Microsoft Promises To Fully Support OOXML ... Later
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Raul654 writes "OOXML is the Word document format that Microsoft rammed through the ISO last year. Last week, we discussed a blog post by Alex Brown, who was instrumental in getting OOXML approved by the ISO. Brown criticized Microsoft for reneging on its promise to support OOXML in the upcoming release of Office 2010, and for its lackadaisical approach to fixing the many bugs which still remain in the specification. Now, Doug Mahugh has responded to Brown's post, promising that Microsoft will support OOXML 'no later than the initial release of Office 15.'"
Office...15? (Score:2)
Uh...is that a typo or something? Office FIFTEEN???
Re:Office...15? (Score:5, Informative)
Office 14 is Office 2010.
So, Office 15 will be the version after 2010.
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Ah, the version number thing (as pointed out by other posters in reply to my OP.) Thanks for the clarification!
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Maybe.
I'm sure that's the rational answer.
That's also what THEY WANT YOU TO THINK!
He really means Office '15, which comes out some time in 2017.
But if you assume he means the next major release, and that assumption pacifies you, all the better.
Re:Office...15? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I admit I misunderstood this too. However, how often are versions changed in this sense? From what I see, Office 13 was skipped, so the last version was Office 12, AKA office 2007.
If they say "We'll support it in office 15" but skip to office 16, what happens to support? Given that office 2007 took 3 years, doesn't that mean at a minimum it will be no less than 3 years from now before they're compliant with what they agreed in *2008* (OOXML)?
Re:Office...15? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, but even if they do office 15 next, we're still looking at an easy 3+ years. The stuff from now won't even be relevant by then, enabling things to still be undocumented and not compatible.
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I was flying back from work yesterday and noticed that the seat rows behind row 12 had had sticky labels pasted over the factory-installed labels. Sure enough, no row thirteen any more.
Which is quite worrying. The aircraft manufacturers (I think it was a Fokker, but I don't remember for sure and care even less) are clearly rational, but the company who hires the pilots are clearly irrational. That is scary.
Well, in the extremel
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They skipped 13 for superstitious reasons. Just like floor numbers in a building.
It's a trick from builders to have "higher" buildings, just like skipping the ground floor and counting from 1 instead of 0. Before they even started breaking ground they already have two more floors !
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You sure? Office 2007 is office 12. Unless they are refering to office 2008 for the mac as office 13. But I don't think they are. Office 11 was office 2003, not 2004, and office 10 was office xp / 2002. I mess with this stuff on a daily basis. So unless Microsoft has taken to numbering their mac releases, or unless they are skipping 13 due to some superstition, Office 2010 is Office 13, not 14. So, with Microsoft releasing products every 3-4 years in the Office category, this means that we can expect OOXML
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You forgot about the inevitable Office 14.5, 14.6, 14.7, 14.8, 14.9, 14.95, 14.96, ...
Then they'll get all George Lucas and go directly to Office 20. and tell us they'll go back to do office 15 later.
But in the sense that the year 3520 is after 2010, yes, office 15 will be after office 2010.
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What he actually said is they will support it in version (current + 1). This was interpreted as version 15. When version 15 is out, it will be supported in version 16. And so on...
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Office for Mac can not either save or read ODT. No ODT plugins or converters available.
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Where's Office 13?
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And that to calculate bungee cord length that accurately you need pretty good weight measures for each person plus wind would probably smash you against the building.
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The real story. (Score:5, Funny)
Office 13 existed as a skunkworks project within MS. It fully supported the ODF 1.1 standard, and was crossplatform to Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and BeOS (which MS also had plans to revive). It had clean, standards compliant HTML output. Even more surprisingly, it was decided that the project would be released as open source. Everything was going great until orders from the top led them to try and include Clippy. During the initial commit of the Office 2007 Clippy source there was a large bitsplosion leaving the GIT repository in waste. Forensic analysis concluded that the disaster was the result of the collision of evil bits and non-evil bits, which annihilated one another on contact, releasing huge reserves of pure information, scrambling anything in proximity. Furthermore, due to quantum entanglement, all backup copies of the promising office suite also disappeared, along with any instances of Clippy in Office 2007.
After this incident, MS abandoned any attempts at supporting open source and open standards projects. Ms Gates still bitches about the loss of Clippy in Office 2010.
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Nice Try, but that's what they said about MS-DOS 4.0, that was supposed to have multitasking and Microsoft Xenix compatibility.
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Apparently it's the release after the next one, tentatively planned for 2013.
How they get to 15: They used version numbers through 4.x. Then somehow 5.x and 6.x were skipped (?) in the switch to year branding, and Office 95 was internally Office 7.0. Then it went sequentially for a bit: Office 97 was 8.0, Office 2000 was 9.0, Office XP was 10.0, Office 2003 was 11.0, and the current Office 2007 is 12.0.
Now they plan to skip 13 due to its negative superstition, and make Office 2010 be 14.0. Then the release
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> Windows NT 6.1 is called "seven" (or is it Mojave?).
You insensitive clot - I happen to be superstitious about the number after 6.
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Yeah, it's correct. It's not a typo. It's MS's internal code for a future release called "When pigs fly".
No it's not. (Score:5, Insightful)
OOXML is the word document format that Microsoft
No it's not. It's the document format for representing all supported document types within the Office suite.
Yeah, OK, we all know what he's talking about. But still... is it really that hard to get the basics right in a summary?
Re:No it's not. (Score:5, Insightful)
And, no, it's not the document format for representing all supported document types within the Office suite.
If it was, then it would have already been implemented *and supported* in Microsoft Office.
Microsoft just wanted to get OOXML an ISO stamp of approval, so it could say that it's products conformed to international standards when quotes for potential purchases required such a thing. Of course, in hind sight, it was all a lie, Microsoft never did support the ISO approved OOXML standard, and never intended to. And that's a realted but slightly different story.
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And, of course, we're all shocked that MS would do such a thing. All they really did was slap the ISO across the face and walk away laughing.
The whole process was bought and paid for. I don't even know why MS really did it. They don't market their ISO approval, nor that their products conform to any international standard. Why did they bother doing this?
Re:No it's not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No it's not. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bullshit. [robweir.com]
Mart
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I think I can be forgiven for not knowing about this work which was only announed 11 days ago, and is only 3 years late (ODF 1.1 was ratified in 2007 after all), and will still take another year to complete...
The point still stands. ISO ODF is still only ODF 1.0, and will be fore another year (assuming the process they're doing now is completed).
Nobody is using ODF 1.0 anymore, so talk about ODF being a standard and anything else not is a moot point.
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No you can't be forgiven about this. ODF 1.1 has been being discussed in the relevant working groups for far longer than that, which you should have known if you had taken care to read other sources than your Microsoft-approved ones.
Sheesh. Even Rob Weir's blog shows plenty of posts on ODF 1.1 and its way through the standards process. I realise your Masters in Redmond don't like you to read blogs written by the competition, but if you're not up to speed on the development of the standard, then the best thi
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No, there are plenty of posts of ODF 1.1 on it's way through the OASIS standards body, not the ISO standards body.
Perhaps you'd like to keep the goalposts in place.
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Perhaps you should improve your reading skills instead of relying on what your handlers in Redmond tell you. Rob already points out in 2007 that submission to ISO follows the moment OASIS is done.
But of course this will not satisfy you. You're a Microsoft shill anyway, so you'll just find another excuse to smear ODF instead of actually finding out how the standardisation process works.
Mart
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Rob already points out in 2007 that submission to ISO follows the moment OASIS is done.
Then please explain why it's 2010, and OASIS ODF 1.1 was completed in 1997, and OASIS ODF 1.1 still has not become an ISO standard yet.
So obviously that is false. If it was true, ODF 1.1 would already be an ISO standard, since it's been done for 3 years. And it wouldn't be requiring and additional 9-12 months of work.
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For someone who complains about me shifting goalposts, you have a lot of gall.
Let's look at your original statement:
Well, ODF 1.1 has been submitted, and you are moving the goalposts by quibbling about the exact process and the duration.
Fuck off, shill.
Mart
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Don't like being proven wrong, I see. You really should learn to grow a thicker skin or stop participating in online forums.
I admitted I was wrong about the 1.1 standardization attempt, but also made the point that it's 3 years late, and will be another year late before it actually happens.
My original point, that ODF 1.0 is still the only ISO approved version is still valid, and will be for at least another 9-12 months according to your own link. And, my original point that nobody is shipping any ODF 1.0
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Your additional points are irrelevant and an attempt at goalpost shifting. The truth is, ODF 1.1 has been submitted to ISO, contrary to what you asserted. All else is smoke and mirrors.
Fuck off, shill.
Mart
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That's funny. How can one "shift the goalposts" from my original comment? My original comment *WAS* the goalpost. Let me remind you of what my original comment contained:
"Of course ODF 1.0 is now out of date, and there has been no attempt to submit 1.1. They may submit 1.2 when it's ratified, but that could be several years yet before approval. Nobody writes ODF 1.0 documents anymore, not even OpenOffice."
Now, we have both agreed that my comment about "no attempt to submit" was wrong, althoug this only h
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There has been. End of discussion. The rest is full of sound and fury to disguise the fact that you made an authoritive statement on a subject you obviously haven't been following.
It's a standard tactic used by the lowest sleazeball PR flacks to attack your opponent for your own misbehaviour, but it is not going to work here. You were wrong, and you're trying to cover it up by attacking me. So fuck off, shill.
Mart
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Why do you insist on not addressing my primary point? Probably because you have no way to rebut it.
And that is a standard tactic, along with the goalpost shifting, of someone who is trying to to misdirect.
As I said, I think i can be forgiven for not knowing that OASIS has finally started working on ISO ODF 1.1, 3 years late. Hell, Rob Weir even says that ISO ODF 1.2 will likely be standardized before 1.1 is.
That just illustrates how late they are to this party, and how nobody would have expected it. It a
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Why do you insist on talking about irrelevant things? I adressed your statement:
There has been.
You keep insisting on various other things to deflect attention from the fact that you were dumbly parroting a Microsoft PR talking point.
Mart
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Which talking point would that be? Can you point anyone to it?
I didn't think so.
More wiggling noted.
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Since I specifically quoted it, I think it is clear that you are once again trying to deflect attention by accusing me of what you are doing yourself.
You said
You were wrong.
Mart
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I asked you to point to the supposed "microsoft talking point", not what you claim is one.
Can you find anywhere on the web where Microsoft is claiming what I did? No? Then how can you claim i'm just parotting the Microsoft party line?
Face it, you just make shit up as you go along.
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Oooh, so now you're reacting to a throw-away insult to deflect attention away from what you said:
Well, too bad, no matter how much you try to squawk about side issues to deflect attention, you were wrong.
Mart
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Oh, so you admit then that you simply lied and made up the claim that i was parroting a microsoft talking point.
Good to know you are dishonest and admit it.
I already admitted, several times in fact, that I was wrong on that point. But you cannot seem to admit the *several* times you were wrong in this thread, nor will you admit that my overall point was valid, which it is.
So please, stop being a child. You don't do yourself any good by being such an idiotic fool who will say anything to get his way, factu
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And, no, it's not the document format for representing all supported document types within the Office suite.
If it was, then it would have already been implemented *and supported* in Microsoft Office.
If you RTFA, you'll see that MSOffice claims support for OOXML Transitional (which is still a conformance level in ISO spec). It's OOXML Strict that's elusive so far.
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|| If you RTFA, you'll see that MSOffice claims support for OOXML Transitional (which is still a conformance level in ISO spec). ||
I did RTFA. And, you just proved the point I was making. Microsoft *claims* support, if you take that claim and $2.50, that will buy you a small latte at Starbucks, depending on your area.
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I don't see why you should be skeptical about that claim. An informal definition of "OOXML Transitional" is pretty much "whatever Office 2007 can handle" - that's the whole reason for its existence!
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Hmm, why should I, or anyone for that matter, be skeptical about a claim from Microsoft?
Let me think... quite simply, because Microsoft claims it. That's enough for me to discount it utterly.
I 3 Alex Brown (Score:5, Funny)
*Alex brown shakes his fist at MS* "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
This is why I love Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
All of my software bugs get fixed in the "next" version.
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There is no Office 13 - But Why? (Score:2, Offtopic)
There is no Office 13 - But Why? [msdn.com] – a video produced by Microsft on MSDN Channel 9 – explains why there is no Office 13.
As the old saying goes. (Score:5, Insightful)
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They promised to support OS2 too (Score:5, Insightful)
And Microsoft promised to support OS/2 after it sold 2 million copies.
Never happened.
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Which part? :p
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And Microsoft promised to support OS/2 after it sold 2 million copies.
Never happened.
Could you provide us with some sort of reference to support this?
The way I remember it, Microsoft supported OS/2 from the beginning; see here [prodigy.net] for screen shots of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel for OS/2.
At the time, Microsoft had an OS/2 group, and a Windows group, and both groups were trying to get people to write apps for their respective systems. Microsoft was telling people that if their computers had 2MB of RAM or
Another Battle Lost Because MS Has No Mojo (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. I can't believe that MS wasted three years and $millions on this. MS really needs to take a look at what is going on and do something about it:
* MS Tablet PCs fail
* Windows Mobile fails
* MS ISO Standard file format fails
* Windows Live fails
* Zune fails
The bodies are getting stacked deep, there MS. Time to get back to what made you great and become hacker friendly again... and not in the sense that your OS and software have lots of security holes.
Re:Another Battle Lost Because MS Has No Mojo (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. I can't believe that MS wasted three years and $millions on this. MS really needs to take a look at what is going on and do something about it:
* MS Tablet PCs fail
* Windows Mobile fails
* MS ISO Standard file format fails
* Windows Live fails
* Zune fails
The bodies are getting stacked deep, there MS. Time to get back to what made you great and become hacker friendly again... and not in the sense that your OS and software have lots of security holes.
Nobody looks forward to using Microsoft products. They use them because they have to. Even if you think that all the hype around Apple products is just advertising brainwashing and the fans are just drooling zombies, here's a thought: Microsoft has even more money to spend on branding and they can't even manage to inspire lukewarm enthusiasm.
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The Xbox 360 seems to be the one exception. What's really surprising is that people keep going back to it even after their 360 breaks.
I suppose they have a vested inte
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The Xbox 360 seems to be the one exception. What's really surprising is that people keep going back to it even after their 360 breaks.
I suppose they have a vested interest due to their game libraries.
Interesting observation. But I think it's because the games are there any Sony screwed the pooch on the PS3. The PS2 beat the pants out of the Xbox 1 hands down. But when the PS3 came in so expensive and with the Wii seemingly so underpowered, console gamers were stuck with the 360 as default. But I don't think there's anything compelling about the Microsoft experience, anything that would make people want to stay. I happen to have a 360. I got it to play games on my HDTV I'd just picked up, my way of celeb
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They were? The Xbox 360 has sold 39 million units over four years. The PS3 has sold 33.5 million over three years. That looks pretty neck-and-neck to me.
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It could be because the Xbox 360 is better than its competitor, the PS3? (I consider the Wii mostly in a different market.)
Or, phrased more Slashdotterily, Sony screwed up the PS3 much more than Microsoft screwed up the Xbox 360.
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How long ago was this?
Right now, the consoles are priced at:
Wii - $199 USD for the 512MB version. Only supports 480i/480p (NTSC) or 576i/576p (PAL) graphics modes. Supports Composite and Component video connectors. Can also play GameCube games, but requires GameCube controllers and memory cards to do so.
Xbox 360 - $199 USD for the 512MB version, $299 for the 120GB versio
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I suppose they have a vested interest due to their game libraries.
Behold the power of vendor lock-in.
What we talking about again? Oh, yeah. Microsoft and OOXML.
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People go back to MS products even after being burned time and time again, because they're locked in... The 360 is no different really.
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Speak for yourself, but myself and other do enjoy using MS projects. For me, actually trying to use Linux made me enjoy MS software (it helped that MS did actually improve their stuff too).
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Some people are into BDSM... so whatever it takes to get you off.
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Cross platform compatibility? msoffice? Clearly a troll...
They have a windows version, and a half assed mac version with poor compatibility, and nothing else... OOo runs on linux (multiple architectures), windows, mac, solaris (both x86 and sparc), and possibly other unix systems aswell.
In my opinion MS sometimes fails on purpose (Score:2)
A truly open XML-based file format would result in a level playing field. Without the shell game of Office file formats, businesses would be quick to dump MS Office and pocket the savings. So instead, MS can play "delay and deny" in an action to thwart open document long enough for people to forget about it. Look at the great job they did screwing up IMAP in Outlook, long enough for them to push their own proprietary IMAP-style technology in Exchange.
MS is the Verizon of software. Features that don't fi
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I've found Windows Live Mail to be a very good mail client. How exactly has it failed? Its light years better than the old Outlook Express it replaced.
It's their own format...... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're responsible for this abortion of a standard and yet even they can't implement the thing. So much for eating your own dog food. They should be *MADE* to use it or the ISO should simply kill the standard since clearly it can't work.
For thos who are confused (Score:4, Interesting)
as to how MS doesnt support their own file format, it because they're using a transitional version instead of the proper "strict" version. Wiki:
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So, what does it mean?
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Yeah but seriously... it doesn't explain away the CONCEPT that you can invent a standard then just completely not use it. I know it's Microsoft... but still. The CONCEPT is just asinine. No seriously. I don't care what company it is, the whole idea is just lunacy. I know their strategy here: keep everybody aiming for somewhere they're not actually at, to prevent anybody else from being able to properly integrate with Office. I understand that. It's just that on its surface, this whole idea is insanity.
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Yeah but seriously... it doesn't explain away the CONCEPT that you can invent a standard then just completely not use it.
I thought it rather explains it perfectly. Microsoft comes up with the spec, and implements it while also submitting it for standardization. During standardization, said spec is significantly reworked, to the point that it is no longer compatible with documents conformant to the original submission. That's pretty much where we are today.
Do I even need to say it? (Score:2)
Microsoft and promises? (Score:3, Insightful)
Doug Mahugh has responded to Brown's post, promising that Microsoft will support OOXML 'no later than the initial release of Office 15.'
When Microsoft follows through with a promise like this, I can't help but lol. How can one of the most rich and powerful software companies in the world not have the resources to do something like this HERE and NOW?
I smell fish - and it's not coming from Ballmer's underwear, for once.
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Tthe ISO standard was revised long after Office 2010 had been in development; supporting the changes would have supposedly delayed the release too much.
Office 2010 does support the "transitional" OOXML format, and has read support for the proper ISO OOXML format. source [arstechnica.com]
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Remind me - how long was the specification document? Some 6000 pages? Merely reading that thing could take weeks
Anyone else see this in the wiki link? (Score:2)
"representatives from Microsoft attempted to argue that Sun Microsystems, the creators and supporters of the competing OpenDocument format (ODF), could not be given a seat at the conference table because there was a lack of chairs."
Did anybody notice this sentence (Score:2, Informative)
in the first paragraph of Mahugh's blog entry ? That one sentence seems to describe it all...
>>That’s why we’ve been looking into the issues and options for Strict support for quite some time.
Great news! (Score:4, Informative)
So, the Frankenstein monster is disowned by its creator. Excellent.
Encourage your clients, friends and families to use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument [wikipedia.org]
Fully supported by all the major office suites, including of course Oo.
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the piece of slow crap know as OO? To call it a major office suite is akin to call the lotus notes a quick and nippy e-mail client.
Battle was lost when they named it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody but boring technogeeks are going to understand the importance of the distinction between "strict OOXML" and "transitional OOXML." It's all very well for Alex Brown to say transitional OOXML was "not the format 'approved by ISO/IEC', it is the format that was rejected," but it sure doesn't _sound_ that way.
It wouldn't even take much dishonesty for a salesperson to say "supports OOXML," and the top-level managers who make the purchasing decisions will nod and smile. What are the chances they will know the importance of asking the question "is that transitional OOXML or strict OOXML?" And any top-level manager, approached by some intense young technogeek, is going to wonder if it's really all that important, and whether transitional OOXML isn't really good enough.
Within Microsoft, how many high-level managers are going to think it is urgently important for Office to support "strict OOXML" rather than "transitional OOXML?"
The battle was probably lost when they allowed those names to be used. Now nobody can ever mention the matter to any lay outsider without prefixing it with a couple of minutes of exposition.
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Nobody but boring technogeeks are going to understand the importance of the distinction between "strict OOXML" and "transitional OOXML." It's all very well for Alex Brown to say transitional OOXML was "not the format 'approved by ISO/IEC', it is the format that was rejected," but it sure doesn't _sound_ that way.
Among other things, it's simply wrong. It wasn't "rejected" - it is still in the spec, albeit only to be used for "compatibility purposes" (but, hey, who defines that?).
I Don't Care (Score:2)
I don't care if Microsoft supports their own format or not. Same goes for every other entity. What I care about is if they will support standards. IIRC, Office 2007 has support for ODF, so that's definitely a step in the right direction. What other formats decides to support beyond the ones that enable interoperability is their own choice.
Re:I Don't Care (Score:4, Funny)
In other words, the point is that this kind of proves that Microsoft rammed the OOXML standard through not to help achieve interoperability, but to prevent governments and companies from switching to other standards which truly do provide openness and a greater level of interoperability. It's evidence of further anticompetitive conduct by a company with a functional monopoly.
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You are right, of course. Indeed, OOXML has been approved by ISO as a standard. So by my own criterion of "I care about support for standards", Microsoft not supporting it is a big deal.
On the other hand, I have a hard time taking OOXML seriously as a standard. Microsoft have never, as far as I know, released software that actually implemented the specification they pushed, and I am not aware of any plans by anyone else to do so. Knowing what an incredible abomination it is, I am not convinced that there wi
ISO has Fycked ISO far more than US, EU, RU... (Score:2)
If ISO is a corporate standards body, then they are the Industry Standards Organization.
IOW: ISO as an institution has failed the ISO purpose for existence, not the purpose of standards.
ISO relevance in todays world is called into question as a corporate stooge, much like the US Congress, EU Parliament, and RU Kremlin governance bodies.
US, EU, and RU (unlike China) support feudal world governance of Corporate-Socialism and Corporate-Welfare for the entitled elitist of the world.
What ever happened to the Fr
I can hardly wait (Score:2)
for Office 14.999999999999999
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