John: (01)
I respectfully suggest that you *really* check your facts. (02)
Microsoft did not support the OASIS specification for ODF because they
felt that it didn't concern them. They argued, I think rightly in the
end, that as ODF represented a significantly smaller and different set
of requirements than those met by their own products, ODF should not
reflect MSFT's input: indeed, if ODF had been made as a compromise with
MSFT Office, it would have been a very different monster...! (03)
Microsoft have however made converters for OOXML/ODF available through
SourceForge and supported efforts for conversion between the two, based
on the ISO standard of ODF. (04)
Microsoft have released the format for Office 2007 as a public
specification, together with the rather peculiar "covenant not to sue" -
being, I guess, the best that they could get through their legal
department. This open specification has already been adopted by ECMA,
the European Computer Manufacturers Association (also responsible for
the most common Java scripting language, ECMAScript). (05)
The OOXML spec is big, very big, and many express doubts that it could
be implemented by anyone other than MSFT - but the size of a standard
has never been a criterion for its adoption. "Implementation-dependent
pecularities" are a different matter, and I would agree with you that
this should be a major factor in determining a specification's
worthiness for adoption as a standard - which is why I worry that, when
people talk about ODF, they are more often than not referring to
OpenOffice which *is* implementation-dependent and does not conform with
the ISO standard. (06)
It is true that MSFT have been very active trying to get their
specification adopted as an ISO standard (*not* through OASIS),
alongside ODF, and in the process they have very cleverly used all of
the same arguments for adoption that were advanced by the ODF
supporters. The accusations that is it "bloated with garbage designed to
support arcane internals of MS Office" is a bit unfair - you should
remember that backward compatibility has always been a millstone round
the neck of anyone wanting to support large communities of longstanding
users - and that many of the arcane "features" are ones inherited from
(I would say overly zealous) attempts at such total backwards
compatibility, including arcanities from IBM (Lotus calendar formats,
for example). (07)
I really do not understand your further references to OASIS. OASIS does
not have countries as voting members. I think you are referring to ISO
JTC1 SC34, which is the body responsible for ODF, the current OOXML
submission and the Topic Maps standard (hence my interest and knowledge
of the body!). (08)
I have to try to remain independent on this issue but the main issue
that worries me is that, at the end of the day, it won't be Microsoft or
IBM or anyone else that has "won", it will be the standards process, and
ISO, that will come out with a potentially damaged reputation: You
referred in an earlier post to IBM causing "multibillions of dollars of
damage to the entire industry by their tactics" - if you look at some of
their tactics in the OOXML debacle within ISO, you will see that this
has not changed. (09)
ISO is now caught between a rock and a hard place:
- either they accept that they screwed up, in pushing through ODF on a
dubious fast-track, without sufficient attention to detail;
- or they must accept to apply the same rules for OOXML in order to
maintain some integrity for fair-handedness. (010)
OASIS on the other hand is not "suffering from a bloated roster" and if
the recent management reports that I see as a Director are anything to
go by, has a healthy portfolio of committees and work, with MSFT playing
a constructive role alongside IBM, SUN, Oracle and all the other
players, big and small. (011)
Anyway, I think that this has drifted sufficiently off-topic to be no
longer worthy of the Ontolog Forum. I do however look forward, as ever,
to your posts on on-topic subjects ;-) (012)
Best regards, (013)
Peter (014)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F.
Sowa
Sent: 21 October 2007 21:59
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Free viewer for PowerPoint 2007 (015)
Duane and Peter, (016)
I should have been more precise in making the point. (017)
I realize that MSFT has participated in OASIS, but
they did not adopt the open standard or participate
in getting whatever features they needed into it. (018)
There is nothing wrong with a company producing their
own version for compatibility with their own legacy
systems. But they did not support the OASIS standard
on an equal footing. (019)
Furthermore, MSFT tried to get their proprietary version
made into a standard -- despite the fact that it is bloated
with garbage designed to support arcane internals of MS
Office. (020)
When it became clear that nobody else had any interest
in supporting the MS version, they "persuaded" [a polite
euphemism] a large number of countries to become voting
members of OASIS in order to stuff the ballot box in
favor of the MS version. Despite that effort, the MS
version was rejected as an OASIS standards project. (021)
And now, OASIS is suffering from a bloated roster of
voting members who have stopped participating. As a
result, they can't get a quorum for doing other business
in the overstuffed committees. (022)
John (023)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (024)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (025)
|