March 2007

The ODF Validation Service

March 28, 2007

No, this has nothing to do with getting discounted parking if you use ODF, though that is an intriguing idea… Daniel Carrera (OpenDocument Fellowship and the OASIS ODF TC) has a new blog and with it comes news of a new ODF tool, an ODF Validator Service, written as part of the Fellowship’s ODF Tools [...]

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The Case for a Single Document Format: Part II

March 22, 2007

This is Part II of a four-part post. In Part I we surveyed of a number of different problem domains, some that resulted in a single standard, some that resulted in multiple standards. In this post, Part II, we’ll try to explain the forces that tend to unify or divide standards and hopefully make sense [...]

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Cannibalism

March 20, 2007

A interesting post by Bob Sutor. What is OOXML’s real competition, and how does that help ODF? The dynamics get interesting when you are hindered by your own install base. The main selling point of OOXML is its claimed 100% compatibility with the legacy binary formats. But if you are using Office 2000, and happy [...]

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Pruning Raspberries

March 19, 2007

The earth does not yield up her sweet fruits unrecompensed. For every berry I will harvest in September, I pay now an equal measure of sweat and blood. Hunched down and with thick gloves, I navigate the thicket of thorny bramble canes, the red raspberries, yellow raspberries, purple raspberries, blackberries, thimble berries and field berries, [...]

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ODF Freely Available

March 19, 2007

Another step forward for ODF. After gaining ISO approval in May, and Publication status in December, ISO/IEC 26300 is now counted among ISO’s “Freely Available Standards“. What is the significance of this? The text is identical to what it was in May, but you no longer need to pay 342 Swiss Francs to ISO to [...]

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The Case for a Single Document Format: Part I

March 18, 2007

This will be a multi-part post, mixing in a little economics, a little history and a little technology — an intellectual smörgåsbord — attempting to make the argument that a single document format is the inevitable and desired outcome. In Part I we’ll take a survey of a number of different problem domains, some that [...]

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Fast Track. Wrong Direction.

March 13, 2007

The idea was to make the C++ programming language work better in Microsoft’s .NET framework. It started off as the Managed Extensions for C++, first available in 2000, and later in Visual Studio .NET 2003. Managed Extensions were reformulated in Visual Studio 2005 where they were called C++/CLI, referring to the Common Language Infrastructure, the [...]

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Document Migrations

March 6, 2007

If you’ve been around this business for a while, you’ve seen your share of migrations. New operating systems, new networks, new hardware, even new document formats. I’d like to share some recollections of one such migration, and then some suggest a solution. In 1995 I was working at Lotus on Freelance Graphics, along with many [...]

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Compatibility According to Humpty Dumpty

March 4, 2007

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,” ’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!” ’ ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,” ’ Alice objected. ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a [...]

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OASIS Symposium and OpenDocument Workshop

March 1, 2007

OASIS will have its annual Symposium April 15th-17th in San Diego, with the theme, “eBusiness and Open Standards: Understanding the Facts, Fiction, and Future”. It should be noted that this is not a real symposium, where guests recline in couches, drink wine and discuss philosophy to the accompaniment of flute-girls. On the other hand, it [...]