How is that useful? Not only is that not a faithful representation of the data (the only reason given for the existence of OOXML in the first place) but OOXML doesn’t let you use SVG, remember? You’ve got to use VML instead. Which means you’ll first need to make a VML application, just to draw some candy corn, which will still be different to the original document so you may as well have imported it into OpenOffice along with the slight inconsistencies that causes, since you’ll save yourself a hell of a lot of effort for the same result.

Plus, the ‘like this matters’ tone you use is a double-edged sword. If if really doesn’t matter that much then why go to the effort of documenting so many of the things inside the specification? Maybe because OOXML is just a modified dump of Microsoft Office’s internal workings rather than an actual standard specifiation?

Even if this was not an impediment to openness, it sure is an impediment to basic sanity in standardization.

“The publication and the rights to the work that has copyrights will be in the hands of the standards organisation when they publish a standard.”

Did your crystal ball tell you that? So far, there are no indications that Microsoft would take such a step.

“So draw your own candy corn. Start up inkscape and just draw a candy corn. Save it as SVG. There, you have candy corn.”

Wow, what a brillant (sic) argument. The entire point is that in this are 100% compatibility cannot be achieved. Although there are many worse problems in Office “Open” XML (such as descriptions that merely say “Behaves like in Word95″), this is a nice example anyway.

Speculation 2: Each time a new file
format is introduced that is
incompatible with previous formats, and
that new format is the default, it
creates a “shock wave” of pressure for
parties to change their software to
remain compatible. Perhaps Microsoft
is hoping that by playing along with
this open standardisation process, and
then adopting the file format in its
next Office package release, can help
it sell this release?

- b

Rememeber, Microsoft’s “Covenant Not to Sue” only grants protection from patents, not copyrights. The Baker & McKenzie analysis recently posted merely rehashes that information.

Although Microsoft did grant royalty-free permissions to reproduce the Office 2003 Reference Schema Specification, this is insufficient because 1) That version of the specification did not include the Art Borders, and 2) That licence specifically says, “No right to create modifications or derivatives of this Specification is granted herein” (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odcXMLRef/html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp)

In any case, my main argument against that Art Borders feature is that it is poorly engineered. If TC45 fixes that aspect of it, then the artistic, cultural, extensibility and legal problems go away.

Of course you can just take the artwork from the specification as the specification will be provided by a standards body. The publication and the rights to the work that has copyrights will be in the hands of the standards organisation when they publish a standard.
As long as you use the EMCA specifications (or mayby later even the ISO specifications) you do not have to worry.

And thus well worthy of incorporation in any “International Standard” claiming to include “art”, however defined.

Of course, once we start incorporating the art traditions of the world, there is then no rational reason why the erotic carvings of the dancers in the Indian and Indochinese temples should not be incorporated as a valid Art Page Border.

And that is not even mentioning the magnificent Papua New Guinean carvings, or the Australian Aboriginies, or the Cook Islands or the New Zealand Maori abstract art traditions …

This is something that definitely needs to be looked at in closer detail. Some of us do have some basic respect for art.

Wesley Parish

One minor nit-pick: gingerbreadmen for Christmas are German-American. Doesn’t change the fact that they have no place in a technical standard.

I wonder if Microsoft’s Open XML format is going to support MS Works file formats, the way it is supposed to be supporting MS Office file formats?

I strongly suspect MS Works users will forever remain second-class citizens in the Microsoft office productivity software scene.

Wesley Parish