Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

orlando — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:08:26 GMT

Dissipating the good intentions cloud, i believe it's bad news for Linux, open source and interoperability. It seems that has begun the awaited step 2: spread FUD via software patents to stop Linux and open source menace.

Accord de collaboration Microsoft et Novell, OpenXML everywhere !

Neodante's blog — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:33:11 GMT

Microsoft et Novell ont annoncé, via les voix de Steve Ballmer et de Ron Hovsepian, president et CEO

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

jake rivers — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:55:08 GMT

Well with pc-bsd getting big time support by its acquisition from ixsystems, i can see why b$ll Gate$ will be scared, and want to team up with open souce soutions. Hmm how long till B$ll Gate$ makes widows opensource?

Jake

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

Fernando — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 03:57:47 GMT

This is fantastic news for both MS Office and OpenOffice users. This will likely mean that users of both suites will be able to collaborate using Open XML - an open standard with full compatibility with the existing document base.

And I wonder if Florian Reuter joining Novell has anything to do with this annoucement. ;)

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

Bebop — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 09:01:24 GMT

"It's true there is a widespread perception of unfair business practice from Microsoft out there, but my experience of working in the ECMA process with the developers, has been of meeting a (to my mind) mis-directed, but equally passionate world-view based around the love of their technology."

That's the developers, not the lawyers, nor the managers. Unfair business practice doesn't come from developers.

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

omz — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:42:06 GMT

Brian, could you address this two questions from IBMS's Rob Weir ? ( see http://www.robweir.com/blog/2006/11/two-simple-questions.html )

he asks ( quoting ):

"[T]wo simple questions. I'm hoping Microsoft or Ecma can give a straightforward and unequivocal answer:

1) Is the Office Open XML specification (1.5 "final draft") 100% compatible with all legacy Microsoft Office documents, meaning that a 3rd party, using solely information in this specification (and publicly available open standards), can create a utility on a non-Windows platform, say Linux, to convert any legacy Office document into OOXML without loss of data, function or appearance?

2) Does the OOXML specification (1.5 "final draft") document the format sufficiently for someone to create a 100% compatible editor (spreadsheet, word processor, presentation) implementation on a non-Windows platform, say Linux? By 100% compatible I mean that it can load and interpret and display all OOXML documents without loss of data, function or appearance?

Thanks in advance

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

hAl — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:12:09 GMT

I would suggest you do not answer those questions asked on Rob Weirs blog as he has decided to severly moderate on the commenting so his blog.

I asked for instance on that blog in reply to his post if he thought it possible to make 100% interoperable Office documents just purely from the ODF specs. That hot potato he did not want to touch I guess.

Also Rob in his blog said the only proof he accept for the compatibility must come from independant 3rd party implementations. So whatever Micrsoft says about the legacy compatibility he already states in his post that he does not accept it unless there is an independant third party application to bank it up. With that attitude you cannot really discuss anything anymore.

re: Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

BrianJones — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 00:43:23 GMT

Thanks for the comments everyone. We wrapped up the development on Office 2007 last Friday and I'm actually taking this week off. I'll pull together a quick post to mention this great milestone, but probably won't get to anything else too interesting until next week.

hAl and omz,

I can't really answer why Rob is blocking comments, but it's his blog so he can do what he wants... I've often been tempted to do similar things since the comments can often get off topic, but I have too much fun with the conversations.

I think that Rob has a similar view on the term "standard" as Ben does (who has posted a number of well thought out comments here on my blog). In his view a standard doesn't make sacrifices in terms of "perfect design" instead of "perfect compatibility". The problem is that "perfect design" can mean different things depending on what the goals are for your design. We had to leave some legacy behaviors in place because the goal of our work was to create an XML format that could represent our existing base of Office documents. There is no secret motive there, it's pretty straightforward. If we left these things out of the standard, you would have had many more people upset at that, so at some point you have to realize that you can't always please everyone and instead you make the best decision for your customers. But, if you don't want that format and instead want to use ODF, go for it. We are supporting a project that will allow OpenOffice customers to open and save Open XML files and Microsoft Office customers to open and save ODF files, so you can make that decision.

Our entire point in submitting the Open XML formats to Ecma was that we were had a number of customers and governments ask us to do it. People wanted to know that the formats would be reviewed and maintained by a standards body, and that even if Microsoft goes away 100 years from now, that won’t impact the availability of the specs. It turned out to be an excellent request, as the documentation and schemas have benefitted significantly from the standardization process. Just look at how much has changed from the initial draft submitted a year ago. These weren’t just changes in the documentation, but the actual formats themselves changed significantly as well.

I can't tell from Rob's question whether he is trying to be manipulative, or if he's just not fully aware of the technical details behind the Office Open XML formats. The Open XML standard is fully documented and you can implement it on any platform, so in a way the answer to both of his questions is yes!

Just like the ODF standard though, the Open XML standard isn't going to tell you how to consume some other format, just the format it's defining. So the Open XML specification wouldn't help a 3rd party do conversions from the old Star Office format; from the Lotus 1-2-3 format; or from the Microsoft Office binary formats. I think it's just a leading question attempting to get into a discussion around the documentation of the legacy binary formats, but that's a different topic and shouldn't come into play when discussing these new formats (which will be the default formats for Office 2007). It has just as much to do with the discussion as if I asked Rob and Bob if IBM has documented the Lotus file formats.

In order to completely answer the second question, you would really have to say 'no' for both ODF and Open XML as well. You can't control what an end-user is going to embed in their files. Both ODF and Open XML allow for OLE-Objects, and embedded media formats that might not always be cross platform. The Open XML format doesn't place restrictions on what type of images you can insert for example, so if you were on a Mac and you inserted some fancy new image format that wasn't supported on Windows yet, then the image wouldn't show up when opened on a Windows machine. The Open XML standard does try to suggest media formats though that are cross platform (and it even points to the public specs for those image formats).

OK, gotta go. Have a great week everyone.

-Brian

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Novell and Microsoft teaming up on document interoperability

Relationship Compatibility — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:29:06 GMT

I'm sure by now most folks have read the news on the collaboration agreement between Novell and Microsoft. If not, you can read more up on the Microsoft interoperability site: http://www.microsoft.com/interop (Novell's press release is here ) There ar