What is Digg?75 Comments
- vibrokatana, on 04/13/2008, -7/+87Obligatory ***** OOXML
- smotpoker, on 04/13/2008, -5/+52OOXML is supposed to be microsoft's open successor to DOC format. It was created after dozens of countries and thousands of programmers complained for years about MS's closed/proprietary/anti-competitive DOC implementation that prevented developers from competing with either the format or Word/Works competently without paying MS thousands of dollars.
ODF was created so that EVERYONE could develop wordprocessing software and documents that were inter-compatible with each other, OOXML is a crappier version of ODF MS threw together so that they can own the patents and modify it however they want later. - elvisa, on 04/13/2008, -2/+40I'm blown away by the ignorance to the real issue at hand. OOXML is Microsoft's proposed standard for document collaboration which they managed to fast-track through ISO via their typical actions. ODF is the community-proposed alternative.
What's the difference? Well for starters, Microsoft's OOXML standard is a 6000-page document. For any engineer to pick this up and decipher it is an enormous task. ODF is around one tenth the size, yet defines the same amount of systems clearly and concisely without confusion. This makes ODF easier and faster to build with less ambiguity.
Secondly, OOXML (as with most Microsoft systems) was designed by competing teams internal to Microsoft. The end result is that there is no consistency between projects, as documented here:
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/disharmony-of- ...
Three different documents yield three radically different methods of defining data under OOXML. By contrast, ODF uses a consistent method of defining text formatting. This makes interoperability with third party applications far easier. This is hugely important for ensuring document management systems and searching of document stores (say for example, searching government/law information inside documents on a government website) works correctly.
Worse: not even Microsoft are yet supporting OOXML fully. Asides from making the format difficult to understand, Office 2007 doesn't even fully support the standard completely. Not a good start when the company who writes the standard doesn't even want to use it.
To all the people saying this isn't a big deal: you are grossly mistaken. Brazil as a country understands the need to use sensible standards that ensure a simple and reliable future for software developers. Further, they understand that certain industries need to be guaranteed that the data they create today is accessible in years to come. Industries like public services, finance, medicine and architecture to name but a few need data to be accessible decades (often centuries) after it is created. OOXML makes no guarantees that the data will be valid even 5 years into the future when the next version of Office is released and Microsoft dumps the standard. Conversely, ODF ensures that the document encoding will stay in the hands of the public forever.
This is not an "anti-Microsoft" issue. This is ensuring that important documents that are required for decades to come can be decoded simply by anyone who needs access to them. ODF is a sensible standard, and even Microsoft support it in their software. ODF is good for everyone, including Microsoft. - ichbeineinrcg, on 04/13/2008, -6/+40ISO/IEC 26200 was so much better than ISO/IEC 26300. Unless their server packets are routed through the Linux valve, their kernels will lolcat sporadically causing the heat tape inside the blade servers to fap. This is why we should only use builds and distros that are 4chan.OSX.pron compliant.
I am a tech genius. - bensone1, on 04/13/2008, -8/+38whoo hoo?
- smotpoker, on 04/13/2008, -3/+30ODF > DOC/OXML
Yes, it is a huge deal since it offers potential for multiplatform compatibility that is untainted by MS vendor lockin tactics. People won't be forced to us MS products almost exclusively and developers won't have to waste thousands of hours with reverse engineering or attempting to mitigate MS's anti-competitive efforts - inactive, on 04/13/2008, -1/+22Your post made me kill my dog.
- zelah, on 04/13/2008, -7/+25I read the article and I still have no idea what this is about.
- drunknmunky1, on 04/13/2008, -1/+19Gonna be? Where have you been?
- smotpoker, on 04/13/2008, -1/+17Brazil's adoption in and of itself isn't, but ODF is. Any adoption of it is good and a step towards compatibility, and therefore freedom
- zephyear, on 04/13/2008, -3/+18wat
- noseeme, on 04/13/2008, -1/+15After reading your post, I decided it would make sense to pick up 5 random children off the street and cut their legs off.
- markdall, on 04/13/2008, -0/+14No, it's an XML file, manifest, and other crap stuck inside a ZIP file. Get it right.
- noseeme, on 04/13/2008, -4/+17Wewt. ***** OOXML.
- slythfox, on 04/13/2008, -2/+15Well, also, one OpenOffice developer was scared that not approving OOXML would be back for Open Office in the end. This is good news because not only is OOXML basically dead, but ODF is being recognized.
- TypeEE, on 04/13/2008, -0/+12It means MS Word is no longer the de facto standard of documents. ODF (Opendocument format) is officially a standard in Brazil.
- ninjasquirrel, on 04/13/2008, -4/+15OOXML is just DOC serialized to XML... completely useless.
- mossblaser, on 04/13/2008, -3/+13I was going to write a long response to your message pointing out how wrong you are but instead I chose to welcome you to my block list.
- inactive, on 04/13/2008, -1/+10pr0n compliant? I totally agree!
- gahal, on 04/13/2008, -1/+9My comment above would have been better, had I used a working link.
http://www.openoffice.org/ - inactive, on 04/13/2008, -0/+7I concur.
- ArchangelZLT, on 04/13/2008, -5/+12The problem is, many people are so addicted to Microsoft they mark any anti-Microsoft behavior "unthinkable".
Microsoft's gonna be the new tech Big Brother. - gahal, on 04/13/2008, -2/+9Try http:/openoffice.org
Give it a month, and you will probably not go back to 'MS Office'. - Knowa22, on 04/13/2008, -0/+7that wasn't even Portuguese!
"Não entendi" (I didn't understand) is what you meant to say? - gahal, on 04/13/2008, -3/+9Microsoft makes ***** products, yet has awesome marketing / market hold.
- vibrokatana, on 04/13/2008, -2/+8> "I mean really .. I would much rather have the 6000 version as it more detailed and leaves less question."
The problem is that those 6000 pages only describe what not HOW. Often times things like formatting, rendering lines, etc are omitted by saying it is rendered by x library or program. So companies will have to reverse engineer portions to have a fully functional spec. ODF describes how to implement every portion of the spec in those 600 pages, is much more cleanly written and doesn't lock anyone in to any libraries or platforms. The difference is like trying to build a car from an instruction manual vs full blueprints, you can guess which is easier. - nyx210, on 04/13/2008, -1/+6A valiant attempt...
- thomasprebble, on 04/13/2008, -0/+5It's especially evident on Digg.
- z0mbie2099, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4Look it up, you ignorant *****.
- slythfox, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4See the replies to the comment above your's for as to why this is important.
- qwuinc, on 04/13/2008, -0/+4Crap is still crap though, even if it's a different colour.
- pagno, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3I liked that movie. Then again, Im a musician, so..
- boobsbr, on 04/13/2008, -0/+3yes! ***** the riaa is never enough. also, ***** the mpaa. and ooxml too.
- vincentweber, on 04/13/2008, -1/+4What MS always does is that they create a standard, then let everybody adopt that standard. Then they 'improve' the standard (read = change it) or change it to something else so that everyone who is not using MS products is fed up with something that does not work with MS products anymore. The majority uses MS so they create stuff that other products/OS's can't use. This is how MS crushes competition... Not because they have better product but because of actions like these. In order to let everyone switch to MS products, MS makes compatibility with these previous standards so everyone can change their stuff to MS stuff but they can't change MS stuff back into other stuff because MS products don't allow you to. Nasty, right?
- pagno, on 04/13/2008, -1/+4I dont know what the ***** just said you said little man, but you touched.. a heart.
- smotpoker, on 04/13/2008, -2/+4Interestingly enough, the same person who thinks people who smoke marijuana are too stupid to understand the ISO standardization process is himself incapable of discerning between the words "however" and "whenever".
Under normal circumstances I might go so far as to suggest irony but I know how that usually goes on digg... I think I'll just settle for calling you a judgmental moron who is either incapable of perceiving or unwilling to acknowledge the pattern of vendor lock-in and unethical business MS has consistently pursued for decades.
Nice burn there, buddy - bahmak2004, on 04/13/2008, -1/+3your a crap xation
- inactive, on 04/15/2008, -0/+2I hate how people are so PC around here. Seriously, WTF? I though this was hilarious.
- g0nad, on 04/13/2008, -1/+3Awesome call.
***** Microsoft. In the ass. - CarzorStelatis, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1If you're going to use caps, at least learn to spell first.
- CarzorStelatis, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Exactly. OpenOffice says that it can open files in Word 6.0 DOC - a 14-year old proprietary format with a helluva lot less documentation available than OOXML has now.
- GruntboyX, on 04/14/2008, -0/+1This issue is getting old....so Brazil adopts ODF as a standard. At the end of the day the adoption of the standard is determined by the market. So until i start seeing articles about ODF's market share taking away office, then I honestly couldn't care less. Not to mention, any document that I compose that is considered incredibly important and needs to be archived for years, is exported to pdf. The last thing I want is some yahoo opening it up and editing it 15 years from now. He should be working from the most recent revision which will naturally be in the appropriate format that is used by the appropriate document creation software at that time. I think the thing we are loosing in this whole ODF vs OOXML debacle is rather insignificant because this problem is resolved by any internal document control system. I dont see businesses ever adopting either standard. They will use whatever file format that is the most compatible to their document creation software.
Governments, i can see being a different issue. The documents created at the time will need to be viewable by many people other than internal to the Government. A open document standard leads itself to being useful. But again, my point stands, being able to read and being able to edit are two different things. PDF is a more natural document standard because the market has already accepted it. It is a trivial task now to export to PDF to allow people to view. 20 years from now any document will be viewable, but do you really want to edit it?
I feel we are getting worked up over a phantom issue, that the market has already solved. I feel that "open standards" are being forced onto the market for reasons other than "openness" and are really more about competing with the dominant player. And can you blame Microsoft for not wanting to implement open standards? Its not like they are a charity organization, that would gladly give their competitors the ability to compete with them more effectively.
I think sometimes we loose sight of common sense and reality - mahler, on 04/14/2008, -0/+1I don't think they have *****-product. But they are not as good as you can have for that money. Other products do require an investment of time, which I think will pay off in many cases.
- NedSlider, on 04/15/2008, -0/+1Amen to that.
I'll go a bit further - I don't believe Microsoft has any intentions of ever fully supporting OOXML, even if it does eventually become an ISO standard. It's simply not in their interests to do so. - CarzorStelatis, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Er... 'whenever' - at any time
'however' - in any way
There's nothing wrong with what he said, which is (paraphrased) "Microsoft's intent for OOXML was not to be able to modify it at any time" - CarzorStelatis, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Erm... MS Word can still be the de facto standard. ODF is now the 'de jure' standard in Brazil, that doesn't stop Word from being the de facto standard.
- whodathunk, on 04/13/2008, -0/+1Apparently drunk, on Mars, in a cave, eyes closed, fingers in ears, and going 'na-na-na-na-na....' for the last, well, fifteen years?
That, or he/she was born yesterday... - digitalpencil, on 04/13/2008, -2/+3ODF NBR ISO/IEC 26300!!
I don't consider myself to be technologically inept, but did anyone else just click this link with a 'WTF?' in the back of their mind? - bahmak2004, on 04/13/2008, -1/+2and why your here?
- robmackman, on 04/13/2008, -0/+1For all those who do not know what ODF is, take the 10 seconds and wiki the acronym rather than complaining about not knowing what it stands for
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