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Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by Knut Yrvin on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @02:17
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* yxxcvsdfbnfgnds writes:
> I'm sorry, but get a reality check. MS Office has about 90% market share.
Yes, Microsoft Office 1997 document formats got 80-90% marked share. Ecma OOXML has zero marked share. Please don't mix together the product name Microsoft uses on their office suite and the realities concerning the different file format supported in Microsofts products. Microsoft has in two attempts made what they describes as an open format, one in used with MS Office 2003 and a new one with MS Office 2007. Unfortunately Microsoft just partly support OpenDocument Format. Microsoft don't use the Ecma OOXML specification they suggested them self. Microsoft has made a special non documented version of OOXML they follow them self. Almost no businesses uses OOXML, everyone uses the 12 year old MS Office 1997 format.
> People don't want to use office software that frags the documents they recieve.
I agree with you. Unfortunately Microsoft them self are betting on that people will change to their OOXML non-Ecma edition, leaving MS Office 1997 format behind.
Different national ISO-members has committed thousands of objections that has to be addressed before accepting Ecma OOXML. I will name three objections against supporting Ecma OOXML:
* Microsoft does not uses Ecma OOXML them self, but a special version of that format. If someone should be folish to implement Ecmas OOXML, they never know if it's really is implemented in real life as in MS Office 2007. This is a moving target, and you can end up with supporting 6000 pages with Ecma OOXML and has to reverse engineer Microsofts interpretation of OOXML. To implement 6000 pages of document format is a huge undertaking and a lot bigger than the around 600 pages OpenDocumnt Format spesification. But you must also support what Microsoft add and retract from the Ecma OOXML spesification. You don't get time left to make an usable office suite when betting on Ecma OOXML.
* Ecma OOXML is illegal to use for individual developers according The Danish Standardization body. Individual developers are prohibited from using Ecma OOXML. Most of the KOffice developers are individual developers and will be banded from implementing Ecma OOXML if they will contribute.
* Ecma OOXML consist of non documented features like binary only storage elements and non documented functions. To get access to _some_ of the feauture, not all, but some: Your company has to sign a patent deal with Microsoft to get access to some of the not documented features in Ecma OOXML. Microsoft then demand that they shall get right to use all your intellectual property. This kind of legal binding to Ecma OOXML shows that the format is really an Microsoft format, not controlled by a standardization body. Similar legal wording has made Japans competitive authorities to do a rassia against Microsoft for breaking the competitive law.
> No supporting MS file formats does not weaken MS's position,
> but makes people stick with MS Office.
I think you are slightly out of topic. Maybe because you are somewhat confused about the many formats Microsofts has implemented as a part of MS Office, and which formats they don't support where Ecma OOXML is not supported.
You are spot on when it comes to supporting the old MS Office 1997 format. But as mention above, Microsoft them self don't support Ecma OOXML. And Microsoft prohibits individual developers to use Ecma OOXML. ISO comities around the world voted against standardization of OOXML in its current form. Thousands of issues has to be addressed if OOXML gonna represent a transition format from old MS Office documents to a "modern" one. This is the main goal for Microsoft, but they have not delivered on promised, as the ISO standardization process shows. |
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Re: Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by yxxcvsdfbnfgnds on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @10:46
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"Ecma OOXML has zero marked share."
Oh, where did you get you data from? I'm eager to see that nobody ever bought Office 2007 and nobody pirated Office 2007.
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"Almost no businesses uses OOXML"
The world consists of more than just business. I'm fully aware that there are the OOXML file formats and older MS Office file formats. OOXML has the advantage that there is already a working, stand-alone converter.
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"I think you are slightly out of topic."
Who is off-topic? You wrote about ECMA OOXML and MS OOXML and so on. Honestly: I don't care. Maybe YOU are confused by all that political stuff. Let me try to explain again:
There is a working OOXML to ODF converter. It's stand-alone and it's free software that is already integrated into Novell's OpenOffice builds. I tried the converter with a few OOXML documents I found on the net (all created with MS Office 2007) and the results where quite good.
There's no need for any KDE/KOffice developer to write a new OOXML converter.
Just take the existing converter, wrap a GUI (=the open/save window) around it and have instant access to more file formats.
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Re: Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by Knut Yrvin on Monday 05/Nov/2007, @11:28
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Knut Yrvin wrote:
"Ecma OOXML has zero marked share."
yxxcvsdfbnfgnds wrote:
> Oh, where did you get you data from? I'm eager to see that nobody
> ever bought Office 2007 and nobody pirated Office 2007.
[...]
So you don't know the difference between the OOXML specification Microsoft committed to Ecma and their own deviated OOXML-version used in MS Office 2007? This emphasizes my point. You believe things works as long as you can read a label with a five letter acronym from a big cooperation. You don't care if it means to fit a driver seat from BMW in a Volvo, without any specification available. As long as Microsoft tells you that the BMW driver seat should fit in in a Volvo, you believe them. You don't care about the people who makes the solution you want, even if it involves legal risks or a huge pile of work.
> You wrote about ECMA OOXML and MS OOXML and so on. Honestly:
> I don't care.
You don't care ...
Free software developers cares about the software they write. They care about licenses and boring legal stuff. Unfortunately Microsoft makes it illegal to make OOXML integration for individual developers. When Sun makes an OOXML converter to ODF, they are a company and got the legal team to handle the licensing issues. I suggest you yourself, since you don't care of legal risks, tries to implement Suns OOXML->ODF in KOffice based on the work from Sun Microsystems. But it seems that you don't know about this things in depth to do it your self. If that true, I think you should put your money where your month is. Instead of letting others live with the legal risks implementing OOXML, you should pay any legal cost for the developers who supports MS OOXML as you suggests. Or don't you care about that either?
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Re: Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft
by Indian User on Friday 11/Jan/2008, @05:46
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I would be interested to know more about the source of information on Ecma OOXML being different from MS Office 2007. How does one validate this piece of information ?
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