Microsoft Releases Specs for Binary Formats

skolima writes "In response to requests for even easier access to the Binary Formats, Microsoft has agreed to remove any intermediate steps necessary to get the documentation. They're going to just post it, making it directly available as a download on the Microsoft web site. Microsoft will also make the Binary Formats subject to its Open Specification Promise by February 15, 2008. They're even planning to include an Open Source converter implementation."

The important stuff

The important stuff from the TFA:

Microsoft agreed to:
* Initiate a Binary Format-to-ISO/IEC JTC 1 DIS 29500 Translator Project on the open source software development web site SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/ ) (...) The Translator Project will create software tools, plus guidance, showing how a document written using the Binary Formats can be translated to DIS 29500. The Translator will be available under the open source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license (...). The Translator Project will start on February 15, 2008.
* Make it even easier to get access to the Binary Formats documentation by posting it and making it available for a direct download on the Microsoft web site no later than February 15, 2008. The Binary Formats have been under a covenant not to sue and Microsoft will also make them available under its Open Specification Promise (see www.microsoft.com/interop/osp) by the time they are posted.

Re:The important stuff

ok, so if it's all binary formats only, does this mean they won't be releasing the specs for the notepad format? I've been waiting for this forever.

Re:The important stuff

February 15th? Are they merely trying to recruit the programmers who attempted suicide the previous evening on account of not getting lucky?

"Decoding MS binary formats - it's better than death!" ;)

Re:No, they want to influence the ISO meeting

They must be worried sick about the ISO meeting in February, scheduled for a week after this grand opening. It's make or break time for MS-OOXML.

Meaning there won't be enough time to fully investigate whether these specs are actually useful or just PR BS like every other "Open" thing MS has done. Forgive me for preemptively assuming the latter.

Re:The important stuff

The new format is one of the MS Office Open XML( MS-OOXML ) formats. And my guess is that this current revelation has been in the plans for some time. After all, patching Microsoft Office and disabling the OPENING of the older file formats is the perfect example of why people need an open file format. People are being shut out from using their older formats. But, out comes Microsoft saying that they'll open up those older formats and release converter code so everyone can convert to MS-OOXML. Yup, sure looks like the has been planned for quite some time.

But then there is probably a document or two inside Microsoft which shows the many paths to limit and/or destroy ODF support and to gain back any lost market due to MS-OOXML spec acceptance. For over 20 years Microsofts business model has been to beat the competition by attacking their revenue stream(s) by leveraging the 100's of millions of systems sold annually with pre-loaded Windows. Seldom has it ever used superior product attributes to win the market. I see no reason to think some switch has magically been thrown and now Microsoft wants to compete for customers in an open and level playing field. I don't think they would even know how to do this because without a complete management replacement, it's in their blood to go after the business and not the customers. Destroy the business and the customers will go to the shinny light that is Microsoft. IMO.

Regarding those new formats, there is a nice 6,000 page document that tells you how simple the new formats are so it should be very easy to implement an application which can read and display everything the spec covers. Why would you ever need code from Microsoft to help you access files based on that spec? If they can do it, anybody can. FYI, so far, there is one vendor who has applications with high levels of support of the spec and that is Microsoft.

Just look at how many apps now have a high level of support for the ODF spec:
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications [opendocume...owship.com]

LoB

One month to reconfigure firewalls

From the TFA:

Initiate a (...) Project on the open source software development web site SourceForge The Translator Project will start on February 15, 2008.

I believe it's quite considerate to give both network teams enough time to unblock each other' IP ranges :-)

Re:One month to reconfigure firewalls

This isn't the first project that Microsoft has released on Sourceforge. They also released WiX, which is a program to build windows installation executables (similar to Nullsoft's nsis). Sourceforge is available to everybody who wants to publish an open source project, even mega-corps like Microsoft. I wouldn't suggest it any other way.

Whoops

And they will even an Open Source converter implementation.

Yes, I'm they will!

in other news...

Satan: Why did it just get so cold in here?

Re:in other news...

I don't know. I'm too busy dodging those stupid flying pigs. Ack! Another one!

This is a VERY good thing

Because it ensures that the very real possibility of bitrot for the majority of documents written in the last 15 years is now greatly reduced.

APRIL FOOL!

Wait, what? Brain not comprehending this. Unless TFA is a complete pack of lies, I'm going to have to give tentative applause. Perhaps the only interesting thing I can think of is that "royalty free" != "we won't sue you into oblivion if we think you're trespassing on our patents". Sorry MS, you taught me to be cynical.

OSP: Might ba a trap for GPL license software

Disclaimer:IANAL
The docs are released under MS' own "Open Specification Promise" *cringes*
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

If you do a search on GPL you get:

Q: Is this Promise consistent with open source licensing, namely the GPL? And can anyone implement the specification(s) without any concerns about Microsoft patents?

A: The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement the covered specification(s). We leave it to those implementing these technologies to understand the legal environments in which they operate. This includes people operating in a GPL environment. Because the General Public License (GPL) is not universally interpreted the same way by everyone, we can't give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from the open source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can implement the specification(s).

I don't get warm and fuzzy feelings reading this and I think that's the idea...

Re:OSP: Might ba a trap for GPL license software

Oh, first post on /. and it's actually defending Microsoft. As someone stated above, satan _must_ be freezing.

Enough of that and to my point:

I'm quite fond of the GPL and open source licenses in general. But actually, the open source licenses that microsoft has created (Ms-PL [opensource.org] and Ms-RL) are a lot less restrictive then the GPL and a great deal easier to read. If Microsoft will use theese licenses then there should be no problem with GPL-compatability as far as I can tell. [opensource.org]

The "disclaimer" in that FAQ is just saying that they wont promise anything, and it is probably the smartest thing to do so that they won't get sued.

I'm definitely trolling this time

...and since this is slashdot, it's not good enough until they've also:

1. refunded all money earned through use of these formats
2. allow people to fork them and then demand that their idiot-forks get recombined into the trunk and incorporated into MS Office 09
3. #2 isn't good enough, Microsoft must even make sure that they are in the next release of OO even though they have nothing to do with that product
4. Clipart of Steve Ballmer throwing chairs is included
5. it is released under the GPLv3 license
6. the EU gets to fine them another trillion euros (with a lower-case e) for every day since 1980 that the formats have not been open
7. none of the above points matter because Microsoft sucks anyway and no one @ slashdot uses MS Office, they all use OO (yea, right!)

so go ahead, mod me down you fuckers.

Re:I'm definitely trolling this time

MS did the "Profit!" step first at Step 0.

A gift from Microsoft

Microsoft is releasing the specs for binary document formats. This will help those who want to support and maintain those formats so this is a gift from Microsoft. Fellow residents of Troy, let us be grateful and embrace this great offering.

ODF must be some kind of threat

or there's no way they'd be doing this. Well, it is Microsoft so there are likely to be some problems. For instance, they could post 10,000 lines of assembly or just plain crappy C code and say, 'there you go, it's open'. Not so bad in itself but not very easy to use none the less.

But what is really probably happening here is that ODF is getting adopted around the world by governments and once you go ODF, it's going to be a tough sell back to the pull-the-rug-out-from-under-your-feet Microsoft way. Anyways, if Microsoft really sees ODF as a credible threat, getting MS Office OXML through ISO is important, very important. But, once they can do that and gain back credibility, there is NOTHING to stop them from releasing software which others are not privy too. ie, change the format and keep everyone else chasing them.

Remember, ISO will not be in control of the changes to the spec, Microsoft will be.

So watch out for this good-guy mask being applied. We've seen nothing to say there isn't anything but the same old Microsoft hiding behind it. And no, I would not accept this as a first step and something to trust. ODF and open access to your own created data is too important to let a simple trick undermine it all. IMO.

LoB

Exchange

Wait a second, does this include Exchange? If so, that's huge.

Re:seeing as its all binary formats

thats just about every file MS Applications and OS creates no ? unless files are saved in plain ini/text/xml/humanreadable format isnt everything else a form of binary ?

Even plain ini/text/xml etc. is eventually stored as ones and zeros. And I think I saw a 2...

Re:seeing as its all binary formats

Don't worry, there's no such thing as 2.

Re:seeing as its all binary formats

Try opening a word file in the plain text editor of your choice. There's actually a lot of plain text in there, it seems the binary is mostly from formatting (and embedded binary objects - like images).

I've had an occasion or two where a word document got corrupted and office wouldn't fix it. Out of curiosity, I opened it in notepad. I cut out all the formatting bytes, and cleaned up some areas where spaces were added between characters in a section of text (WTF?), and saved the plain text. Nothing of my document was missing (since I didn't have pictures in it or anything like that).

Re:carrot

I'm sure we will find out in a rude way when we bend over to pick up the carrot.

Re:Woohoo!

About time. I have for years been giving away all their software for free. ;-)

Re:last sentence of summary

what's worst is when you proof read it before hitting the [send] button and only after seeing it in another form do you see you once again you out another word. Yup, the brain does funny things to us.

LoB