Massachusetts Puts Open XML Out for Consideration
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Massachusetts Monday proposed adding Microsoft-developed Open XML to its list of approved open documents formats.
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UPDATED - In another carefully timed move to garner support for its document format still under consideration for an international standard, Microsoft today clarified the terms under which use of its Office Open XML format by developers is permitted.
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State and city governments, spearheaded by Massachusetts, are becoming the newest converts to the open source software movement.
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UPDATED - In what could be Microsoft's most symbolic victory to date in the battle to legitimize the principal formats used by its Office applications, the State of Massachusetts officially declared Office Open XML -- the new standard format set in Office 2007 -- "another standardized XML-based file format specification suitable for office applications."
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Microsoft is calling IBM out over its opposition to Office Open XML, saying it is attempting to create a movement to prevent ISO standardization of the format. In an open letter posted to its Web site, Microsoft claims IBM is trying to limit choice by pushing the OpenDocument Format.
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Sleepycat Software this week announced the general availability of Berkeley DB XML 2.0, a major upgrade to its open source database for telecommunication infrastructure and enterprise data centers. This release adds support for XQuery 1.0, an emerging standard for XML data access, as well as improvements in performance and usability. Other enhancements include support for XPath 2.0, which allows the selection of a portion of an XML document, and support for the PHP API, which enables developers using the PHP scripting languages to work with XML documents.  ADVERTISEMENTSolaris 10(TM) OS: Position your business ten moves ahead.Solaris 10 OS has arrived and provides even more reasons for the world's most demanding businesses to operate on this, the leading UNIX platform. Like the fact you can run Linux and Solaris applications side-by-side and run the same OS on SPARC(R), AMD Opteron(TM), and Intel processor-based systems. Discover more reasons and how Solaris 10 OS can move your business ahead today.
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Microsoft's version of XML is now drawing support from the U.S. representative to the ISO standards body.
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More than 300 e-mails, obtained under Massachusetts public records laws, show Microsoft lobbied for legislation that could have stripped the state's IT unit of much of its decision-making power. But it backed off and compromised with the state's CIO on plug-in support for the Open Document Format in Office.
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InfoWorld - Sleepycat Software this week announced the general availability of Berkeley DB XML 2.0, a major upgrade to its open source database for telecommunication infrastructure and enterprise data centers. This release adds support for XQuery 1.0, an emerging standard for XML data access, as well as improvements in performance and usability. Other enhancements include support for XPath 2.0, which allows the selection of a portion of an XML document, and support for the PHP API, which enables developers using the PHP scripting languages to work with XML documents.
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A new standard aims to help users pass information between Web services without sharing full access to their identities.
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(InfoWorld) - With ISO's Sept. 2 voting deadline looming, the recently retired secretary general of ECMA International defended Microsoft's Office Open XML document format against fierce technical criticism. "Give me any standard, and I bet you I can find an error," said Jan Van Den Beld, who retired in April after 16 years running Geneva-based ECMA, in a telephone interview on Monday with Computerworld. ECMA is shepherding Open XML, the default format used by Office 2007 documents, through ISO's traditionally difficult approval process. The international standards group has set a Sept. 2 deadline for the 20 nations that are members of the ISO Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC-1) to vote on whether to approve Open XML. Van Den Beld, who oversaw ECMA's approval of 229 technical standards, many of which were later approved by ISO, also predicts that Open XML will be approved next spring after a follow-up ISO meeting. "Ultimately, I think it will get through," he said. Friends and foes line up That's no sure thing, however. The document format faces strong opposition from grassroots advocates who want to see free productivity software such as that of OpenOffice.org gain a foothold, as well as from vendors such as IBM. Opponents argue that Open XML is redundant in light of the technically similar Open Document Format for Office Applications (known as ODF) which is native to OpenOffice.org and was approved as a standard more than a year ago by ISO. They also argue the Open XML proposal is too long (6,500-plus pages) to evaluate during this abbreviated fast-track process, that it's riddled with inconsistencies and technical errors, and that it covertly continues to effectively grant Microsoft control of the standard. So far, organizations representing Brazil and China (original news report in Mandarin, with translation available) have said publicly that they plan to vote against Open XML. India is close to finalizing the same position. On the other side, Germany, the United States, and according to Van Den Beld, Switzerland are all moving to vote in favor of Open XML. Dueling standards wouldn't be a first A Netherlands native who served as an executive with Philips Electronics before joining ECMA in the mid-1980s, Van Den Beld said that if Open XML is approved, it would not be the first time that two technically similar formats have become standards. As an example, he pointed to the multiple DVD recording formats -- including DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, and DVD+RW -- that were all approved first by ECMA and then ISO. "People believe a standards body has complete control over this. That is completely exaggerated," Van Den Beld said. "You cannot take a position such as 'Sony, I like you better than Toshiba.' As soon as you do that, you are no longer neutral." Multiple, similar standards, while "not a good result, are, because of patent wars, often an inevitable result," he said. Merging Open XML and ODF is also not the solution, Van Den Beld said. "The structure of Open XML is so different from ODF, I don't see how we can bring them together into one standard," he said. Regarding objections to the Open XML application because of its length, Van Den Beld said that when Sun Microsystems submitted the Java programming language to ECMA in 1999, the application -- which was eventually withdrawn -- was more than 8,000 pages long. While acknowledging that an Open XML standard may not arm Microsoft rivals and partners with all of the information to successfully build ancillary or even competing products, Van Den Beld says that is not the point. "A standard is not a product description. It tells you what to do, not how to do it," he said. ECMA and the standards ecosystem Created in 1961, ECMA International, which was known as the European Computer Manufacturers Association until 1994, was the first to certify hundreds of technical standards, including the aforementioned DVD formats as well as standards for local-area networks. He called ECMA's relationship with the more prestigious ISO a "perfect symbiosis," with ECMA helping ISO filter out unworthy standards applications and quickly ratifying the ones that were most urgently needed. "ISO is necessarily rather cumbersome because, let's face it, there are many, many players worldwide," he said. "At ECMA, our philosophy is, 'Let's write down all of the technical details of the darn thing and then give it to ISO.'" Far from being rivals, ECMA "is very good friends" with other lesser standards bodies such as OASIS, which gave ODF its first approval, and World-Wide Web Consortium, Van Den Beld claimed. Informal talks about the possibility of merging the groups have even occurred, he said. As for accusations that ECMA -- and he -- are too cozy with Microsoft, Van Den Beld said he has never consulted with or worked at Microsoft. And he pointed out that ECMA has occasionally antagonized Microsoft -- most famously in 1996, when it led the successful charge to force Microsoft to make the application programming interface to Windows 3.1 a public standard. ECMA has already agreed to help ISO address the official "comments," or objections, to Open XML, Van Den Beld said. He acknowledged that while there are many objections, he believes, based on past experience, that if all parties "work like mad in the next four months," a sufficiently refined Open XML specification can be created by ISO's ballot resolution meeting in February, during which JTC-1 members can change the votes they cast in September. A final result would likely be known within one or two months after that, he said.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ has achieved a small victory in itsÂ effort to make Open XML an open technology standard. Massachusetts, the U.S. state that has mandated the use of open technology formats in its government agencies, has put the specification on its list of possible standards that can be used for documents, according to a document on its Web site. The current 4.0 version of the state's Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) -- a framework defining where standards will be used and which ones are permissible -- lists Ecma-376 Office Open XML Formats (Open XML) as an acceptable "open format." The state is adding Open XML to a short list that also includes OASIS Open Document Format For Office Applications (ODF) v. 1.1, the current version of the rival standard supported by IBM, Sun Microsystems, and others. Bethann Pepoli, acting CIO for Massachusetts, said Monday that Open XML was added to the list because it now meets the commonwealth's criteria for an open standard, which requires that formats "are publicly available and are developed by an open community and affirmed by a standards body." Massachusetts has been releasing a revision to the ETRM every six months, and in December when the last version was released Open XML had only recently been approved by Ecma and did not have the required industry support, she said. Massachusetts residents have until July 20 to comment on the current draft of the ETRM. Microsoft submitted Open XML toÂ Ecma InternationalÂ in November 2004, and the standards organization hasÂ approved a final version of the specification. The International Organization for Standards (ISO) is expected to vote on the Ecma version of Open XML later this year. ODF already has been approved by the ISO as an international technology standard. In a statement through its public-relations firm Monday, Microsoft applauded the addition of Open XML to the Massachusetts list, saying it gives users "the ability to choose the open file format standard that best serves their needs." When Microsoft submitted Open XML to Ecma, the company said it was in part to make the document format Microsoft developed in house for its Office 2007 suite a more viable option for governments and other institutions that are beginning to standardize only on technology formats that are available for anyone to use. But critics -- mainly those who support ODF as in favor of Open XML as the standard for documents -- have complained that Microsoft has been too controlling when it comes to the Ecma standards process, ensuring the technology it submitted as a "standard" looked the way Microsoft wanted it to at the end of the approval process. And since the company didn't allow third parties to create implementations of Open XML before it was submitted, critics say Microsoft has misused the standards process, which is meant to be more open. One of those most outspoken critics, IBM's Vice President of Open Source and Standards Bob Sutor, Monday spoke out in favor of Massachusetts decision to let its residents review Open XML alongside other formats. However, he took a dig at Microsoft with a reminder that the ETRM is still only in draft form and that opposition remains to the state's decision to use Open XML as a standard. Â
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Microsoft Corp. has won approval for its Offfice Open XML document format from international standards body ECMA International.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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Responding to requests, Microsoft will sponsor open-source project to build translators between older office formats and Open XML.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has won approval for its Offfice Open XML document format from international standards body ECMA International. ECMA's General Assembly voted by 20-1 in favor of the standard at a meeting in Zurich on Thursday afternoon, and will now submit the format to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for its approval. The vote against came from a representative of IBM Corp. A standardized document format will make it easier for competing software companies to develop products that can interoperate with one another and to edit the same documents. Products meeting the standard could find favor with governments, or other organizations concerned about interoperability. Interoperability is vital for the preservation of archive information, according to Adam Farquhar, head of e-architecture at the British Library and a member of the committee that worked on the standard at ECMA. The British Library archives electronic documents, but must deal with whatever format they arrive in. The development of interoperable software tools will make that work easier. "The level of precision in this standard is unprecedented," Farquhar said. The standard runs to several thousand pages. To help developers digest the standard, the committee has published a 14-page white paper explaining it. "The committee put a lot of effort into making the document accessible," Farquhar said. That accessibility is important if Microsoft is to win developers over to its document format, as the company faces competition in the standards industry just as it does in the software market. A rival document format,Â OpenDocument Format (ODF), has already won approval from ISO, and was published as an ISO standard last month. ODF is used by office productivity suites such as OpenOffice.org or Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice, and has gained the support of other companies, including IBM. Government officials in France and the U.S. commonwealth of Massachusetts have recommended adoption of ODF as a government standard. ISO approval "is a critical factor for governments," said Marino Marcich, Managing Director of the ODF Alliance, a body that promotes the OpenDocument Format. Microsoft's general manager for interoperability and XML (Extensible Markup Language) architecture, Jean Paoli, agrees that "some public institutions prefer standards that are ISO-certified." There are still several hurdles to overcome before Microsoft can obtain ISO approval. ECMA has asked that the standard be fast-tracked, a process to which national standards bodies now have about 30 days to object. If no one objects, then ISO Subcommittee 34 will spend five or six months examining comments on the standard received from the national standards bodies, and only then will the ISO's Joint Technical Committee 1 vote on the standard.
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This week we examine extra functionality in MSXML which provides additional properties and methods that can be used with the DOM interfaces discussed previously. You'll see examples and learn how to create similar functionality in Mozilla. By Apress. 0705
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A meeting of ECMA International Technical Committee 46 will be convened next month in Cambridge, to begin the drafting process for an independent specification for "XML Paper" or XPS - the typeset document standard created by Microsoft as an alternative to Adobe's PDF format.