Comments on: Microsoft Does Not Own OOXML http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html Digital Awareness and Flying Spirit Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:56:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: A Microsoft tenta enganar a todos dizendo que o OOXML é diferente do ODF « asf@web http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101895 A Microsoft tenta enganar a todos dizendo que o OOXML é diferente do ODF « asf@web Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:13:36 +0000 http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101895 [...] Microsoft does ot own OOXML Uma ótima resposta publicada por Avi Alkalay em seu blog ao post de David Nielsen sobre OOXML e Microsoft. [...] [...] Microsoft does ot own OOXML Uma ótima resposta publicada por Avi Alkalay em seu blog ao post de David Nielsen sobre OOXML e Microsoft. [...]

]]> By: Avi http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101628 Avi Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:45:22 +0000 http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101628 Yes Joe, you will be able to convert if somebody reads and implements the 6000+ pages spec. Actually you won't be fully able because I recall that the OOXML spec lets you include binary blocks from legacy undocumented formats. And you actually don't need a standard, only the specification of the format. To turn OOXML into an international standard is a political and marketing step desirable for widespread. And specs use to change and evolve. Since OOXML is not tied to Microsoft but to Ecma, evolutions to the MS implementation may not be transferred to the documented OOXML spec in the future. And I bet they won't be. So the point is to welcome Microsoft for opening the spec, but due to the circumstances they decided to open (read post), it is not desirable to have this spec to become a standard or widespread. Yes Joe, you will be able to convert if somebody reads and implements the 6000+ pages spec. Actually you won’t be fully able because I recall that the OOXML spec lets you include binary blocks from legacy undocumented formats.

And you actually don’t need a standard, only the specification of the format. To turn OOXML into an international standard is a political and marketing step desirable for widespread.

And specs use to change and evolve. Since OOXML is not tied to Microsoft but to Ecma, evolutions to the MS implementation may not be transferred to the documented OOXML spec in the future. And I bet they won’t be.

So the point is to welcome Microsoft for opening the spec, but due to the circumstances they decided to open (read post), it is not desirable to have this spec to become a standard or widespread.

]]> By: N http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101627 N Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:40:34 +0000 http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101627 Dear Joe Buck: you can't flawlessly convert OOXML to ODF. Dear Joe Buck: you can’t flawlessly convert OOXML to ODF.

]]> By: Joe Buck http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101616 Joe Buck Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:28:22 +0000 http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/12/microsoft-does-not-own-ooxml.html#comment-101616 I don't like Microsoft either, but your argument doesn't hold water. There are ISO standards for many computer languages, but all of them are Turing-equivalent, so by your argument the ISO should have stopped after they approved only one. Once a general-purpose programming language has an ISO standard, we should reject a proposal to standardize a competing language. Right? We can't wish Microsoft away, and a standards effort for their document format could improve free software implementations, so we can flawlessly convert their documents into ODF. I don’t like Microsoft either, but your argument doesn’t hold water. There are ISO standards for many computer languages, but all of them are Turing-equivalent, so by your argument the ISO should have stopped after they approved only one. Once a general-purpose programming language has an ISO standard, we should reject a proposal to standardize a competing language. Right?

We can’t wish Microsoft away, and a standards effort for their document format could improve free software implementations, so we can flawlessly convert their documents into ODF.

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