Slashdot Log In
Microsoft XML Fast-Tracked Despite Complaints
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Mar 12, 2007 04:53 PM
from the just-keep-pushing dept.
from the just-keep-pushing dept.
Lars Skovlund writes "Groklaw reports that the Microsoft Office XML standard is being put on the fast track in ISO despite the detailed complaints from national standards bodies. The move seems to be the decision of one person, Lisa Rachjel, secretariat of the ISO Joint Technical Committee, according to a comment made by her."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
There are lots of bad standards. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yes, "Groklaw SMASH!"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All the more reason to not push new ones. (Score:2)
There are all sorts of ISO standards that people refuse to use in their current form.
The article linked to that M$ party line statement [channelregister.co.uk], and it's pathetic on two levels. The first is that it's a sorry excuse to push a new bad standard. The second is that it's admission that Microsoft Office XML is a bad standard.
The parade of backlash to their bullying is heartening. The tactics are, as usual, backfiring on them. "Microsoft, just say no." sounds like a nice slogan.
Oh yes, "Groklaw SMASH!"
Indeed,
Re:All the more reason to not push new ones. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Yes. (Score:2)
An AC, trying to annoy, asks:
Do you express yourself that way in everyday interaction with other people? I'm actually curious.
Only 2/3 of those statements is mine, but yes I do express myself this way in real life. Most people think it's fun to be around, thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
But how many of them are used by a product that has a monopoly share of the market? People will buy Microsoft Office 2007. People will save almost all documents using the default OXML format. People will feel the pain of Microsoft's lock-in once more.
You won't get what you want from MS Office XML (Score:5, Informative)
I'd rather have a published standard for microsoft interoperation via XML file formats then the old .doc & .xsl files.
This too seems to be the M$ party line - the magic of XML is better than their old secret formats. It's bogus, of course, because their new XML is as poorly defined as any of their formats [slashdot.org]. If M$ was interested in interoperability, they would use ODF and make a converter using their knowledge of their crusty old standards. It's an impossible task because their old "standards" were contradictory to begin with [slashdot.org]. At the end of the day, the old formats are doomed to well deserved neglect, and there's no reason M$ could not just publish everything about them and let their former users translate things for themselves.
There's so much double talk around this issue, it's not even funny.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
their new XML is as poorly defined as any of their formats
It's actually much worse than the /. article you linked to would suggest. That article merely suggests there are undocumented bits, but the truth is that a substantial portion of the documentation is flat out wrong. If you follow the documentation, I guarantee you that your file will not be readable in any version of Microsoft Office.
The new references the old and is just as bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you mean "as poorly defined"? With the binary formats there was basically no documentation: now we have detailed vendor-supplied documentation of virtually the entire XML format.
As you will note if you follow the previously supplied link [slashdot.org], MSOfficeXML references the results of their old binary cruft without further definitions, which is no better than nothing at all.
If they really cared, they would reveal what they already know and quit keeping those old secrets. They don't and all their efforts are just so much PR, aka a big lie. You were lied to before and you are being lied to again.
Parent
M$ will tell you soon. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have pointed out that there are a few, legacy, parts of the specification that aren't defined. What we have for XML is several thousand pages of detailed specifications, compared to close to nothing before. How is that not better?
Soon enough M$ reps will be FUDing it up with the same old noise they've always made about "partial" implementations. All day long, you can hear them say that Open Office is not up to snuff because it does not "properly" translate all of those crusty old formats. Their new XML will be much the same, so it's no better.
If they get an ISO stamp, it will be worse because they can claim some kind of reputability and "openness" that they don't deserve.
Parent
Re:"Cruft", cute (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I think he is against the failure to document the expected behavior instead of merely mandating mimicing of legacy applications behavior without specification of what that behavior is.
One would facilitate implementation. One is a barrier to implementation. Microsoft, unsurprisingly, chose the latter, either through incompetence or desire to produce a standard that could not practically be implemented by third parties.
Parent
Published Standard != Transparent or Open (Score:4, Informative)
What you fail to realize is the published standard in this case is handcuffed to an arsenal of undocumented licensed components.
From http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx [microsoft.com]
Q: Why doesn't the OSP apply to things that are merely referenced in the specification?
A: It is a common practice that technology licenses focus on the specifics of what is detailed in the specification(s) and exclude what are frequently called "enabling technologies."
Hmmm... So the specification alludes to closed and undocumented "enabling technologies" without specifying them OR licensing them. Same old Microsoft.
Parent
No teeth. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what is the point of these national standards bodies? Standards without a method of enforcement, are called "suggestions".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since you can't enforce these standards legally, you have to have these sorts of organisations that at least try to get some sort of consensus. After they've agreed on a standard, that can then become part of the conversation between different companies. "Can you implement standard X" instead of "What exactly do you do?"
Even if these standards have no "teeth", it is still hugely useful that they exist. Not all become what is used, but many do. Remember, HTTP and TCP/IP are such standards. They have caught
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"despite the detailed complaints from national standards bodies." [...] So what is the point of these national standards bodies? Standards without a method of enforcement, are called "suggestions".
It depends on what the complaints actually were and how legitimate they are. I'm certain a lot of them were variations on "Micro$oft is teh SUX0R". There might have been some reasonable ones as well, but just because someone complains, doesn't mean the complaints are valid.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for clarifying that but what was your point and what did you mean?
My point is that people seem to think that just because they get complaints, then somehow the standard organization shouldn't move forward (or shouldn't fast track the standard). I would be surprised if anything with Microsoft's name didn't get complaints.
The great thing about standards... (Score:2)
...is there are so many to choose from. Yes?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
no big deal (Score:4, Funny)
Fast tracking it could be a good thing (Score:2)
That said, it should be noted that the MSOXML does not fully expand out the data. When you read the article, you find that there are still things that are binary-encoded and proprietary.
As for standards, especially ISO ones, using the words of one
How it works (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:How it works (Score:5, Funny)
A blood-covered chair nailed to her front door?
Parent
Limited number of choices here (Score:4, Interesting)
Alternatively, a workable standard that is truely interoperable could be accepted that is not anything Microsoft would implement.
I seriously doubt there is much middle ground between these two positions. Microsoft is after all in a position to just say no.
The real problem is that even with (X)HTML/CSS it is not currently possible to take two different implementations and produce the same printed output from the same source material. This is a far, far simplier standard than anything being discussed as a word processing format, and yet there is no common implementation. I am not even sure there is today an accepted "correct" implementation for printing HTML.
How are we going to have a multi-implementation standard for word processing that produces identical formatted documents? I would say it is clear we are not going to have this. This makes the "standards" process a joke.
If you somehow believe that the "presentation" can be separated from the "content" in important documents, you probably need to have more familiarity with government processes.
This is to get past the pending laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is to get past the pending laws (Score:4, Insightful)
and that's where Novell comes in, adding MS's stuff to OpenOffice.org.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is to get past the pending laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Have you read the ECMA responses? (Score:4, Informative)
As for TFA, they started out talking about fast-tracking the standard, then went on about totally unrelated and unsubstantiated stories about intimidation.
I may be flamed for it, but i call FUD on the part of Groklaw for this "story", the process is working as intended.
Re:Have you read the ECMA responses? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's fine, but it only takes one complaint ('contradiction' in ECMA parlance) to stop the process, and there was one such provided by three separate national bodies. It stated the objection, raised elsewhere in this thread, that elements in the standard such as autoSpaceLikeWord95, which basically state, 'do things like we did in this version of this application', are contradictory to the the very essence of a document standard.
ECMA's response is not at all satisfactory. First, they provide the self-serving argument that they're reproducing the state of the art, then they say that they can throw in any missing details later in the process, then they conclude with a statement that is patently absurd:
We can sum this up as 'We accept that nobody has ever done this before, but we don't think that contradicts other standards. Anyway, even if it does, let's just agree to talk about this later.' Ultimately, ECMA is saying, 'Whatever faults may exist, even if they're unprecedented, let's just get on with it. We'll figure things out as we go.' That is hardly what one would expect of any self-respecting standards body.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't aware that something had changed and suddenly two wrongs make a right.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not a showstopper, but it's a damned good reason not to put a spec on the fast track, which was the issue at hand.
Gotta agree with the Opera guy (Score:3, Insightful)
This has many advantages over everything that is being offered now. A universally viewable open well understood and easily learned document standard? That makes too much sense to go anywhere.
I don't agree with the Opera guy (Score:3, Interesting)
The original use of HTML was to create links to rich content, which in the case of CERN would be things like post
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What? You mean that there should be some drawn-out process to keep the most-commonly-used XML format from being standardized?
MS's XML should be marked and tagged as standard ASAP -- that way, when Office 2010 rolls around, OpenOffice 3.0 can simply say "we put out docs according to MS's standard. If it doesn't work, it's THEIR fault."
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with Microsoft's "standard" is that in many places it says things like "do what Word 5.0.3 does in when in double-line-spaced mode" without saying just what that means. The specification for Microsoft's XML format is not in the standards documents, it exists in only one place - the source code for Microsoft Word. Making a fully compliant implementation of Microsoft's XML format when you haven't got access to the Word codebase is therefore virtually impossible.
Parent
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
True, there is a tag for "Do Line-spacing the way Word version x.y.z used to do it on a Mac" (with no further specification what exactly that was), but if you're just *writing* the files there's a simple solution to that: don't use that tag at all. (it exists only for backwards compatibility anyway, I very much doubt that it's possible to make a new version of Word write that tag if you're starting from a clean new document)
If you need to *read* the stuff though, you're out of luck, because you can bet someone is gonna complain if you're able to correctly read only 99% of all Ms-office documents, despite the documents themselves being the insane ones.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea of going ISO is to be able to certify and advertise you compliance.
There is no 97% compliance certificate!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The management systems, starting with 9000 and spanning things like 14001 environment, 18001 safety/health and 27001 security, have audit as an integral part of the process. That's not true of the other ISO standards: there isn't a process for having your `ISO' C Compiler certified, and there isn't an audit process. There are test suites, but no
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Backward compatibility shouldn't enter the specification at all. It's the seemingly endless instances of backward compatibility support that has made Microsoft's stuff the resource-sucking pig that it is today. Here, they have an opportunity to divest themselves from all that legacy crap and get neat, fresh and unified. They just keep playing the same endless games th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that just for use when converting documents from Word 5.0.3 format? New documents won't use that tag.
Compare to ODF, where key formatting parameters are left up to the application, so that if you had two completely independent ODF implementations, written just from the "standard", documents produced by one would would pr
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's for use when not bothering to convert documents from Word 5.0.3 properly. If you were really converting a document, you'd implement the behaviour of Word 5.0.3 using the new tags. If Word 5.0.3 in double-line-spacing mode did 1.97x line spacing and added a 0.05 inch extra margin at the bottom of the page, you should code that, not just have flag which says "be like Word 5.0.3". The place for details of legacy file formats like that is in a conversion tool, not the specification.
Parent
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I found the answer from the reply from ECMA to ISO (here: http://www.computerworld.com/pdfs/Ecma.pdf [computerworld.com]) very enlightening.
As it turns out OpenOffice has a similar feature the "config:config-item" XML property, and there are a number of these config properties that remain unspecified (from page 14):
Parent
Rumours of Death (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
{If|When} "Open XML" gets set as a standard, Microsoft will claim that Office is "standards-based and open". Which, by definition, it would be.
Open Office et. al will implement ODF. It will also implement a partial version of Open XML - as best as it possibly can do, given the vague nature of some of the Open XML implementation points.
Microsoft Office will only implement Open XML.
Now, which format is a consumer to choose? Obviously Open XML. Put simply, we'll be no closer to a real-world, workable word document standard than we are now.
Open Office will say "we tried to implement the standard as best as we could". Normal consumers will hear essentially "Open Office wont open my documents properly".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, OOXML is vastly better specified than ODF is. As I pointed out on my blog some time ago, it would not be possible to build a spreadsheet today using the ODF specification, too many details would have to be extracted from either the OOXML spec (oh, the irony!) or an existing implementation that was based on public information like the Excel documentation (Gnumeric, Open Office).
Sigh... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So that Microsoft can go to those governments that have declared that they will only use document formats that ate international standards and say "Look, look, ISO standard" (pointing to Open XML). "Now you can stay with safe Microsoft instead of going for that strange communist OpenOffice.org".
Fifteen years late (Score:4, Interesting)
Billions of dollars in taxpayer money were funnelled, through government grants, contracts, and subsidies, into social circles and corporations who had demonstrated a willingness to put aside the morals and values of the true scientists in favor of ensuring their own priveleged paychecks, pensions, and long term profit margins. The American taxpayers subsidized the startup of the
The pyramid [slashdot.org] scheme [slashdot.org] is so beautiful we could almost cry for joy if we were on the financial winning side of it. As it is we have no choice but to cope with a world where Motorola is relegated to handhelds, HP has partnered with Compaq and become just another x86 retailer, and Microsoft holds a betting majority of the chips when it comes to influencing the direction of software development and globally recognized protocols.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's not entirely true. There are people fighting back, you do have a choice. I know everyone hates it when you pull out the "Linux" card, but from my perspective it is a perfectly viable alter
Re:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Opera is no better... (Score:4, Insightful)
HTML5 doesn't say things like "render like Opera 7 does"
Parent