RSSEcma Approves MS Office Committee
By Nate Mook and Ed Oswald | Published December 8, 2005, 6:15 PM
International technology standards organization Ecma International voted Thursday to approve the creation of a technical committee to begin looking into standardization of Microsoft Office's Open XML document format. The effort has been backed by Apple, Intel and Toshiba.
The vote to create the committee would have been unanimous, however OpenDocument supporter IBM voted against the proposal while HP abstained. Critics outside of Ecma questioned the organization's move to standardize what they consider to be a proprietary format.
"There's no denying that Microsoft is a great strategist and extremely thorough in its execution, and therefore likely to succeed in its effort to produce an Ecma branded standard," Andy Updegrove wrote in the Consortiuminfo.org Standards Blog on Thursday. "The question is, when that standard comes out with the Ecma rubber stamp at the top, will the market adopt it to the exclusion of ODF?"
Others, such as the lobbying group CCIA publicly called for the proposal to be rejected as it did not "meet basic principles of openness."
Microsoft claims that by establishing the new format as an open standard, it is opening the door to third party developers who can implement Office Open XML in their own applications and services. Any member of ECMA could join the process, Microsoft says, and help to fully document the formats that will be used in the next releases of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
"Microsoft is extremely pleased Ecma International and industry leading companies and co-sponsors have accepted Microsoft's Open XML file format submission," Alan Yates, general manager Information Worker at Microsoft, said in a statement. "Ecma International's creation of the Technical Committee to produce a formal standard -- which is fully compatible with the Office Open XML Formats -- means customers and the industry are one step closer to preserved interoperability."
But Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox warned in November that Microsoft has not yet detailed licensing terms for Office Open XML, and could place restrictions on the usage of its intellectual property.
"Submissions to a standards body don't ensure that any vendor could make use of the formats," Wilcox said. "For example, restrictions might prevent use of the formats in free software or where there are other licensing mechanisms, such as the GPL. Both circumstances could hurt open-source development around the file formats."
The first meeting of the Office Open XML technical committee is set to take place on December 15.
I think this is a strategy from MS to please every one to continue using their MS Office (because it will use an "open" standard XML doc format) but what MS really want is everybody using it's DOC XLS, PPT proprietary formats (people will continue to use cos it's faster then their XML doc format) and keep every document produced incompatible with other Office suits. Keep their world of fouls in control.
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"I think this is a strategy from MS to please every one to continue using their MS Office (because it will use an "open" standard XML doc format) but what MS really want is everybody using it's DOC XLS, PPT proprietary formats..."
That is inacurate information, I'm currently beta testing office 12 one of the files microsoft allows you to download is a patch for office 2000 and 2003 which allows u to view the xml files but not create them, this patch will be included in a update for office 2000 and 2003 when office 12 is avaliable.
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"Submissions to a standards body don't ensure that any vendor could make use of the formats," Wilcox said. "For example, restrictions might prevent use of the formats in free software or where there are other licensing mechanisms, such as the GPL. Both circumstances could hurt open-source development around the file formats."
Wilcox, apparently you haven't researched enough. yohimbe9 answers these arguments below (lol like you're reading this or something)
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While standardization would be wonderful, I hope it can be implemented equally well in all forms, not giving one or two companies any major advantage. Let's see...Apple (Bill Gates major stock holder), Intel (decades old relationship with MS), Toshiba (Strong financial relationship with Intel and MS). IBM against the proposed standard (love/hate relationship with MS, currently not the best of buddies).
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I wouldn't really mind 'Office Open XML' to be standarized, but ONLY if there will be enough documentation and licence freedom to implement it anywhere you want. Which I doubt :(
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Its available for anyone, anywhere to use:
"The Format specification will be published and made available under the same royalty-free license that exists for the Microsoft Office 2003 Reference Schemas—openly offered and available for broad industry use."
http://www.microsoft.com...opers/fileoverview.mspx
And then going on to the 2003 XML format's FAQ page:
Q. Can I distribute a program that can read and/or write files that support the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas in source code form?
A. Yes. You can distribute your program in source code form. But, note that the patent and copyright provisions in the license for the Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas require you to include a notice of attribution in your program.
So that's pretty much the same as most open source projects. You can use it, you just have to give MS props for it.
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Hopefully Ecma has some spine...
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Microsoft has a long arm, and it reaches far...
Hope they get the door slammed in their face!
Doubt it though...
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