For your OOXML Conspiracy Theories - Miguel de Icaza
tirania.org
tirania.org
1. Don't validate against the OOXML schema.
2. Contain large blobs of encoded binary data from previous versions of MS Office in the XML files.
For this reason alone (that the spec isn't followed correctly), I still prefer ODF.
Honestly, I'd love to have all devel builds of any software that writes XML as output have to validate that XML against the schema before it's written to a file, and have passing that test be part of the the acceptance criteria for the build.
This isn't hard to automate - it's very basic test driven design stuff. I do the above in my own code, and all it takes is a single extra line...
Unfortunately, most of the comments here are not based on first-hand technical knowledge. How many of you have tried to code against the OOXML spec? I have. It's pretty good.
Most people in the community of "people actually doing stuff in this area", which Miguel is a part of, feel like Microsoft is acting in good faith. See http://www.opensource.org/node/351.
I particularly love how he thinks ISO approval of OOXML is some sort of silver bullet against all allegations against him. Everybody in the know is very aware of the nastiness that went on with that. And as zdw in this discussion notes, it's ISO approval doesn't mean jack in reality.
The argument against OOXML is that it cannot be a standard since it says things akin to "must work like Word XXX here" - ie, it's just a bundling of a proprietary format inside XML.
Moreover, this is just not the way to "clear the air". I know relatively little about all the events but this kind of ad hominem rant sure sounds like something someone in a conspiracy would write ...
Here's what there actually was. There are older documents, from a variety of older programs (not all Microsoft, BTW), that do things that cannot be represented in OOXML (or ODF, for that matter).
There are many organizations that have documents in those formats, and have tools that understand those formats. E.g., a law office might have a lot of Word Perfect documents, and might have tools that understand WP format and can automate various things involving those documents.
Such organizations might want to update their document store to use a more modern format, like OOXML or ODF. However, they might need to preserve some of those things in the old documents that are not representable in the new format.
Suppose the standard says nothing about this. What should they do? Simple--they will find some way to add that extra information to the document. Both OOXML and ODF provide a couple of ways that one could include non-standrd. So what would likely happen is that everyone who deals with old documents would come up with their own in-house way of embedding this extra information.
Eventually, people would get smart. We'd realize that if you are embedding information about WP5 line spacing options in your OOXML or ODF conversions from WP5, and I'm embedding information about WP5 line spacing options in my OOXML or ODF conversions from WP5, then we should get together and agree to do it the same way--and we should get everyone else involved. We should come up with some kind of industry standard for storing WP5 line spacing options in documents converted from WP5 to OOXML or ODF.
Same goes for a bunch of other things from old word processors and spreadsheets. We'd eventually end up with a bunch of industry standards for all of these for OOXML and ODF. Hopefully, we'd combine them all and have one standard.
OK, now back to what they actually did in OOXML. They simply realized people would be doing this, and so reserved some names for them. That's all. Nothing in the OOXML spec said that you have to support WP5 line spacing, or know what it means, or have your OOXML programs be able to do it. All the spec said was IF you are going to extend the document to record WP5 line spacing (or the other specific features of old formats they identified), THEN use this as the name of your tag or attribute or whatever that marks it.
They also said that new documents should not use these things. It was strictly for people who were converting old documents and needed to keep that information.
I've yet to see anyone offer a rational objection to this.
How hard have you looked? They republished a lot of IBM's anti-OOXML FUD, and if anyone tried to challenge that in comments (well-researched comments, with cites to the specs for OOXML and ODF proving IBM lied), those comments would quickly get IP restricted. (Instead of deleting comments, Groklaw flags them so that they are only shown to people from the same IP that the comment was left from).
ISO approval doesn't mean jack in reality
As it is right now, Microsoft cannot sue alternative implementations of their ECMA standards for .NET. They can only do that for parts that aren't in those standards.
Also, in reality many governments like ISO standards.
Groklaw ... I've still never seen them offer anything other
than rational and backed interpretations of the presented facts
And I'm talking about reverse engineered formats here, for which there was no documentation, ISO or otherwise.
Also, have you ever implemented an ISO standard to be able to speak about it? I have.
Another (slightly less common) theme is his ad hominem attacks on [F]OSS figures/organizations/supporters such as the FSF and Groklaw, like you see here.
He's been at this for years, it's no stretch of an imagination to call it a "long history".
trying to push Mono as a dependancy on common linux systems
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
ad hominem attacks on [F]OSS figures/organizations/supporters
Again, I'm shocked that Miguel doesn't just bend over and take it like a chump.
While investigating the word "shill", a refresher on "ad hominem" would help, too, as the submitted blog entry is not an example of an ad hominem.