Microsoft Bids To Take Over Open Document Format 256
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
Re:Exmbrace, extend, extinguish (Score:2, Informative)
they hate someone coming up with a file format that is better than theirs.
It's not about what's better or worse, in this or technology in general. Instead, MS hates it when someone other than they come up with a standard that gets more widespread adoption than their own.
Small but very important distinction.
Re:Still think Apple is the new Microsoft? (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.
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.
ODF defects: (Score:3, Informative)
Considering ooxml has much more and much serious problems, I'm starting to think this will end just like the dis29500(ooxml) standardization process.
*sigh*