The Formats of Excel 2007
,----[ Quote ]
| The "Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook" option saves as an "xlsxm"
| extension. It is OOXML plus proprietary Microsoft extensions.
| These extensions, in the form of binary blob called
| vbaProject.bin, represent the source code of the macros. This
| part of the format is not described in the OOXML specification.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/01/formats-of-excel-2007.html
These 6,000 pages of documentation don't even describe proprietary bits like
macros.
Related:
Is Open XML a one way specification for most people?
,----[ Quote ]
| Who will implement Open XML correctly and fully? Maybe Microsoft.
| Why? Since it is essentially a dump into XML of all the data
| needed for all the functionality of their Office products and
| since those products are proprietary, only they will understand
| any nuances that go beyond the spec. The spec may illuminate
| some of the mistakes that have been made and are now being
| written into a so called standard for all to have to implement,
| but I'm guessing there might be a few other shades of meaning
| that will not be clear. Fully and correctly implementing Open
| XML will require the cloning of a large portion of Microsoft's
| product. Best of luck doing that, especially since they have
| over a decade head start. Also, since they have avoided using
| industry standards like SVG and MathML, you'll have to
| reimplement Microsoft's flavor of many things. You had
| better start now. So therefore I conclude that while Microsoft
| may end up supporting most of Open XML (and we'll have to
| see the final products to see how much and how correctly),
| other products will likely only end up supporting a subset.
`----
http://sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1145
Is Office Open XML A One-Way Standard? Ask Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Way back in October, Bob Sutor, IBM's open standards guru, wrote
| a piece on his blog where he described the Office Open XML
| standard as a one way standard, because the format is so complex
| and so geared towards compatibility with legacy Office compatibility
| that it could never be implemented as a fully functional file format
| by any competing personal productivity applications (PPAs) like
| WordPerfect and OpenOffice. I agree with a lot of his points but
| didn't feel compelled to write about it since the issue had been
| covered pretty comprehensively in the blogosphere.
`----
http://blogs.adobe.com/shebanation/2006/12/open_xml_one-way.html
Signs That Your "Open Standard" May Not Be Open Enough
,----[ Quote ]
| If OOXML is an open standard, why must Mac MS Office users wait so
| long for OOXML support? Correct me if I am wrong, but MS Office on
| the Mac is developed by Microsoft themselves, how is it that the
| Windows Office development team had access to the OOXML specification
| but the Mac Office team did not?
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft's ECMA submission comprised more than 6,000 pages. The
| challenge of plowing through so much could drag out
| approval by ISO. (ODF's submission was less than 700 pages.)
|
| [...]
|
| So, while Microsoft's own developers struggle to comprehend and
| implement their own proposed "standard" file format, perhaps Mac
| MS Office customers can use Novell OpenOffice for their Windows MS
| Office compatibility needs.
`----
http://boycottnovell.com/2006/12/07/signs-that-your-open-standard-may-not-be-open-enough/
Novell's "Danaergeschenk", by Georg Greve
,----[ Quote ]
| So in the case of OpenXML, Microsoft now seems to be using Novell to
| put a pro forma implementation of OpenXML into OpenOffice.org, which
| will make it easier to migrate from OpenOffice.org to Microsoft
| Office but can never be sufficient to read all Microsoft Word Documents.
|
| One reason for this is the sheer size of the implementation; another
| reason relates to the containers used within OpenXML, which make use
| of Microsoft's proprietary implementations instead of industry
| standards such as SVG. Moreover, there is really no knowing what
| kind of hooks Microsoft has put into the specification that people
| will not detect at first reading. Indeed, it is quite possible
| that OpenXML will allow what Bruce Perens refers to as "Predatory
| Pratices" in his definition of an Open Standard.
|
| And while there will be a migration path from OpenOffice.org to
| Microsoft Office, Microsoft avoids opening the inverse path to
| any other ODF-compliant Office program, by neglecting ODF support
| in Microsoft Office.
|
| [...]
|
| Bob Sutor, IBM's Vice President of Standards and Open Source has
| written a good analysis why the specification is more akin to a
| denial of service attack than an Open Standard. OpenXML
| basically represents a change of strategy: Instead of trying
| to hide information by not telling anything about their products
| to anyone, they've apparently now switched to hiding information
| in noise, which is by far the more effective method.
`----
http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061208135621706
Sun slams Ecma's OpenXML OK
,----[ Quote ]
| "Make sure you follow how well the Novell and Corel implementations
| do," he wrote. "If they falter, watch out for those who try to blame
| those companies or open source itself, when the root of the problem
| may be with the Microsoft Office OpenXML spec in the first place."
`----
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2170681/sun-slams-ecma-openxml-ok
The Way Forward -- Georg Greve Responds to Groklaw's Comments
,----[ Quote ]
| Make no mistake: the choice isn't between being able to interoperate
| with Microsoft, thanks to Novell doing interoperability work for
| them, or being stuck in some ODF ghetto, unable to read Microsoft
| documents. Everyone wants to interoperate. The question is how.
| The problem is Microsoft. The solution lies with Microsoft. They
| need to get with the program and follow standards like everyone
| else, instead of insisting the world bend to their ways.
|
| It's not normal or acceptable that we can't all freely share
| documents with one another, no matter what operating system we
| like to use. We can send each other email, even if you are on
| Windows and I'm on Linux. Why isn't that the norm for
| everything? It ought to be. The bottleneck is Microsoft. FOSS
| software is happy to interoperate with any other software. Why
| won't Microsoft?
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061212025314700#comments
|
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