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scott wrote:
> AIUI, weren't MS kinda "forced" to rush through this "open" document
> format for some reason? Something to do with official institutions only
> being allowed to use open formats or something?
They weren't "forced" to do anything. They could have just let ODF kill
one of their flagship products, gone bankrupt, and left they way for
superior competetors to take their place. :-D
> MS probably think it's
> just as stupid as the rest of us and only did the absolute minimum
> amount of work to get it through (I guess it was better than just
> changing the file extension from .doc to .oxml or whatever, but only just).
So now we have an ISO standard that nobody can actually implement?
Genius.
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> http://practical-tech.com/business/iso-approves-open-xml/
Did they even fix the completely standard-breaking wording of that
"standard", along the lines of "render this paragraph in the same way
as Word95 does it" (without specifying *how* exactly Word95 does it)?
If they didn't, I really can't understand how the standardization
committee can approve of a standard which doesn't actually specify
exactly what it is standardizing.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Did they even fix the completely standard-breaking wording of that
> "standard", along the lines of "render this paragraph in the same way
> as Word95 does it" (without specifying *how* exactly Word95 does it)?
>
> If they didn't, I really can't understand how the standardization
> committee can approve of a standard which doesn't actually specify
> exactly what it is standardizing.
Presumably the same way my company manages to approve procedure
documents that say "there will exist a procedure, and it will be known
to the people who carry it out". ;-)
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> But a "reputable" commercial entity bribing entire countries to buy an ISO
> standard? Jesus Christ...
I don't think it was *quite* like that. ISO is just a collection of people
from different companies that happen to be grouped by country, it's nothing
to do with the actual country or government or anything. AIUI the companies
that helped get MS through were suppliers and "friends" with MS. This sort
of thing happens the whole time in other industries and nobody raises an
eyebrow, eg in the automotive industry the big ones like Ford and (in
Europe) the collaboration between BMW, Mercedes, Audi etc often "politely
requests" suppliers to help them get standards through. Ditto in the
telecoms industry, in the past Nokia practically wrote all the standards
documents because everyone had to agree with them or risk being chucked out
as a Nokia supplier (and hence losing a huge amount of business). Seems
like finally the same has happened in the software industry.
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Invisible wrote:
> http://practical-tech.com/business/microsoft-cant-support-open-xml/
> THIS is a joke, surely?
No, it's normal ISO standards stuff. Nobody's prototype of a standard
ever supports the standard as passed. Surprise, surprise, software
written before the standard was passed doesn't include support for the
changes ISO made in the standard before they passed it.
> So now we have an ISO standard that nobody can actually implement?
No. It just hasn't been implemented yet. And nobody *wants* to implement
it. They want to be able to get at the data with different software,
which is what this does.
And a 6000 page specification isn't unreasonable for something like
this, either. The ODF specification isn't complete either, unless you
include the source code for OpenOffice.org as part of it. Is anyone
*really* going to implement a competitor to OpenOffice.org that doesn't
do anything not already in that standard?
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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Warp wrote:
> If they didn't, I really can't understand how the standardization
> committee can approve of a standard which doesn't actually specify
> exactly what it is standardizing.
ODF doesn't specify the formatting either.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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Darren New wrote:
> And a 6000 page specification isn't unreasonable for something like
> this, either. The ODF specification isn't complete either, unless you
> include the source code for OpenOffice.org as part of it. Is anyone
> *really* going to implement a competitor to OpenOffice.org that doesn't
> do anything not already in that standard?
Ask me later this month...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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To be fair, I never said it was "bad", only that they did it :)
Although, I personally think it's a rotten decision, it's really no
worse than any other political activity.
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
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> They weren't "forced" to do anything. They could have just let ODF kill
> one of their flagship products, gone bankrupt, and left they way for
> superior competetors to take their place. :-D
Well yes, there was that option, but unsurprisingly they didn't choose it
:-D
>> MS probably think it's just as stupid as the rest of us and only did the
>> absolute minimum amount of work to get it through (I guess it was better
>> than just changing the file extension from .doc to .oxml or whatever, but
>> only just).
>
> So now we have an ISO standard that nobody can actually implement?
But at least any organisation that has some rule like "you must only use
software than supports open formats" can still buy MS Office.
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Invisible wrote:
> So now we have an ISO standard that nobody can actually implement?
It's not that nobody *can* implement it. It's that MS hasn't yet
released the patches for their product that incorporates the changes
that ISO made to the standard.
This was interesting:
http://ileriseviye.org/blog/?p=1233
A short summary, with a link to the full report for those who care. :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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