Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Why you should care about Microsoft and their OOXML

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OOXML is Microsoft’s spec. It was not developed out of the goodness of MS; it was done only because they thought they would lose market share.  It is riddled with so many errors that they have had to stack with their own lackeys the various committees that must vote on whether it will become an international standard. This move follows threats of lawsuits, and as a result these committees have become very quiet.

Why should you care? The Massachusetts movement towards open standards was supposed to help Massachusetts, not Microsoft. It was supposed to ensure that our documents were accessible to all, accessible regardless of upgraded versions of software and OS, and free us (both the government who generates these documents and the public who wants to view them) from dependency upon one vendor.

If OOXML were a good standard, then by all means it should be included. But it isn’t. I wouldn’t want Bechtel included on a list of approved state contractors and I don’t want a junk standard included in an initiative which is supposed to benefit and protect the people of Massachusetts.

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  1. Sun has released and ODF converter add-in for MS Office.

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    The Sun ODF Plug in for Microsoft Office gives users of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint the ability to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format.

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    The key is in the description “ISO-standard Open Document Format”.  Coincidence that this was released on Friday?  Probably not.  But it’s something that I made damn sure the Info tech Dept was made aware of.

    • A few things stood out to me; first the notes about spreadsheets. The Sun add-in does support spreadsheets, so that argument is out the window.

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      The other is the 6000 page spec, to get a full appreciation of what that means try stacking 12 reams of paper together, that’s the spec.  Does this meet the smell test for an open standard?  Can anyone write applications to ooXML or can it be supported by only one vendor in exactly one product.  There is a reason why it’s not a certified standard.

      • Trust me I’m not a huge MS fan (I use Ruby on Rails for openmass.org) but this discussion needs to be grounded in reality. OpenOffice.org, Corel WordPerfect Office, and more than likely Apple Inc.’s TextEdit in Leopard do or will support ooxml.

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        • Limiting the discussion may make MS-OOXML more palatable, but even in that narrowed scope, the folly of including MS-OOXML is obvious given the Microsoft track record of screwing over their own customers by dropping support for formats released just one version prior.

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          The importance of accepting a standard, especially one deemed open, goes beyond the ability to open a .doc file with OpenOffice. I’ll defer to highlights from Andy Updegrove’s comments to the Mass. ITD:

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          Secretary of Administration and Finance Eric Kriss and CIO Peter Quinn recognized the great risk to the public interest inherent in a transition from paper to electronic archives based upon proprietary formats, and acted responsively and responsibly to protect the citizens of Massachusetts from the very real possibility that our records and, indeed, our history, could be lost to future generations.

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          A world dominated by a single office suite has many weaknesses, including lack of price competition, lack of innovation, lack of choice, and increased susceptibility to security breaches, among other concerns.

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          True open standards accomplish many healthy and important goals. They protect end-users from lock in, promote competition in price and features, and encourage a healthy balance between agreement upon a common layer of standardization and the ability of competitors to innovate on features. True standards, as a result, are created among many competitors that together agree upon a common base upon which they may compete, with each benefiting from the larger market that is enabled by their development of the standard in question. It is simply impossible to create a similar result where a standard is based upon a single product.

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          Five years ago, Microsoft got off with worse than a slap on the wrist with its anti-trust settlement. Billions of do vouchers only further entrenched the public sector. Reality is now we’re cowards.

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          Reality is, regardless of Ecma, Microsoft controls OOXML and will continue to do so if Massachusetts accepts it as an open standard when it is not.

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          Reality is, unless we speak up, there won’t be another anti-trust fight against “open but not really” Microsoft. They will literally, as johnk said, own us.

          • There is a difference in using standards to promote competition and using them for the purposes in which MA wants open standards for (to preserve access to electronic documents). I don’t believe the state should get involved in pushing for ODF because it would increase competition. That is not the state’s place.

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            I’m less concerned with format discussions when most documents  kept by the state are made very difficult to get a hold of in the first place regardless of format.

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        • Microsoft bailed out Corel and has a financial interest in the company, there was some anti-trust litigation at the time if you want to read some articles.  OpenOffice referred is strictly the Novell distribution of OpenOffice where Novell had “partnered” with Microsoft to create an add-in program.  They needed MS involved to even write the add-in.

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          What makes it difficult for other companies to write applications is that MS uses proprietary tools in ooXML instead of the ISO equivalents.  Standards would normally use industry-standard tools.  Don’t know how to better explain it.
          Now I hope that you understand that stating this is not Microsoft bashing, I don’t understand why this keeps on getting posted.  You don’t have to be a huge MS fan or hatter, just take the information as is.

          • I think the time limit for review is ridiculous but again you made a statement that I considered misleading.

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            Can anyone write applications to ooXML or can it be supported by only one vendor in exactly one product.  There is a reason why it’s not a certified standard.

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            I’m aware of the history…

            • Hey Jim, It sounds like we’re not going to agree. 

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              But the additional info was to support that only MS can now write applications for ooXML, Novell and a few other companies that have a translator required that Microsoft be involved in writing the code in order to do so. 

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              There is no one so far has been able to write an application to Open XML without MS’ involvement.  Novell even had to have a non-disclosure agreement with MS, why do you need an NDA for an open standard.

              • If an NDA was required that is troubling. Is it possible that the NDA was required due to the larger nature (technologies other than Office and OOXML) that may have been part of the deal? This seems more likely.

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                There is a difference between Novell wanting their help to implement it faster and needing there help to implement it period. If the standard requires MS help to write apps for ooxml then that too is troubling.

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  2. Massachusetts just added Microsoft’s Office Open XML to the list of acceptable open source formats

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    …does this mean that a document published by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts over the Internet can be published using only one of the formats on the list, or that the document has to be published using all of the formats on the list.  If it was the first, I would object.  If it’s the second, I would have no objection. 

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    Quite frankly, I use Acrobat, readers for which are freely available.

    • You will be very unhappy.  That is Microsoft’s XML-based electronic paper format open standard that’s going after Acrobat.

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      I believe it’s the first, departments can decide which open standard they will use to post documents.

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