Open source lobby fury over Office format fast-track
,----[ Quote ]
| The duo claim the process means Europe is being 'railroaded
| into accepting an 'inadequate' standard.
`----
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/102898/open-source-lobby-fury-over-office-format-fasttrack.html
http://tinyurl.com/37vouh
This morning I wrote:
"It would not be surprising if Microsoft 'bought' an approval of this mess.
Long-term, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in stake."
Bribery is not out of the question, either, but it requires proof.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/01/24/microsoft.wikipedia.ap/index.html
Wikipedia editing for money, eh?
Related:
Deadline Looms to Express Concerns about ECMA 376 Office Open XML
,----[ Quote ]
| Others have expressed that the ISO standardization of Ecma 376 in its
| present state would result in an international standard that no
| vendor other than Microsoft could fully implement. And still
| others expressed doubts whether a Microsoft-sponsored plugin
| for its office suite will be able to provide sufficient
| fidelity in conversions/transformations between Ecma 376
| and ISO/IEC 26300.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070123071154671
The Contradictory State of OOXML
,----[ Quote ]
| Other contradictions would seem to be impossible to resolve given the
| nature of OOXML itself, the stated purpose of which is to describe a
| single vendor's product -- bugs and all.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070117145745854
The Open XML Lie
,----[ Quote ]
| The basic premise of Rob?s article was that the Microsoft Open
| XML Specification was similar to creating a job description
| that would allow for only one qualified respondent. Such a
| job description might read as follows:
|
| * 5 years experience with Java, J2EE and web development, PHP, XSLT
| * Fluency in French and Corsican
| * Experience with the Llama farming industry
| * Mole on left shoulder
| * Sister named Bridgette
`----
http://3monkeyweb.com/3monkeys/2007/01/17/the-open-xml-lie/
The Formats of Excel 2007
,----[ Quote ]
| The "Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook" option saves as an "xlsxm"
| extension. It is OOXML plus proprietary Microsoft extensions.
| These extensions, in the form of binary blob called
| vbaProject.bin, represent the source code of the macros. This
| part of the format is not described in the OOXML specification.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/01/formats-of-excel-2007.html
Is Open XML a one way specification for most people?
,----[ Quote ]
| Who will implement Open XML correctly and fully? Maybe Microsoft.
| Why? Since it is essentially a dump into XML of all the data
| needed for all the functionality of their Office products and
| since those products are proprietary, only they will understand
| any nuances that go beyond the spec. The spec may illuminate
| some of the mistakes that have been made and are now being
| written into a so called standard for all to have to implement,
| but I'm guessing there might be a few other shades of meaning
| that will not be clear. Fully and correctly implementing Open
| XML will require the cloning of a large portion of Microsoft's
| product. Best of luck doing that, especially since they have
| over a decade head start. Also, since they have avoided using
| industry standards like SVG and MathML, you'll have to
| reimplement Microsoft's flavor of many things. You had
| better start now. So therefore I conclude that while Microsoft
| may end up supporting most of Open XML (and we'll have to
| see the final products to see how much and how correctly),
| other products will likely only end up supporting a subset.
`----
http://sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1145
Sun slams Ecma's OpenXML OK
,----[ Quote ]
| "Make sure you follow how well the Novell and Corel implementations
| do," he wrote. "If they falter, watch out for those who try to blame
| those companies or open source itself, when the root of the problem
| may be with the Microsoft Office OpenXML spec in the first place."
`----
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2170681/sun-slams-ecma-openxml-ok
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