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Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open)
The Free Software Foundation Europe speaks out on the promise
of a converter for Microsoft's Office OpenXML and the vendor-independent
Open Document Format. "When the standardisation effort around Open
Document Format (ODF) began, Microsoft was invited to participate, and
chose to remain silent. Although people implore them until today to join
the global standardisation effort, Microsoft does not contribute its ideas
and suggestions to the multi-vendor Open Document Format. Instead
Microsoft focus[]es on MS-OOXML, which it promotes on the grounds of
technical superiority and wider range of features. But if Microsoft's
claims to technical superiority of MS-OOXML over ODF are true, how could
one ever be converted perfectly into the other?" (Thanks to
Bernhard Reiter).
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Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 17, 2007 13:18 UTC (Tue) by amck (subscriber, #7270) [Link] From what I've heard, the OOXML format does have one technical superiority to the ODF format, in that its possible to start rendering the content before the whole file is received and parsed, due to the ordering of data within.
Two formats are not necessarily completely equivalent just because the data within can be translated from one to the other accurately.
That, however, does not excuse OOXML: MS should have pushed such improvements into ODF when it was being developed. OOXML is in so many other ways a bad standard (e.g. not being fully specified) that is should just be dropped immediately by ISO.
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 17, 2007 14:12 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] I think it's obvious that Microsoft pushes OOXML for one particular reason: Some important customers have said that they want document formats standardized. The rest of OOXML is the usual vendor-lock-in, and since the current proprietary format is well reverse engineered, Microsoft decided to make a new format. Overall, the FSF arguments against converters don't hold much water. We need an OOXML converter, because people will send files around in that format, whether it's standard or not - it's the default file format of Office 2007. It's sufficient if this converter is lossy, and removes particular attributes like "spaces as in Word 95". The only other viable solution would be to buy Microsoft Office 2007, which is even less an option. For some time, you probably can tell people "Our IT hasn't approved Office 2007 yet, please send as Office 2003 file" or something like that, but as we knew from the last transition of Office formats, people don't understand these issues, and don't want to listen. From a Linux die-hard perspective, ODF sucks as document format, as well. I prefer my documents archived as LaTeX, PostScript, and PDF. ODF is better than nothing, though, but then, OOXML is also better than nothing. It's the first time Microsoft actually publishing a document about their format, making it easier to reverse engineer.
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 17, 2007 14:55 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I don't think LaTeX, PostScript, and PDF are suitable for spreadsheets.
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 17, 2007 15:15 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] For which you'd use CSV. ^_^
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 18, 2007 11:18 UTC (Wed) by MKesper (guest, #38539) [Link] CSV is not nearly a standardized format.Your point is really shaky.
FSFE is correct Posted Jul 17, 2007 14:58 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Overall, the FSF arguments against converters don't hold much water. On the contrary - they are very true. 200% true. Or have you forgot ? May be so, but... If Microsoft says the truth then OOXML SHOULD BE rejected: if convertors can easily save the day and OOXML and ODF can interoperate this way then why the hell do we need two competing standards ? If Microsoft lies then OOXML MUST BE rejected (because it clearly makes no sense to accept proposals from people who knowingly lie in public). The only question: is why the hell this question is raised NOW and not year ago ??? P.S. See RFC2119 for discussion about should and must...
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 18, 2007 14:19 UTC (Wed) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link] While I have no problem with your overall point. I don't concurr with LaTex, PostScript and PDF being 'better' than ODF.
The reason a lot of us deal with MS Office documents at all, is because folks we interact with use this format. This point is so basic, I can't
Last I checked, PDF is well down the road of feeping creaturism, and
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 18, 2007 16:20 UTC (Wed) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link] Right, LaTex is better if you only ever produce scientific papers for computer science or physics that are meant to printed on dead trees. Or snail-mail letters (remember those?) that look exactly like Leslie Lamport's or some German guy's letterhead. It is beautiful for that.
Most office documents require a bit more functionality and flexibility.
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 19, 2007 7:38 UTC (Thu) by bsch (guest, #4349) [Link] More flexibility and functionality than LaTeX? I can't imagine what that could be ...
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 19, 2007 17:25 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] More flexibility, easy: LaTeX isn't exactly flexible.
More flexibility than eTeX, that's harder.
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 18, 2007 14:56 UTC (Wed) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] The big problem with MS-OOXML is MS pushes it as an application platform, so every part of OOXML that replaces standards with the usual MS weird rules will have to be re-implemented server-side by apps that talk to Office
In corporate space that's many apps, and the weirder MS-OOXML is the more incentive corporate customers will have to just use the MS software stack instead of paying contractors to bridge the differences between MS view and rest-of-the-world view (if MS-OOXML was rejected or largely amended MS would have to pay for this code)
MS-OOXML is much more than just a word processor/spreadsheat/presentation format.
Guest Commentary: The converter hoax (Heise Open) Posted Jul 21, 2007 17:17 UTC (Sat) by amazingblair (guest, #2789) [Link] nim-nim said: the weirder MS-OOXML is the more incentive corporate customers will have to just use the MS software I couldn't agree more. This is the heart of MS's strategy: to make using MS junk the path of least resistance for people who are not ideologically motivated, nor alerted to the trap into which they are inexorably walking. This is why we must all support the ODF. And NOBODY should use not-quite-open, not-quite-documented, not-quite-standard MS OOPS-XML®. -Amazing Blair
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