Slashdot Log In
RTF Vs. OOXML
kdawson
on Thu Jan 03, 2008 09:20 AM
from the already-extinguished dept.
from the already-extinguished dept.
Rob Weir has an interesting essay comparing the viciousness of RTF and OOXML: "The [document format standard] concerns of 2004 (or 1995 even) are very similar to the concerns of 2007... 'RTF is defined as whatever Word saves when you ask it to save as RTF.' This should sound familiar. OOXML is nothing more than the preferences of Microsoft Office. Whenever Word changes, OOXML will change. And if you are a user or competitor of Word, you will be the last one to hear about these changes. The coding of Office 14 a.k.a. Office 2009 is well underway. Beta releases are expected in early 2008. But are file format changes needed to accommodate the new features being discussed in Ecma? No. Are they being discussed in ISO? No. Are they being discussed anywhere publicly? No. By owning the 'standard' and developing it in secret, in an Ecma rubber-stamp process, Microsoft rigs the system so they can author an ISO standard with which they are effortlessly compatible, while at the same time ensuring that their products maintain an insurmountable head start in implementing these same standards. Is this how an open standard is developed?"
Related Stories
[+]
IT: Saving in OOXML Format Now Probably A Bad Idea 150 comments
orlando writes "Much drama is unfolding prior to the OOXML Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva, currently schedule for the end of February. After that there's a subsequent 30 day period while countries can still change their vote. As a result, Bob Sutor is recommending that saving your documents in OOXML format right now is probably about the riskiest thing you can do, if you are concerned with long term interoperability. At this point nobody has the vaguest idea what OOXML will look like in February, or even whether it will be in any sort of stable condition by the end of March. 'While we are talking about interoperability, who else do you think is going to provide long term complete support for this already-dead OOXML format that Microsoft Office 2007 uses today? Interoperability means that other applications can process the files fully and not just products from Microsoft. I would even go so far as to go back to those few OOXML files you have already created and create .doc, .ppt, and .xls versions of them for future use, if you want to make sure you can read them and you don't want to commit yourself to Microsoft's products for the rest of their lives.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
well, not effortlessly (Score:5, Insightful)
Up front disclaimer: This article has a tangible odor of troll, so don't blame me and the other posters for responding in kind (flamebait, troll, offtopic, etc.)
FTS:
I wouldn't say this is entirely true (effortless) on Microsoft's part. Any user of any Microsoft product is well aware of how difficult it is to work in and out of various new vs. old formats. Yes, even Microsoft has a difficult time being compatible and interoperable with Microsoft (actually, I seem to have better luck overall with interoperability using OpenOffice...).
And, also FTS:
Actually no, usually Microsoft takes an existing open standard (e.g., sockets), implements it poorly (winsock), and puts it everywhere (95,98, NT, XP, etc.) forcing the technical community to re-adopt the standard in Microsoft's cast.
Re:well, not effortlessly (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd think that, wouldn't you? Actually, my experience is that users are blissfully ignorant about document incompatibilities caused by any software (not particular to Microsoft). Today, I received an email from a friend of mine asking how she could open a .rm file on her Apple. I was more surprised that some people still use that format. However, it was required listening (viewing?) for one of her courses.
In this case I fault the professor of that course, but how many times do you get people that say it's your fault when you can't open a document they said. After all, it works on their machines.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I tried to view a video from that just the other day and what they sent was a .rm file. Why can't they provide an mpeg or AVI encoding?
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
With Helix you can have an FOSS program that can read rm files.
Yes Mpeg would be more open.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
avi is a container format. It can contain pretty much anything, including Theora. For the moment, I recommend encoding in H264 and you can put it in an avi container. Not a problem at all.
Getting a decoder for that is pretty much painless...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:well, not effortlessly (Score:5, Informative)
However, you should look to older and other standards. HTML - 4 versions and all of them work seamlessly together, although newer versions may not have the pizazz in older renderers. WordPerfect and WordStar, good examples of how file formats don't have to break backwards compatibility from what I recall.
As for winsock, that was a poor port of the BSD socket stack. Actually, it's a really poor port. Multicast still doesn't work, and if it did, an entire set of applications could occur with much lower traffic on the internet. (Think IPTV, IPRadio, and other streaming type applications)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Multicast still wouldn't work since the vast majority (at least here in Canada) of ISPs filter multicast packets because they think they are the same as broadcast packets and thus increase network traffic, I know about this s
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is mainly caused by trying to develop a convoluted standard to make it difficult to create a standard that is difficult for others to figure out AND then understand your own convoluted standard and how to make it co
Re:well, not effortlessly (Score:5, Insightful)
If, for instance, Office 2009 has several bugs with respect to how it renders OOXML, then these bugs will actually become part of the de facto OOXML standard. Anyone who wants to implement the "standard" will have to reproduce those bugs in order to appear to be "the same as MS Office." This is the same problem the Wine team has when re-implementing the Windows API: they actually have to deviate from the established API documentation and reproduce Windows bugs since Windows applications rely on these bugs.
If you let a "standard" (like OOXML) be tied to a specific implementation of the standard, then anyone who wants to re-implement the standard must make the tough choice between being true to the letter of the standard (as written) or the de facto standard as embodied in the dominant implementation. We saw with IE's buggy implementation of HTML the problems this can cause, and are only now pulling ourselves out of that particular mess.
The problem is that Microsoft can alter the OOXML "standard" to their heart's content simply by changing the way MS Office works in future versions. Documented or not, those changes will effortlessly become "the new standard" by virtue of their dominant market position.
Parent
Re: New File Formats (Score:2)
Between the file format change and the GUI change it feels like entirely different App co-branded by MS.
Re: (Score:2)
Up front disclaimer: This article has a tangible odor of troll, so don't blame me and
the other posters for responding in kind (flamebait, troll, offtopic,
etc.)
Open standards should be things that are discussed in open before they are finalized.
OOXML and RTF are documentation of the habits of an office suite. And habits can be broken.
Re: (Score:2)
And this is supposed to indicate the difficulty of adhering to principles of backward compatibility? Or the flaws of the design process used by Microsoft?
Re:well, not effortlessly (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, look up how it went down for Word95 and Windows 98.
Word violated the api standards but was given the "approved" mark anyway.
Corel which followed the standards was much slower.
Microsoft cheats all the time. They are commensurate scammers.
Sometimes, it feels like the world is crazy because no one seems to recall things like
1) specifically checking if DR Dos was installed- and if so give a hard installation failure.
2) "Dos isn't done until Lotus won't run"
3) Doublestac
4) The entire "95" certification scandal.
5) The *numerous* partnerships where they robbed every bit of technology from the technology partner and then brought out a competing product.
6) The numerous times that they added a 50 to 60% functional but "free" version of something of a competitor's product to the operating system.
and so many more examples like this.
They are extremely competitive scammers. Which is okay if you own their stock. But not okay if you want to do something for the common good like standard.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22dos+isn't+done+until+lotus%22&btnG=Search [google.com]
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=microsoft+stac+lawsuit&btnG=Search [google.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics [wikipedia.org]
Stac executives were outraged, as Microsoft had previously been in discussions with Stac to license its compression technology, and had discussions with Stac engineers and examined Stac's code as part of the due diligence process.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=s [google.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Now, my post and the above is more accurately accessed as "flamebait". His point is lost inside a wall of meandering text, which is really just a a vehicle for his ineffectual expression of contempt for "FOSSies".
Re:It's not the standard, stupids (Score:4, Insightful)
If you filter the A/C's rant, there's a point of view in there which essentially says "just follow what Microsoft wants you to do". That's fine if you want stagnation of capabilities and to pay through the nose for the privilege.
Example, the Browser War was more than just a browser - it was hijacking the Internet Ecosystem which was supposed to be open and available to all. Microsoft saw open standard browsers and servers, particularly with Java, as a mortal threat to their platform.
To counteract, Microsoft developed IE and IIS to be a client-server relationship instead of a stateless browser as intended. Tools were widely distributed to create web sites for that system which were wholly incompatible with anything else. The goal was for anyone NOT using a complete Microsoft chain of technology to see a blank page on the Internet.
They almost pulled it off. The result was IE gained market dominance and, with the exception of exploits and treachery of completely hijacked computers, no other technical advances in browsers came about for many years. The fly in the ointment was they didn't have server dominance. Had they been able to overcome Apache, you can bet we'd be paying Microsoft for every page view on the Internet.
That's why we shouldn't just do what Microsoft says.
Parent
Too much internet... (Score:3, Funny)
Draft OpenISO.org "Problem Report" entry (Score:5, Informative)
No.
Here's a copy of the draft OpenISO.org [openiso.org] "Problem Report" entry for this issue:
Microsoft's attempt to essentially unilaterally dictate office document standards is an abuse of their dominant position
Problem description:
Normally standardization is conducted by means all interested parties participating in a discussion of the desired features, so that all interested parties have an essentially equal opportunity to develop products implementing the standard.
By contrast, OOXML is simply documentation of the document format that Microsoft's products already use, and there is no indication that Microsoft would intend to make the details about future versions of OOXML available to competitors before Microsoft is ready to release their own implementation of the new features for public beta testing.
Expected impact:
To the extent that OOXML is accepted as a standard, all of Microsoft's competitors will be encumbered with a permanent economic disadvantage.
Possible solution:
Reject all claims about OOXML in some way being a standard, and take legal action, on the basis of national and international competition law, against Microsoft as well as against Ecma and all other organizations which are guilty of aiding and abetting Microsoft's anticompetitive actions.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't understand why this is so hard for people to understand.
Re: (Score:2)
True. And that is in fact a legitimate starting point for the process of developing a standard. Of course back when it was just the 'StarOffice XML' format, no-one insisted on pushing it down everyone's throat as an international standard. Rather, Sun got all interested parties together, and a real standard was developed by means of requesting and taking under consideration everyone's input on needed changes.
OOo will always
The openness of the process is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
But the key point is that the whole process was open.
The ODF standard was designed by an comitee (OASIS), where several of the various office suite maker collaborate.
The procedure has been openly documented and everyone was able to know what was being done.
The standard was available "in advance" of the products, not the other way around. The standard will be followed by the various maker as you said.
The critics made to microsoft in TFA are that Microsoft is designing the standard alone without consulting the concurrence or even letting them know what they are doing.
The next iteration of OOXML is probably going to be made available "afterward" : they're going to first build MSOffice 14 and then publish "What we've done new in MSOffice 2010" or some other king of list of modification they did (notice past tense) to the standart. As you say, it's the product which will define de standard.
Yes, in both case the standard are published.
Yes, in both case they started life as internal representation of specific softwares.
BUT, OOXML is still an internal representation of word, and is best defined as "whatever the next version of word spills when you hit "Save" ", if Office change, OOXML will change with nobody knowing it in advance and being able to take part into the process. Want to make cross-operating software ? Please wait until Microsoft takes their next product to the market and makes it mind about what they'll throw next into it. Too bad that this will introduce delays into your own product.
The "standard" is still a moving target, the only difference with reverse engineering is that nobody needs to decypher cryptic binary data but only read 1700 pages, appart from that it's the same "play catch up".
WHEREAS ODF has been beated into a standard by a body where different vendors/makers could give their opinion and everyone can be informed of potential modification of the standard as it's a public procedure.
Want to take part in the development of the next standard ? You can !
Want to write software compatible with it ? Just stick to what is published in the ISO standard no need to track a single specific vendor and it's proprietary product.
ODF may be a bad standard for some people but it's still an OPEN standard, as in "the procedure of the creation of this standard was open".
OOXML is just a "we let you read the text we print to document what we've thrown in Office 2010" closed standard.
Yup. I agree with you.
Must probably all the noise comming from Microsoft's marketing department "But see, our is a standard too : we publish the specs too !!!"
Parent
RTF Vs. OOXML (Score:4, Funny)
-- RTF
You need a montage! (Score:2)
Help organize problem reports on OOXML (Score:2, Insightful)
It's definitely important that those who agree that OOXML is not a good standard should help organize a list of problems that can be easily seen by the members of the upcoming ISO OOXML ballot meeting in February 2008 and all the Internet in general.
OpenISO.org [openiso.org], an independent open organization much inspired by slashdot, is planning to include the issue of this post [openiso.org] in the problem report document produces in its OpenISO.org Review of OOXML. [openiso.org] OpenISO.org is asking for help [openiso.org] to organize the comments of your
maybe they should merge RTF and OOXML (Score:5, Funny)
The article talks about something else! (Score:3, Insightful)
My suggestion: Get a better title for the slashdot piece. How about "OOXML will not work just like RTF failed."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RTF What? (Score:5, Funny)
National Standards Bodies (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I think there is also a problem with the national standards bodies. They can vary from a formal technical committees answerable to democratically elected governments according to what their country needs, through to a ragtag bunch of nobodies who can dictate whatever they want according to their specific corporate interests. I think ISO needs to start with itself and standardise how national bodies work.
Also I think that if you are unhappy with the decision your national body made, then you need to either seek to get on it (or make a group that raises funds to get one of you on it), or setup a competing national standards organisation, get to work, and then try to replace the old one as ISO's National standards body for your country.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, I think that might be the most insightful comment I've read on slashdot all year!
Wes
Office 2007 not even compliant (Score:5, Interesting)
OOD has doomed us all to bad standards (Score:2, Troll)
At some point people thought it would be cool if that wasn't the case and dreamed up lots of crud to put in text books sold to college students and they made lots of money but hasn't changed a thing.
It still doesn't fix the problem that a word processor has an internal model of what the user typed. Its job is to output that in a way that is consistent with what it's showing the user and what the user told it
I'm sorry, I don't get your point. (Score:2)
The input and output on the screen and keyboard are part of the processing from the point of view of the storage.
The input and output of the file storage are part of the processing from the point of view of the user.
User - I/O - Processing - I/O - Storage
In addition there's a third I/O interface for printing, and a forth for online publishing.
There's no reason that the storage format needs to be tightly coupled to the display format. And, also, an editor doesn't have a
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Words storage model is odd. It doesn't match the input model but is sort of based on the output model assuming line printers with loads of hacks to make it work with modern printers. As far as I know its been that way since I was using Wor
WTF? (Score:2)
So you saying that standards can not possibly work? That people want "magic?"
Hate to break it to you, but standards already work. Consider ASCII. Also ODF is already incorporated in several word processors.
Of course input/output and storage models can be disassociated, it's done all of the time.
Re: (Score:2)
ODF only works for a majority of documents but most people involved with that standard can create something that is legal but won't render the same way on many platforms. You can repeat that for HTML, PDF, GIF, JPG etc.
With a word process you can store either the input, output, memory or processing. Word Perfect up to 5.1 stored input (with hacks for specific p
Some tools get it right (Score:2)
Ask anyone in publishing or anyone who writes for a living what tool they use and there's little chance that they're going to tout the advantages of Word. Word is borked in so many ways, from a writer's point of view, that it's hard to know where the start when cataloging the problems. You can begin with the broken tokening used in lists, move to the Master Documents "feature" and finish up with the fact that what's displayed on the screen not only differs depending on which computer you're vi
Reference Apps are nice in the Real World. (Score:3, Insightful)
When you have a reference application to test with then you have less yelling.
It's open once published (Score:2)
One other type (Score:2)
MS-Office has been called a "standard" for so long, people believe it. And they conflate a "standard" piece of software with a document "standard."
In any kind of engineering, there is only one true standard-- that which is agreed-upon by the manufacturers and/or engineers themselves. Bridge architects will never use a non-standard size bolt, nor a non-standard metal. Why? Because the weld strength is too important. Because the
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This type of document is not a standard it called a documentation. OOXML is not a standard it's a documentation of MS office's default format...
You can also find a documentation of HTML on MSDN, this is not a standard either it's a documentation of the HTML implementation in Internet Explorer.
This type of document is usually called a standard. While it's true that ODF started as a documen
not just competitors, but users (Score:3, Insightful)
But given the MS of embrace and extend, I must resign myself to a world in which MS products are just too unreliable to use for real work of any significant magnitude. I know that RTF is not sufficient to make the fancy memos people like, but it does seem to work.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft's published RTF specs for a quite some time now -- the latest version of the spec is 1.9 and you can download it from Microsoft [microsoft.com] in your choice of binary .doc or MS-OOXML .docx, sorry no .rtf!
The spec is actually not bad, though the continued efforts to shoehorn in new features gets a little laughable. Here's an example of an RTF-reencoded XML tag from the spec:
Re: (Score:2)
Ask and ye shall receive [microsoft.com]. It was released in 1999, so it even meets your "long time ago" requirement.
One of the more amusing lines of the specification;
Because of the way Microsoft word processors implement tables, and the table-driven approach of many Microsoft RTF readers, it is very easy to write tables in RTF that will crash Microsoft word processors when you try to read the RTF.
And of course, how much value there is in the specification for a format more than a decade obsolete, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.
Re:Acronyms in headlines? (Score:4, Funny)
Imagine hell with more backslashes.
Parent
Re:RTFM 'against' OOXML (Score:4, Informative)
That's not an accurate description. The point that article makes about the spreadsheet is that OOXML distributes information all over the place so that to make the simple change of replacing a formula in a cell with a constant it is necessary to edit multiple files. The problem is not that you can't make changes inconsistent with the schema - it is that the schema is poorly designed.
Furthermore, the spreadsheet example is only one of several cases discussed, so even if you were to rebut it successfully the article would still contain a valid critique.
Parent