Microsoft and Open Document Standards

Many large businesses and Governments are concerned that documents created today, can be accessed and read well into the future. Hence, the need for specifications for an open document format that is not tied to a particular operating system, application software or even a particular version of an application software.

In 2006 the International Standards Organisation (ISO) approved the Open Document Format Specification as a standard - ISO/IEC 26300 (OpenDocument). The Open Document Format specification is 722 pages [iso.org], designed to be neutral, vendor independent and platform independent. The OpenXML specification page count is 6000 pages [regdeveloper.co.uk], and accomodates the enormous legacy of features, incompatibilities and work-arounds that have accumulated in MS-Office formats over the years.

Much of the OpenXML specification duplicates existing standards such as for Maths, Vector Graphics, and of course the Open Document Format. In addition the specification requires proprietary Microsoft information for full implementation, which undermines its basis as a standard.

Criticism articulated in the Wikipedia article on the Ecma Office Open XML specification include:

• the Office Open XML format specification references external formats that are not properly standardized, and therefore not covered by covenant not to sue.
• Volunteers, encouraged by Groklaw, have collected contradictions (conflict of standards) to the OOXML ISO adoption process. So far it includes 9 contradictions in relation to pre-existing standards, 12 instances of inconsistency in the specification in relation to attribute definitions, and other issues that limit the implementation of OOXML by third parties. These Contradictions include:
  • Use of a two-byte language code instead of the ISO 639 two-letter and three-letter language codes
  • Use of 1900 as a leap year in date calculations, and a date format which is not in ISO 8601
  • Use of DrawingML and VML instead of SVG, and of a new mathematical format instead of MathML. MathML is in ISO/IEC 26300 and SVG is a W3C standard, but not an ISO standard.
  • Inconsistencies between definitions in different sections of the standard

Other criticisms highlighted by Wikipedia include:

• The specification is too long to evaluate in the 30-day period
• Lack of cross-platform support

Groklaw is compiling a full list of 'contradictions' of the Office OpenXML specification.

A Microsoft employee offered to pay Rick Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of Sydney computing company Topologi, to change the wikipedia article on the Open Office XML specification.

Founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales was quoted by the Age "We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach," Wales said.

Wikinews reported:

Doug Mahugh from Microsoft contacted Rick Jelliffe, who is the top technical officer for Sydney computing company Topologi - and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct the article.

“Wikipedia has an entry on Open XML that has a lot of slanted language, and we'd like for them to make it more objective but we feel that it would be best if a non-Microsoft person were the source of any corrections,” reads the email Mahugh wrote to Jelliffe.

One of Wikipedia's core policies is that articles must be written from a "neutral point of view" or NPOV.

“Would you have any interest or availability to do some of this kind of work? Your reputation as a leading voice in the XML community would carry a lot of credibility, so your name came up in a discussion of the Wikipedia situation today."

The e-mail also stated that Microsoft would not stop Jelliffe from disclosing the deal and rather encouraged him to post it on his blog at oreillynet.com. It also reassured Jelliffe that Microsoft did not have to approve any changes he made to the article.

"We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said. Wales stated that the proper thing for Microsoft was to write a "white paper" concerning the article, post it on an outside website and then link it to the discussion page of the Wikipedia articles' discussion forums. "It seems like a much better, transparent, straightforward way," Wales said.

Microsoft spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM, which is a supporter of the rival ISO-approved OpenDocument standard used by two leading Open Source office suites rather than the controversial Microsoft Office Open XML format.

David Gerard, a UK press volunteer from wikimedia, said at slashdot "It should be obvious that paid editing from a very interested player is a conflict of interest, and no reasonable person should need more than to have it pointed out. That said, I've asked Doug Mchugh and Rick Jelliffe to keep contributing to the OOXML talk page and I hope they'll give some much-needed cluefulness to both the OOXML and OpenDocument pages. MS technical participation via the talk page is entirely appropriate."

Sources:

1. Groklaw 23 Jan 2007 - Deadline Looms to Express Concerns about ECMA 376 Office Open XML
2. Consortiuminfo.org Standards Blog 17 Jan, 2007 - The Contradictory Nature of OOXML
3. The Age 24 Jan, 2007 -Microsoft 'tried to doctor Wikipedia'
4. Wikinews 24 Jan, 2007: Microsoft to pay blogger to correct Wikipedia article
5. Slashdot 22 Jan, 2007 - Microsoft PR Paying to "Correct" Wikipedia
6. Wikipedia: Ecma Office Open XML
7. Wikipedia: Comparison of OpenDocument and Microsoft Office Open XML formats
8. Wikipedia: OpenDocument
9. Rick Jelliffe Blog on O'Reilly.net 22 Jan, 2007 - An interesting offer: get paid to contribute to Wikipedia
10. Doug Mahugh's blog on MSDN 23 Jan, 2007 - Interesting Times