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Microsoft Bids To Take Over Open Document Format
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Oct 04, 2008 04:34 PM
from the pinching-the-oxygen-feed dept.
from the pinching-the-oxygen-feed dept.
what about sends in a Groklaw alert warning that, by PJ's reading, Microsoft may be trying to take over ODF via a stacked SC 34 committee. The article lists the attendees at an SC 34 meeting in July and gives their affiliations, which the official meeting materials do not. (The attendees of the October 1 meeting, which generated a takeover proposal to OASIS, are not known in full.) "Why do I say Microsoft, when this is SC 34? Look at this ... list of participants in the July meeting in Japan of the SC 34 committee. The committee membership is so tilted by Microsoft employees and such, if it were a boat, it would capsize ... Of the 19 attendees, 8 are outright Microsoft employees or consultants, and 2 of them are Ecma TC45 members. So 10 out of 19 are directly controlled by Microsoft/Ecma ... [I]f the takeover were to succeed, SC 34 would get to maintain ODF as well as Microsoft's competing parody 'standard,' OOXML. How totally smooth and shark-like. Under the guise of 'synchronized maintenance,' without which they claim SC 34 can't fulfill its responsibilities, they get control of everything." A related submission from David Gerard points out that BoycottNovell has leaked the ISO OOXML documents, which ISO has kept behind passwords.
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Super slimy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sit pouting on the sidelines during ODF standardization
Complain that ODF lacks all kinds of OMG Necessary! features
Hack together your own bloated abortion of a format.
Lie, cheat, and steal your way to its ratification as a standard, never mind that it duplicates functionality of an existing standard, and is of severly troubled quality.
And now: Demand to be placed in charge of maintaining the first standard?
Anything I missed?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, you missed one very important fact - Microsoft and 'open' in a same sentence always were and always will be FUD.
Re:Yes, you missed the excuse used in first place. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually there is a reason. They announced plans to incorporate native ODF support into Microsoft Office starting with a free service pack early next year. Now, granted, they don't need to be on a standards committee to work with a standard, but Microsoft has always been quite involved with standards committees for technologies that they utilize.
With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list [of supported file formats] will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21ExpandedFormatsPR.mspx [microsoft.com]
This could be a bad thing. This could be Microsoft trying to abscond with the direction of the format for their own favor. Or they could be trying to close a number of known gaps, such as a complete lack of standard spreadsheet functions.
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Re:Yes, you missed the excuse used in first place. (Score:5, Informative)
Being involved with a format is one thing, microsoft are already members of OASIS, and have been invited to join the ODF committee many times over the past few years and always refused, tho they may have joined it more recently...
Trying to take control of it is quite another matter, as the format should remain neutral and not be controlled by a single for-profit corporation.
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Re:Yes, you missed the excuse used in first place. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and IBM decided to leave SC34 in protest, so no wonder just microsoft was represented. Anyway SC34 is stacked.
As of Microsoft it would be wise to support ODF and ignore all the FUD.
Not controlled by a company? Exactly, and that is going to happen. No single company will control ODF.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Will someone PLEASE call the Department of Justice complaining that they are abusing the market place again?
Re:Yes, you missed the excuse used in first place. (Score:4, Informative)
Or they could be trying to close a number of known gaps, such as a complete lack of standard spreadsheet functions.
The solution to this (OpenFormula) has been pending final quality control for a year or so, but the drafts are complete enough that the major ODF-capable programs implement more recent drafts.
I imagine that this mess involving so many players in the standardization community is not very helpful for getting things done.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah: Anyone who can still rationalize working for this company is an asshole.
Sorry, but that is my belief. I've worked for companies before where people quit on principle even when the company's actions didn't affect them personally. And on those occasions the company had done far less than Microsoft has done to harm the community.
It is high time it became a badge of dishonor to be affiliated with Microsoft in any way.
By "affiliated" I hope you include "buying their products". It's easy to forget that Microsoft's business practices are only part of the problem; the real issue is that they continue to be rewarded with profits for this behavior.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they continue to be rewarded with profits for their products, some of which actually work well for their customers.
It's hard to fault someone buying WinXP (for example), as it works well enough, is unobtrusive and if problems occur there are plenty of people who have half a clue about fixing it. That goes for SQL Server and some of their other products.
No-one is giving Microsoft money for their practices, and tying t
Re:Super slimy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe when Linux actually works well for basic desktop use (it currently doesn't, though I like it on my servers), this would be a reasonable stance to have. As it is? Fuck you. When you don't offer an alternative that, quite simply, does not suck, you don't get to bitch and moan.
For my use (programming, surfing, writing documents, creating websites...) Linux works significantly better in desktop use than Windows XP ever did and orders of magnitude better than the Vista I have in my laptop for the occasional use.
Not only do I get the normal benefits (no need for antivirus program, etc.) but I can't stand the functionality Windows is missing. For example, no ability to choose any window to be always on top? What's up with that?
For the last few years, Linux has been very suitable for desktop use. The main problem are drivers (Getting sounds, 3d acceleration, etc. to work can sometimes be a pain for a regular user). However, if buying two thousand computers for organizational use, knowing the OS you'll be using beforehand and making sure that the hardware is supported and installing all to be exactly identical... There isn't such a problem.
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Re:please specify (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The real issue here is running on a single platform. Just because the engineering department needs $5000 machines running windows and Autodesk(I run autodesk software. I have powerful machines for the real work, and a macbook pro for home use), does
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has a problem, they make too many enemies. It is like Hitler's war against the Soviets. Think of any product of Microsoft which does not make new enemies. Silverlight? A flash me-too. Google? Microsoft has live search. The Xbox is against everyone else in the market.
Microsoft's business is going to implode because they make too many enemies. They push too aggressive and try to invade too many islands which bind resources. Their ideological rejection of open source and standards made them lose the
Re:Super slimy. (Score:4, Funny)
And since when is it illegitimate that a company buys out another company to acquire their product, simply because they recognize it's potential? this is exactly what google did with youtube, did you decry that move also? the only other reason i can think of that you even mentioned it is because your stuck in some immature "zomg M$ can't code" mindset. MS aren't interested in any of your stupid OSS dick measuring contests.
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Hold 'em, fold 'em. (Score:4, Funny)
"A related submission from David Gerard points out that BoycottNovell has leaked the ISO OOXML documents, which ISO has keep behind passwords. "
OK we slashdot their servers. Now what?
Re:Hold 'em, fold 'em. (Score:5, Interesting)
We laugh at AlexH for thinking that because a bug existed in a calculation, it should be specified and mandated that all future calculations contain the same bug, in case people corrected for it?
Or perhaps at Microsoft for creating non-existent dates.
Or at ISO for creating one of the worst backlashes against a standard I think I have ever seen through their inept handling of the crisis and their blatant disregard for their own procedures.
Or at ODF's board for their suicidal willingness to allow the makers of a competing standard dictate their own direction. (Even if ODF survives - and no guarantee of that - AlexH has already made it clear that the bugs present in OOXML are being deliberately introduced into ODF for "backwards-compatibility" reasons. If ODF becomes a re-implementation of OOXML, who is going to use ODF?)
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Re:Hold 'em, fold 'em. (Score:4, Informative)
You ate AlexH FUD. Read further into the comments and you'll see this:
Luc Bollen said,
October 3, 2008 at 9:41 am
Here is what OpenFormula says about this (normative text):
"Implementations of formulas in an OpenDocument file shall use the epoch specified in the table-null-date attribute of the element, and shall support at least the following epoch values: 1899-12-30, 1900-01-01, and 1904-01-01.
Many applications cannot handle Date values before January 1, 1900. Some applications can handle dates for the years 1900 and on, but include a known defect: they incorrectly presume that 1900 was a leap year (1900 was not a leap year). Applications may reproduce the 1900-as-leap-year bug for compatibility purposes, but should not. Portable documents shall not include date calculations that require the incorrect assumption that 1900 was a leap year. Portable documents shall not assume that negative date values are impossible (many implementations use negative dates to represent dates before the epoch). Portable documents should use the epoch date 1899-12-30 to compensate for serial numbers originating from applications that include a 1900-02-29 leap day in their calculations."
I think we are far from "ODF 1.2 will standardise this bug as well".
Parent
Exmbrace, extend, extinguish (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft must be truly scared by the prospect of widespread adoption of open source office software. The question now is, what can the open source community do to prevent another OOXML-type situation? How will interested parties prevent Microsoft from engaging in its usual "embrace, extend and extinguish" behavior?
Re:Exmbrace, extend, extinguish (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't like FOSS, but even more they hate someone coming up with a file format that is better than theirs. Plenty of FOSS implements Microsoft file formats, but to have a competing format become more widespread than their own is what terrifies Microsoft.
All your data are belong to us...
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Re:Exmbrace, extend, extinguish (Score:4, Interesting)
"A > B but I won't tell you why."
"Don't tell me the problems you think A has, you're just plain wrong. I won't tell you why."
You're going to need to do more than simply disagree if you want to be taken seriously. Why is OpenXML better than ODF? Why are people wrong about OpenXML being un-implementable?
You may be spot on, but just giving the endpoint for your argument misses the crucial bit where you convince other people that you're right.
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Re:Exmbrace, extend, extinguish (Score:4, Interesting)
Think about what happens if Microsoft Office is supplanted:
1. Microsoft loses 1 of its 2 big cash cows.
2. Businesses have no reason to choose Windows desktops over Apple or Linux, cutting the Windows market in half.
In other words, open protocols + open file formats + improved OpenOffice cuts Microsoft revenues by 75%. They will fight tooth and nail for that.
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um, I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
How about ENFORCING anti-trust law!
(bada-bing)
The DoJ couldn't get a proper remedy. I have faith that the EU will.
Failing that, the public will eventually recognise Microsoft for the destructive, self interested criminals they are, and will shut them down.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In this country we've had the foxes watching the hen-houses for the last eight years. I can't recall any enforcement action (from EPA to anti-trust) over that period although rulings were made. Hopefully this will change shortly, no matter who wins in November.
That said, this is only peripherally a MS anti-trust issue in that if MS wasn't so big (and felt that it could get away with murder), perhaps it wouldn't be on their agenda. It's really more of an ISO issue, as others before have said.
Re:um, I know! (Score:5, Insightful)
Their defacto standardization of the industry has driven productivity to heights it would never have reached if they had not been around.
And the factual source for this alternate history is..? If Microsoft did not exist, other things would have happened. Why would the industry have stayed at the same maturity level of 1982?
Many people around here imagine a better outcome. You clearly believe otherwise. Playing "What If?" games is fun, but essentially pointless because there is no way to know about the variables that were suppressed by the actual outcomes.
Here's my go (just for fun) - standardisation would have happened earlier, through professional organisations getting ISO involvement for document formats (they'd want this to smooth business and government functions). Open documents would be the norm, and the choice of operating system and application would be far less critical than now, as documents would have been truly portable.
Trash them all you want - but give them the credit they have coming.
I give them absolutely no credit for doing better than a fictional alternate timeline. They should be doing better in this real one!
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Re:um, I know! (Score:4, Informative)
Agree. By 1985-1990 you had the following companies/computers/OS (in no particular order):
1. Apple II, III Apple Lisa, Apple Mac, Apple GS
2. PC PCjr - 808x and CP/M (Z80)
3. Microbee
4. BBC
5. Commodore
6. Atari
7. TI
8. + small gaming/programming machines - forgive me if I missed any others out.
Out of all of them, IBM's PC, CP/M and Apple Macs/Lisas became the defacto standards in soho business, with the others available for home use. //e that was transferable to virtually any brand of computer and OS.
Wang/Sun/Dec/IBM and the rest of the Unix style mini-computers held the mainstream corporate roles.
By 1988 pretty much all of them could and DID communicate to each other via direct modem link or via BBS through standard txt or binaries. The OS was not a factor because everything went through common protocols.
Even as late as 1996/1997 I was still producing professional documentation on an Apple
Now I only have 2 choices: WinX, or Linux for the PC or Apple Macs.
Why CP/M went down is beyond me. Why PCs with MSDOS and Windows 1 to 3.1 became a standard is also beyond me. It was ugly to use, hard to set up, crap graphics - (CGA anyone?). I don't think anyone would have willingly chosen that compared to the ease of use of other systems.
Because IBM, the 'Big Blue' was so identified with 'real computing' and that 'micro-computers' were still identified as toys, IBM itself was responsible for the proliferation of the 8086 and 8088 mainstream. That forced the 'PC' and Windows onto the world which was regrettably enough to wipe out all but Apple.
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Paranoid... (Score:3, Funny)
What, no "Go to Hell" tag? (Score:3, Funny)
OSS Standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we should create our own standards committees. And work out a way for them *not* to be corrupted.
Department of Justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, PJ should forward all data related to the ISO/OOXML scandal and these latest actions to the DoJ and request they open another antitrust case. I'm not sure there has ever been a more clear-cut case of anti-competitive behavior from MS.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The DoJ has people who actually investigate things, and so would filter out all the inaccuracies and FUD...
So you agree with that anti-trust court ruling a while back? Excellent starting point. Microsoft is a company with a history of abusive, illegal practices. It's good that you agree with the DoJ.
At least 90% of what Groklaw has written about on this topic came straight from IBM blogs, and, if you actually fact check it, you find that IBM out and out lied about most of what they said.
Really? With such
Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Next time some whiner points out something new cool thing Google is doing is really a veiled conspiracy to take over the world, please point to this and tell them to kindly STFU. Microsoft is really evil and they've consistently and continuously done things like this since their inception 25+ years ago.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For all you MS optimists (Score:5, Insightful)
Still think Apple is the new Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure Apple has done some things that ware bone-headed and just plain wrong but nothing they've done remotely compares to what Balmer et al is trying to pull here.
Re:Still think Apple is the new Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
The mailbox is now a simple folder, and each mail is a plain text file within it. Or at least, that's how it is in 10.5.5.
Apple have had some screwy formats in the past, but these days it's pretty much either plain text (maybe with a different extension) or gzip-ed folders/packages with rtf, xml and image files. It's been that way for a while now.
There are plenty of things to complain about with Apple, but file formats aren't on the list these days. They're far more open than ever in that sense.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not a convincing argument. The mailbox in Mail.app is a simple OS X folder structure. iPods play standard MP3 files just fine. The DRM thing was forced on Apple by the recording industry. And, in any case, none of this is on the same level as putting company-paid shills on a quasi-governmental standards board.
Acceptance of OOXML Failure? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a good thing. Microsoft has publicly shown that they have accepted the failure of OOXML, and are now attempting to participate (for better, or for worse) in ODF.
Those that cry "Microsoft is taking over!" -- remember how touted the "open-ness" of the process for ODF has been in the past, and how the contrast of that open process versus the less-open ECMA process has been attempted to be used as one of the many criticisms of the OOXML debacle.
Now the important question is, can an open standard like ODF prevail in face of the juggernaut Microsoft?
I think so. I'm an optimist.
Re:Acceptance of OOXML Failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Acceptance of OOXML Failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
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ODF2, ODF 2009, ODF-2010, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh. The reason they want to control the standard is so they can force it to change, again and again.
The reason MS doesn't like open standards is not because they're crazy or evil (which actually they might be, but that's not the reason, here) but because file formats are the key to upgrades.
When you can change a file format so that older versions are incompatible, you can create a situation where 100 million people with word 2009 start getting new files from 1 million people with word 2010. The 100 million people cannot read them. They complain, they gripe, then THEY UPGRADE.
A file format which stays the same breaks this model, and that would reduce MS revenue by a colossal amount. They can't allow that. So they need to control ODF so that they can keep changing it.
Microsoft's strategy is really stupid... (Score:4, Interesting)
The bread and butter of the Windows desktop is the SDK and Microsoft is letting it languish at a time when Linux is working to make inroads. Windows SDK has a lot of faults but it has a model for device independence, and has a lot of good functions with which one could theoretically build a good native code framework around in C++...
but... Microsoft's basically giving C++ the back door treatment at the same time C++ has really become the technology it was supposed to be. There's been a lot of C++ stuff that historically was hard to get acceptance on largely because either the compiler or the STL was buggy and within the last few years, both have just clicked into place. I've long preached that C# and "business languages" are better but as I get more and more into STL, I'm just shocked at how elegant this framework can be. STL isn't perfect but C++0x is going to fix some things so that it can be much, much better.
But sadly (or fortunately for Linux), Microsoft is becoming the GM of software, where internal consistency is more valued than creating any strength of any product. We find that everything is being built to leverage or create an artificial economy around Windows now and the proposition isn't there, just as artificial distinctions between Chevy and Pontiac don't make sense any more either. In fact, its so bad, that, Windows Vista is basically torched because the SDK doesn't have that much more to offer. You would want to upgrade the OS often in Windows to get a bunch more USER controls and GDI features, but instead, the path forward is to abandon everything that made Windows so predominant, and instead drive everyone towards .NET.... why force this migration? why throw away all of that Windows SDK skillsets?
It's like, just from a basic marketing perspective, there's Windows saying that we're throwing away everything you did, and along comes Linux, screaming, "for the love of God we have not one but several C++ frameworks for programming it".
Re:Slashdot looks like complete asshole in IE 6 no (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Slashdot looks like complete asshole in IE 6 no (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Slashdot looks like complete asshole in IE 6 no (Score:5, Funny)
I might be able to shed some light on this. Rob -- CmdrTaco -- Malda asked Netcraft, here's a transcript of the conversation:
NETCRAFT: We're confirming that we have answered the phone. ... *click* *whhhrrrrrrr*
TACO: Hi, Rob Malda here. How's it hangin', still skewing your server figures in favour of Microsoft?
NETCRAFT: Our shit is good, Netcraft confirms it! Netcraft also confirms that we're still counting GoDaddy parked domains and MySpace accounts as full sites, IIS FTW!
TACO: Errr, ok. I was actually phoning to ask a question: is it worth developing for IE6, or should we dump it like a rotten BSD category?
NETCRAFT: IE6 is dead, Netcraft confirms it! So is BSD!
TACO: Thanks a lot, I think. Bye.
NETCRAFT: This conversation is over, Netcraft confi
So you see, IE6 is dead. Netcraft confirms it! And the winner of the award for "Most Roundabout Way of Repeating a Tired Slashdot Meme" is ...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Standards (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that no matter where we go, MS will come and try polluting that, too. Now that we have a good standard that governments want to use, MS wants a piece of the pie. Are we supposed to just abandon ODF? If FOSS leaves ODF behind, then MS would be the only entity that supports the mandated format (which is exactly what they want).
They can have a piece of the pie ... they just shouldn't get to be the baker.
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Re:Doesn't really matter, methinks... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, for a long time, there were no solid alternatives. IE took over at a time when it was actually improving. Meanwhile, Netscape became bloated, outdated, and bug-ridden; Mosaic was already dead; Opera was not gratis; and everything else was obsolete or OS-specific.
Re:Hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody argued that MS should hijack the standard. It should be the other way around: Instead of trying to make ODF suitable to MS Office, they should make MS Office work with ODF as it is.