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December 8, 2006 1:57 PM

Document Format Wars Go Public and Get Personal



Microsoft and IBM ratcheted up their criticism and rhetoric this week in the long-standing battle to win the hearts and minds of developers and users for the document format they support.

The volley was started by IBM, which was the lone dissenter in the vote on Dec. 7 that approved Microsoft's Open XML document format as an Ecma standard.

In a public comment about its decision to vote against approving the standard, Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and standards at IBM, says on his blog that the Open XML format is nothing more than a vendor-dictated specification that documents proprietary products via XML.

He goes on to say that IBM believes the ODF (OpenDocument Format) ISO standard is vastly superior to the Open XML spec, and that "ODF is what the world needs today to drive competition, innovation, and lower costs for customers.

"It is an example of a real open standard versus a vendor-dictated spec that documents proprietary products via XML. ODF is about the future, Open XML is about the past. We voted for the future," Sutor says.

However, in an interview with me, Alan Yates, the general manager of information worker business strategy at Microsoft, said the vote on the standard was 20 in favor and one--IBM--against, which showed how "IBM is isolated from the other members in this regard."

He also railed against the fact that IBM has decided to be open in its criticism of Open XML, accusing Big Blue of being at the forefront of creating conflict around the Open XML format.

"They are also really focused on mandating ODF, mandating a single format that their commercial products support. This push to mandate ODF seems to be so antithetical to what they ordinarily talk about around open standards, interoperability and choice," he said.

Yates also has an interesting assessment of the two competing standards, claiming that "ODF takes more of a greenfields approach, while Open XML takes more of a practical approach toward documenting compatibility and interoperability."

He also rejected out of hand the notion that OpenXML is not universally interoperable as it has ties to Windows, thereby preventing full interoperability with other platforms, saying that Open XML has no ties to Windows.

"This is a bogus argument. What Open XML does is enable embedding code from any platform--whether that is Java code from Linux or ActiveX code from Windows. Applications are allowed to do this as they have done this in the past. A lot of the committee's work was on ensuring it was cross-platform friendly," he told me.

There is also no truth to claims that the Open XML specification does not define macros or embedded scripts, Yates said, noting that the specification has been "out there" for many months now and the final specification is available for all to see.

He also pointed a finger at the ODF, calling out the fact that the format does not include anything for formulas in spreadsheets and is being revised in separate OASIS committees to address the gaps it has with the Open XML format, including accessibility, support for the integration of external XML data and the lack of formulas.

Unlike IBM, Microsoft is also investing in the coexistence of the two specifications, including plug-ins for them, and has created an open-source project around this so that everyone will have access to the code and be able to see the decisions that are being made, he maintains.

"We are bending over backward at this point to reassure customers that we really are in favor of coexistence and choice. They can choose ODF or Open XML, and whatever choice they make is right for them, and we will work hard to make it work," he told me.

Ecma will also begin the fast-track process for adoption of the Office OpenXML formats as an ISO international standard in January 2007, a process that Yates expects to take about a year.

In response to Yates' comments, Sutor told me Dec. 8 that, with Open XML, Microsoft squandered a golden opportunity to use a modern XML architecture and design, to take advantage of open rather than proprietary standards, and to provide backward-compatibility via its extensive engineering capability.

"Microsoft says that it spent millions of dollars on the Office 2007 user interface. Wasn't moving their data format into the future deserving of at least some of those resources? In my opinion, Open XML only delays the day of reckoning when Microsoft will need to seriously and fundamentally re-architect their format to make it truly interoperable and future-ready," he said.

"At that point, the quality of the design of OpenDocument Format will become even more apparent to Microsoft as it is increasingly becoming so to governments and implementors around the world," Sutor said.

IBM would also welcome Microsoft's participation in the OASIS technical committee of global experts, which has been working openly on ODF since 2002. "Further, it will put an end to their isolation from this mainstream open document standards effort," he told me.

So, what's your view on these divergent opinions and document formats in general?

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Comments (23)

Rick Stockton :

IIRC, Microsoft has not promised to keep future versions of 'Open XML' free-- the free licensing refers only to version 1, right?

There has also been a lot of talk about necessary supporting elements and technology (APIs for the usage of certain BLOBs, and etc.) not being covered by the 'free' license.

I haven't read all the of the background doco and licenses involved, but the Sun-provided license for ODF explicitly *DOES* include all necessary technology to implement ODF, and explicitly *DOES* include all future Versions. If MS really wants to be the Open Standard, why haven't they changed their license to include these two features?

Anyone ignoring Bob's point is living on another planet. Here are some references.

Is Open XML a one way specification for most people?

,----[ Quote ]
| Who will implement Open XML correctly and fully? Maybe Microsoft.
| Why? Since it is essentially a dump into XML of all the data
| needed for all the functionality of their Office products and
| since those products are proprietary, only they will understand
| any nuances that go beyond the spec. The spec may illuminate
| some of the mistakes that have been made and are now being
| written into a so called standard for all to have to implement,
| but I'm guessing there might be a few other shades of meaning
| that will not be clear. Fully and correctly implementing Open
| XML will require the cloning of a large portion of Microsoft's
| product. Best of luck doing that, especially since they have
| over a decade head start. Also, since they have avoided using
| industry standards like SVG and MathML, you'll have to
| reimplement Microsoft's flavor of many things. You had
| better start now. So therefore I conclude that while Microsoft
| may end up supporting most of Open XML (and we'll have to
| see the final products to see how much and how correctly),
| other products will likely only end up supporting a subset.
`----

http://sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1145

Is Office Open XML A One-Way Standard? Ask Microsoft

,----[ Quote ]
| Way back in October, Bob Sutor, IBM's open standards guru, wrote
| a piece on his blog where he described the Office Open XML
| standard as a one way standard, because the format is so complex
| and so geared towards compatibility with legacy Office compatibility
| that it could never be implemented as a fully functional file format
| by any competing personal productivity applications (PPAs) like
| WordPerfect and OpenOffice. I agree with a lot of his points but
| didn't feel compelled to write about it since the issue had been
| covered pretty comprehensively in the blogosphere.
`----

http://blogs.adobe.com/shebanation/2006/12/open_xml_one-way.html


Signs That Your "Open Standard" May Not Be Open Enough

,----[ Quote ]
| If OOXML is an open standard, why must Mac MS Office users wait so
| long for OOXML support? Correct me if I am wrong, but MS Office on
| the Mac is developed by Microsoft themselves, how is it that the
| Windows Office development team had access to the OOXML specification
| but the Mac Office team did not?
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft's ECMA submission comprised more than 6,000 pages. The
| challenge of plowing through so much could drag out
| approval by ISO. (ODF's submission was less than 700 pages.)
|
| [...]
|
| So, while Microsoft's own developers struggle to comprehend and
| implement their own proposed "standard" file format, perhaps Mac
| MS Office customers can use Novell OpenOffice for their Windows MS
| Office compatibility needs.
`----

http://boycottnovell.com/2006/12/07/signs-that-your-open-standard-may-not-be-open-enough/

Scott Dunn :

Hi,

I've been following the story ever since Dave Berlind at ZDNet started writing about the battle in Massachutsetts between MS and ODF. Everyone knows that the point of fast-tracking on ECMA was to get in the game and provide at least a standard that supports MS document formats. But the real reason is to suck talent and resources away from the ODF. You know MS is up to something when legislators in MA confuse open document formats with open source software. How did they get that idea, MS?

When MS woke up to the internet, they offered their own proprietary format for networks. Everyone laughed and ignored them. Now they see a truly open format for documents and they're scared. They see a siphon for a third of their revenue.

For all the bleating that Alan Yates can do, it's hard to ignore the terms of their license. If they put their IP on the document format under a license that permits sublicensing, a well documented omission, then I think most everyone can use it. But they don't. And they know it, and they brandish it about like it's a funny joke on open source developers. Developers are well aware of the threats that Microsoft pose.

Use our stuff and pay for it, and nobody gets hurt. That's what I hear from MS. When they get off the idea that they *own* the Office application environment, then people might respect them more.

Until then, I'm looking at a long term plan for a transition away from anything that MS puts out. If I use a standard that is supported by more than one vendor, I can escape when a vendor dies, or is subsumed by a company I'd rather avoid. And software vendors have a tendency to become irrelevant at the hands of Microsoft. Hear that, Novell?

Scott Dunn

James :

Great comments from Scott and Rick. Thanks guys.

sdfdsfds :

All those crynig about lock in etc, if you can do better, go build it and submit it to the standards bodies.

Nobody is forcing YOU to use anything, you can choose what you want to use, you can even go make your own if you realy wish.

Those jeans you are wearing, Levis? Replay? Wrangler ? etc... who is forcing you to buy a brand? Nobody but yourself. Get it?

Remove your dependancy on labels (whether its fashion or technology) for your own sake.

Thom :

Two quick points:

(1) I think MSFT is essentially trying to co-exist with the GPL's sub-licensing provision through its so-called "Open Specification Promise" (OSP). The OSP was first set up for Web Services, but also applies to Open XML. It's a covenant not to sue; you don't even have to sign an agreement to implement the specification.

(2) Ultimately, in practice, isn't a specification only as good as its implementation(s)? I think MSFT Office still outperforms Open Office and Star Office on various objective tests (memory use, load time, etc.) If an ODF-based application comes to market that beats MSFT Office, then fine, but Sutor shouldn't be arguing that ODF is better per se and that Open XML should therefore be shut out as a standard.

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