Following criticism from the Open Source Industry Association (OSIA) over its ambition to have the Office Open XML (Open XML or OOXML) format accepted as an international (ISO) standard, Microsoft’s group product manager for Microsoft Office, Gray Knowlton, spoke with Computerworld about why the world needs two standard document formats.
What advantages does OOXML have over Open Document Format (ODF) that warrant its inclusion as an ISO standard?
Open XML and ODF are designed with different goals in mind. Among its goals, Open XML is designed to carry forward the information stored within billions of documents created in the past. Open XML provides the best opportunity to do so. Open XML includes specifications for features like spreadsheet formulas to maintain maximum compatibility. ODF, favoring a simpler implementation, chose to omit spreadsheet formulas in the standard submitted to ISO. Open XML also includes capability commonly referred to as “custom-defined schema support”, a unique capability designed to allow implementers to embed information within documents using their own XML vocabularies, instead of requiring translation into the document format markup language. This is particularly advantageous when incorporating information into documents that originate from line-of-business applications.
This week Brazil and Indian technical committees have publicly voiced concerns about OOXML. One of the objections was that Open XML was not fully compatible with ODF. Are these criticisms valid?
Open XML and ODF are not required to be compatible. In fact, this is the purpose of having two standards. Translation projects, however, have been undertaken to help move documents between Open XML and ODF when this is necessary. These translation tools are freely available (as well as the source code for them) today. Open XML and ODF differ in their fundamental approach to XML markup. Open XML word processing documents, for example use a non-mixed content model designed for optimum application performance. ODF opts for a more verbose and more human-readable XML markup. This can be said for many document formats and XML-based markup languages. As PDF and ODF are fundamentally incompatible, and XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) and DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) are also incompatible, it is very common for different document formats and markup languages to have differing design objectives and implementations.
If Microsoft wants to get OOXML approved as an ISO standard what progress has it made to support the existing ODF standard in its products? Does Microsoft plan to support ODF in future products?
ODF is supported in Microsoft Office via the [ODF] translator. This is an open source project funded by Microsoft, and it is already available today.
The OSIA believes the OOXML “standard” is designed so that it can only be implemented by a single vendor. Is this true, and, if not, what other non-Microsoft products support OOXML?
A list of products that have already implemented the Open XML standard can be located at here and here. One local developer, Expression Engineering, is commercializing a new application built using the Ecma Open Office XML file formats that enables collaborative editing in Microsoft Word. The Ecma Open Office XML format allows any changes made by one user to be replicated automatically in near real time to the copies other Word users have open.
You’ll find that software products on Windows, Linux, Mac and other platforms (such as the iPhone from Apple) are already shipping with support for Open XML. This is especially evident on the Mac platform. Between the Apple iWork suite, Microsoft Office for the Mac, and NeoOffice, Open XML is the standard these three products share; these applications are not capable of exchanging ODF, two of these products do not support the ODF standard.
According to the OSIA, in theory a third-party could create an independent implementation but in practice it is “very unlikely”. Why is this so?
We disagree with the OSIA in this regard, and we offer the list of implementations as very clear evidence to the contrary. Several commercial products that support the Open XML standard are already available.
With a specification over 6000 pages, ten times longer than that for ODF, why are there still undocumented features of OOXML relating to backward compatibility?
There are 11 application compatibility settings in Open XML that were not documented in the original standard. Ecma international has committed to reviewing this and all other technical comments during the ISO review period. It is expected that these settings will be fully documented during the ISO ballot process.
Is Microsoft “stacking” standards bodies in order to get OOXML approved as an ISO standard?
No.
Will an OOXML standard cause confusion to consumers who may expect documents to be read by third-party applications?
Based on the current support of Open XML in the marketplace, no. Open XML enjoys broad support among desktop productivity applications today, and Open XML offers a very good option for standards-based document exchange already. This will only become more true over time, as the proliferation of Open XML documents continues its rapid rate of increase.
Are local vendors likely to be overwhelmed by the sheer scope of an OOXML specification?
Based on the current list of supported solutions, it seems the software community has the opportunity, desire and skill to implement the formats. Expression Engineering, for example, is leveraging the specification effectively without huge resources. Microsoft also helps in offering open development communities, such as the one posted on openxmldeveloper.org and msdn.microsoft.com/office/xml to help developers adopt Open XML.
Will having both ODF and OOXML as “standards” result in neither of them being a “standard” as the OSIA suggests?
No, in fact, both formats are being adopted today. Merging Open XML and ODF into one standard, as has been suggested, would only serve to create a THIRD standard. Because both Open XML and ODF are in use today, it makes little sense to disrupt either format by attempting to munge them together into yet another new document format.
