Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice [LWN.net]

By Jonathan Corbet
January 11, 2011

The formation of the Documentation Foundation and the launch of the LibreOffice project have created a user and developer community which has few parallels elsewhere in the free software world. This community is huge given the newness of the project, and it appears to include many people who have not engaged with free software development in the past. As a result, the Foundation's mailing lists sometimes host conversations that wouldn't be found in other projects. An extensive and sometimes bitter debate on whether LibreOffice should write files in the OOXML format is a good example of differing views of how this project (and free software in general) should work.

OOXML, of course, is the Microsoft-driven "standard" alternative to the ODF format. Given its sponsor and the dubious means by which it attained "standard" status, OOXML was always going to be controversial. The simple fact of the matter, though, is that, if Office writes OOXML files, then those files will proliferate. Whether we like the format or not has little influence on the final result.

Just before the end of the year, Larry Gusaas called on the LibreOffice community to refuse to support the writing of OOXML files. Standard OpenOffice.org is able to read such files, but will not write them; that is, according to Larry, how things should be. But LibreOffice is based on the Go-oo project, which is the version of OpenOffice.org which has actually been shipped by most Linux distributions. This version does have the ability to write OOXML files; thus, LibreOffice does as well.

Quite a few people supported Larry's desire for read-only OOXML support in LibreOffice; one could easily peruse the thread and come to the conclusion that the LibreOffice community is overwhelming opposed to the idea of writing in that format. Even so, a number of LibreOffice developers have made it clear (repeatedly) that they have no intention of removing the ability to write OOXML files. There is, thus, no need to worry that we might have to go on using Go-oo after all.

There are many reasons for LibreOffice to support this format, even if the community has to collectively hold its nose in the process. The reality of the situation is that many LibreOffice users will need to work with people who send them OOXML files and will expect to get a response in the same format. Telling collaborators that their choice of document format is unacceptable works in some situations, but a corporate employee who talks that way to a customer may soon end up with a great deal of unexpected free time. A LibreOffice which cannot write OOXML files would be unsuited to many environments, and adoption would suffer accordingly.

Beyond that, as has been pointed out in the discussion, Microsoft will, someday, phase out support for its (equally proprietary) DOC format, leaving OOXML as the only real option for document interchange. There appears to be little hope that Microsoft's ODF support will be sufficient to make ODF a viable alternative. So any office productivity suite which aspires to millions of users, and which does not support OOXML, will find itself scrambling to add that support when DOC is no longer an option. It seems better to maintain (and improve) that support now than to be rushing to merge a substandard implementation in the future.

A number of people in the LibreOffice community seem to be under the impression that free software is about fighting Microsoft. But free software is really about giving freedom to its users and developers; one of the key ways in which that freedom has been expressed since the beginning is through a high level of interoperability. Linux systems speak most protocols, and they handle most file formats of interest. That makes it possible to plug in a Linux system almost anywhere and to work with almost everybody. We should think long and hard before we walk away from that sort of freedom.

We should also think about (1) whether a project like LibreOffice really has the weight to affect document format use by withholding support for those it doesn't like, and (2) whether we as a community would want to use that power in that way if we did have it.

There is a separate message from Larry which brought out another interesting aspect of the debate:

It should be a community decision, not one made by the developers. Or based on LibreOffice being based on Go-OO code which already had OOXML write support because of the Novell agreement with Microsoft.

It is a rare free software project indeed which allows a decision of this kind to be made by anybody but the developers involved. Most such projects are those controlled by corporations which have no qualms about vetoing features which do not align with The Official Product Roadmap. Debian does allow the community to shape its distribution through its general resolution mechanism, but those who are allowed to vote on resolutions are almost exclusively developers, and they are all contributors. Few other communities even have a way by which the community as a whole could attempt to make such a decision, much less enforce it. The Document Foundation's proposed bylaws do envision a board of directors and an engineering steering committee which could address such issues, but such institutions will only override the developers in extreme situations; otherwise, they tend not to have many developers to override.

In the free software world, the people who do the work make the decisions about that work, and there are few who would seek to change that state of affairs. In this discussion, developers have not been calling for the removal of full OOXML support, and no patches to that effect have been posted. LibreOffice is shipping with that support, and that situation seems unlikely to change.

So, it seems, the LibreOffice developers have made the decision to continue to support writing the OOXML format. They are well aware that OOXML is not an ideal document format, that its attainment of "standard" status was shadowy at best, that it is another proprietary moving-target format, and that there is still some patent uncertainty surrounding it. They are aware that the much more open (though still imperfect) ODF format is preferable, and that ODF should be the default format used by LibreOffice. But they have also concluded that supporting OOXML gives more freedom and capability to their users and is good for LibreOffice in the long term.

to post comments

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 3:30 UTC (Tue) by PaulWay (guest, #45600) [Link] (4 responses)

I would have thought half the problem here is that OOXML isn't even obeyed completely or correctly by Microsoft. Microsoft has also said that it doesn't intend to keep to the standard if it thinks that it can get a competitive advantage by doing so (i.e. "in order to incorporate the latest features"). So even if you read and write OOXML, it's hardly going to make Microsoft strive for better compatibility. In that sense, I would support writing OOXML because then LibreOffice can say "we support the standard that Microsoft buggered ISO with and still doesn't actually support".

But ultimately I see these political gambles not working very well. Has GNU/Linux been a wonderful success story because it was deliberately incompatible with proprietary picture, video, audio, messaging, network and hardware formats? Or has it been popular because it has been able to be compatible without the associated costs or security problems and still provided people with an operating system and software they can share with others? I'd argue the latter. The Stallmans of this world, determined to live by their ideals and eschew every proprietary format and encumbered media, are few and far between.

I support the principle here, but enforcing that viewpoint via software is exactly what all proprietary vendors when they're (perhaps deliberately) not compatible with FOSS. If we rise above that pettiness and support a feature people are willing to program in and work on, then we avoid a kind of tit-for-tat feature-sniping that I think would only hurt us in the end.

Have fun,

Paul

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 9:45 UTC (Tue) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link]

> The Stallmans of this world, determined to live by their ideals and eschew every proprietary format and encumbered media, are few and far between.

FLOSS is big enough to serve the Stallmans of this world too. They are perfectly entitled to use what some people might consider a restricted subset of what there is and to encourage others to use that too. (That said, the others are also free not to do so if they are not fully convinced by the arguments put to them.)

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 14, 2011 11:14 UTC (Fri) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link] (2 responses)

Hi,

Not a response to the rest of your comment, but just one thing I wanted to comment on.

> The Stallmans of this world, determined to live by their ideals and
> eschew every proprietary format and encumbered media, are few and far
> between.

I haven't gone back to the original writing, but my understanding of Stallman's position is that he is willing to work with/on proprietary stuff if there's no other way and it furthers the goal of free software. H.264, Word and co are sufficiently dominant that this would probably fall into that category.

Cheers
Paul

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 15, 2011 7:50 UTC (Sat) by baldridgeec (guest, #55283) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes to the first part, no to the second. If Stallman wanted to record video, he would use a free format such as Ogg Theora. If he wanted to write a document, he could use ODF, but would probably use plain text instead.

But since there are alternatives, from what I understand of the man, there is no way he would produce content in any sort of proprietary or patent-encumbered format.

Read it using a Free software interpreter, maybe. But I think he would rather inform the person sending him an OOXML document that alternatives exist which are more community friendly. Unless constrained by circumstance, I doubt he would even open the file.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 15, 2011 20:48 UTC (Sat) by amazingblair (guest, #2789) [Link]

I can't speak for Richard Stallman, but that's what I do when I get an attachment in .docx format.

It feels like my duty to explain to the sender why I cannot open his (surely clever or important) document. I tell him how to save by default in a format other than OOXML, and especially how WordPerfect, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, and even older Microsoft Word users are locked out of the OOXML files. (Note: I didn't realize until now that OOo & LibreOffice could handle them. Mea culpa.)

-Amazing Blair

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 3:53 UTC (Tue) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

Is LibreOffice/Go-OO/whoever even interested in supporting the OOXML standard? I would assume supporting the formats MS Office actually produces (which are not, IIUC, OOXML-compliant) would be the priority.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 11:01 UTC (Tue) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]

Saying Office doesn't support OOXML is incredibly nit-picky IMHO. There is stuff which isn't in the OOXML standard (which is always going to be the case; it's exactly the same for ODF - e.g. formulas, macros, other application-dependent information...), and there's stuff that Office doesn't necessarily get right. But this is always the case; standards don't create interoperability - at best they can only ever document it.

Office is probably ahead of the OOXML edition, but then how many applications implement ODF 1.0/1.1? OpenOffice 3.0 has been out since the end of 2008, and reads/writes ODF 1.2 (unless you hit a button in it). Where is ODF 1.2? It's finished public review but hasn't been published in final form yet. Does OpenOffice 3.0 (and later) from over a year ago conform fully with this standard?

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 4:23 UTC (Tue) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link] (14 responses)

I'm in favor of one of two possible solutions:

1. Don't write OOXML at all
2. Write OOXML *perfectly*

Currently, LibreOffice implements a third solution:

3. Write OOXML 'pretty well'

This last option gives us the worst of both worlds: it further establishes OOXML as the standard format, and it further establishes MS Office as the only office suite that supports the standard format perfectly.

(With "OOXML", I mean the format that MS implemented, not the one that was specified as an ISO standard.)

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 6:29 UTC (Tue) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] (4 responses)

I completely agree--it's a Charlie Brown vs. Lucy kind of situation. The format actually written by Microsoft's applications will change, conveniently making any competitors appear to be less than optimal. The "standard" that was approved is just the PR flack out front distracting the media.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 9:42 UTC (Tue) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link] (3 responses)

> The format actually written by Microsoft's applications will change, conveniently making any competitors appear to be less than optimal.

But much as Microsoft might like it, the installed base of older versions of Office will not be upgraded overnight. So newer versions of Office have to retain some compatibility with older ones or they will also appear to be "less than optimal".

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 11:55 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, but that only builds up pressure for everybody to upgrade to the latest version. Microsoft is usually pretty good about backwards compatibility, i.e., MS Office n+1 can read documents written by MS Office n, but not necessarily vice-versa, so once enough people have moved to MS Office n+1, if you're still on MS Office n you will be inundated by Office n+1 documents that you can't open, from people who are (a) amazed how you can still work with that obsolete software package, Office n, and/or (b) used to saving stuff as ».doc« all the time and don't realise there are different flavours.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 12, 2011 9:25 UTC (Wed) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, it keeps compatibility with version N-1, N-2 and possibly N-3, but not much further. I once tried to open a document I created some years prior in Word 2.0 in some newer version. Ooops! Big mistake.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 12, 2011 10:32 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

Well of course. At some point they need to mop up the people who haven't upgraded earlier ;^)

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 9:45 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (3 responses)

> 3. Write OOXML 'pretty well'

> This last option gives us the worst of both worlds: it further establishes OOXML as the standard format, and it further establishes MS Office as the only office suite that supports the standard format perfectly.

Probably correct, but also a purely political perspective disconnected from people who need to get their job done now.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 19:39 UTC (Tue) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link] (2 responses)

Not at all. It's actually a purely practical (egoistical) perspective. I am not in a position to use MS Office, so I want to be able to use LibreOffice without headaches. If everybody uses MS OOXML, and only MS Office supports that perfectly, I'm going to be in trouble for using LibreOffice.

It would be even better for me to be able to say "sorry, I can't open docx files, please save it as odt", than always having to warn people that my changes might screw up the document.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 12, 2011 12:17 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

> It would be even better for me to be able to say "sorry, I can't open docx files, please save it as odt", than always having to warn people that my changes might screw up the document.

Then just say it.

If OOXML support in LibreOffice is not good enough for you/your documents, then just do not use it and refuse OOXML documents. Do not bore your colleagues with your free software life and just tell them: "sorry, I can't open docx files, please save it as odt". They will thank you for this language approximation, way less extreme than trying to entirely remove the feature from the product!

Other people than you are happy with a "pretty good" only support. Yet other people are not happy but still want to see the feature to test it and report bugs and monitor its progress... generally speaking there are a number of well-known reasons to ship imperfect features; no need to elaborate here.

I think the only reasonable thing you can ask is a better labelling of the feature.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 24, 2011 8:51 UTC (Mon) by richardbrucebaxter (guest, #72540) [Link]

The problem is that .odt is not cross compatible either (at least using the inbuilt MS ODF filters). If OpenOffice manages to read a document saved in MS Office ODT format perfectly, when when it comes to sending back the modified .odt file to Microsoft Office, it is very likely not represent the original (formatting, drawings, etc). The same applies for .doc cross compatibility (and certainly for .docx compatibility - even Microsoft Office cannot make a docx out of a .doc without corrupting it; drawings, fonts, etc).

At this time, the only professional solution for implementation is to make a clear distinction between compatible and "semi-compatible" (which for anything but Standards/ISO neglected electronic office document formats is called "incompatible"). It would be better for any document processor (MS or open source) to be very clear with the user that at this time that they are not compatible with any documents produced by competiting document processors, regardless of the file format they are saved in.

Any document processor should at this time should be seen as either a viewer, or a one (and only) time exporter/importer of documents created using a different document processor. And its suitability as a one time importer or exporter is subject to a human being willing to fix up all of the inconsistencies.

The suggestion regarding OO/LO supporting both ISO OOXML and MS OOXML sounds reasonable - if only to make a point.

The clearer everyone is about the real level of document interopability that currently exists today and the circumstances which have lead to this (failure of Standards organisations and governmental support for electronic standards) the better. Alternatively, we should start encouraging the production of multiple gauge railway lines in society.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 15:06 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

> 3. Write OOXML 'pretty well'

> (With "OOXML", I mean the format that MS implemented, not the one that was specified as an ISO standard.)

In reality the most correct approach is DWMD (Do What Microsoft Does).

Seriously. Nobody is ever going to follow the OOXML spec. It's just a joke of epic proportions. The only really correct thing to do is maintain compatibility with Microsoft software. Other people will do the same and then that will achieve the highest amount of interoperability from this 'worst of all worlds'.

Trying to fight and be 'correct' on OOXML just means that people will be less able to use OO.org. It effectively becomes a anti-feature.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 16:19 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

Unless some bored folks will come up with a separate "strict OOXML" export filter for LibreOffice which attempts to follow the ISO standard to the letter :-)

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 12, 2011 8:20 UTC (Wed) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link]

And such patches would most likely be accepted.
Actually they would be a nice addition to illustrate the difference with the so called OOXML 'standard' and the MSXML format that is really in use in Redmond

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 18, 2011 11:01 UTC (Tue) by geofft (subscriber, #59789) [Link] (1 responses)

What happens if (as widely suspected) it is either impossible to write OOXML perfectly, or it turns out that Office only implements OOXML "pretty well"? In either case, Office is entrenched enough that the standard doesn't matter, and people will see LO as poorly implementing an Office format.

Fortunately, this means that "LO implements the spec perfectly and Office doesn't" is indistinguishable from "LO and Office both implement the spec imperfectly in different ways". (Well, in the absence of a major competitor that does do OOXML perfectly, but there isn't one.)

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 18, 2011 13:09 UTC (Tue) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

In that case, LO writes MS Office OOXML, not standard OOXML too? Surely? As you say, nobody gives a fig about the supposed standard, just MS Office compatibility.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 6:30 UTC (Tue) by busman (subscriber, #7333) [Link] (3 responses)

Being one of three OpenOffice users in my organization of ~800 I very much appreciate it's ability to both read and write OOXML.

However, as there is no ISO-OOXML implementations around AT ALL we should stop talking about standards or even "standards" - OOXML is just another proprietary file format. What would make sense is to adopt some kind of naming/numbering scheme like "OOXML2008", "OOXML2010" in order to highlight the fact that OOXML is in fact a moving target and each new MS Office version produces a new version of it.

My Debian Squeeze Open Office can save documents in three different doc-formats (MS Office 6.0, 95, 97/2000/XP). Why should it be any different for OOXML?

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 7:13 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

as soon as microsoft mutates the OOXML format then I expect that it will.

remember, it was microsoft that named the formats 6.0/95/98/etc until they mutate the format we can't possibly know what name to use for it, so we may as well wait to put in a more specific name until there are two variations of it, and we know what to call them

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 7:51 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

Yes, this is the way to go! "OOXML" should be treated by LibreOffice as just another proprietary format from Microsoft, and supported (both read and write) in the spirit of making the user's life in the formats jungle easier.

In my experience, OpenOffice.org (and so I guess LibreOffice) is already better at supporting some old MS documents than Word. Adding the newest one is a natural progression. This helps give one very useful role for it: as the universal office document viewer and editor.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 9:53 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

Please by all means let's all stop talking about the OOXML "standard". There is obviously a PR fight here, so terminology is extremely important.

Between these two names, guess which one is more convenient to use?

1. the OOXML "standard" with a fuzzy, incomplete and moving specification which attained it standard status by dubious means.
2. the OOXML proprietary format

PS: concerning DOC and XLS even "format" was too generous.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 10:15 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

> Beyond that, as has been pointed out in the discussion, Microsoft will, someday, phase out support for its (equally proprietary) DOC format, leaving OOXML as the only real option for document interchange.

I doubt this is going to happen soon. They might phase out *writing* DOCs in the near future, but no more importing them would make them look very bad. A huge number of people have a lot of DOCs gathering dust.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 10:36 UTC (Tue) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link] (1 responses)

Ultimately Microsoft will phase out support for .DOC, but it may take some years. On Windows, I recently tried opening some Office 97 .PPT files with Office 2007 and it turned out not to work - I had to locate an old Office 97 PPT Viewer to be able to open them. So it's clear that Microsoft doesn't support old formats forever.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 11:41 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

I had to locate an old Office 97 PPT Viewer to be able to open them.

Did you try OpenOffice? It has long had very good PPT support, except that larger files can take much longer to load than in PowerPoint (but it will usually get them in the end). As I wrote in an earlier comment OpenOffice/LibreOffice has a future as an universal office document viewer...

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 12:34 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (1 responses)

> Beyond that, as has been pointed out in the discussion, Microsoft will,
> someday, phase out support for its (equally proprietary) DOC format,
> leaving OOXML as the only real option for document interchange.

This is not really possible for MS until OOXML has been stabilized and widely adopted. Witness how difficult it is for them to kill ie6 in corporations: Enterprises want MS desktop standards of the 90's and nothing newer. Killing .doc would probably be the biggest gift they could do to competitors right now.

People tend to be blinded by MS successes and forget the numerous dismal failures they buried quietly in the past.

(Not to say that people interested in OOXML should not work on it, but it's very disingenuous to present it as a make it or break it issue. Novell largely squandered its opportunities to lead the Linux desktop by adopting MS initiatives just because MS could not loose, so there was no need to consider anything else.)

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 19:06 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

<blockquote>People tend to be blinded by MS successes and forget the numerous dismal failures they buried quietly in the past.</blockquote>

Everything MS does is a failure (from a financial point of view) except 2 products, Windows (server and desktop) and Office. Xbox alone they've lost over 5 billion dollars on. Every other software product category loses money, although I'm not sure if they make money on their hardware ventures, I would think it's possible given the prices and prominence.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 11, 2011 17:53 UTC (Tue) by gerv (guest, #3376) [Link]

Rob Weir (OpenDocument guy)'s thoughts: http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/01/microsoft-remove-doc-format-support.html

Gerv

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 12, 2011 16:11 UTC (Wed) by joey (guest, #328) [Link] (1 responses)

"Debian does allow the community to shape its distribution through its general resolution mechanism, but those who are allowed to vote on resolutions are almost exclusively developers, and they are all contributors."

Only Debian developers can propose, second, or vote on General Resolutions.

Debian Developers

Posted Jan 12, 2011 16:23 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I don't think I said anything to the contrary. But, as reaffirmed by a recent general resolution, a capital-D Debian Developer can be a contributor to the distribution who is not necessarily lower-case developer. Right?

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 14, 2011 18:55 UTC (Fri) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link]

Why would Microsoft follow a public standard when the current standard is "whatever Microsoft does" for documents that is.

As a minimalist, I stick to asci, but outside of programmers most people think this is crazy talk. Point taken.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 14, 2011 19:00 UTC (Fri) by a9db0 (subscriber, #2181) [Link]

Arguments like this always get me to wondering why there are folks out there who want to limit my freedom to choose?

One solution - put a checkbox in the GUI, or a build time option to enable or disable the feature. If you don't want the ability to write OOXML, disable it. But don't force me to do without because it's politically uncomfortable for you.

Dave

P.S. - Alan was right, HTML does need a <rant> tag.

Supporting OOXML in LibreOffice

Posted Jan 20, 2011 21:15 UTC (Thu) by wanderson (guest, #8660) [Link]

The one aspect of LibreOffice "writing" to OOXML not mentioned in article or comments is "Legal Issue".

Various legal authorities in USA who are expert in Patents, Trademarks and Copyright have concluded quite convincingly that Microsoft may be able to sue Document Foundation for Writing to OOXML, the (European) ECMS-376 format endorsement not-withstanding, since Microsoft still retains control of the document standard here in USA.

Americans need to pay more attention to the intricacies of these issues, particularly the consequences for organizations like Document Foundation, no matter what their personal views on "Freedom of Choice".

Wanderson@kimalcorp.org