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Microsoft Software IT

Microsoft Releases First Open XML SDK 120

Posted by Soulskill from the appeals-what-appeals dept.
Kurtz'sKompund tips us to news that Microsoft has released a finished version of the Open XML software development kit. Microsoft has made additional resources available with the download. Quoting Techworld: "The SDK includes an application programming interface (API) simplifying the creation of code for searching documents, creating documents, validating document parts, modifying data and other tasks, Microsoft said. The API can be used in any language supported by the Microsoft .Net Framework, the company said. The current SDK supports the version of Open XML supported by Office 2007, which is not the same as that ratified as a standard by the ISO, due to changes effected during the ratification process."
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Microsoft Releases First Open XML SDK More

Microsoft Releases First Open XML SDK

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    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by that_itch_kid ( 1155313 )
      It looks like you're trying to...

      http://www.imagegenerator.net/93941/ [imagegenerator.net]

    • Please don't call it Open XML (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13, 2008 @11:04PM (#23788661)
      Dear Editors, please don't call it Open XML — XML is already open so it's sounds as stupid as calling something Open Linux or Open Debian. They had 'Office Open XML' as a name to cause confusion with OpenOffice.org and now they've gone with 'Open XML' in order to create more confusion and to googlebomb the IT press with their misnamed technology.

      Instead, just call it OOXML.

      • Re:Please don't call it Open XML (Score:5, Funny)

        by Dr_Barnowl ( 709838 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @01:03AM (#23789395)
        I prefer MOOXML.

        Not only does it reinforce the concept that this is a product of Microsoft, it has amusing cow connotations.
        • You won't be so amused after the cow uprising.

          Or do you think it is an accident that beef is both delicious and bad for you?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by VP ( 32928 )
            Beef is bad for you only when consumed in excess. Otherwise it is an excellent source of protein, and the best source of hemoglobin for human red blood cells.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by maxume ( 22995 )
              That's an oversimplification right? I mean, the hemoglobin in the beef is broken down into its constituent parts during digestion, and then synthesized in the body into human hemoglobin, right?

              Poking around, it appears that it would be more correct to call beef an excellent source of myoglobin (or just protein in general) and iron.
        • I imagine it's pronounced "Mooks 'em all" ?
        • well MS does treat their customers like cattle...

  • MO2K7OXML, not Open XML (Score:5, Informative)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @09:20PM (#23788123) Journal
    This is Microsoft Office 2007 Open XML, not Open XML. An API for producing documents containing deprecated features is of no use to anyone bar Microsoft, who can claim tha they are making available tools that support a yet-to-be-defined standard.

    For all we know, the next version of Office will support the officially defined and documented standard, which will have hundreds of changes compared to the current O2K7 format of Open XML. Thus, everyone will have to recode all new stuff just to stay in sync. A wasted effort, in my opinion.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anpheus ( 908711 )
      Uhm, this API does the processing for you, so you'd have to do all that work anyway.

      Very little in the way of wasted effort. What this needs is a promise that Office 2007 and this API will be synced to the ISO specification.

      • Re:MO2K7OXML, not Open XML (Score:5, Informative)

        by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:38PM (#23788539)

        What this needs is a promise that Office 2007 and this API will be synced to the ISO specification.


        No, promises are easily broken by MS, we need it to sync to the ISO specs, not a promise. Think of all the other promises MS has made... We promise that Vista will be innovative, new, fast, out soon, etc. We promise that we will embrace an open Internet (well until we manage to kill Netscape that is...) We promise that OS/2 is the future. And more. MS has been full of promises but has never managed to fulfill any of the ones that help anyone.
        • Insensitive clod. In an alternate universe, OS/2 Warp /is/ the dominant desktop!
        • In other words: bill, I'm still getting spam in my mailbox. What gives?

      • Re:MO2K7OXML, not Open XML (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <aussie_bob@nOspAm.hotmail.com> on Saturday June 14, 2008 @01:03AM (#23789393) Journal
        What this needs is a promise that Office 2007 and this API will be synced to the ISO specification.

        No, what this needs is a promise that this API will be synced to ODF as well as Office XML/OOXML

        This is Microsoft's first attack on ODF on their platform. They were forced to grudgingly support the format in Office, now they are attempting to marginalise it by building an infrastructure around Office XML/OOXML.

        The end result will be that customers already locked in to Microsoft with tools like .NET and Sharepoint will only be able to interoperate with Office XML/OOXML, not ODF. Anyone wishing to interoperate with them will be forced to make the same decision

        This is an attack on ODF, an attempt to turn it into an orphan format. It will be half-heartedly supported in Office to appease regulators, but unsupported through the rest of the MS ecosystem.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by aproposofwhat ( 1019098 )
          I don't see this as an attack on ODF - since ODF is a standard, and is XML, standard tools (even MSXML) can be used to process ODF documents - there is no need for an API.

      • Others have said no, it needs... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by symbolset ( 646467 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @02:22AM (#23789739) Journal

        Very little in the way of wasted effort. What this needs is a promise that Office 2007 and this API will be synced to the ISO specification.

        Others have said no, it needs (x) so let me add one.

        No, it needs to be ignored. Let's talk to the customers on this one.

        A businessman's hope for his business is that it persist and grow for several decades at least, until he can reap his reward and exit phenomenally wealthy. If you architect your business intelligence on the platform of a corporation whose business model is to obsolete its platforms every five years at the most, you're an idiot and you deserve to be have your resources drained by this decade's P.T. Barnum until in the ferocious environment of the day you and your grand ideas are forgotten.

        In the public sector the objective is to conduct the public's business in such a way that resources are not wasted and required openness can be delivered. It's essential that the public's investment in creating information is well preserved. If you're in the public sector and architect public infrastructure on such a platform as Office 2007 OXML you're worse than incompetent - you're a traitor to the cause of public service.

        OOXML is irrelevant. The problem of construction of a document is solved. The user interface is an interesting diverse field where members compete but all the options that don't lead to truly open documents are blind alleys. Office 2007 formats are some of these blind alleys that will yield only wasted efforts because the vendor needs to obsolete your documents every five years in order to maintain its current cash flow. If you succeed in hitching your cart to this train it will come off its rails in less than five years when the provider needs to sell you new applications. Why would you do that? Trust me, if you're in public service and you choose to do that eventually somebody is going to follow the money right to you. Have you got longer than that to retirement? If you're in business the problem will solve itself and not to your benefit.

        • APPLAUSE

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by ck_808 ( 1302625 )

          If you architect your business intelligence on the platform of a corporation whose business model is to obsolete its platforms every five years at the most, you're an idiot and you deserve to be have your resources drained by this decade's P.T. Barnum until in the ferocious environment of the day you and your grand ideas are forgotten.

          In the public sector the objective is to conduct the public's business in such a way that resources are not wasted and required openness can be delivered. It's essential that the public's investment in creating information is well preserved. If you're in the public sector and architect public infrastructure on such a platform as Office 2007 OXML you're worse than incompetent - you're a traitor to the cause of public service.

          This is a little idealistic, a lot of people making the decisions simply dont have to clean up the mess personally or will have moved on to another job long before that happens.

          In the real world, how many managers do you think know about non MS alternatives and are willing to pick them ?

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        a promise that a MS product will follow specs? Did you notice how long takes them to make IE competitive again? Adding tabs took them years.

        But anyway, when Microsoft LICENSES, not friggin promises, a submarine-patent free, open source, ISO standardized format SDK that won't change every two years just because redmond likes to stay in control, I "Promise" I will look at it.

  • Paper vs de facto (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NaCh0 ( 6124 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @09:21PM (#23788131) Homepage
    The current SDK supports the version of Open XML supported by Office 2007, which is not the same as that ratified as a standard by the ISO, due to changes effected during the ratification process.

    Because anyone who follows Microsoft knows the game is to never have the two match.

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by blind biker ( 1066130 )

      Because anyone who follows Microsoft knows the game is to never have the two match.
      So true. And one would think this is known by everyone, especially in the OSS community. Oh, but did you know that .NET is the future of Gnome? [theregister.co.uk]

  • continue the charade, but we dont buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plasmacutter ( 901737 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @09:41PM (#23788241)
    Continue the charade all you want microsoft, but we don't buy it, and your mockery of the open standards process is now under heavy attack in the form of appeals.

    Nobody but the people you pay to think otherwise is fooled.

    • Nobody but the people you pay to think otherwise is fooled.
      Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software (or Standards) Only Fools Teenagers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software (or Standards) Only Fools Teenagers.
        I didn't realize we were still in the dotcom years when CIOs were teenagers...

  • An API is useless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mlwmohawk ( 801821 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @09:48PM (#23788271)
    The "API" is useless without a fully documented format. The API will die over time just as certainly as the applications that use it. The only real answer to long term data storage is full documentation that can be used to create applications, on any platform, free of encumbrances, that can read and format the documents that you create on your systems that you've paid for.

    • Re:An API is useless (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13, 2008 @09:54PM (#23788295)
      That does explain why Microsoft Office has virtually no marketshare, and how VBA with Office is not of the most widely used programming languages.

      Yes, your goals are noble, but your claims are invalidated by reality.

      • Re:An API is useless (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mlwmohawk ( 801821 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:11PM (#23788389)
        Yes, your goals are noble, but your claims are invalidated by reality.

        Actually reality validates my statement. The is a current crisis in both the public and private sector about digital documents from the 80s not being accessible because the document format is no longer supported and and there are no readers for them.

        This may sound odd to you, but "marketshare" is not the answer to every question. All too often, it is a short sighted answer to complex issues.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          The is a current crisis in both the public and private sector about digital documents from the 80s not being accessible because the document format is no longer supported and and there are no readers for them.

          Crisis? Give me $10 and I'll convert any "digital document from the 80s" you throw at me.

          I've been doing DTP for 20 years. All the tools I used back in the 80s still work. (Clunky, based on DOS or Win 3.1, or Mac OS 7, but they still work without too much hassle. Adobe File Utilities for instace.)

          • Re:An API is useless (Score:5, Insightful)

            by mlwmohawk ( 801821 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:45PM (#23788581)
            Crisis? Give me $10 and I'll convert any "digital document from the 80s" you throw at me.

            Yea, but should we have to pay *you* or someone like you for every instance of a document that can not be read?

            An ad-hoc solution for a specific document is not a solution for the over all problem.

            • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

              by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
              Yea, but should we have to pay *you* or someone like you for every instance of a document that can not be read? An ad-hoc solution for a specific document is not a solution for the over all problem.

              Of course $10 is ad hoc. We can negotiate for 10 million. Generally you have a lot of documents in a similar format. Might take a few hours, or at most days, to work out a method, then they can all be done en masse. Or with a little bit more work, create a custom app to convert transparently on demand. In any

          • Yeah because people and companies want to have to pay someone else to convert their documents or install numerous operating systems in emulation to print a document. That's so much easier than having one format that everything supports.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
              Yeah because people and companies want to have to pay someone else to convert their documents or install numerous operating systems in emulation to print a document. That's so much easier than having one format that everything supports.

              And what colour pony do you want?

              The problem is legacy documents. No amount of lecturing people about what they should have done, if indeed anyone who created them is still around 20 years later, will do any good. Obviously, if people paid attention, they would not repeat

              • But obviously, most documents are still being created in ever-more convoluted proprietary formats. So this WILL get worse.

                Personally, I use plain ASCII for as much as possible.

                Which is why some people are trying to put an end to that with ODF and it's all well and good to use ASCII but aside from creating readme files and personal notes, that's not enough these days.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
                  Which is why some people are trying to put an end to that with ODF and it's all well and good to use ASCII but aside from creating readme files and personal notes, that's not enough these days.

                  Obviously. I design books. I do pretty elaborate layouts when necessary.

                  The thing is, a lot -- I'd guess over 90%-- of documents created could easily and even preferably be done in plain text. I do all my email like that, for a start, and filter incoming email to plain text. It reduces storage by about 80% on form

                  • I agree and use plain text email but I would never do a report or a CV in notepad. It's only good for shorter communication because you need little things, like bold text, to make things more readable.
          • I've been doing DTP for 20 years. All the tools I used back in the 80s still work. (Clunky, based on DOS or Win 3.1, or Mac OS 7, but they still work without too much hassle. Adobe File Utilities for instace.) These can convert, sometimes via intemediate formats, to formats like RTF and thus to anything, or just printed to Postscript and distilled to PDF.

            Ok, I have more than 5000 documents in several obsolete formats.

            Your way is to open each document with the original editor, save it in however many in

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
              Our way is to use an open, well specified format that we can simply write automated conversion tools for.
              See any differences in efficiency there?

              Yes. "Your way" is useless.
              The question was about 20-YEAR-OLD LEGACY DOCUMENTS. Not what we should do NOW when creating new ones.

              And obviously for 5000 documents I would use a macro, batch, etc. It is and was possible to write "automated conversion tools" using 1980s software, you know.

              Actually, many "obsolete formats" are very well supported, if not an ISO

    • "Useless" is a bit extreme. One might say that the format is useless to many without proper documentation. The API provides immediate use without a guarantee of support in the long term. This just adds overhead for support for those using the format in its current state with MS's API. Of course, the wise decision for continued long term use would be to avoid this document format..though that doesn't mean it's "useless". I suppose usefulness is pretty subjective, too.

  • Lay back and receive your SDK (Score:5, Insightful)

    by adamwpants ( 858079 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @09:54PM (#23788297) Homepage
    An API for suck does not undo the suck.

  • How do these lying fucks live with themselves??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:07PM (#23788361)

    which is not the same as that ratified as a standard by the ISO, due to changes effected during the ratification process.

    What a steaming pile of bullshit! First off, it hasn't really been ratified yet, ahem. Second, the draft that Microsoft submitted did not match the version used in Office 2007, before any changes were made.

  • Not An ISO Standard (Score:5, Informative)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:08PM (#23788375) Homepage
    > The current SDK supports the version of Open XML supported by Office 2007, which is not
    > the same as that ratified as a standard by the ISO

    No version of Microsoft's "Open XML" has been ratified as a standard by the ISO.
    • And no one is appealing the non-ratification of Microsoft's "Open XML". Except for the Office version, maybe?

  • API can be used in any language... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vexorian ( 959249 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:25PM (#23788461)

    API can be used in any language supported by the Microsoft .Net Framework
    In other words, the API barely works in .net only. A document format specification that is so hard to support that you need a platform dependent API in order to use, sounds about MSish enough.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
      I got a comment in same context along with registered trademark symbols. I am just counting seconds before someone got fooled by Icaza or basically working for a Web 2.0 marketing company come up with "but there is Mono"... I will ask a single working, commercial application coded and shipped to OS X scene thanks to Mono or a single vendors end user application which is available on Linux thanks to Mono.

      • Mono (Score:2)

        by SEMW ( 967629 )

        I will ask a single working, commercial application coded and shipped to OS X scene thanks to Mono or a single vendors end user application which is available on Linux thanks to Mono

        I'm not familiar with the OS X software scene, but w.r.t Linux there are many widely-used applications written in Mono. To claim otherwise is just ignorance. Thanks to Wikipedia for the following selection of popular mono applications for Linux (some Linux-only, some cross-platform):

        • Banshee [wikipedia.org] music management and playback software for GNOME.
        • Beagle [wikipedia.org] desktop search tool.
        • Blam [wikipedia.org] RSS-news aggregator, especially for Planet-feeds.
        • Diva [wikipedia.org] video editing application for GNOME.
        • Gnome Do [wikipedia.org] desktop application launchi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
          I mean commercial, end user applications. For example, search "requires .NET" applications and look if they can ship to Linux thanks to Mono.

          I can give lots of applications who are hugely popular which ships same exact versions to multiple platforms thanks to Java. A recent commercial/popular success example is "Vuze" (Azureus). From Linux land, thanks to Trolltech Qt, a true multiplatform framework, Amarok 2 will release on X11/OS X and Windows using the same code.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SEMW ( 967629 )

            I mean commercial, end user applications. For example, search "requires .NET" applications and look if they can ship to Linux thanks to Mono.

            As I said in my post, more than one of the apps I linked to are cross-platform. However, it's true they were mostly FOSS rather than commercial; and so I suppose if you have some wierd, skewed definition of "end-user application" that restricts itself to "commercial" programs only, as you apparently do, then my list wouldn't be very good at alleviating ignorance.

            However, never fear, as five seconds of Googling that you are apparently unable or incompetent to do yourself yields lots of examples of comme

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
              I ask about serious, commercial applications everyone wants to run on their Windows and OS X, you come up with couple of demo like junk which isn't anywhere competitive and calling me ignorant. My definition of "end user application" is 1M+ downloaded Applications by general public, not some nerds.

              "With the integration of Versora's technology into the Kaseya management framework, managing a user's day to day state and assisting in seamless data migration to new desktop operating systems such as Microsoft Vi
    • Erm... leaving aside the trollish "barely" (have you done any .NET development? It works, and works well), calling .NET "platform dependent" is a bit excessive. Mono is quite mature yet still improving rapidly; I don't know if this API requires features Mono doesn't support yet but I guarantee they'll be supported soon. Aside from that, Wine now supports .NET (you can install .NET 2.0 from Microsoft - I think .NET 1.1 may even be included in the Wine installation).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by croftj ( 2359 )
      That reminds me of an incident at work where we were talking about code when someone said that code produced with the Win32 libraries was cross platform compatible. Windows 95, Window NT ...

      This SDK can be used by any language, as long as it's a language of MS!
    • You don't *need* a "platform dependent" API.
      Go go http://openxmldeveloper.org/ [openxmldeveloper.org], and you'll find dozens of Java sample code examples for manipulating OOXML documents.

      This .NET based API just makes it all the easier for those that are .NET programmers. Yeah, I know most slashdotters think that .NET is utter crap and therefore any .NET library is useless, but slashdotters aren't the target for this API.

      There's nothing preventing slashdotters from making their own OOXML API, or even an ODF API if they want a "

  • ISO should read this over and over, 1000 times (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ilgaz ( 86384 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @10:30PM (#23788493) Homepage
    "You can use the Open XML API in any language supported by the Microsoft .NET Framework®. The help topics presented in this SDK provide code samples in Microsoft Visual C#® and Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET."

    • ISO should read this over and over, 1000 times: "You can use the Open XML API in any language supported by the Microsoft .NET Framework®. The help topics presented in this SDK provide code samples in Microsoft Visual C#® and Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET."

      Can you be more specific about why? It's the OOXML specification which the ISO is concerned with. An available SDK has little to do with whether OOXML is a suitable document specification one way or the other, as far as I can tell.

      Micro

      • the point of the ISO is to formalize standards as OPEN

        this means the the standard should be implementable without having to wade through a morass of patents.

        the standard was documented through references to microsoft propreitary code, and now the api is being implemented in microsoft proprietary dev environments.

        that is the point.

        • Re:It's irrelevant to the ISO (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @03:57AM (#23790083) Journal

          this means the the standard should be implementable without having to wade through a morass of patents. the standard was documented through references to microsoft propreitary code, and now the api is being implemented in microsoft proprietary dev environments. that is the point.

          Uh, everything in DotNet is implemented in a proprietary dev environment. This has nothing to do with the openness of standards being implemented. Setting aside your initial claim that the ISO is supposed to validate a standard as being free of patents (which I don't believe to be true), the GP post seemed to be trying to claim that the fact that Microsoft happens to be providing a DotNet SDK has some kind of relevance to this standard not being open.

          The DotNet API is not "the" API. It's an API that Microsoft provides. Furthermore this API, nor any other API for OOXML is the standard -- it's just a method of using the standard. The fact that Microsoft has created an API to help some of their paying customers to manage OOXML documents more easily really has nothing to do with whether OOXML is a good standard. The standard -- good or bad -- is the definition of the format, not the method of accessing it.

          Microsoft provides DotNet APIs for working with standards such as SMTP, TCP/IP, HTML, GZip, and a whole host of standards that probably everyone would agree are open. Do you think this somehow compromises their open-ness? It also provides DotNet APIs for a heap of things that aren't open, or are even very Microsoft-specific. But it's not the presence of Microsoft APIs that makes those standards closed -- it's the fact that the standards aren't clearly published in a way that allows them to be implemented.

          It's actually valid to argue that nobody else can write a valid API based on the specification, but this doesn't seem to be what either yourself or the GP post, or most of the responses to this article for that matter, are doing. Trying to draw some kind of imaginary causation between the standard being broken and Microsoft happening to provide a method of using it more easily on its own platform is ridiculous.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by shutdown -p now ( 807394 )

            Uh, everything in DotNet is implemented in a proprietary dev environment.
            Er? C#, CLI (including binary image format and instruction codes), and the Base Class Library are all *ahem* ISO standards.

            • Er? C#, CLI (including binary image format and instruction codes), and the Base Class Library are all *ahem* ISO standards.

              Okay, I stand corrected. In which case, doesn't this just demonstrate the parent's claim about DotNet being proprietary as meaningless? I think the point, though, was that Microsoft presumably isn't providing the source code for their SDK, but theoretically they shouldn't need to because it's the OOXML specification that matters.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
        "Most of these SDKs primarily target DotNet because that's the primary development platform that Microsoft wants people to write Windows apps in"

        Isn't it time for Microsoft to admit there are lots of other development environments? If they bitch about fragmented Linux, there is Apple there, has standard "XCode" which everyone is free to plugin.

        They are like making it on purpose. It shouldn't be hard to put a tar.gz or even ZIP file containing stuff.h files inside along with usual C sources. Is there a gang

        • Isn't it time for Microsoft to admit there are lots of other development environments? If they bitch about fragmented Linux, there is Apple there, has standard "XCode" which everyone is free to plugin.

          Perhaps it is, but why does this have anything to do with the ISO's certification of OOXML?

          Don't you think Sun and IBM won't use it against Microsoft? They will show how neutral their things are, even running on OS X and they will show line managing to put 4 registered trademark symbols in a sentence.

          If th

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by nawcom ( 941663 )
      Christ, now I'm scared to use the Open XML API.

      • Good! You should be (at least until you have a lawyer confirm that it doesn't have any copyright or patent entanglements).

  • What is the "ratified" version? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Friday June 13, 2008 @11:05PM (#23788675) Homepage Journal

    which is not the same as that ratified as a standard by the ISO, due to changes effected during the ratification process
    What is the version ratified by the ISO? They never published it - no one has ever seen it. One wonders if the ISO even knows what was ratified by the ISO. I suspect they were relieved at the appeals - it gave them an excuse to keep on without publishing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SEMW ( 967629 )

      I suspect they were relieved at the appeals - it gave them an excuse to keep on without publishing.
      No need to read semi-consipiracy theories into every nook and cranny. They can't publish a standard until it's ratified (otherwise there is nothing to publish). They can't ratify OOXML until the appeals process is over (and then only if the appeal is unsuccessful, obviously). This is all normal practice.
      • The standard was ratified, at which point the ISO was obligated to publish within 30 days. A deadline they missed, which is one of the reasons that several of the appeals actually cited as to why they were appealing. The ISO not publishing the text by the given deadline is not a conspiracy theory - it's a fact and a matter of record. I would encourage you to read the published appeals.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by holloway ( 46404 )
        Have you been following the appeals? National Bodies should have received a text by now (as pointed out by South Africa, Brazil). They should have received a final text by the end of March, and they still don't have it. South Africa wrote in their appeal,

        Clause 13.12, last bullet point: "In not more than one month after the ballot resolution group meeting the SC Secretariat shall distribute the final report of the meeting and final DIS text in case of acceptance."

        Up to date of writing, neither the final r

  • I missed something (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zapakh ( 1256518 ) on Friday June 13, 2008 @11:09PM (#23788701)
    When did this stop being called "Office Open XML" and start being called "Open XML"? Or is this yet another new animal?
    • When it went through ISO I think. They decided that the "Office" bit tied it a bit too much to the MS product of the same name, and so calling it simply "Open XML" was better.

      But since this SDK is based on the Office 2007 implementation which isn't the spec that went through ISO, the one that has been named Open XML, and the one that isn't actually a standard anyway.... erm... I think this would be better described as an "Office Open XML SDK"!

      Hope that clears up any confusion! :D
    • They're introducing the time-honored Japanese tradition of abbreviating everything down to four syllables or less (because when you transliterate something to Japanese, the syllables increase by an order of magnitude).

      It's been done numerous times over there, like "pasokon", "karaoke", "pokemon", "nabeatsu"*...

      * Sorry, can't think of anything "Omoro!" right now, so this'll have to do.

  • I didn't know XML was closed... (Score:5, Funny)

    by deanston ( 1252868 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @12:15AM (#23789141)
    MSFT's next initiative: Source Open Software (SOS), to source all software technology from open source. By ISO submission time the word 'Source' will be dropped and it will simply be known as the Open Software Standard, at which time all lawsuit against MS shall be dismissed due to the fact that the 'OS' in Windows product line will no longer stand for 'operating system'... Hey Microsoft, pay me for the idea! I patented it...

  • Tags (Score:2)

    by n3tcat ( 664243 )
    If ever there were a time that goodluckwiththat were appropriate...
  • I feel like a French small businessman who believed he was safe from the Nazis no matter what. I took the position that "The New and Improved Bill" could rant and beat his chest all he wanted to, I was safe. Now with this mucking about with XML (and friends) and subversion of "standards," I feel the tanks rolling down MY street! Would some kind soul post a link a few good authoritative links on the specific XML debate? Who is siding with whom? WHICH standards body matters most at this point? -Yours, Bleed
  • It just shows that MS never intended to support an open format.

    We've been duped ... again.

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