Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

nucrash — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:31:43 GMT

Well, I suppose 122 thousand seems like a small number when counting the number of atoms in the universe, so perhaps things aren't so bad after all.

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

Ian Easson — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:18:59 GMT

Now Joe Wilcox on his (anti) Microsoft Watch blog is on the story, to wit:

"Office 2007 Fails the Test

When is a standard not a standard?"

He goes on about the "startling pronouncement" blah blah.

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

max stirner — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:25:33 GMT

so this standard is not implemented ANYWHERE in the world as of yet?

Let's pray you folks manage to pull it off!

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

dmahugh — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:39:57 GMT

Yes, Max, the day that the vote passed our products didn't automatically start supporting the changes that were made to the spec in recent weeks. And keep in mind that the final spec isn't even available yet from ISO/IEC.

I'm doubtful that there has ever been a product that has supported a standard as of the day it was ratified, but if that has happened then it would have to be a standard that was not materially improved or modified during the standardization process. That's not the case here: the standards process improved the IS29500 text, and we're all better off for that in the long run.

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

Inigo — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:05:33 GMT

Hi Doug,

I think you've slightly misinterpreted Alex Brown's post: the "84 errors" were all of the same "on/off no longer valid" type. So, in that document, there was only one real difference from the transitional schema, because of the narrowed definition of ST_OnOff.

Having said that, I don't think it was a very good document to test against: its very repetitive, doesn't exercise many features, and I'm not certain that it was generated by Word 2007 in the first place! I know there was a lot of automation used to create the spec, and I don't know whether there was a final "Edit in Office" step, or whether the final version was produced from another tool. But you're right - it's a good first step.

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

dmahugh — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:17:59 GMT

Thanks for the clarification, Inigo. You're right, I missed the point there: Alex's transitional conformance test found 84 instances of that same ST_OnOff issue and nothing more.

And your second point is a great one, too. I think you may be right that the document wasn't even created by Office -- I'll look into that. I agree it's not a best-case document for testing, but it's a very large document that's publicly available so from that perspective it's a practical choice.

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

mat — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:25:21 GMT

So, will Office 2007/2008 SP2 (or some later SP) will save new documents in the strict mode and use transitional only for converting old documents?

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

dmahugh — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:13:00 GMT

Mat, we've not announced any details like that yet but I'll post details when we have them. One thing to keep in mind is that most users want interop across the widest possible variety of implementations.

Inigo, I've confirmed that Word was in fact used in the creation of that document, as part of the automated assembly. So it's a valid test of Office's conformance in that sense.

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

dmahugh — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:59:25 GMT

Ian, FYI regarding Joe Wilcox's post (http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/interoperability/office_2007_fails_the_test.html), I posted a comment yesterday but he apparently decided to not let it through. I posted it immediately after his comment at 1:22PM yesterday (before the comment from Pinball had appeared), and I included a link to this post, and also to the open letter where Chris Capossela said "we are committed to supporting the Open XML specification that is approved by ISO/IEC in our products" (http://www.microsoft.com/interop/letters/ChrisCapOpenLetter.mspx).

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

Ian Easson — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:37:00 GMT

Doug, it's possible you forgot to include your email address when you posted at Joe's blog. My comments appear instantaneosly, so I suspect he is not moderating the blog.

Why don't you try again?

re: Alex Brown's research, AbiWord enhancements

dmahugh — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:14:40 GMT

I think it may be a case of approving your IP address once and then you go straight through after that, like it works on Wordpress blogs. I had included my email address yesterday, and just now posted again and got the same message I did yesterday, "Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner." We'll see.

Microsoft support for ISO Open XML

OfficeRocker! — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:37:48 GMT

seems to be a good deal of chatter recently about our support for the modified version of Open XML that