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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH
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 Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:13 pm Post subject: Microsoft Office Open XML becomes ISO/IEC standard |
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http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1123
I really hope they worked out the kinks regarding poorly documented legacy elements and proprietary extensions...
_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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Poorly documented legacy elements and proprietary extensions are not kinks, they are the game plan.
The whole deal stinks. |
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:26 am Post subject: |
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I take it Neelie Kroes (EU anti-trust commissioner) is having her people keep an eye on things  .
And yes, it smells like yesterday's diapers.
-Oz |
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xja
Operator
Joined: Dec 27, 2006
Posts: 40
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:49 am Post subject: |
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The Office XML will now be open source so that it would be implemented full support for reading and writing on OpenOffice, right?
Bye. |
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Samwise
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Apr 25, 2006
Posts: 2315
Location: Montpellier, France
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| xja wrote: | The Office XML will now be open source so that it would be implemented full support for reading and writing on OpenOffice, right?
Bye. |
Nope. Import-only in OOo (except in NeoOffice).
The specification is about 5,000 pages long, IIRC. Open or not, it'll take a while before anyone other than Microsoft can implement it full read/write support… |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Samwise wrote: | | it'll take a while before anyone other than Microsoft can implement it full read/write support… |
... If at all, when the specification contains instructions that effectively tell applications to "Render like Word 95" or in other words: "Feed it into black box 95 and the correct rendering will pop out. Oh, you don't have access to black box 95? Shame..."
And 19 other things. |
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Samwise
Captain Naiobi
Joined: Apr 25, 2006
Posts: 2315
Location: Montpellier, France
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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So these got into the final specification?
Anyway, now that it's become a standard, Office OpenXML (and, indirectly, Office 2007 & 2008) is likely to be adopted even faster… $$$ for Bill (not the one I know, unfortunately)  |
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pluby
The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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What I have found most insidious about this whole OOXML saga is that I assume that it would have been easier for Microsoft to push for their existing binary Office formats (.doc., .xls, and .ppt) and submitted those as a proposed standard.
This would obviously have been easier for non-Microsoft software developers as there are many nearly accurate importers and exporters for those binary formats. But it would also have been easier for Microsoft as it would merely have been a documentation effort and not an engineering effort as well.
Sure, Microsoft has left non-Microsoft applications such as OpenOffice.org behind. But that gap is only temporary and OpenOffice.org and others will slowly close the gap within a year or two. Which means at that point, I would not be surprised if Microsoft decides to come up with a completely new standard. 
Patrick
Last edited by pluby on Thu Apr 03, 2008 4:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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djpimley
The Anomaly
(earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Posts: 481
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| pluby wrote: | | Sure, Microsoft has left non-Microsoft applications such as OpenOffice.org behind. |
From what I've read, it's a moot point whether even MS have the ability to comply with the ooxml "standard".  |
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xja
Operator
Joined: Dec 27, 2006
Posts: 40
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| Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Samwise wrote: | | Nope. Import-only in OOo (except in NeoOffice). |
...so why Neo can and OOo can't?
Did OOo team swear they won't use Microsoft's standard?
Bye. |
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rpatrick
Councilperson
Joined: Aug 29, 2007
Posts: 108
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| Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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Neo incorporates the converters from the ODF converter project (googling them brings up their webpage). I may well be wrong, but I think Sun Microsystems probably won't use them in OOo becuase of licensing issues - they only want to include code which they can then sell on in their proprietary Star Office.
NeoOffice isn't burdened by these purely financial motives! hence they are able to just make Neo great without worry about politics.
Richard |
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OPENSTEP
The One
Joined: May 25, 2003
Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 10:20 am Post subject: |
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Personally, I'm glad that OOXML got approved as a standard. Yes it's large and has warts, but so does OpenDocument. In the end OpenDocument was originally written to conform to the internals of a particular application, OpenOffice.org. Just like OOXML, other non-OOo applications have difficulties reading, writing, and laying out OpenDocument files exactly the same as OpenOffice.org and there aren't too many other software packages support all of the document types.
I have no problem with people arguing over technical merits of one format versus another. What I have always had a problem with are certain individuals who actually used the politics of the open document format debate as a Trojan horse to try and legislate adoption of OpenOffice.org and other non-Microsoft solutions.
People should be able to choose to use the software and document formats that best fit their needs and ideals. These shouldn't be legislated or forced upon them. Choice is never a bad thing. That's why I'm glad OOXML got approved, even though I choose not to use it personally and don't enjoy reading the standard 
ed |
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xja
Operator
Joined: Dec 27, 2006
Posts: 40
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| Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:24 am Post subject: |
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I agree with Openstep, OOXML should also be more cross-platform and interoperable than legacy MS office formats (as a matter of fact a legacy Word document created on Win containing unicode characters doesn't dispaly correctly on Office for Mac).
Others claim this is a Microsoft's bad move to compel customers buying Office 2007-8, tough MS released a compatibility package, but not everyone uses/know it.
The bad fact is that new versions of MSOffice save docs by default with ~x formats!
Bye. |
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