Re: [tdf-discuss] Do not support writing to OOXML format

----- Original Message ----

> From: Barbara Duprey <Barb@onr.com>
> <snip>
> > We need to force MS to support ODF - as others have  pointed out ODF is 
> quickly
> > becoming the world standard at least at the  government level - which means 
> in a
> > few years most organizations that  support governments will need to support 
> ODF
> > too, and a few years after  that organizations that support those 
> organizations,
> > and so forth. MS  has lost the file format battle to ODF - it's just time 
> before
> > OOXML  (especially) and their legacy formats are gone.
>
> Unfortunately, MS now  claims that it *does* support ODF, reading and writing 
> files with the ODF  extensions. But users attempting interoperability will soon 
> discover that the MS  implementation is not really compatible with other ODF 
> implementations (most  notably in spreadsheet formulas, but not just that). I 
> think the MS plan here is  to say that *they've* got the true standard 
> implementation and everybody else is  wrong. Since that (basically proprietary) 
> version of ODF is now distributed as  part of MS Office, it's just about 
> everywhere, so they have the numbers on their  side. That seems to leave 
> everybody else once again playing "catch-up" with MS,  which can then simply do 
> as it pleases with the standard, being the 600-pound  gorilla in the room. 
> Interoperability issues will than be charged against the  non-MS implementation, 
> making it "safer" for organizations to stay with MS. Am I  being unduly 
> pessimistic here?

True, they do have a plug-in available to support ODF, but (last I checked) it 
is not part of the default install - you must install it separately, and it only 
supports Office 2007 and later, while they pushed OOXML support out to Office 
2003 and possibly earlier versions too.

However, they do not (again at least last I checked) let you save it via the 
normal means, e.g. Save/Save As dialog, and you cannot make it the default.
They also follow only the 1.0 or may be the 1.1 version that made it through ISO 
refusing to do anything that is not in the ISO version, and then doing it in a 
rather broken manner.

However, they are not the 600-pound gorilla in the ODF market given the dozens 
of implementations that more or less agree on how most things should be done.

For instance, unlike all other implementations (again last I checked) MS wrote 
the value of the cell to the normal location for an ODS spreadsheet while 
writing the formula to a MS Office specific namespace - whereas everyone else 
write the formula to the cell location and not application specific namespaces. 
Effectively making MS Office ODF files non-interoperable with everyone else. I 
think they may also drop all other application specific data too; or may be they 
were kind enough to leave that intact, don't remember on that front. Conversely, 
I think there is likely enough interoperable software out there that it can be 
easily pointed out that MS has the broken implementation in such cases.

Ben


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