OpenXML votes in New Zealand
According to the current Wikipedia entry:
Open XML is an XML-based file format specification for electronic documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. The specification has been developed by Microsoft as a successor of its binary office file formats and was published by Ecma International as the Ecma 376 standard in December 2006.
Uninitiated users may confuse "Office Open XML" with "OpenDocument" (ISO 26300:2006) and "OpenOffice". Therefore it is commonly referred to as OOXML or its earlier name Open XML.
Office Open XML uses a number of dedicated XML markup languages in fileparts that are placed in a file container (Open Packaging Convention ). The format specification which is available for free at Ecma International includes XML schemas that can be used to validate the XML syntax.
So what's Standards New Zealand involvement in all this? The group is assessing stakeholder views on the suitability of a document on Office Open XML for publication as an International Standard. This is from their press release:
...New Zealand is obliged to vote on the adoption of the European Computer Manufacturers’ Association Office Open XML document (ECMA 376) as an International Standard. This document is currently designated draft international Standard (DIS) 29500 and is available at http://www.jtc1sc34.org/. There is an existing international Standard for Open XML, referred to as Open Document Format (ODF), which was published last year (ISO/IEC 26300).
Standards New Zealand, as New Zealand’s national Standards body holds the responsibility to cast this vote on behalf of New Zealand.
‘The aim of the meeting is to assess and understand New Zealand stakeholder views to allow Standards New Zealand to make an informed vote on behalf of New Zealand. This meeting will be independently chaired by Ms Alison Holt, the New Zealand delegate to the international committee JTC1 SC7 Software Engineering’ said Grant Thomas, Chief Operating Officer, Standards New Zealand.
The way I read it, when Standards New Zealand sends out a press release with "[There is] an existing international Standard for Open XML, referred to as Open Document Format (ODF), which was published last year (ISO/IEC 26300)." it makes all sound like "we have already decided, there is one standard already, why bother with another one and these two days are just formality"...
I'd suggest you check Rod Drury's reasoning on why we should have another standard. A standard doesn't mean it must be unique. Microsoft's Sean McBreen wrote:
Do other standardised document formats not exist today?
Yes, in fact there are actually many different and at times overlapping formats that exist today, for instance PDF/A, ODF and HTML are all ISO/IEC standard document types today.
Why do we need multiple standardised formats?
Multiple formats are required as requirements change and to cater for differing scenarios for instance PNG and JPEG are two ISO/IEC image standards in heavy use today. Individuals and organisations will also continue to innovate and standards must evolve to keep pace with this, for instance MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG -4 are all ISO/IEC standards for video encoding.
What is the impact to the industry if Open XML is not accepted as an ISO/IEC standard?
Literally billions of documents today are stored and saved using Microsoft Office file formats, an important aspect of Open XML is backwards compatibility for these documents. Not standardising Open XML will have an impact on the longevity of these documents and force government departments, individual organisations and consumers to migrate all of their documents over time. It will also significantly reduce the choice available to our customers in relation to document formats.
What is the impact to Microsoft if Open XML is not accepted as a standard?
While standards themselves don’t dictate customer and partner behaviour or purchasing patterns they do have a strong influence on this over time. As a result there is likely to be a direct impact on the adoption of Microsoft products if Open XML is not accepted as a standard that will reduce our ability to compete in the marketplace.
If a standard is mandated and does not support all the functionality and formatting of a document (say a Microsoft Word 97 document), all the unsupported formatting will be lost in conversion. This raises questions about the validity of the document as a historic record as it has not been maintained in the original formatting.
Secondly it means that someone has to go through and fix the documents - and when you consider the number of potential documents affected, this would be an expensive exercise.
Who's going to tell these organizations that they have to do all this work to move their documents to ODF and fix all the formatting issues and manage the compliance issues?
Simply saying that the standard should translate the old "rendering quirks" into the new and less buggy version doesn't cut it.
Just check the previous ITC vote and comments. Several companies explicitly said that there was a place for both ODF and Open XML as a standard.
Here is an interesting take on this issue, including a reference to Kiwibank, showing how this whole thing can impact enterprises and the market.
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Comment by barf, on 24-AUG-2007 14:46
In the contradictions phase of voting to fast-track the standard, New Zealand has already voted "Contradictions mean DIS 29500 should be withdrawn from fast track."
Comment by foobar, on 24-AUG-2007 14:53
There has been extensive discussion about how utterly unsuitable OOXML is for consideration as an international standard. As the previous poster pointed out, OOXML cannot be implemented correctly by anyone except Microsoft itself, which is exactly the way they want it.
The OOXML 'standard' is a 6000 page work of conflicting statements. Approving OOXML as a standard allows MS to claim that it supports an 'open standard', and thus can avoid having to move to the well established and very capable ODF. Since noone else can implement OOXML correctly, it then allows MS to continue the old vendor lock-in game.
OOXML is only there, because several organizations/governments/etc. had the audacity to state that all their documents should be stored in a vendor independent format. MS couldn't allow that, so they proposed OOXML, and stuffed the voting bodies around the world with their business partners to assure a positive outcome of the vote.
I don't know what's more pathetic: MS doing this, or people blindly going along with it and not seeing it as what it is? Whoever claims that a 'professional should do what helps the users' and thinks that OOXML helps the users is seriously misinformed.
And I observed the concerning trend in New Zealand that so many people don't mind following mindlessly whatever MS decides...
Comment by BarTender, on 24-AUG-2007 15:31
The conference was an interesting. I do hope Standards New Zealand see clear sense from the vast majority of the attendees of the two days resoundingly rejected OOXML as a standard in it's current form.
MS moving towards open standards can only be a good thing for NZ Inc.
That being said, ECMA 376 does nothing but perpetuate customer lockin to the Microsoft Office Suite and wrap it up as an XML format.
In my opinion there is no difference between the DOC format and the DOCX format, only the way in which the binary is expressed is different. The vendor lockin does and will always remain.
Comment by foobar, on 24-AUG-2007 16:34
Why is the 'interesting take on the issue' (last paragraph of the article) presented as if it would have any merit or any value at all as an independent or constructive comment in this issue? The link leads to a blog on msdn.com. What surprise that it would endorse OOXML.
Mauricio, a little bit more differentiated reporting, and less MS bias would be nice...
Comment by foobar, on 24-AUG-2007 16:39
freitasm:
Of course everyone can create XML. The problem is that the 6000 page 'specification' contains sentences like:
This tag means that stuff should be done as in Word97
I paraphrased here. But the point is that it has lots of these. And since only MS knows how Word97 does stuff, MS is the only one who can implement a complete specification of this.
That's just one example. There are also others where they talk about the inclusion of binary blobs, which are in MS proprietary formats.
Finally, the standard contains lots of conflicting statements, which means that nobody can implement it.
The problem is not in generating XML, or reading the XML. The problem is in knowing what each tag is supposed to mean. And MS did that exactly on purpose, of course, because they want to remain the only ones who can implement that 'correctly'.
Comment by anonymous coward, on 24-AUG-2007 19:10
foobar - the binary blobs are not MS proprietary format - they are to cater for things like embedded JPEG, GIF, etc. This could be an old Word 97 document, but it could equally be a video or image.
People have already implemented their own file formats based on OpenXML - mindjet.com implemented it for their Mind Mapping tool.
BTW - whats wrong with having a Microsoft bias? Most of anti-OOXML have an ANTI-Microsoft bias - whats the difference?
Comment by BarTender, on 24-AUG-2007 20:41
For me it is nothing about anti-MS bias or pro-ODF bias. (even tho many will say I have a pro ODF bias due to my employer).
My question to Mauricio is plain and simple.
Without the ECMA 376 specification were you able to "Unzip->Edit in Notepad->Re-Zip and open successfully in Office 2007" and have anything other than basic text search and replace updates? I think not somehow.
At the end of the day the only people who will be realistically creating OOXML document will be using the MS-SDK not creating the files by hand, they will use a nice API that works the the same way as it always has. This is IMHO the only way to create a functional document which will actually work. Even though the spec is over 6000 pages long it remains very vague for quite vital ways to describe basic document functions from my ~20% reading of it.
Please do try and take a look through a DOCX file, I recommend starting with a ~100 or so page Word document saved into DOCX format and want to change formatting, add an image, and setup a Macro all from within Notepad. And not have the Spec open on your other screen. Then try and open that document in Office again and have it look the way you want. It's like a needle in a haystack.
A fundamental requirement of any XML DTD / XDS is that the XML is in a "human" readable format when it is in it's raw XML format.
OOXML is not only obtuse as raw XML, a large portion of the metadata in a document will either be bitmasks, or numerical values whos meaning is only known to Microsoft, or buried somewhere in the spec.
With "Save as XML" in Office 2003 the documents created were human readable and clearly understandable. Why couldn't MS build upon that format and have a clearly understandable XML document for everyone to consume?
All of this being said I think it's great that MS are "seeming" to move towards open standards. I personally believe if MS had created a standards group (ECMA doesn't count IMHO when the majority of members in TC45 are MS employees) with equal participation from different organisations or individuals who all have equal say in the creation of the specification to say what feature is in or out something truely great could have been created. Otherwise MS could have always submitted the architectural changes to OASIS (which they are a member of) to meet their needs.
There was not one single technical argument provided by MS as to why MS were unable to to integrate into the already ratified ISO specification, there were many claims of fundamental architectural differences, yet no technical impediment was actually tabled. Accepting that if a feature was needed other than using a completely custom schema which all vendors are able to do within the specification there was no reason why it couldn't be added as part of a future release of the specification, unless it was technically flawed.
MS should know they have great products and want integration and adoption, not hinder by obscure document specifications.
IMHO ECMA 376 is Office Open XML Alpha Release 0.1, it needs a LOT of work, and shouldn't be proposed as a standard in the first place.
But then again (being the MS bigot that I am) having a document format that allows competitors unencumbered read and write access doesn't help to increase shareholder value when the bulk of your profits are based upon that product now does it?
If my almost 3 year old daughter does a poo and I ask if she did a poo and she says "nooooo". Should I believe my nose, or what she is telling me.
Comment by BarTender, on 25-AUG-2007 06:42
Mauricio
No, The only reason why I am not against OOXML is because of solid and well documented technical flaws in the specification.
Again, ODF and OOXML use ZIP as a transport and I have no issue with that.
Coming back to my point.
I sincerely ask you to take a 100 page document, and try and manually modify it without the spec and changing anything other that basic text. It cannot be done as the XML syntax is far to cryptic for anyone to understand. This is completely against what XML was first designed for.
With an ODF document (or a "save as XML" MS office document) you can reasonably easily "follow your nose" with notepad on what needs to be done within the document to make changes. The tags are clear and concise!
I don't need to read the spec to edit a HTML file, nor do I need to read the spec to ping and IP address or plug in my USB drive. All of these technologies were built by a standards group of more than one member with the intention of furthering that field of technology.
MS must compete on feature set which it can easily with office because it is a great product. Not on locking customers into yet another proprietary file format under the guise of an "Open Standard".
IBM learned these lessons in the 80's, MS is on track to repeat the same mistakes. The irony of which was not lost on the members of the IBM delegation.
Again my 2 cents worth, and I look forward to hearing your results of editing a OOXML document manually :)
Comment by BarTender, on 25-AUG-2007 07:48
Sorry, final rant on this <honest!>. While feeding my children I thought of a great analogy. And will take it back to car racing.
Ferrari have been in the racing business for years and make the fastest and the biggest cars.
Other members of the racing community have looked at what Ferrari and managed to get hold of their petrol and managed to reverse engineer what they did so they could make their own petrol.
Now every season Ferrari refines their petrol and changes the way that it's made. But their competitors knowing they need to stay competitive keep up with Ferrari.
Now a group of competitors get their smartest people together and go to the racing board and say "here is a way to make Diesel" They leave the definition open enough that anyone can add their own additives but make core features of the diesel such as octane level and other core components mandatory. Then a document fully detailing how to make Diesel is released for everyone, including making additions to the formula.
Ferrari then go "OMG our competitors have some thing that looks like petrol, works a lot like petrol may not be as good as our petrol but a lot of the racing tracks around the world are tired of being locked into only Ferrari's brand of petrol and are demanding change"
So then Ferrari go and create a new version of petrol in a Diesel can. Plus they also make a 10000 page document on how to make the new 'Ferrari Open Diesel+" aka Release 12 of Petrol. But only release 6000 pages of the manual to make sure that no one is still able to make "Ferrari Open Diesel+" in an open and consistent way.
Then they take this to the racing board and say "here is our open Diesel, we are good members of the global community and adopt our standard next to Diesel".
This gives the impression to the racing board and the tracks around the world the Ferrari is trying to open it's standard up yet the commercial truth is the complete opposite.
</rant>
Comment by Mike Riversdale, on 26-AUG-2007 08:26
As I've mentioned elsewhere I find this discussion about "document formats" somewhat 'last millennium'.
Surely the most common (current) format for information (and that's what we care about, it's the "message not the medium") is HTML* - this is what I'm using now, it's what I use every time I use the internal systems at my work (MOSS-based "Enterprise 2.0") and it's the way the world is slooowly moving.
The most common website (and therefore I'd say "information store") for NZ kids is Bebo, not a "Word document" in sight. "Just kids", well possibly but that's the way the next generation are already behaving - organisations are the ones slow to catch on.
* well, probably the email 'format' contains most of the worlds information but, again, that's not an issue as everyone seems to be happy it.
Comment by foobar, on 27-AUG-2007 06:28
OpenXML defective by design...
That's the conclusion you reach when you examine it closer.
http://www.arstdesign.com/articles/OOXML-is-defective-by-design.html
This article was widely discussed on Slashdot and other news outlets today. Have a look at this, and then still say that OOXML is any good for anyone, except MS.
Comment by BarTender, on 30-AUG-2007 18:42
http://www.standards.govt.nz/news-and-seminars/current-news/New+Zealand+casts+Open+XML+vote.htm
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Comment by barf, on 24-AUG-2007 14:43
Office Open XML does not allow third parties to create fully functional implementations because within it proprietary standards are embedded.
To provide some background on a loosely similar technology, .avi is a container format. it can contain raw uncompressed frames, XviD, DivX, any free or proprietary video/audio codec.
OpenXML works similarly. It's like a zip file (really). Except full of proprietary binary data which only the Microsoft Office package has the ability to work with.
THATS WHAT YOU CALL AN OPEN STANDARD?!