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OOXML expert: ODF flaws remain

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 9 comments
ZDNet Asia; By Peter Judge 		Mail this story
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Experts have defended the Open Document Format standard against suggestions that its schema is broken, but the critic who highlighted the alleged flaws has defended his position. Alex Brown, a major contributor to the progress of the ODF's Microsoft-backed rival, OOXML, within the international standards process, carried out a "smoke test" last week, which he said showed the OpenOffice open-source application suite does not produce documents that conform to the ODF format--and also showed the schema defined in the OpenOffice standard is broken.

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Comments (9)

dinotrac ·
I've always been kind of take it or leave it WRT OOXML. Didn't care if it lived or died.

Now I think I'm glad it passed, if only to get ODF folks in a dander and defending their work.

Lost in all the noise is a concession by Weir that Brown's suggestions would actually improve the ODF schema and make validation easier.

That is what competition does. I wonder where HTML would be today if the browser-wars hadn't kicked it up a few very big notches?
Bob_Robertson ·
> I wonder where HTML would be today if the browser-wars hadn't kicked it up a few very big notches?

Simple. Readable. Fewer layers. Less "feature bloat".

That's not to say I don't agree with you.
dinotrac ·
Bob -

Nobody ever said that competition necessarily produces the best solution, but it does mean wants/needs/gee whiz, ain't that cools get served up.

And let us never forget that one man's feature bloat is another's won't do crap.
Bob_Robertson ·
> one man's feature bloat is another's won't do crap.

Actually, I consider feature bloat to be "won't do" crap. :^)



Specifically, what I meant was having to change how things are done every time Microsoft comes out with a new and "improved" set of extensions to HTML.
dinotrac ·
Bob -

Be fair -- Netscape came out with a lot of new and improved extensions as well.
Bob_Robertson ·
> Be fair...

What, is this a peer-reviewed journal now?

Microsoft is causing Global Warming! Bill Gates is the reincarnation of Shiva!
dinotrac ·
Bob -

>Microsoft is causing Global Warming! Bill Gates is the reincarnation of Shiva!

Old news.

More recently:

Bill Gates impersonates Jason Castro on American Idol because songs are software too, and he wanted to sing some "really great software". After losing data to a glitch during "Mr. Tambourine, "Castro" gets the Blue Screen of Death and is re-booted homeward.
Bob_Robertson ·
> Jason Castro

Isn't he president of Cuba now?
dinotrac ·
>Isn't he president of Cuba now?

Well, now that he's off Idol...

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