RSSOpenDocument Foundation Dissolves, Leaving Projects in Disarray
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 14, 2007, 4:13 PM
After warning just two weeks ago that the conversion of workplaces' information infrastructure to XML "must not be disruptive," the open source group that helped catalyze that conversion has apparently ceased to exist.
The OpenDocument Foundation has disappeared, taking with it its Web site and having deleted pages Google had been hosting for it, including news on its Compound Document Format translator project.
The only official confirmation of the group's disbanding was provided yesterday, in the form of the two-word sentence, "It is," appearing in Foundation co-founder Sam Riser's blog posting yesterday.
Specifically, Riser wrote, "People have wondered why I haven't blogged about the Foundation closing. It is. And I haven't said anything here because corporate housekeeping takes a little time: board votes, blah blah blah. We will issue a press release when we have thought through and fully understand what we are going to do next."
Although the Foundation at one time was synonymous with the open-source format upon which OpenOffice, StarOffice, and now Lotus' new Symphony suite are based, the news of its closing may in some respects not be bad news for ODF's current proponents. In recent weeks, the Foundation had been changing course, attacking ODF for having allegedly abandoned the format's original mission. Instead, Riser, along with partners Gary Edwards and Buck "Marbux" Martin, turned their attention to a World-Wide Web Consortium project called Compound Document Format.
It's not an ODF alternative; indeed, its purpose is actually to accrue any number of possible XML-based descriptive formats under a collective envelope. ODF and Microsoft's Office Open XML may be among those formats that CDF would theoretically help bind together, using a "glue" made up of XML and derivatives of HTML and XForms - two other W3C creations.
But in serving as that "glue," the Foundation's founders had recently said they believed CDF could fulfill the original goals of the ODF format - goals they described as having been circumvented by their current backers, perhaps in the effort to keep OOXML from being considered an equal player. To that end, they established what had been called the da Vinci Project, whose stated goal was to build a better bridge between OOXML and ODF than Microsoft itself is working on, using CDF as a go-between.
Today, the da Vinci Project appears dead, as its home pages on Google were also struck down.
ODF is far from being a ship without a tiller at this point. As a standard, its development remains guided by the OASIS standards body; and its promotion among potential adopters and customers is currently being handled by the OpenDocument Fellowship. Gary Edwards remains listed as a member there, even though the two ODFs supposedly parted waves two weeks ago.
Redmond Developer News publisher Michael Desmond reported in his column today that Sun Microsystems chief open-source officer Simon Phipps (apparently at the Oracle OpenWorld conference today in San Francisco) confided to him that he considered the OpenDocument Foundation "a shell that consists of just three people." That shell apparently split off of the core group, going its own way, Phipps told Desmond, when OASIS evolved in a more corporate direction.
But also, with the CDF project already being steered by an established organization - the one which gave birth to this Web thing you read about in the papers - the sad fact today is that the OpenDocument Foundation may end up not being missed.
Your article is misleading as it implies that the OpenDocument Foundation were some kind of major players involved in the OpenDocument Format. This is just plain incorrect. I wrote about this on my blog. Please read it for yourselves, as it also contains links to actual facts rather than the apparent misinformation being presented here. You can find it at : http://hackfud.net/2007/...urn-for-the-fudmeisters/
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it's not as confusing as some would hope, and not all that disassociated...
http://www.eweek.com/art...2/0,1895,2211700,00.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
yes they are tied, and yes they are actually synonymous with each other...not wholely separate as some are wishing
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On a scale of 1 to 10 - this story is boring!
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Scott, was it you who used the acronyms, "ODF" and "ODf" last time to differentiate the two (Foundation and format, respectively)? Looks like some folks may be getting a tad confuzzled.
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Why is this news? These three dudes have _never_ had anything to do with the Open Document Format.
I guess M$ advertising money is too good for M$BetaNews.com to pass up.
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Well, the point tis that ODf is not really what comanies need to replace microsofts old format. ODF pointed this out, but got killed for doing so it appears. This leaves the very relevant issue at the core of this uncovered. And sadly so. THis will not help ODf, this will help MS in the long run.
Only if people relalise the importance of ODF's issue with ODf will prodress ever be made agaist MS dominance of the market.
So this indeed IS a major setback for ODf, like it or not.
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*poke*
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Wrong. Congrats on being wrong. I would give you a cookie ... but I'm fresh out. :)
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huh?
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Um ... OpenDocument Foundation is not directly involved with the OpenDocument Format. This is, instead, non-news and is being blown out of proportion. THANK YOU MEDIA!
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Yes, they are. One of their major pushes (and also one of the reasons, many believe, that they are breaking up) was for ODf.
If you've been paying attention the last few articles posted about this group, you would know they have been involved in the format for quite some time.
Perhaps you meant they were not the "creators" of the format?
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Actually, I meant they were a group of guys who were looking to piggy-back on the OpenDocument Format for some publicity. They might have been involved, but I don't think it is any mere coincidence that they have gone away after what they pulled before.
Say what you want, but this is a non-story and a non-issue being blown out of proportion. It would be like me an some of my friends here getting together and creating the OpenDocument Fortress, getting out names out there in defense of the format, capitulating, and then going away. Non-story.
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So it's only a non-story if they go away? Because I didn't see you complaining about these guys when they supported it.
Interesting. I think your bias is showing. :)
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seems like good news if CDF is the end result. One format to rule them all sounds friggen sweet.
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CDF is not ONE format but a group of open formats designed to be used for various project types. So no, CDF will not mean one format, it will mean various open formats.
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1st! that's why it's not bad to stick to established commercial entities that deliver or strive to deliver consumer support. I love MS and Office :D
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Have you actually tried getting consumer support for an MS product? Without a support contract you're basically screwed. :p
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I'm one of the few who doesn't need direct intimate support for many computing needs. I know not everyone is fortunate enough to be trouble free.
But in this day and age of bandwagon hating, especially towards MS and it's products, many fail to see why they are also good.
Not all big corporations will drop you and support for their products in the blink of an eye. Knowing this, I'd rather standby and wait for MS to releases product fixes, patches and updates for the masses as they come.
So yeah, one on one support may not be the greatest, but such is the nature of really large companies with millions to support. I actually understand the concept, others should too.
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You bring up an interesting point (though not really related to the article)...
Commercial organizations generally have products, contracts, marketing budgets, etc. that they derive income from and have put a good deal of money into.
This is a motivating factor, a big one, for supporting and continuing the advancement of whatever product, format, idea, or service they are selling.
This is in stark contrast to "Foundations" who's formats, products, etc. are not a source of income and are not heavily marketed or contracted. The motivation factor here is usually "faith".
This can, and does for many corporations, be large chunk of the decision making process when deciding on a product, format, or service. They want one that's going to survive, one that will stand the test of time, one where the people backing and supporting it are virtually guaranteed to stick around.
They will, and have countless times, gambled that the money will outlive the "faith", nearly every time.
ODf is a decent format. It's open, and anyone can use it, which is a big bonus. The thing that is keeping it out of many organizations (and I'm not saying it's adoption has been subpar) is the simple fact that it isn't tied to a commercial product, owned by a specific company, and doesn't come with any guarantee or support contracts.
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Large companies purchase those support contracts.
I am assuming the format would eventually like to be used by these companies. Unfortunately, not being tied to a product, company, or contract, makes that a lot less likely to happen.
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Yes, I've used MS's 1:1 tech support several times....it can be expensive for your every day consumer (assuming you don't have free tech support), but it's by far the best and they have the most intelligent tech support people I've talked to so far. I've even had them instruct me, over the phone, on how to manually rebuild a NTFS partition table using a hex editor after I accidentally formatted a critical drive at work.
You'd also think that after 18 years MS Office files would be considered a "standard". They're well understood by now and there are millions or billions of documents in those formats....why would you want to switch to ODF when what you've been using isn't broken and pretty much universally accepted.
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The other thing too is that within a company, you have one person in charge who has the final authority to say jump left, right or ahead. There has to be someone in authority to make the final call or otherwise you end up with a bunch of roosters all crowing and nothing getting done. Or it takes so dang long that the hens have moved to another roost.
Kind of reminds me of the state of Christianity. When the reformation happened, Martin Luther declared that everyone was their own pope (Sola Scriptura). This opened the flood gates for anything goes when interpretting the Bible. With no one to guide us, we're like sheep without a shephard. Whatever you "feel" the Bible says to you, is what it means. But often times that's in direct conflict with what the person sitting next to you thinks it means.
Where ODf was to be the "new" format for all to use, they're now saying that it can be all sorts of formats and we'll have another format on top of that called CDF that will be the interface between all of the other formats.
Phooey - I'll stick with MS - at least I know their products will open their documents and display them the way I created them.
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"Phooey - I'll stick with MS - at least I know their products will open their documents and display them the way I created them."
Sound decision, and unfortunately for the ODf crowd, one many of the large corps out there are going to make as well.
Say what you want about Microsoft, but they handle their customers with support contracts very well.
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