nicely chosen name for the standard... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I'm 90% certain that OOXML/Open Office confusion is the basis for the name. I mean seriously, Office Open XML? Why not Word Open XML (WOX)? Microsoft Open XML Interchange (MOXI)? There's a million more marketable names than OOXML, that wouldn't cause any confusion with Open Office.
But then on the other hand, this is the company that brought us Bing.
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I agwee, because Micwosoft Wuhd totawwy wocks!
Microsoft POX (Score:2)
To go all Shakespearean on you... (Score:2)
Try the veal, I'll be here all decade...
Cheers,
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Try to start a movement to call it Microsoft's OOXML. Or MooXML :-)
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It's not just Bing. You have to say BING!!! Like it's a bell. BING!!!
Say it! Fuck you, you're fired!!!
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It's not just Bing. You have to say BING!!! Like it's a bell. BING!!!
It's time for ...
What's brown and sounds like a bell?
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Office Open XML? Why not Word Open XML (WOX)? Microsoft Open XML Interchange (MOXI)?
I agree that OOXML is an unfortunate name, but naming a standard after a specific product or company name will not lend itself to becoming a standard format used by all your competitors. After all, ODF does not mention its pedigree either.
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Office Open XML.
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Office Open XML.
As in:
Yes, by the end I was pulling them from the Office Suite page [wikipedia.org]. The point is, office is a generic term for a suite of software.
Re:Such a nicely chosen name for the standard... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but it combines "OO" and "XML", two of the most powerful buzzwords the computing industry has ever seen.
I'm not trying to be funny, either. You wouldn't believe the number of managers I've had to deal with who see those terms, and go apeshit crazy about how good something is. Tell them your technology is "object-oriented", and they're sold. Then tell them it involves "XML", and they absolutely can't resist it.
Mind you, these people tend to not know a thing about the technical aspects of software development. They don't know any programming languages, but are convinced that "object-oriented" is the ONLY way. They haven't got a clue what an XML document even looks like, but insist that it can do anything.
The only thing managers these days slurp up more than "OO" and "XML" are "Web Services". If Microsoft had named it OOXMLWebServices instead of just OOXML, ODF would've been destroyed years ago.
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BOOBS also combines OO and BBS. Whats your point?
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Thank you AC for your post, for I feel I've now understood something deep about the universe.
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BOOBS also combines OO and BBS. Whats your point?
BOOBS are more popular that ODF and OOXML. That was the GP's point.
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It still leaves them time to add OOXML Cloud 2.0 in a future release.
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Calling it "OOXML" certainly can be confusing since it is easy to not know or remember what the "OO" stands for. But on top of that, the average person knows this format only as the "Microsoft Office 2007" format.
And rightfully, the "Microsoft Office 2007" format is all it is.
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No, DOCX is a separate de-facto standard--the XML format used by recent versions of MS Word. It is only tangentially related to MS's OOXML, the ISO-approved XML format not in use by anything or anyone.
It isn't OOXML.. (Score:3, Informative)
Don't forget, MS is not locked out (Score:4, Informative)
MS is just as free to implement the OpenDocument format as anyone else; and they have in fact implemented ODF support.[1] So, if ODF is chosen as the standard in Norway, the Norwegian government is still free to buy copies of Microsoft Office, as long as it can do a good job of reading and writing ODF files.
Of course, Microsoft will still view this as some kind of defeat, because they would prefer their own standard be adopted; OOXML will be just as much of a lockin trap as the older binary Microsoft formats. If OOXML is adopted, everyone has to buy Microsoft Office; if ODF is adopted, everyone can choose from among many alternatives, several of which are completely free.
It is obvious why Microsoft would prefer OOXML adoption for government (and everywhere else). It is less obvious why government should adopt OOXML instead of ODF.
[1] Microsoft resisted the inclusion of ODF import/export filters for some time, but finally decided to include them:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050930181153972 [groklaw.net]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_software [wikipedia.org]
steveha
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BTW Microsoft isn't obliged to bundle support for any formats other than what they want.
True. But when they refuse to do so when offered money for it - then it might become a different matter.
"Ha ha M$ sucks they don't support X,Y,Z formats!"
"M$ monopoly!! Remove support for X,Y,Z format! Antitrust! Antitrust!"
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True. But when they refuse to do so when offered money for it - then it might become a different matter.
Context? Not sure what you mean here.
After ODF was ratified, some gov'ts were asking M$ what would it take for them to implement ODF support. Requests were refused based on M$' past mantra - "nobody needs ODF support."
happens when they refuse to make their product interoperable with rest of industry what hampers competition.
It already is.
e.g.
[ File Reader for .doc ] -> [ MS Word Editing Engine/App ] -> [ File Writer for .doc ]
No, you wont get support for your own pet format for free from MS. You have to write the plugin yourself like many people have.
Uhm... What are you smoking???
For all the time WinWord exists, M$ was asked/begged/etc to release the filter API. They consistently refused.
Again: there is no filter API published/available to 3rd parties which would allow to implement seamless integration of another file format into M$O suit.
There is a lot of crap flo
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Credit where it's due. MS did not write the original MS Office ODF support. Sun did.
I remember a Microsoft spokesman, in his official capacity, saying that it would be "impossible" to support ODF in Office. Then Sun went and did it. Oh yeah, I'll give Sun the credit for doing it first. (And if anyone can give me a URL to one of the news stories quoting that Microsoft spokesman, please do. I've been trying to find evidence to support my memory...)
What I'm curious about now, is: was microsoft dumb enough
Office 2007 is not OOXML compliant (Score:2, Interesting)
Last time I read about it, Office 2007 does not generate documents that comply with OOXML. Microsoft admitted that they would have to change their software to comply with their standard, and I think that might happen with the next release of Office.
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They changed a standard to make it compliant with a software??????
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remove one and unanimity is impossible (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does this matter so much? Once one (now two) countries reject OOXML, it means it cannot become *the* international/European document standard for the public sector.
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But won't the top office suites just end up supporting both anyway?
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Can't the same be said for ODF if any countries choose it instead? But won't the top office suites just end up supporting both anyway?
They already do. You just have to worry about inconsistent behavior between the suites. And stupid crap like Office telling you you're a horrible person for not using the latest Microsoft document format.
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And stupid crap like Office telling you you're a horrible person for not using the latest Microsoft document format.
It's trivial to configure MSOffice to use ODF as the default format when saving documents. The user needs not even be aware that it's set.
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It's trivial to configure MSOffice to use ODF as the default format when saving documents. The user needs not even be aware that it's set.
ODF produced by Office fails to work properly in any suite other than Office AFAIK, including OOo (as well as e.g. AbiWord, KOffice, Google Docs, etc.). Yet it is supposedly more "compliant" than OOo, due to a variety of technicalities. OTOH, ODF produced by OOo works in almost all of the other major suites. So, yes, it is trivial to do that, but no, it doesn't accomplish anything.
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ODF produced by Office fails to work properly in any suite other than Office AFAIK, including OOo (as well as e.g. AbiWord, KOffice, Google Docs, etc.).
I believe that you're referring to the spreadsheet formulas problem [msdn.com] (be sure to follow the links to blog posts there as well). Two things to note here: this only applies to formulas in spreadsheets; there is no standard covering those in scope of ODF 1.1 (which is the final published ODF standard at this moment - 1.2 is still a draft); and it wasn't a problem just between MSOffice and OO.org, there were other implementations which had incompatible formula representations - it's just that OO.org pushed all o
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Err ... Norway has nothing to say in EU. That is, about as much as Canada has about USA.
Re:Remove one and unanimity is impossible (Score:4, Insightful)
He didn't say the EU - he said Europe. Norway remains a part of Europe regardless of whether it decides to join the EU or not.
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Norway is in the European Economic Area [wikipedia.org], so is more important than Canada, at least on economic issues.
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USA and Canada belong into same economic area too .. it is called "NAFTA".
So "as much as Canada has to say about USA matters" is pretty close.
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Besides that Norway is not a member of the EU, they are too small to dictate an "international standard". If the EU would opt of OOXML instead then Norway would surely give in and follow by at least exchanging documents in OOXML with other EU partners.
However as the rest has not (yet) made a choice, there is a good chance that instead they will have a close look at Norway, see how it works out for them, and follow the now tried and tested option. As long as no other country opts for OOXML instead this alon
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Norwegian government likely spends somewhere between some hundreds of thousands and some millions on software that must interpret their chosen document format(ie. actual copies of an office suite, server-side components that generate documents in response to web input, data archive widgetry that needs to be able to read inside the files it stores, etc.) Those who must exchange documents with the Norwegian government presumably spend some millions more.
If that money is being spent on ODF-supporting software, the cost of ODF-supporting software goes down for everybody(or, more precisely, if they chose to build on OSS foundations, the cost for everybody stays the same, and the amount and quality available rises. If they end up going with something commercial, that commercial offering now has more customers across the same roughly fixed cost of development).
It isn't so much that Norway is a vital source of Microsoft revenue, as they likely aren't. It's that their future software demand is going to subsidize improvements to Microsoft's competitors, rather than being high-margin purchases of licences to code that Microsoft has already developed.
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amusing little story:
"Norwegian" is split into two languages. "Bokmål" and "Nynorsk". Directly translated one is Book-language and New Norwegian.
Bokmål is based on danish with norwegian pronunciation (overly simplified of course).
Nynorsk is based on a multitude of dialects from a large area of Norway.
Microsoft used to only support office for Bokmål. They were told as long as it wasnt available as Nynorsk it could not be used in the public sector. They quickly produced a localized version in Nynorsk.
So the market has to be of -some- importance.
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1. Localizing costs money, so you'll generally avoid it/drag your feet on it if you can(with the specific exception of charities whose mandate includes "maligned group X and the digital divide"). However, localizing doesn't cost all that much money, so for markets of any reasonable size, it will be in your economic interest to give in and localize(at least to some minimal standa
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
When trying to debunk an obvious lie (such as "OOXML is a standard"), one reasonably visible dis-believer might be enough. All governments and organizations believing, or pretending to believe, that OOXML is a standard now know they're fools, and/or not fooling anyone.
Plus hopefully the Norwegian government has produced a document explaining their position, that will be quotable for reference.
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When trying to debunk an obvious lie (such as "OOXML is a standard"), one reasonably visible dis-believer might be enough.
Except nowhere does the original article say that OOXML is not a standard. It does say that it "is not a standard that's in sync with the way one looks at documents in 2010", but that is actually refering to it as a standard. It is a strange claim too, given that the standard must really be in sync with the way one looks a documents because it is used by the most popular office application out there.
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One thing that's always struck me about the name OOXML ("Office Open XML") is the confusion it stirs up with OpenOffice. Seems to me that it would have made more sense for Microsoft to highlight a distinction from its OSS competitor.
Unless, of course Microsoft's marketing department has been taking its cues from Monty Python:
"Are you the Judean People's Front?"
"Fuck off! We're the People's Front of Judea!"
Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
Were you not around when Microsoft bribed and stacked the ISO meetings when voting for OOXML as a "standard"? Not only that, but it doesn't pass any kind of rigorous review as a standard... it is all but an XML representation of the original .doc format, just re-jiggered around, and is so convoluted that nobody but Microsoft has a hope of actually interoperating with it properly. And by the time someone might do so, they've got the next version out.
Seriously, just google around a bit:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/10/norwegian-standards-body-implodes-over-ooxml-controversy.ars [arstechnica.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML [wikipedia.org]
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Were you not around when Microsoft bribed and stacked the ISO meetings
All this has absolutely nothing to do with what the grand parent asserted. Obarthelemy claimed that the author of the report didn't think that OOXML was a standard. This was not backed up by the article. Also, at no stage did I make any judgement on whether OOXML was a standard or not, so telling me to go look up Google is not relevant.
As it happens I am well aware of what went on during the standards approval process. I suggest that a flawed standard is still a standard. The current ODF standard has its o
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because it is used by the most popular office application out there
Really?! At the time OOXML was approved as a "standard", no conforming implementation existed. Microsoft expressed an intention of implementing it at some point in the future, but AFAIK they haven't yet done so. They also announced that they'd be supporting import/export of ODF before they supported OOXML. Have they changed this?
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When trying to debunk an obvious lie (such as "OOXML is a standard")
The first thing to do is to look up the definition of the word.
For instance, A technical standard is an established norm or requirement. [wikipedia.org]
Then you look up the facts relevant to the question. Office Open XML (also referred to as OOXML or Open XML) is an ISO/IEC standardized ZIP-compatible file format originally developed by Microsoft. [wikipedia.org]
Now, I know your confusion stems from the many uses of the word "standard" (OOXML is clearly not a type of flag), but you're the one that sound like a fool when you say it's a lie
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many parts of the OOXML 'standard' which refer to documents not available to the public, or which say something along the lines of 'do this the way office 97 does it'. A standard must contain all the information necessary to implement it, or else it is incomplete and thus not a standard.
Add recursion, but to a DAG (Score:2)
A standard must contain all the information necessary to implement it, or else it is incomplete and thus not a standard.
Or point to other documents which are standards.
For instance, you could have the Microsoft VBA Specification. If that was complete, then both the OOXML/Document spec and the OOXML/Spreadsheet spec could refer to it, kinda' like a subroutine. (Note: I said if. I don't know, and don't think, that Microsoft has done this.)
Don't some of the RFCs do something like this?
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Don't some of the RFCs do something like this?
RFCs can do it, because they are Request For Comments [wikipedia.org], not STDs [wikipedia.org]. And only few of RFCs are even designated to be a standard in the future.
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Except that not even Microsoft was able to write an OOXML-spec document writer. So no, it does not have everything necessary to implement it.
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One of the core principles behind a standard I think is that it is immutable. It is a fixed, a priori known way of doing things. So that as long as you write a document following the standard, everyone can read and lay-out that document correctly by just following that same standard. Even if the document is from 10 years ago, or longer. Such as the standard with which a CD is recorded.
But obviously not so for Microsoft:
"It's natural in the development of standards that the standards evolve. That's the nature of standards,"
says a MS representative as quoted in TFA. This as reaction to the allegation by the No
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Then how the hell did they get an ISO certification? :S
Oh, crap, ISO is in the pocket of major industry players? :(
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Well if you followed the story on /. that is indeed quite true. Many MS-allies became member of ISO shortly before this vote (enough in numbers to swing it), and it caused serious controversy in the ISO committees of a.o. Norway. There have been many stories on /. about this voting process and, yes, alleged corruption and loss of integrity within ISO. The whole organisation's image has taken a serious hit with this saga. And these quotes from the MS spokesman confirm many people's fears: MS doesn't see stan
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No, no: "Bjørk"=Icelandic singer, "Bork"=Swed (Score:2)
Geeze, doesn't anyone brush up on their Muppets anymore? ;)
Cheers,
Hur, de hur de hur, dee dee, bum - Bork Bork Bork!
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It's symptomatic.
The neat thing is, as more and more European governments make large scale use of ODF, the tool support should improve to match their needs. This makes it practical for more organizations to switch.
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It means something to those who care less about Microsoft's failure than they do about free formats' success.
Re:And? (Score:4, Interesting)
And the Norweigan government matters, why? They're probably a drop in the bucket for Microsoft's revenue.
Then why do Microsoft pursue any dissent in their corporate customers so strongly? And no.. I'm not going to cite examples. We have all heard of the crack sales teams descending on companies and governments who dare to leave the MS embrace, armed with the authority to practically give the MS products away rather than lose an influential customer. You are absolutely correct. A government switching away from Office is trivial. But only if you are counting licenses. If you count influence, then MS are in for a decidedly nasty future. And another government rejecting MS file formats is a bad thing for MS. Even a city local government is enough to make MS bring in the heavy negotiators. If the file format goes from essential to optional, then so does Office. Right.. Said my piece. Astroturf away.
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The Domino Effect [wikipedia.org]
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