<quote url="http://www.techworld.com/networking/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4875"> 29 November 2005 Sun urges US state to reject Microsoft open format By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service Sun has urged the state of Massachusetts to rethink its opinion that Microsoft's Open XML meets the acceptable parameters for an open format In a letter signed by the director of corporate standards for Sun, Carl Cargill, the company asked the state to keep in mind the reasons for its previous commitment to the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) specification. ... </quote> My own opinion is that both of these specification are a bad use of XML. Nonetheless, they seem to provided what the masses want in a word processor. [*] If I'm not mistaken, the OpenDocument specification is the one OO is being built to. It was also created from the ground up with the intention of being an open standard. If Microsoft can promulgate their "standard" over another candidate such as OpenDocument, that would mean all other office software producers will be forced to play catchup with Microsoft, while Microsoft can "adapt" the new standard for nothing. It seems to me, since Microsoft has the largest market capitalization of any company in history, they are in a much better position to pay for the modification required in order to conform to something like OpenDocument. The only argument which might favor MS Open(sic) XML is some possible technical superiority. If MS Office is any indication, such superiority does not exist. [*]“Uncle Cosmo, why do they call this a word. processor?” “It’s simple, Skyler. You’ve seen what food. processors do to food, right?” www.lyx.org
Steven T. Hatton wrote:
My own opinion is that both of these specification are a bad use of XML. Nonetheless, they seem to provided what the masses want in a word processor.
The masses surely couldn't care less how the document format is defined, be it in XML or not? I like it being in XML right now - it makes it easy to do fast mass document merges ("mailmerge") external to OO. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.com/ - managed anti-spam and anti-virus solution.
On Tuesday 29 November 2005 15:06, Per Jessen wrote:
Steven T. Hatton wrote:
My own opinion is that both of these specification are a bad use of XML. Nonetheless, they seem to provided what the masses want in a word processor.
The masses surely couldn't care less how the document format is defined, be it in XML or not? I like it being in XML right now - it makes it easy to do fast mass document merges ("mailmerge") external to OO.
What I really mean is these specifications support the illconceived notion of unstructured documents where you can simply stick almost anything almost anywhere. My preference is for more structured approaches such as DocBook with Emacs and PSGML, or nXML. I wish more people saw the light on this. Lots of tools give lipservice to such standards as DocBook, but they really don't support the discipline they define. Steven
Steven T. Hatton wrote:
What I really mean is these specifications support the illconceived notion of unstructured documents where you can simply stick almost anything almost anywhere. My preference is for more structured approaches such as DocBook with Emacs and PSGML, or nXML. I wish more people saw the light on this.
Ah, now I understand what you were getting at. Would a more structured approach be suitable for all kinds of documents? Both Word and OO are being used for the most varied kinds of documents. I personally design everything from businesscards over flyers to invoices and songs. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.co.uk/ - managed anti-spam and anti-virus solution.
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Per Jessen -
Steven T. Hatton