[Wylug-discuss] Why Office Document Standardisation Matters to *Everyone*

[David Holden]

On Friday 09 February 2007 5:50 pm, Dave Fisher wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 09, 2007 at 04:05:37PM +0000, David Holden wrote:
> >  Not been able follow this for time reason, in principle I agree with all
> > the above well articulated points. However a different slant on the issue
> > seems to have been given by Miguel de Icaza
> >
> >
> > http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Jan-30.html
> >
> >
> > Now since the Novell deal with M$ one may be tempted to discount his
> > views however some of his points on first reading seem reasonable in
> > particular regarding the size and detail of the standard.
>
> Thanks for the link Dave, I'd only (mis)read this piece second-hand
> until now.
>
> My first reading of it is that it's a very good critique of knee-jerk
> "OO+ODF is good",  "MS-Office+OOXML is bad" reactions, i.e.  his
> critique of the critics is fine.

 Agreed.

>
> In fact I find myself rather sympathic to almost all of de Icaza's
> criticisms of ODF, and SVG, as standards.
>
> But I think that both de Icaza and his enemies are mistaken in seeing
> this as and ODF vs OOXML fight (and those who see it as an OO vs
> MSOffice fight are even further off the mark).

Agreed.

Due to the limited time I've had to read round on this issue I've personally 
been wary of my own knee-jerk tendancies toward "OO+ODF is 
good",  "MS-Office+OOXML is bad". Your statement below is the key one for me 
and one with which I agree whole heartedly.


> To my mind, the real issue which people should be disputing, is the best
> route to a decent common standard for document formats, i.e. a partially
> strategic/political judgement and not merely a technical one.

Icaza states, "its easy to nitpick a standard". 

The current (not entirely justified) nitpicking of OOXML is really then a 
smaller battle in a bigger war and since Microsoft don't fight fairly why 
should we.

>
> The key strategic judgements one needs to make should be based on
> empirical evidence about the mutability of OOXML and likelihood of its
> becoming a level playing field for competition.
>
> ODF may be tied to OpenOffice.org, but that has not prevented other
> projects from implementing it, and quickly/cheaply. All the evidence
> suggests that this would not be the case with OOXML (remember ODF had
> 3rd party commitments to implement it before it became a standard).
>
> Moreover, OO's install base is still so small that significant
> improvements to ODF are quite foreseeable and would almost certainly be
> picked up by OO and the other implementors.
>
> By contrast, Microsoft are almost certain to resist significant
> ammendments to OOXML and even less likely to re-write Office 2007 in
> response to such ammendments ... not least, because lots of their
> customers would whinge about it.  Furtheremore, it's difficult to see
> who would want to improve the OOXML standard if only Microsoft are
> using it.
>
> Having many implementions of the same standard (a level playing field)
> seems much more likely to produce innovation and competition.
>
> The competitive pressure on MS to improve its CSS implementation in IE7,
> is an instructive contrast.

All excellent points which I have not heard down in the trenches of the 
standards body sniping.

>
> Like you, I'm uncomfortable with de Icaza's suggestions for 'the way
> forward', but not primarily because of his Novell/Microsoft links.
>
> His track record of playing catch-up, whilst simultaneously
> slipstreaming, MS platforms (Gnumeric, Mono, etc.) is not one of
> earth-shattering success.  If you were already committed to such a path,
> MS's 6,000 pages of documentation about OOXML would definitely look like
> a 'good thing'.
>
> I've not reached much of a judgement about whether of not Mono itself
> has been a 'good thing' overall.
>
> On the one hand it has definitely excited some interest from a minority
> of developers who work primarily (or exclusively) in the MS ecosystem.
>
> On the other hand, 100% of the MS-developers that I've met (and have
> tried Mono) have been scathing in their judgement of it (mostly, to the
> effect that its .Net subset is too small and/or poor to be of much use).
> I'm in no position to evaluate the veracity of such perceptions.
>
> However, I suspect that de Icaza's judgement sometimes gives more
> weight to his hopes, than it does to his experience.

completely agreed, in particular his statements regarding the IP issues around 
mono.

>
> If I get time, I'll try to dig up some of his past predictions about how
> long it would take for Mono to bury a range of Microsoft-only
> alternatives.

This would be interesting.

> Suffice it to say, we are still waiting ... and no longer 
> with baited breath.
>
> Dave
>
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-- 
Dr. David Holden.

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