History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

Robert — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:06:52 GMT

Brian,

I doubt your wife will appreciate the awkward wording "Brian Jones gets married and for the first time..."

:-0

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

BrianJones — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:36:57 GMT

:-)

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

Alex — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:54:55 GMT

I think you missed the stuff in 2003 and 2004, which was "OASIS Open Office XML TC work hard at improving the specification". On your timeline, ODF needed two years in committee before they felt it was ready.

That's twice the amount of time spent by ECMA on OXML, no?

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

hAl — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:24:35 GMT

It is definitly a timeline as seen from the eye of Brian Jones. However I guess the point is to show that the development of the OOXML formats used in MS Office are not just created out of the blue in 2006 as an answer to the ODF format but that MS has been developing the OOXML formats for years..

However the standardization proces itself does seem an answer to the standardization of ODF but I guess also to the claims of vendor lock in and the political pressure from governments.

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

EshwarS — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:56:12 GMT

Hi Brian,

A small request. This blog's focus has become ODF vs OpenXML. Please don't go down this path, its absolutely no use as people of different views will definitely not agree. Its just natural. So instead of going down this path please make this a blog that helps us get a better understanding of OpenXML and how it can be improved further (I think this was the purpose in the first place).

The market will eventually decide which format will remain relavent and lets leave it at that. I urge you to present us more details about OpenXML instead of comparison between the two formats.

- Eshwar

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

Brutus — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:47:57 GMT

Eshwar, the problem is that IBM guys like Rob Wier are constantly blogging about how great ODF is and how horrible OOXML is. Most of the ODF campaign against OOXML is built on half-truths, FUD, disinformation. And IBM is going around the world trying to convince governments to mandate exclusive use of ODF, based on that disinformation.

The FUD charges leveled against OOXML cannot go unanswered, or else OOXML will die, not because of lack of merit, but because of a smear campaign.

You say that the "market will eventually decide which format will remain relevant". But IBM, et al, are trying to kill off OOXML before the market even gets a chance to decide.

Note that Microsoft was on the ISO subcommittee that reviewed ODF and raised no objections against ODF becoming an ISO standard. Contrast that with IBM throwing a temper tantrum at the ECMA OOXML standardization (getting out-voted 20 to 1), and are now trying to prevent OOXML from becoming an ISO standard. IBM and the like want ODF to be the only standard, period. They don't WANT the "market to decide". Quite unlike Microsoft, which has no objections to both ODF and OOXML being standards from which the market can choose.

If you really want the market to get a chance to decide, then the ODF anti-OOXML smear campaign led by IBM must be responded to.

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

grauenwolf — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 02:20:46 GMT

You are missing a really, really important one.

In May of 2006 IBM announced that Lotus Notes will support ODF.

Prior to OpenXML:

Lotus Notes supports the de facto standard, Word binary, and the new standard, ODF.

After OpenXML (if MS/OpenXML "wins"):

Lotus Notes supports an old version of Word that no uses any more and a ISO standard that no one uses.

From what I have seen so far, if OpenXML becomes popular then IBM's Lotus division is going to be hurt, badly.

Jonathan Allen

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

Dave S. — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 03:37:51 GMT

Et tu, Brute?

Your support for ODF may have gone un-noticed in Massachussetts. You remember, when Microsoft was anti-choice?

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

BrianJones — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:04:19 GMT

Dave,

We were never anti-ODF. In Massachussetts we were just asking them to consider OpenXML as a potential format in addition to ODF and PDF.

Eshwar,

I do want to focus more on the technologies, and I'm sure you're aware that the large majority of my blog posts discuss technical issues behind the file formats. There has been a lot of FUD lately around the ISO submission of OpenXML though, and I wanted to try and clear some of that up. I'm also going to work on pulling together a post that explains the ISO "fast-track" process as there has been a lot of misinformation around that too.

Jonathan and Brutus, thanks for the comments. You both raised a couple points I'll add into the original post.

-Brian

L'historique d'Open XML - 1998

[XaMaLa] - Le poste de travail, un gisement de productivit — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:30:56 GMT

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

Stefan Wenig — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:01:04 GMT

Jonathan,

you write: "Lotus Notes supports an old version of Word that no uses any more and a ISO standard that no one uses."

Seriously, after getting through the binary memory-dump formats they already support, how hard can it be to build a new import/export filter that supports the same logical model, only with fully documented XML syntax?

Also, considering that WordML and SpreadsheetML have been around for years, how hard can it be to adapt to a few changes and implement a ZIP-based container format? Hannover will have OpenXML support from day one if IBM really wants it.

Their real problem is that they probably don't support 100% of the information in the binary formats, because Hannover doesn't have the necessary features. If the world standardized on ODF that would not be a problem, since customers would have the same problem with MS Office after converting everything to ODF. Guess who wins and who loses.

re: History of office XML formats (1998-2006)

Fernando — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:58:29 GMT

Hi Stefan,

"Also, considering that WordML and SpreadsheetML have been around for years, how hard can it be to adapt to a few changes and implement a ZIP-based container format? Hannover will have OpenXML support from day one if IBM really wants it."

You are right on. The only reason IBM is not suppoting OpenXML right now is to not undermine their claim that "Open XML is a one-vendor standard that no one other than Microsoft can really implement". They could do it in a second if they wanted.

On the other hand, Microsoft Office has tons of features that would require IBM years of development in order to be competitive. ODF is being used to make this features irrelevant in some market segments (like government).

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