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Stow the Politics: What's Your Take on OOXML and ODF?

We're publishing a feature article on the OOXML and ODF file formats for our next issue of Redmond Developer News, and we want to hear from you about the technical strengths and weaknesses of each. Here's your chance to have a direct voice in the argument.

Have you worked with or examined the OOXML spec? Tell us what you think Microsoft needs to fix or improve in OOXML, and tell us what aspects of the spec have impressed you.

We're looking for the same input on the ODF side of the house. If you're familiar with the OpenDocument Format, e-mail us with your take on what the technology does right and what it does wrong.

Write us at mdesmond@reddevnews.com and you could be featured in the next issue of Redmond Developer News.

Posted by Michael Desmond on 09/26/2007 at 4:02 PM


Reader Comments:

Tue, Oct 2, 2007 Bernard Vancouver

There are several implementations of ODF alrready available. Some are in "free"/"open" office suites, some in proprietary ones. They've been available for a while now. They didn't require any secret, "special" knowlege to implement fully.

The same can not be said for OOXML. The only implementations on that side (apart from MS Office itself) have been incomplete and dependent on extensive experience with working to MS file-formats.

And in any case, even MS is acknowleging that MS won't adhere to the so-called spec. Even non-developers can understand that hardly qualifies as a genuine "standard".

Tue, Oct 2, 2007 Anonymous Anonymous

Proponents of ODF and of OOXML should openly release fully-compliant sample implementations of their respective standards, much like MIT did with X11 back in the late 1980s.

That would speak volumes as to their respective motives and to the technical merits of each standard.

Mon, Oct 1, 2007 Anonymous Anonymous

OOXML is all about Microsoft not wanting an open standard because that would threaten its Office monopoly. So it's impossible to

Sun, Sep 30, 2007 J.Kloosterman Anonymous

OOXML is just one of the many, many filetypes Microsoft has developped. As platform- and application-only format it is somwhere acceptable, although not advisable...

As international standard however it is absolutely not acceptable. An international standard has to be platform and application independent. It also has to be fully implementable, and absolutely without any patentable bits and pieces, by any party who wants to use it. OOXML does not met these criteria, so it's absolutely not acceptable, or usable, as an international standard.

ODF on the other hand does met these criteria. It is allready accepted as international ISO format.

It would be better if Microsoft stops pushing the OOXML format, and start to adopt the ODF standard. The need for a non-lock-in and really patent-free format -that is fully documented and usable even after many, many years- is obvious. A vendor-, platform- and application-dependent format like OOXML does not met this need. ODF, however, does...

The conclusion is simple. There is a need for a format like ODF, but absolutely no need for a format like OOXML. And thats the simple truth..

Sun, Sep 30, 2007 Anonymous Anonymous

There should only be one ISO standardd for this type of documents. So, if Microsoft wants something better they should try to build on that standard to make something better, but do it in a way that every OOXML document also was a valid ODF document, that rendered the same way. Two competing standards doesn't help users to communicate better.

Sun, Sep 30, 2007 W. Anderson Anonymous

The fact that it has been extensively documented by the leading experts and authroities on these two format standards that OOXML is "restrictive" and still controlled by Microsoft makes any discussion by the peon populace of no consequence, except as a forum for Microsoft shills.

It would be a better usage of time and space for the public interested in "format standards" to ask why Microsoft, who were an integral part of the ODF development, and could implement the standard in about a day, would suddenly turn against the effort like a rabid dog and attempt to fragment International standards like ISO.

Sun, Sep 30, 2007 Bob Robertson USA

How can a specification that uses "Do tabs like Word95 did tabs" be considered anything other than a marketing ploy? A "standard" that cannot be implemented is no standard at all.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Tim Hanson Seattle

Stow the politics??

Politics is all there is to this story. The problem is that the whole spec drills down to proprietary Microsoft file formats. There is nothing "open" about it. I don't think there is a way around this.

The whole reason for this "standard" is to enable Microsoft to pollute ODF with a competing format that depends on Microsoft products. Politics is the reason for the effort; politics was at the center of the push to have it adopted, using all the questionable tactics and vote stuffing.

When the unaffiliated developer can create software that reads and writes OOXML documents, readable and writable by Office applications, without resorting to Microsoft tools, the standard will be acceptable. That will never happen because Microsoft's intent is monopoly maintenence.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 david T vietnam

Stowing the politic is going to be difficult, Standards are specification that are adopted by institution through consensus or vote, I can't that be politic ?

On the other side, there's no reason not to adopt a standard that once use to be "proprietary", but it has to evaluated on its technical merit, so far the technical merit is not there, too many "If" and references to other specs that are not cover by the standard itself to become a proper standard. Sometimes one have to rewrite and start from a blank sheet.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Jared Spurbeck Georgia, US

If you're asking us to stow the politics, then there's nothing to say. OOXML is politics -- it exists because Microsoft wanted to force adoption of a "standard" that it's in control of, rather than implement ODF.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Matt Smith KC, KS

The Good: A very extensive spec that covers tons of features.

The Bad: A very ugly spec that basically seems to be a straight translation of their binary files into xml without attempting to clean it up any, with many places that simply say this feature is implemented the way Office 2003 did it, without actually specifying how that was done.

The Ugly: The was MS has acted trying to get their spec approved.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Jeff Cobb SF, CA

Getting past the "politics" is for many veterans of the software industry such as myself, an insurmountable task. "Politics" in this case is too many years of witnessing bad behavior from Microsoft. Recent remarks from Microsoft indicating they feel no obligation to stick to the standards they themselves have advanced to the EMCA do not help their cause. Microsoft has got to show they will be responsible members of the software ecosystem before any specific format they present for public approval will gain any acceptance from any thinking person.

Bluntly, they need to build trust first, and build it by earning it, THEN try to get their formats accepted. I suspect they have waited far too long and now cannot catch up in the karma dept. fast enough to get this in at this time. The sad thing is that for all the good ideas that have been lost over the years to Microsofts monopolistic practices, probably many more good ideas from Microsoft will have been lost because their (well-earned) reputation of being less than trustworthy has led people to discard them out of hand.

However, it is a problem of their own making so it is up to them to unmake it by building trust and that takes time. They cannot simply "ask" for it and expect anything real.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Olaf Netherlands

As a software engineer who has worked with COM extensively, I believe OOXML is merely an XML dump of Microsoft's OleDocument format (known to most people as .doc). It's therefore no a serious standards attempt, merely a XML-ization of a binary format.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Wellingj Anonymous

You really can't stow the politics in this one. If it wasn't for the corporate politics there would be no OOXML. In other words because of Microsoft's actions they have inexorably linked OOXML to their corporate politics. The time to avoid this kind of politics would have been in the development of ODF by Oasis. Micrsoft had their chance but they decided to play the political game... they don't want to play the game anymore? Then how about some straight talk and tell us why Redmond doesn't want to adopt the already existing standard of ODF?

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Pietro Pesci Feltri Venezuela

Too complex and long but incomplete specification. Don't rely in other standards, instead use patented code.
Scandals everywhere in vote process showing Microsoft did try to alter the results.
Non ODF compatible.
Microsoft refused to participate in ODF.

Can it be worst?. I doubt it.
Money is important of course, and MS is trying to protect its market, I understand, but purpose OOXML as standard is hardly an honest move.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Sarah Scotland

I think it's great that OOXML will at some point be available for the blinkered. They can struggle with the spec whilst the ODF developers accelerate off into the distance. Vista and OOXML - who in their right mind would tie themselves into that?

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Ted Surrey

ODF is an honest and Open standard designed for genuine interoperability. OOXML is a bandwagon gravy-train soundalike that is badly designed, dishonestly pushed and created only for the benefit of the Behemoth. The games up for the idiots.

Sat, Sep 29, 2007 Mark Anonymous

OOXML's deficiencies can be assumed to be a indicative of the quality of Windows source code. As soon as Microsoft *have* to show stuff publicly we can all see how badly built it is.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 gerd Anonymous

I listened to all complaints and did not take them very serious. But then I read the ECMA 376 specification file and made some notes. I was quite shocked. Then I read the dossiers from third parties and compared them with my notes.

OOXML is XML as it should not never be done. It is a machine generated format. No one can tell me that ISO 26300 or a follow-up version can't serve Microsoft's needs. It would be a design problem to adopt Open XML. When you switch to an open XML generation format you should not carry the past slack.

In my opinion the French proposal points into the right direction. One file format for all. But ISO 26300 would also be fine.

The betamax lesson: sometimes quality is irrelevant.

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