Massachusetts Likely To Approve OOXML

Ian Lamont writes "The IT department of the state government of Massachusetts has designated Microsoft's Office Open XML as an open document format, along with ODF, plain text, and HTML. It's only a draft policy, but it sets the stage for the format being given an official stamp of approval by state authorities — and weakens earlier Massachusetts support for the Open Document Format. Microsoft got a big boost at the end of 2006 when Ecma approved OOXML, and again this spring when pro-ODF legislation was being defeated or watered down in six states."

ob

[edittard]

Coming up later, Massachusets negotiates big discount from Microsoft. film at 11.

Re:ob

[smilindog2000]

It's not all about money. A lot of this is about trust. How far do you trust Microsoft with your data? OOXML's biggest drawback is that it's not truely open [wikipedia.org]. I'm glad Microsoft is moving towards openness, but as is often the case in the corporate world, this isn't just some company being nice and giving users what they want. It's a direct attack against the ODF threat. It will likely be very effective, resulting in your having to continue to Trust in Microsoft (TM). Trust the big corporation. Good doggie.

Re:

[Volante3192]

I trust MS with my data as far about as far as I could throw the individual bits that contain that data...

Re:

[Rik Sweeney]

It's a direct attack against the ODF threat

Agreed, the name in itself has been chosen just to confuse Open Office and Office Open XML being the same thing. I can imagine the standards body meeting now:

"OK great, we'll pick the Open Document Format over Office Open XML"

(Some poor sod writing up the meeting notes)

Right, they've chosen the standard by the guys who do Open Office... aha! Here it is, Office Open XML...

Re:

[Macthorpe]

I'd have some sympathy if the name of OpenOffice wasn't specifically chosen to make people think of Microsoft Office.

Re:ob

[Just Some Guy]

I'd have some sympathy if the name of OpenOffice wasn't specifically chosen to make people think of Microsoft Office.

StarOffice [wikipedia.org] started in 1986. Microsoft Office [wikipedia.org] debuted in 1989.

So, now it has your sympathy?

Re:

[CheeseTroll]

Because "Office" is such an original name for software designed to be used in a corporate office?

Re:

[Macthorpe]

Surely that would make it equally as ridiculous that somebody would complain that Microsoft would use "Open" and "Office" in a file format that they're marketing as open and for Office?

Re:

[legirons]

"Surely that would make it equally as ridiculous that somebody would complain that Microsoft would use "Open" and "Office" in a file format that they're marketing as open and for Office?"

Trying to make sure nobody confuses it with the Open Office XML format by calling it Office Open XML format?

Surely trademark law stops you from doing things like that: deliberately trying to confuse a customer by using a variation of your competitor's product name?

Re:

[Macthorpe]

And now we've come in full circle. *walks away*

Re:

[Fred_A]

I'd have some sympathy if the name of OpenOffice wasn't specifically chosen to make people think of Microsoft Office.

I think they did consider calling it "Open Fantasy Strip Poker" to try and make it more popular but that they thought that it wouldn't correctly reflect what the software was about, i.e. office software... So there you are. And it's OpenOffice.org btw.

Re:

[Macthorpe]

And it's OpenOffice.org btw.

Just because you said that, I almost started caring, but not quite.

Hard luck.

Re:

[flakier]

A lot of people say it's not really open, but I don't see anywhere how that's the case. In fact, people following the link to wikipedia will not see any criticisms against open-ness. There is quite a bit of shouting about why this is not this way or that way however.

So, there are two arguments I see people use to say OOXML is not open:

First, people like to say that OOXML is patented. OK, yes, we all know that's true, just like it's true that ODF is patented in *exactly* the same way by another large and

Re:ob

[Narcissus]

When parts of a spec say 'and implement this how Word 95 did it', then it's not really open as it doesn't actually tell you how to implement it...

That's one reason, at least.

Re:ob

[TheRaven64]

So building legacy compatibility into a new system is a bad thing?

Yes, if you do it like OOXML. The correct way of doing it is to make your format expressive enough to store all of the information that legacy documents contain, and then have a converter which translates the old markup into the new format. Consider the following made-up example:

Word processors generally have default style for headings. Which of these would make more sense in a standard:

• Have an element indicating the outline level, and one indicating the display style to use.
• Have an element saying 'use Word 95 format headings,' one saying 'use WordPerfect 3 format headings' etc.

Implementing a spec using the first is non-trivial. Implementing a spec using the second is almost impossible, unless you happen to already have code for importing documents in those formats. OOXML doesn't do this for heading styles (I don't think it does, anyway), but it does do this in a number of other elements.

In summary, the correct place for legacy support is in the importer, not the format. If you're doing things the OOXML way, you may as well have a couple of bytes reserved at the start of the file with one value reserved for 'this document is in Word 95 format' etc.

Re:

[jZnat]

Microsoft could just fully document their old formats, and those documents could remain in those formats with full compatibility in other applications (other than the original program used to write the document). Hell, they could fully document the new format, but instead they say, "refer to Word version x", where x is an undocumented, proprietary format.

Also, Microsoft could provide conversion programs that convert your old documents into the current standard (whether it be ODF or a version of OOXML witho

Re:

[dlapine]

Uh, duh, the OOXML spec simples says "Do this the way Word95 did". That's it. That's the extent of the "standard" and the "documentation" for the process of "doing it the way Word95 did".

How the heck do you implement that?.
The trouble will come if OOXML isn't quite so open if and when these tags are used.

Isn't quite so open? ROTFLMAO. This "standard" is a bloody nightmare of not being open. Here's a quote from Groklaw that sums up the openness of this "standard:"
"Fully documented? Open XML? Sir,

Re:

[mrchaotica]

So building legacy compatibility into a new system is a bad thing?

Considering that the whole point was to make a format that was actually good and free of all that cruft? YES!

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

It is not that it is legacy.

It is that "do it like word95 did it" doesn't tell you how word95 did it unless you have the code.

It needs to say specifically what behavior is expected.

It would be like your dad telling you to mow the back lawn "like I mow it" vs saying 'Cut all the grass in the back yard to a height of no more and no less than 3 once every 14 days."' It doesn't matter how you get it cut to 3"- you could use sharks with frikkin laser beams, robots with little scissors, or a wide variety of lawn

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

A lot of people say it's not really open, but I don't see anywhere how that's the case.

This is the canonical list of cotradictions so far http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/artic l e.php?story=20070117145745854 [consortiuminfo.org]. There are also links to Groklaw's analysis at the bottom of the list

OOXML is clearly not open. As the man says, its purpose is to describe Microsoft's Office product - bugs, rats and all.

Re:ob

[cduffy]

So, there are two arguments I see people use to say OOXML is not open:

Neither of those things concerns me much; I'm a lot more concerned about failure to reuse preexisting standards. Forcing anyone who wants to build a full implementation of OOXML to implement Microsoft's own vector graphics language rather than using one of the many available SVG libraries is unnecessary and excessive. Same thing goes for MathML, XLink, etc. OOXML reinvents the wheel frequently, down to having their own date formatting quirks and names for colors (for which there are also ISO-standardized versions). To be sure, OOXML may still technically be "open" -- but if it's unnecessarily complex for anyone to implement without access to Microsoft's legacy codebase (from which the funky restrictions were cribbed), what's the difference?

Any "standard" which is so clearly developed with ease of implementation by a single vendor in mind has a rather obvious scent of unilaterality to it.

Second, some people are concerned that OOXML allows documents that use proprietary image formats or other elements? I ask you, what moron (l)user in this day and age is going to use a WMF file instead of jpg, bmp, gif, or png when creating a word document?

Is Microsoft's clipart library no longer largely WMF? Even if that's the case, modern OOXML implementations will need to implement these ancient, antiquated formats to be able to read documents which were imported into OOXML from Word 95 (or other versions which *did* use WMF as the primary format for imported documents) -- meaning that backwards compatibility will remain much of the headache it was even before documents were converted into a "standardized format". The right way to convert things is normalization, damnit -- if, rather than simply forcing all implementors of the new format to support all the quirks of the old, the conversion process always normalized out the old quirks (ideally into modern, standards-centric formats for which preexisting implementations are available under a variety of licenses), the standard would be much smaller, more manageable and simpler to implement. As an additional benefit, we wouldn't see things like buffer overflows in the parser code for Microsoft's more obscure, obsolete formats causing security holes (as has happened in recent memory).

Part of the point of having a standard is that anyone should be able to implement it. If the standard incorporates by reference other specifications which are not open standards, then the standard can only be implemented in full by those who have licensed said specifications. Is this not an obvious problem on its face? You say that those creating such documents are "(l)users" -- but most office workers just want to Get The Job Done, and don't care (and shouldn't need to care) what format their clip art library is in.

Re:

[SEMW]

Is Microsoft's clipart library no longer largely WMF? Even if that's the case, modern OOXML implementations will need to implement these ancient, antiquated formats

I've just checked (Word 2007), and the most of the clipart is, indeed, in WMF. Which isn't that surprising: it's a relatively compact vector graphics format that also allows the inclusion of raster graphics. What else can say the same? MS is hardly going to adopt Adobe or Corel's own proprietry vector formats. EPS is a possibility, but it's hardly very convenient. SVG is a relatively new entry, and doesn't support the inclusion of raster graphics. The only one I can think of is Open-Document Graphics

Re:

[Intron]

Your argument would be better except that Word used to allow embedded postscript (I think it was Word 4) and took that feature out.

Re:

[cduffy]

I don't really object to WMF so much in particular, and was using it as an example strictly at the parent's suggestion; consider it a placeholder for any nonstandardized format included by reference, in the context of the refutation of an argument that only "(l)users" will make use of functionality that embeds such content (and thus, by extension, that having a standard which includes nonstandardized specifications by reference is somehow acceptable).

What concerns me much more significantly is Microsoft's i

Re:

[I'm Don Giovanni]

WMF/EMF is a well-known format. WINE fully implements it (even the bugs!).

And there are plenty of converters to other formats. For example, for years, Apple used their version of WMF, the PICT format, and many apps over the years contain code to faithfully convert between the two. And there are third-party libraries that do such conversions. There's nothing wrong with WMF/EMF.

Re:

[cduffy]

As mentioned here [slashdot.org], I don't really object to WMF in particular; the parent post had it as an example (complete with their own assertions as to its outdated status), and I reused it making my point on that account.

Re:

[SEMW]

I ask you, what moron (l)user in this day and age is going to use a WMF file instead of jpg, bmp, gif, or png when creating a word document?

Ummm... Someone who wants to keep an image in a vector format instead of rasterizing it? Neither jpg, nor bmp, nor gif, nor png, are vector formats. If you're arguing that there are never any reasons to use vector graphics over raster graphics, a lot of people are going to disagree with you.

SVG is an alternative, but it's still a relatively new format and has only just begun to gain a foothold.

Re:

[tsa]

Sure it's about trust. Who do you trust: a well-established and widely known company, or a nearly invisible (compared to MS) group of Open Source advocates? For many decision-makers at companies, the choice is a no-brainer.

Re:

[ContractualObligatio]

On the subject of trust, it is harder to trust your opinion when you support "it's not truly open" with a link to a list of criticisms that doesn't even mention whether it is open or not. On what basis do you say that the current Office Open XML format not "truely" open?

But in essence you're right. It's not all about money. Many ODF advocates are making heavy use of misleading FUD. It's not "open" in the generic sense of "honest", it seems to be heavily driven by ideology or self-interest, and often they si

Re:

[Pentavirate]

Some standards are developed before the implementation like the 802.11n standard. That makes sure everyone can interopperate. You can also open a previously closed format which is what Microsoft is doing. This will allow other companies to implement Microsoft's format in their own products without having to reverse engineer it or pay for it.

I believe ODF worked the same way. They defined the format and then allowed it to be open so others can implement it. It's not exactly the same because ODF is Op

Re:

[Fred_A]

You can also open a previously closed format which is what Microsoft is doing. This will allow other companies to implement Microsoft's format in their own products without having to reverse engineer it or pay for it.

Except that this is only what Microsoft is pretending to do. Despite its huge size at 6000 pages (sic) the ooxml spec is full of holes.

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

Turn up the volume for Metallica playing in the background:

Come crawling faster,
Obey your master...

Re:

[Rogerborg]

Round of applause, that commentor. Given how much tax money they've wasted on rattling their pathetic little sabre up to now, only to utterly cave on their 'principles' when push came to shove, what else could it ever have been about?

Re:

[MightyMartian]

I just had a nightmare with Outlook calendaring, and then some MS apologist tells me that MS products are more stable.

Give your head a shake. I've had more document corruptions with Word 2003 than I've ever had with OpenOffice. OpenOffice ain't perfect (it's awfully slow), but your complaint is sheer bullshit.

Question

[JamesRose]

Is it not the case that its negotiating using OOXML as well as ODF?

I mean, if so surely this is a big sign about the usefulness of ODF and in direct competition it'd be likely that ODF, if not only because some states only allow ODF and other states would want to have files compatible inter-states....

Microsoft lobbying

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC for obvious reasons...

What many people probably don't know is that Microsoft have been lobbying companies, especially technology partners, to lobby their local standards body to get them to lobby ISO. You receive an email talking about "choice" and why that is important and what OOXML is all about, you also get a handy word document (not in OOXML ironically) which you can fill in, sign and post, or an email template that you can send off to the organisation in question. MS also would like a "quote" from the companies to say that they support "choice" and hence OOXML.

And of course good partners of Microsoft often get cash investment in sales campaigns and go to markets.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Can anyone say RICO? I can't wait for the new head of the DOJ coming in January 2009. Let's just hope for a Democrat in the White House.

I can see it now ... Hillary throws a chair: "I'm gonna F***ING KILL Microsoft!"

Re:

[Vidar Leathershod]

Yeah, the Democrats will help. Especially when you consider that there is a Democrat Governor in Massachussetts now, and ODF was accepted under a Republican. Being Slashdot, this of course is supposed to be considered an exception to the rule. After all, Democrats support the people, and Republicans support evil corporations, right?

Unfortunately, party affiliation has no bearing upon moral judgement. Hillary has probably already been taking contributions from Microsoft. Besides the fact that with her,

Re:

[jZnat]

I doubt the Democrats will do anything useful either. Sure, if the DoJ is fixed again with lawyers who have experience in the field (e.g., the lawyers Bush fired that were prosecuting Microsoft in the first place), it's possible that Microsoft might get more than a slap on the wrist if antitrust charges are brought against them again. However, the individual people behind the party are far more important than the party itself, especially with Democrats (the neocons that took over the Republican party are

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your point? I also support choice and Microsoft is not even paying me. The pertinent question is this: is OOXML an open format? If it is, then Massachusetts has no reason not to include it on a list of acceptable document formats.

Re:Microsoft lobbying

[visualight]

The pertinent question is this: is OOXML an open format?

No. I think openxml is a scam. My unverified assumption is that at present there is no translater that is 100% compatible with any document MS Office might produce with openxml, including Novells [novell.com]. Even if my assumptions are incorrect (I'm convinced they are not), it will still be possible for MS to "extend" openxml later with new shiny features that will effectively keep documents locked in.
I can't imagine that any intelligent human will not realize this. The only explanation for openxml approval by ECMA, ISO, or the State of Massachusetts is corruption and bribery.

Re:

[BruceCage]

IT Conversations: Gary Edwards
OpenDocument and the Move to XML Formats
http://osc.gigavox.com/audio/download/itconversati ons-1810.mp3 [gigavox.com]
[runtime: 01:14:48, 34.2 mb, recorded 2007-04-30]

OpenDocument expert Gary Edwards believes that adopting OpenXML means lock-in to Microsoft products on an unprecedented scale. In this podcast, Edwards defends OpenDocument's capabilities but also challenges the ODF community to out-innovate Microsoft to provide a competitive alternative to Microsoft's lock-in. He also challenges the open standards community to focus on delivering alternatives to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint servers. Edwards also describes Open Document Foundation's da Vinci plug-ins for Microsoft Office.

Listen to it and see for yourself.

Re:

[_Sprocket_]

And why should I trust one of the members of the Open Document Foundation to give a truthful analysis of Microsoft's formats?

For the same reason you might think Microsoft is providing a truly open document format despite historical precedence. If you want to really give the benefit of the doubt, you should listen to both sides of a debate.

Re:

[juhaz]

That is subterfuge.

There's no reason why they would be required even in converted documents, if $MUSEUMAPP V0.000000000001 uses 1.23125634754432px line spacing, then you specify 1.23125634754432px in the new document when converting, not DoLikeMuseumAppV0000000000001, to do otherwise is not conversion, it's wrapping.

Having those closed definitions, whatever the excuse, means OOXML is not an open standard.

Re:

[Skrynesaver]

This story piqued my interest as I got a mail today from our national standards body. In it we were informed that there is a 5 month ballot currently underway with a deadline of September 2 2007. They are looking at the national position WRT this proposed standard and are seeking submissions from those who submitted previously at the one month contradiction stage.

Check your own national standards organisation and see if they too are seeking submissions.

The outcome of the Ecma report can be had here http [ecma-international.org]

The noOOXML.org petition

[pieterh]

Yes, Microsoft are moving heaven and earth to get OOXML stamped as an ISO standard.

One example: in Italy's technical committee a few weeks back there were 11 organisations. When Microsoft had finished mobilising their partners, there were 70. No surprise that Italy will vote "yes" on the OOXML vote. It is disgraceful; ISO will become a "made in Redmond" rubber-stamping tool that helps Microsoft sell upgrades and kick away ODF.

There is an online petition with 16,000 signatures [noooxml.org] and a lot more information on the noOOXML.org [noooxml.org] site.

Everyone who cares about open standards needs to sign this petition.

Re:

[Danse]

There's no irony in complaining about a corporation mobilizing its partners, but closing with your own attempt to mobilize your partners. None at all.

Partners? I'm thinking that we're just talking about people here, not organizations that depend on the parent-poster for their financial welfare. I also don't see any irony involved in pointing out that letting Microsoft purchase the approval for their standard doesn't benefit anyone but Microsoft, and that if you agree, you can sign a petition stating that. No financial involvement or coercion of any sort is involved. Definitely not the case with Microsoft's partners.

can someone explain

[rtphokie]

Why the rest of the country, much less the rest of the world, cares about what Massachusetts thinks is standard?

Re:can someone explain

[risk one]

Because this is the first crack in the dam of Microsoft's vendor lock-in. If Massachusetts stores and releases all government material in an open format, then Microsoft must support that format, or lose a lot of business. Remember that Massachusetts is the home of MIT, lots of businesses there that care about government regulation. And once a couple businesses in Massachusetts stop using office, it can spread. They email some document to another company across the globe, in ODF, then that company comes into contact with ODF, and it will have to either install separate software for it, or even switch away from office, if Microsoft still refuses to support ODF.

Of course, if they do support ODF, then they lose their vendor lock-in outright. No problem switching to OpenOffice if all your clients have Office, just send your stuff in ODF, and they can open it. Microsoft chose the one way out that would let them have some control, develop their own open standard, and lobby like mad to get everyone to use that instead of ODF. That way, at least they own the standard, and that's what Microsoft's always been after.

Re:

[KarmaMB84]

Work on OpenXML at Microsoft actually predates ODF. Whether they were going to submit it as a standard is a whole other thing though.

Re:

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If Microsoft simply supports ODF as a file extension, doesn't MS Office remain the default office productivity suite by virtue of Excel, Powerpoint, and Word.

No, they don't. You see, if Word supports ODF, a format not tied to a specific piece of software, then there is no "default" office suite. Everyone is free to choose the application that best suits their needs. For many, this may still be MSOffice, but for a lot of others it will be something else, and that means MS loses money. Worse, when WordPerfect gains some cool new feature, it actually matters because any given individual or business can easily switch to using it and switch back when they want. Thi

Re:

[apathy maybe]

Simply really.

The same reason that people care if Munich has adopted Linux. If governments adopt open standards or Free Software, then it makes it gives more credibility to these standards or software.

Currently MS Office is the de facto standard for office software, companies want people who know how to use MS Office. Yet, if they see that they need to be compatible with OpenDocument, then they might start asking for people who can use more general office software, or for people who can use OpenOffice.org.

O

Re:

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Personally, I prefer Kadabra or Alakazam. Well, unless I'm going up against a Ghost type... or was it Dark type? Geesh, I forget. I'll have to ask my Son again. I really ought to stop playing his GBA games...

Re:

[spiritraveller]

Uhm, because standards tend to be defined by what others are doing more than anything else.

What MA does will influence what its suppliers do.

What its suppliers do will influence what their other customers do.

All of this will also affect whether Microsoft takes ODF seriously and provides adequate support for it in their software.

Re:

[Maxo-Texas]

Because they were going to promote a vendor neutral standard that anyone could write a word processor for.

And now it looks like they have been bullied and bribed and have rolled over on their back and are whimpering like a whipped cur.

'How many fingers, Winston?' said O'Brien.
Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. I am trying to see five.'
'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see them?'
'Really to see them.'
'Again,' said O'Brien.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Since microsoft is going for ECMA and ISO standardization of thier file format, personally I think it should be approved; once the ECMA and ISO approval is done.

The ECMA and ISO approvals for OOXML are a sham. They're bought and paid for by Microsoft. Microsoft has been bribing the committees and stuffing them with their own people to all but guarantee approval. This, IMHO, just weakens the ECMA and ISO standards bodies to the point that they can no longer be trusted. Thanks, Microsoft! You truly make

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Why not add a second condition: The standard must be implemented by at least two independent implementations. PDF qualifies (there are at least half a dozen PDF renderers I know of, and even more creators), so does ODF. OOXML does not.

Re:can someone explain

[Ngarrang]

... personally I think it should be approved; once the ECMA and ISO approval is done.

You have apparently not read the OOXML standard, or you might think differently on the subject. I have read it. It is has to be one the poorest attempts at a "standard" I have ever seen. It is incredibly complex and obtuse. Go, check it out. Please.

Re:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

OK, but in that case, surely the problem is that the standards bodies don't agree with you. Now, this may be a demonstration of technical competence on a par with the USPTO, but it seems rather harsh to blame the state legislature for saying it will adopt recognised standards, and for recognising standards supported by ISO for that purpose. I would think the correct target would be the standards bodies, which seem to be approving documents that shouldn't qualify for the reasons given elsewhere in this discu

Re:

[Coryoth]

Since microsoft is going for ECMA and ISO standardization of thier file format, personally I think it should be approved; once the ECMA and ISO approval is done.

Given some of what has achieved ECMA and ISO standardization, and indeed, the quality of the documentation of the "standard" that OOXML purports to be, you're basically just asking for rubber stamps, not openness. Then again, this is government, so perhaps rubber stamps are actually more important than the qualities the rubber stamps are supposed to guarantee.

This does raise an interesting question though, because MS is successfully slipping through the door here. It is a case of following the letter of, b

Re:

[Citizen of Earth]

just good enough, just open enough, just documented enough, to meet the ISO and ECMA requirements (and really, it is pretty borderline on that, and could still go either way)

This seems quite doubtful. If anyone else submitted such a poorly crafted specification and didn't move heaven and earth to ram it through with massive political power, both organizations would throw it out in the initial phase for being too flawed.

If you look at the standards that ECMA has passed [wikipedia.org], you will see that it is little more

Re:

[Macthorpe]

The Wikipedia list is not a complete list. Try here instead [ecma-international.org] to see other standards backed by Siemens, IBM, Sony, HP, Toshiba, Philips, Boeing, Xerox, Fujifilm, Intel, Apple and Adobe, to name but a few.

Describing ECMA as "a rubber stamp for Microsoft" shows a lack of knowledge. Wikipedia doesn't have all the answers, sometimes it's worth doing some real research.

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

personally I think it should be approved; once the ECMA and ISO approval is done.

You're assuming OOXML will be accepted as an ISO standard. At this stage, with 16 of the 30 P-Countries offering contradictions, I wouldn't be counting it as a fait accompli.

So what's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point in standardizing on an open standard if you're going to allow an XML container format that allows undocumented blobs?

Microsoft have lobbied hard for this, write to your representatives and let them know that Microsoft is stacking the deck.

Paid off Ted!

[gabrieltss]

Microsoft obviously cut a deal with Ted Kennedy.

Microsoft schrill: "Hey, tell you what, we will supply you with 2 years worth of free booze, cars to drive, and a cover story for any women that end up in the river. In exchange you allow OOXML in."

Ted Kennedy: "Really, that's all I have to do. It's a deal! Where's my booze?"
 

ODF is not being dismissed

[eck011219]

and weakens earlier Massachusetts support for the Open Document Format.

It weakens ODF's potential for exclusive adoption in Massachusetts. It would be very unlikely that a state (particularly one as large as Massachusetts) would ever completely refuse to accept documents in a format as soon-to-be-common (like it or not) as OOXML.

Granted if they did it, they'd have a better chance of getting private vendors to use ODF than, say, Montana. But you've got to figure that as OOXML gets slowly adopted, there are going to be a lot of outside vendors (not to mention other states) with whom Massachusetts will have to interact who will make the jump to OOXML. And if you think the conversion from old Word to new Word is rife with peril, the conversion from ODF to OOXML and back would likely cause quite a bit of inefficiency and lost data.

Re:

[a-zarkon!]

Yep, according to TFA ODF, HTML, and my personal favorite Plaintext are all going to be included in the tech spec. I suspect this is more like what the parent suggests - Massachusetts is recognizing Microsoft's lock on enterprise office software, and rather than trying to dictate terms to the rest of the world they're being realistic in expecting they'll need to handle M$ format documents. Nothing to see here...

Re:

[asuffield]

It would be very unlikely that a state (particularly one as large as Massachusetts) would ever completely refuse to accept documents in a format as soon-to-be-common (like it or not) as OOXML.

Massachusetts has never even suggested that they would refuse to accept any Office documents. This is solely about what they are going to run on their own computers, with a presumption that government documents must be archived for extended periods of time and that they would like to do this in digital form.

ODF/OOXML conversions

[cbhacking]

Believe it or not, not only does such a converter exist, it is an open-source project sponsored by Microsoft, and has produced both an independent converter and an Office 2007 plugin. Using the plugin, ODF files can be opened in MS Office, saved in either XML-based format (I don't think it allows direct conversion to legacy formats), and OOXML files can be opened in Office and saved as ODF (or legacy versions). The conversion is largely done with XSL transformations.

It also appears that Novell is working on

lol

[Colin Smith]

Politicians and bureaucrats.

Look. When someone says "The government should" or "The state should". What they're talking about is politicians and bureaucrats.

And Microsoft have tens of billions of dollars.

 

And here comes XPS too

[gr8_phk]

Microsoft pushing XPS over PDF [itwire.com.au]

Good ol' politics in action !

[unity100]

you gotta love politics. you can make them congresscritters say "fishes live in sequoia trees" if you pay them enough.

Headline is incorrect

[sribe]

They have designated OOXML as a potiential open format to be considered. Seriously, how would it be appropriate to not fully evaluate Microsoft's offering? This might be bad news as suggested, the first step in an predetermined process to adopt OOXML, or it might be that someone has realized that it would be politically not viable to reject OOXML without an obvious and public evaluation that would broadcast OOXML's problems in clear terms. We can only hope ;-)

I want 132 v electricity supply!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Why the whole of USA is forcing down our collective throats one-size-fits-all 110 V, 60 Hz electricity supply? America is about choice and freedom. We want more choices in standards. You could choose 17 inch square wheel standard for your car that uses 125 octane gasoline standard and a 7.3 V battery standard. The world would be much better place if every vendor and manufacturer could specify his own standards. In fact we could have multiple standard specifying bodies too. You choose GE-IEEE standard or For

Re:

[Penguinisto]

Why the whole of USA is forcing down our collective throats one-size-fits-all 110 V, 60 Hz electricity supply? America is about choice and freedom. We want more choices in standards.

Dunno if that was tongue-in-cheek or not, but it's a bad analogy ye be usin' up there: "60Hz single-phase sine wave @ 110VAC" is a pretty flippin' open consumer product spec, by any definition of the term. Incidentally, the stuff that gets to your house is usually 2-phase @ 220VAC, which gets split at your breaker box.

What happens to it after that is all up to you so long as you own the joint. ;)

'course, industry distribution standards --for North America, anyway-- range from 2-phase 220VAC to three

Re:

[Penguinisto]

Actually to me more correct, 3 phases are likely found on the power lines. (Power lines usually have 3 main wires, plus often a fourth wire containing ground potential and grounded every couple of poles.

True for most distribution, though once it gets down to the residential poles or the 'neighborhood level' (for lack of a better term)it often drops to two wires, and sometimes maybe a third along top as a lightning catcher. Same with rural areas, IIRC.

Otherwise you're 100% correct - the 'grid' itself and most major distribution lines are 3-phase.

The two other taps have a voltage differential of 220 volt, and only a differential of 120 volts to the neutral line(the grounded line).

Yep; but it's rigged like that to allow 220V appliances (stove, washer/dryer, furnace, and other suchstuff).

The 2 live lines could be described as 180 degrees out of phase with each other, however that is not considered a different phase, but just the inverse of the same phase. So calling the system in homes "2-phase" is misleading.

Sort of - I'd have to start looking things

Re:

[Penguinisto]

Ah - that's where I went astray! :)

(I was mixing polyphase with split phase.)

/P

Multiple Programs/Vendors

[QMO]

Wasn't one of the requirements for eligibility of a format the existence of multiple word processors (spreadsheet programs, presentation programs, etc.) that read and write the format?

Did that change, or is someone else licensed to use their formats to write competing software with MS formats, or is there some other way that MS is trying to get around that?

Why support any lock in?

[jorghis]

So you guys are mad that there isnt going to be a law forcing states to be locked into ODF? Can you imagine the outrage if it was the other way around and there was a law requiring some open MS standard to be used for all government work? Is it really so ridiculous to say that people should just use whatever standard they feel is best for the task at hand. Personally I would think any law locking people in to one standard is a terrible idea regardless of whether its by IBM, MS, or any other big tech corporation.

OOXML is an open standard. People are making a mountain out of a molehill based on the corner case of importing a document from wordperfect of many years ago and having a clause in the formatting that just says "this footer here shall be aligned as it would be in wordperfect x.y" or whatever. For all intents and purposes its open, people are just nitpicking over the fact that importing files from long ago and having the description for how a few obscure formatting issues should be handled is a little vague.

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[TheRaven64]

Can you imagine the outrage if it was the other way around and there was a law requiring some open MS standard to be used for all government work?

If the standard were freely implementable by anyone who wanted to, with no royalties, a reasonably complete specification and one non-MS implementation already existed.

Re:Why support any lock in?

[kebes]

You seem to be confused as to what the point of a standard is, and what the point of an open standard, specifically, is.

Is it really so ridiculous to say that people should just use whatever standard they feel is best for the task at hand.

Well the whole purpose of a "standard" is to get a group of people using the same rules, so that interoperability and transfer of data becomes much easier. Of course there will always be multiple standards, and different groups may decide that one standard fits their needs better than another. No one is arguing that point.

So you guys are mad that there isnt going to be a law forcing states to be locked into ODF?

Actually the proposed law is that the government should be using an open standard. No one is 'forcing' you (or any person or any company) to use this standard. The purpose of the law is to say that the government has a responsibility to use a standard that is open, so that archiving of data is easier (and can be accessed years later), and so that all citizens have access to the data. This makes sense: the government is an instrument of the people, and all the citizens of a democracy should have easy access to government data (and for all time!).

It's rather disingenuous to say "locked into ODF" since ODF is an open standard which means that anyone can generate their own ODF reader and writer. In fact, every computer on the market right now can basically read ODF (in a primitive way), since any modern OS can extract a zip archive and read the plaintext that is inside. Yes, ODF is really that open! You can read it and work with it with very simple tools. There are also many full office suites that can read/write ODF. So it's hard to see how you can say that the government will be "locked into ODF" when it will be trivial for them to convert the data to other formats, copy the data elsewhere, extract it for other use, automate searching through the data, etc. Where's the lockin?

The point with ODF is that you are not locked in. It is so open that it is very easy to convert your data, using a wide variety of tools (many of them freely available). The same cannot be said for MS's offering... which is why it cannot be legitimately called "open" and is a poor match to the needs of archiving and disseminating government data.

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[Allador]

... ODF is an open standard which means that anyone can generate their own ODF reader and writer. In fact, every computer on the market right now can basically read ODF (in a primitive way), since any modern OS can extract a zip archive and read the plaintext that is inside. Yes, ODF is really that open! You can read it and work with it with very simple tools.

This is exactly the case with OOXML as well. It's the same setup. Open standard, stored as XML file(s) then zipped up.

The point with ODF is that you are not locked in. It is so open that it is very easy to convert your data, using a wide variety of tools (many of them freely available). The same cannot be said for MS's offering... which is why it cannot be legitimately called "open" ...

What is it about OOXML that is not open here? The only part of the spec that doesnt have enough details to implement are bug-preserving corner-cases from old versions. And MS SPECIFICALLY says in the spec that you should not implement these, they're only there as a marker, so you can convert to something else. You're very specifically instructed NOT to implement those tags, because t

Re:

[kebes]

Your argument makes no sense. Massachusetts has to select a standard. No matter what standard they use, people wanting to access those documents will, yes, have to obtain software that can read that standard. There is no escaping that fact.

However the precise difference between an open standard and a closed standard is that the open standard can be freely implemented by any party. This means that you, the average citizen, can in principle write your own program to read the standard. More realistically, it m

Re:

[ZorbaTHut]

Actually, you're kind of wrong there.

If a standard is fully open, it's generally not particuarly hard to write a converter to convert to and from that standard. That means my SuperExpensiveProprietarySoftware which reads ODF can be easily modified to use OMG, the new open document standard, just by writing a little OMG->ODF converter and preprocessing files that are used as input.

It takes some work obviously, but it takes far less work than a proprietary closed format which you may not be able to build a

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[ZorbaTHut]

Well, partially because I wrote an ODS->CSV converter, and it was 216 lines long - in C++ :) I know just how simple the OpenOffice formats are - they're really, really simple.

And because I honestly don't believe Microsoft is trying to be open. Everything I've heard about the format says that it's technically an open format, once you figure out WTF they're talking about, assuming they're not using any weird non-open parts, assuming they don't extend it in a non-open way in the near future, assuming they

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[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Why is it that you think that writing an ODF->OMG converter would be easier than OOXML->OMG?

ODF is an open standard, thus you just have to follow the spec. OOXML is not an open standard since it references other, closed software behaviors. Trying to convert ODF to something else I can look at some formatting and know that needs to be a header that repeats at the top of every odd page. Reading the OOXML specification I know it is a header that is supposed to behave like headers in version 2.2 of Wordperfect for Windows. I don't know what that behavior is without finding a copy of Wordperfect 2.2

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[_Sprocket_]

Once you have got all your infrastructure set up around one standard it isnt easy to start using a different one.

Migrations are hard. What makes it even harder is dealing with proprietary data formats. If you cant' be completely sure you (or your agent) will be able to 100% understand the data format that you've committed years worth of data to... how can you be sure you can migrate if or when the time comes without loosing some of that data? A truly open standard that allows complete transparency to the data (including meta data, markups, etc.) allows the ability to automatically transcribe from one format to ano

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[oyenstikker]

"OOXML is an open standard."

Can you read the specification and then write software that implements it? No? How is that an open standard?

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

People are making a mountain out of a molehill based on the corner case of importing a document from wordperfect of many years ago

Except it's not a corner case. The spec is absolutely FILLED with this kind of shit. And this is exactly the kind of thing that would cause problems when trying to switch to an alternate implementation: "Look, we tried OpenOffice, but it screwed up the formatting on some of our documents."

For all intents and purposes its open, people are just nitpicking over the fact that import

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[SanityInAnarchy]

They didnt use ODF because ODF and OOXML are not isomorphic. You cannot do a lossless translation of one to another.

Which is really their fault for not speaking up when ODF was being drafted. I believe they were on that committee.

But you didn't answer my question. I asked "Why did they extend ODF instead of inventing OOXML?" And you said "Because OOXML supports more stuff." Well, duh. I'm asking, why did they go to the trouble to roll their own, new spec, instead of improving the existing one.

In addition

Re:

[The Master Control P]

I think you're misunderstanding some things. The whole entire point of ODF is that it's impossible go be locked in, because everything needed to implement the standard is open, hence the term "open standard." In the unlikely event you can't download a document translator for your needs, you can write your own. For the same reason, OOXML is not an open standard because saying "Do this like $PROPRIETARY_PROGRAM did it" requires information that is not open, ergo the standard is not open.

You have to rememb

Your bullshit-to-noise ratio is kind of high...

[SanityInAnarchy]

If they can manage to define "marriage" as "a union between a man and a man or a woman and a woman - oh yeah, or that other one, man and woman"

Isn't that about choice? No one's forcing you to marry either a man or a woman.

But even if you are going to be that closed-minded, WTF does marriage have to do with office formats? (I can just see you sitting there sipping a beer... "Yyyep... *burp* ... aah ... y'know, that them there Open shit's fer faggots.")

why would you be surprised that they're forcing a form

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

Whine, whine, whine, whine.

Oh, well put, Anonymous Coward. If I was not convinced of your argument by now, that bit certainly changed my mind. </sarcasm>

My point is simple: if Massachusetts is able to define a simple word that everyone knows the meaning of, that's had the same meaning since it was originally coined

You know, "Freedom" used to mean "All white males get to do whatever they want, at the expense of everyone else." I'm sure as hell glad that the government redefines words sometimes. Some

The good news is ...

[mikeb]

.. that if OOXML is accepted as a 'standard' and compliance with the 'standard' must be demonstrated, Massachusetts won't be able to deploy Word 2007 since it doesn't implement OOXML correctly. In fact nobody can implement OOXML correctly since the document is internally contradictory and many of the examples pieces of code are invalid XML.

The hope that anyone will test for compliance is though, probably, a pipe-dream. Maybe if concerned voters raised a legal challenge when procurement was done?

Only for old documents

[iabervon]

OOXML is only suitable as a standard way of representing old documents, written in old office software, whose precise formatting is important and must be retained when making a more portable representation. At least, that's what ECMA told ISO as for why there should be a second standard document format.

So, if Massachusetts follows these guidelines, it won't be permitted as a format to save new documents in, and will only be used to export archived Word documents. Beats me as to why you'd need to use somethi

Idiots!

[Nom du Keyboard]

Idiots! The whole point of a standard is to have one! But then again we're talking about Massachusetts.

Ecma sounds like a skin disease.

the workers want OOXML

[r00t]

More accurately, they are afraid to use anything other than Microsoft Word.

First, they think it's too hard to learn something new.

Second, especially when you point out the learning curve on the new Microsoft Word, they think (rightly) that not being Microsoft users will hurt them if they go looking for new jobs. They want to keep their Microsoft skills up to date.

Let the government know how you feel

[tedivm]

The Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick, has a website that allows people to create issues and vote on ones they care about. There is an open issue on this right now-
http://devalpatrick.com/issue/opendocument [devalpatrick.com]
So go let your voices be heard.

Follow

[JohnnyGTO]

the money. enough said.

Irony: OO reads old word better than word.

[Maxo-Texas]

I have word 95 documents that crash word or that load but look weird.

The fix is to read them into openoffice 2.0 (or higher) and save them as word documents.
OO is better and more stable reading many of my older word95 documents up to about 4 mb in size than Word 2003 to 2007.

I've also had word 2007 documents become corrupted so that they crash word when I try to read them. However, openoffice will read them and then I can save them often with no apparent loss of data (pointing to corrupt section headers I think).