Ignore the man behind the curtain...
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| Author | Content |
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| dinotrac Nov 05, 2007 12:32 PM EDT |
Talk about lying without sounding unreasonable. The author is correct: The OpenDocument Foundation is not responsible for the OpenDocument format. The author is ly**spinning like a top: The OpenDocument Foundation has a lot to do with the OpenDocument format. Huh? The Foundation guys may be grandiose -- certainly in self-naming -- but they were seriously trying to make a cross-application bridge between Microsoft Office and and applications using the OpenDocument format. Their quest to get extensions approved derived from an inability to support some MS-Office features with the base standard. That's the part of the story I haven't seen honestly addressed. Shoot the messenger, make a little noise, and pretend all is well. Not very appealing from the champions of freedom. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2007 1:15 PM EDT |
Quoting:That's the part of the story I haven't seen honestly addressed. Did you take a look at ODF committee? From my understanding the proposed extension only server to convert from MS-Office to ODF and only through the OpenDocument Foundation's (closed) DaVinci plugin. Which was touted as the be-all end-all answer to everyone but which few people got to see and and for which the source is still vapourware. In essence it's an extension with no known implementations that supports and old, closed standard. I can understand the ODF people not giving it their blessing. And the kicker: The OpenDocument Foundation didn't need the ODF people's blessing to begin with. It's XML. You can extend anyway. DaVinci works without the blessing as well (supposedly). I have extended ODF as well for my ODF-XSLT project and it works just fine and dandy. |
| Abe Nov 05, 2007 5:05 PM EDT |
Quoting:but they were seriously trying to make a cross-application bridge between Microsoft Office and and applications using the OpenDocument format.If they were using ODF, at least they would have been able to convert a good percentage of a document to MSOXML format. Excuse my ignorance, have they done that? Have they demonstrated the need for the extensions they are asking for? Like Sander said, they could have made the extensions they needed just to proof their concept. Are those extensions they are asking for considered to be open? Or are they just taking MS binaries and plan to embed them in the ODF XML, just like what MS wanting to do all along? |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2007 5:56 PM EDT |
The issue, gentlemen, is not whether the OpenDocument Foundation folks matter. They don't. They raised an issue of the suitability of ODF -- as codified -- to handle the features of the world's most prevalent office software. Sure - it's XML. You can stick anything in it you want and hope that nobody tromps over it. That's going to satisfy a lot of people. I'm not convinced that the ODFound lads aren't nincompeeps, but I am concerned that they have poked a stick at a real ODF problem. Certainly makes it easier to paint ODF as the worldwide standard for, ummm, OpenOffice and organizations content to deliver a subset of OpenOffice functionality. Appearances may be deceiving, but that is the concern I haven't seen addressed. |
| Abe Nov 05, 2007 7:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:...but that is the concern I haven't seen addressed.I think it was, but no matter how much is said or done, it wouldn't change MS mind or the minds of their lackeys no matter what. .1 MS was part of OASIS originally then chose to exclude itself from OASIS for no good reason. .2 When ODF was created, it wasn't for OpenOffice only. If it was, they could have kept using their original format instead and wouldn't have to bother re-writing the application just to adopt ODF? .3 ODF was adopted by multiple office application vendors, both open and commercial, and also by many other organizations and governments, open for all to use for no charge or any hassles of patents. .5 Adding the extensions just to suit MS Office binary format is waste of time and efforts since it wouldn't change anything from the current status quo. So why bother? .4 MS will never use an open format; Because if they do, they couldn't compete and will definitely lose. They have to be forced to use open format. So, it is better to chuck along without them and until they realize they are losing anyway and come around or get isolated along with their die hard clients. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2007 9:28 PM EDT |
Quoting:I'm not convinced that the ODFound lads aren't nincompeeps, but I am concerned that they have poked a stick at a real ODF problem. There's one way to tell. Take a look at the other extensions that were rejected by the ODF committees. Was there anything good in it that would be truly useful but happend to just not fit into the OOo mantra? |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 2:27 AM EDT |
>There's one way to tell. That tells nothing. It just says that the ODF committee rejects extensions. The question: Can ODF, without unsupported and unofficial band-aids, support the most common office software on the planet? Can it do so in a way that private and public organizations can justify spending millions, even billions of dollars without fearing for their data or their operations? I noticed, buy the way, that Sun supported the acceptance of OOXML as an office standard. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 06, 2007 3:41 AM EDT |
Quoting:Can ODF, without unsupported and unofficial band-aids, support the most common office software on the planet? Sure. If MS makes ODF a first-class citizen in Office, alongside the office binary formats and the OOXML formats. But we all know when that happens. |
| Rascalson Nov 06, 2007 4:07 AM EDT |
Cute little typo there Dino. So what's your point? That everyone has an agenda, bought or otherwise? PPFFFFTTTT!!! What , do you think that a standard isn't a standard unless everyones two bits are explicitly guaranteed acceptance no matter what? I still can't figure out why you seem to like being up on the fence with one foot on each side? The smell of a certain monopolists money tantalizing to you? I have no problem with that, everyone has to have dreams and aspirations. I just have issues with people being disingenuous and sly about it. |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 4:16 AM EDT |
>If MS makes ODF a first-class citizen in Office Still running away from the question, I see. The question was whether ODF can support all of Office's features. If not, then MS can't make ODF a first-class citizen. If they have to resort to unofficial hacks, they really can't call what they do standard. Might as well use OOXML. |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 4:17 AM EDT |
>I still can't figure out why you seem to like being up on the fence with one foot on each side? I don't understand your problem. >The smell of a certain monopolists money tantalizing to you? Oh wait! Now I do. You're a moron. |
| hkwint Nov 06, 2007 4:25 AM EDT |
Quoting:Can ODF, without unsupported and unofficial band-aids, support the most common office software on the planet? Apart from it being the wrong question (the right question would be: Can the most common office software on the planet, without unsupported and unofficial band-aids, support the ISO-standardized file format? Normally software supports certain standards, a standard doesn't support certain software!), here's my viepoint: OOXML can roughly be divided in two parts; the part that can be converted to ODF and the part that cannot, because it is part of Microsofts lock-in. As long as an OOXML doc doesn't contend lock-in parts (like BIFF parts), you can convert to ODF, and everybody is happy. However, the OOXML documents that do contain lock-in parts, cannot be converted to ODF at the moment, mainly because Microsoft doesn't want us to convert those parts (it wouldn't be part of the lock-in otherwise) in first place. This is probably what the OpenDoc Foundation is talking about: They want to make a lock-in compatible extension of ODF, and the ODF people are refusing. Therefore, they now want to use CDF, since it is easier to support the MS lock-in technologies in (containers) in CDF. That's fine. The ones who still accept to be locked-in can use CDF hopefully in a while, if the ODF Foundation is going to make a good converter, and the ones not wanting to be locked-in can choose an application that really supports ODF, like K- or OpenOffice, or maybe IBM's or Haancom's suite. |
| azerthoth Nov 06, 2007 4:26 AM EDT |
Abe you had the start of a fact based argument, for the first three points atleast. The last two points 5 then 4, are firmly opinion and unsupported speculation injected in an otherwise reasonable post. For what it's worth the first three were spot on. Rascalson, do you honestly believe your comment is fitting in polite and adult discussion? |
| hkwint Nov 06, 2007 4:30 AM EDT |
Quoting:The question was whether ODF can support all of Office's features. If not, then MS can't make ODF a first-class citizen. The answer is a plain 'NO' because it works the other way around (you are reasoning in the wrong direction): Microsoft doesn't _want_ ODF to be a first class citizin, therefore MS Office - by defenition - contains features that _can not_ be supported in ODF. |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 4:36 AM EDT |
>Normally software supports certain standards, a standard doesn't support certain software!) Normally a standard is either 1. Drawn up first and software is written to it, or 2. Codifies de-facto standards That doesn't seem to apply here. If -- if -- it is true that ODF in its current form cannot properly represent the data needed to support the feature set of Office, it is a problem. Microsoft deserves a whole heap of blame, given their membership in the ODF committee and refusal to take an active part in developing the final standard, but, the blame doesn't change the reality. So -- can it or can't it? |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 4:39 AM EDT |
>Microsoft doesn't _want_ ODF to be a first class citizin, therefore MS Office - by defenition - contains features that _can not_ be supported in ODF. That would actually be an interesting road to pursue: Which Office features cannot be adequately represented in ODF? Are they features that reasonably belong in an, er, "office" suite, or something shoe-horned into Office because, well, they could do it? |
| hkwint Nov 06, 2007 4:56 AM EDT |
Well Dino, I cannot help you on that because my knowledge of MS-Office coding and features is thesame as my knowledge of antitrust law (by now you should know that means my knowledge in those areas s*ck). However, there's a report of someone who knows what he's talking about concerning those 'lock-in' features (like Biff 11, 11+ and 12 I believe) in OOXML I mentioned somewhere on the web; I'll try to find it for you. ED: Ah, there it is (Google linked me to my reactions on posts when searching for BIFF 11!): http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/ooxml_is_defective.asp?... Especially be sure to read the part at number 12), about BIFF. |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 5:07 AM EDT |
>concerning those 'lock-in' features (like Biff 11, 11+ and 12 I believe) in OOXML I mentioned somewhere on the web; I'll try to find it for you. I think that's getting close, but OOXML, per se, isn't the issue. The question is whether Office has legitimate features that can't properly be represented using the ODF standard. As I think about it, any extensions wouldn't even have to be a direct part of the standard. Think about the way Firefox (I know -- apples and oranges) does it's extensions: There is a standard way to do extensions, and a place where extensions are made public. For something like ODF, I would think an extra step is called for - an actual registry of extensions. In other words, something akin to a county clerk's office with reference to property deeds. The ODF would not bless registered extensions, would not call them official, but would provide extension ids or some such thing. Mainly, they would provide an official place to look for them. That, I think, should be adequate to handle anything. In that case, the shoe really would be entirely on MS's foot because there would be an officially recognized, standard-harmonized even if not completely standard, way to do just about anything. If something like that already exists, then I am happy to exit the discussion with a smile. |
| Abe Nov 06, 2007 7:10 AM EDT |
Quoting:If something like that already exists, then I am happy to exit the discussion with a smile.If this is all it needs to get a smile from Dino, I am all for it and should be done right away if isn't there already. :-) |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 06, 2007 7:10 AM EDT |
Quoting:So -- can it or can't it? As fas as I know, feature-wise it can. The only problem between MS-Office and ODF are: * certain legacy tags (SpaceWordsLikeWord95 and that kind of crap) which can only be translated one-way (i.e. from the legacy tag to an proper ODF style. When going back to word it becomes a proper Word style instead of the old legacy stag again). * OOXML bits that aren't XML, like BIFF blocks, bitfields and what not. My understanding is that the problem is with converting .doc and .docx to ODF and back. The feature-set of MS-Office itself isn't a problem. So, ODF as a native format for MS-Office could work in theory. And I think that's also the problem with the OpenDocument Foundation's extension. It was an extension purely to facilitate legacy .doc .docx tags, not an extension that would add missing features to ODF. |
| dinotrac Nov 06, 2007 7:18 AM EDT |
>My understanding is that the problem is with converting .doc and .docx to ODF and back. >certain legacy tags (SpaceWordsLikeWord95 Hmmm. That's a weird one to begin with. I know that a number of schemas that I've worked with (designed for a portal that sat between vendors and clients and any number of potential schemas and processing schemes) provided official "hack me" points -- name value pairs to hold information that needed preservation, but didn't quite fit anything. It would be passed along and used only by those steps and recipients that could understand it. SpaceWordsLikeWord95 sure does sound like that kind of thing, doesn't it? |
| Abe Nov 06, 2007 11:03 AM EDT |
Quoting:The last two points 5 then 4, are firmly opinion and unsupported speculation injected in an otherwise reasonable post. @azerthoth Yes they are opinions, but they are based on facts or solid logical deductions. Consider item .4 "MS will never use an open format; Because if they do, they couldn't compete and will definitely lose" MS has been trying their best to avoid using ODF. They even excluded themselves from the start of building the original ODF standard, why? They simply didn't see it going their way, which is keeping their monopoly on office apps. They also realized that, if they have to abide by it, they wouldn't be able to keep their lock-in and consequently no one would be willing to pay dearly for their products when they can get for free just a good or better free products some where else. So they knew what they were getting into and pulled out of it early on. Is that solid logic or what? Consider item .5 ".5 Adding the extensions just to suit MS Office binary format is waste of time and efforts since it wouldn't change anything from the current status quo. So why bother?" This is also based on pure logic. Current Office binary format is the lock-in by which MS maintains its monopoly. MS is trying their best to keep the status quo even when with OOXML, which is supposed to be open, free, interchangeable and most importantly interpretable. The same with Open Document FOUNDATION, they are claiming that ODF lacks features because it can't handle binary format inclusions. Wouldn't that be the same as what we have currently from MS Office? Yes, they are opinions, but opinions based on facts and logic, which makes just as good. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 06, 2007 3:05 PM EDT |
Quoting:SpaceWordsLikeWord95 sure does sound like that kind of thing, doesn't it? Yes. And ODF does support the kind of system that you talk of. OOo uses it to store various per-document settings for example. I'm not sure it it supports attaching random name-value pairs to pieces of the document though, but it certainly support glbal per-document settings. The problem with tags like SpaceLikeWord95 is that you want the visual style for it (in all applications), not just the preservation of the tag. So, what a native ODF implementation for MS-Office could do is read the SpaceLikeWord95 tag and convert it to an ODF style rule, dropping the tag in the process. Then, when the ODF gets converted back to OOXML the ODF style rule is converted to an OOXML style rule. Result: The visual layout stays the same on-screen but the tag gets dropped. Instead of some legacy document we now have a future-proof document. Yay us :-) Thing is that you can only do this from within MS-Office. Nothing outside MS-Office knows what the SpaceLikeWord95 tag is supposed to do. Only MS-Office can convert it for us. If you just preserve the tag through the "arbitrary name-value pair" system then the document, while valid ODF, would only display properly on MS-Office. Anything else would ignore the unknown attribute and space the text it like the standard specifies. |
| tuxchick Nov 06, 2007 3:12 PM EDT |
So the bottom line is still the same- Microsoft is still the biggest roadblock to real interoperability. So FOSS tactics are still the same- reverse-engineer and workaround, or pretend MS doesn't exist. I admit I have a lot of sympathy for the latter viewpoint, but it's the former that has been productive and helpful. |
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