Microsoft Releases Pre-2007 Binary File Format Specs 269
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has released the specifications for the binary file formats used by pre-2007 Microsoft Office applications. They're accurate this time! Honest! While the documents are enormous (Word alone requires 533 pages; Excel runs over 1000 plus another 850 pages for the Office 2007 binary format), they hopefully will be useful to developers trying to create or extract information from Microsoft Office files (which despite their flaws, have been the de facto standard in many fields for some time now)."
I think the real question (Score:5, Funny)
The catch (Score:4, Funny)
The released specifications are in a pre-2007 MS Office binary file format.
Chicken and Egg (Score:5, Funny)
The only problem? They released them in Word format...
(Okay, not really -- someone must have realized that that would be silly.)
Yay for Microsoft! (Score:3, Funny)
Wait ... what did I just say? ...
I don't think I'm feeling well. I'm gonna go lie down now.
Re:How freaking "open" of them... (Score:2, Funny)
You may benefit from a patent license if you are distributing implementations of these protocols commercially or if you use an implementation of any of the protocols covered by Microsoft patents. For more information, contact the Microsoft Open Protocols Team.
Ah, well, at least now I know that "Open" in this context means "Open Your Wallet".
Re:I think the real question (Score:5, Funny)
That's actually hidden in the released documents. You have to go to a specific page of the Excel portion, and by starting at a specific line and skipping the correct numbers of lines between read lines, the spec will be revealed. The exact details are left as an exercise for the morbidly curious.
Re:unusually bloated ? (Score:2, Funny)
"This Page Intentionally Left Blank"
Re:interesting... (Score:2, Funny)
Indeed. This is a strange new move by the borg.
Shields up.
Weapons online.
Red Alert.
All hands to battlestations.
Re:The catch (Score:3, Funny)
You laugh, but I remember seeing someone upload (to a BBS many years ago) a copy of PKZip in .zip format . . .
Re:How freaking "open" of them... (Score:5, Funny)
are we clear ? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a Trap! (Score:5, Funny)
20 years ago, at what was the world's largest software project, we used to joke that if we wanted to ruin our competition, we would send them a copy of our specs. It looks to me that Microsoft got the same idea.
Re:interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. This is a strange new move by the borg.
This reminds me the episode of House M.D. when he started acting nice one day and everyone began freaking out.
You should chill out and think of this being more of a partial victory than an enemy's plan.
Re:How freaking "open" of them... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How freaking "open" of them... (Score:3, Funny)
And at least you offered the appearance of what feels like an insightful post...
What makes you think so? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How freaking "open" of them... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So that's only about 2400 pages! (Score:2, Funny)
Because "pages" are a great way to measure a specs size..
Exactly. How many Libraries of Congress is this?