For an SQL database, you probably want to standardize on the SQL to access the data; you might also want a standard ‘unload’ format so that you can unload from IBM DB2 and load back in to Microsoft SQLServer. Or vice-versa.

For office productivity documents, the reason for standardizing seems to be that people attach them to emails; put them on their web sites; and archive them in the expectation they will be accessible in decades to come.

Document managers ? Well, you could always try getting everyone to buy IBM Lotus Notes :-) But of course some will insist on Microsoft SharePoint :-( .

What’s the way to bridge between those two ?

Telcos seem to manage interoperability between competitors. You don’t have to all get phone service from ATT nowadays. It can be done.

I think at the level of documents, your best bet is to get the formats standardized, but at the level of the document managers, better to standardize the protocols/API’s used to locale and access the documents, like HTTP, WebDav, JSR 170 Java Content Repository, etc.

I don’t know if there is some general rule or higher observation here, but that’s what it looks like to me.

The thing to remember about IBM is that we’re inveterate integrators. We thrive on heterogeneous environments. Standards are what allows us to make our solutions work with what the customer already has.

Corporates are big and complex entities.

Any instance of the Notes API can convert an NSF into a detailed XML structure (known as DXL) with a short series of calls. But IBM has never claimed that NSF was or is open.

In any case I’m not aware of any NSF file format specification. Your best bet may be to look for a way of doing a one-time programmatic migration of the data on a machine that does have Notes installed, into a format that you can better consume.

(Ben, Ed, let me know if I’m missing something here.)

The important thing to keep in mind is that not every technology you find out there is based on a documented, specified file format. Take Lotus WordPro for example. Beneath its Bento wrapper it is pretty much a memory dump, an unadulterated, undigested serialization of internal WordPro C++ data structures. Aside from mimicking the internal data structures of WordPro, you will not have much luck reading a WordPro file.

So for formats like that, I would not propose them as standards. In the end, a file format is typically not tied to a particular application because it was designed to be tied to that application. It is tied to an application because the format lacked design altogether, or at least lacked a perspective broader than a single application.

I need the file format of NSF-files. I want to decrypt properitary encap2.ond attachments (they are tiny NSF-databases and the equivalent of TNEF for MS-Office which has been reverse engineered very well) on an embedded linux system and I cannot place notes.dll or the whole Notes client onto that appliance because of licensing issues.

Because I can read everywhere that IBM is so open I want to ask if someone knows to read the NSF-file format?

Many thanks, especially for Rob if he makes this properitary file format available, I really need it.
Christian

Standards are intended to promote standardization? I’ll need to think about that one a bit more.

But I’ll ask you this: When should a standard be rejected by ISO? We clearly have a system here that is set up to evaluate proposals and then to vote on them. The existence of a voting mechanism indicates that one of the outcomes envisioned by the process is failure of a proposal.

So when should a proposed standard be rejected? It sounds like you are saying that standards should never be rejected. But if that is true, then why do we vote?

The last thing I would like to see happening is putting the whole ISO organization to its grave because of this OOXML mess…

The fact that Microsoft already succeded to interfere in the ISO core process and made “corrections” to its written regulations is already *very serious*, guys !

Please, anyone of us that has some power in this matter: 1. oppose to the idea of ISO becoming a vendor consortium (shortcutting the NBs) and 2. oppose to the idea of lowering the ISO overall quality standards just for the sake of rushing (fast-tracking) some Microsoft crap !

Please, please…

I’m *deelpy* concerned.

Regards,
Răzvan
Bucharest, Romania

Consider that it requires 2/3 approval of JTC1 P members to approve a standard. Microsoft, by various means, has managed to achieve very close to that number. They are only 5 short. If they achieve that 2/3 then they can ram through whatever standards they want.

But that scary part is that with even 1/3 of P-members, a number they clearly outright own, they can block anyone else’s standard. It probably hasn’t sunk into your realization yet,but Microsoft can essentially already erected toll bridge in ISO and demand payment or other concessions from anyone who wants to work with International Standards. If ISO rules get in the way, Microsoft can change them. If ISO administrators get in the way — no worry. With this number of NB’s Microsoft can control directives, staffing, paychecks, etc.

They’ve raised an army. You don’t think they will use it?

Microsoft has by their actions broken the mechanism to ALL business interoperability, from the correct dimensions of an M8 bolt to formal quality control and risk management processes. All that damage, just so it could hang on to a office software monopoly.

This has gone well past the point of acceptance, and especially those who wilfully participated in this scam are in principle liable for the damage their efforts will cause to business worldwide, and that damage is already starting to show. At the moment it’s mainly technical, but tell me, as a random grab from existing standards ISO holds, would *you* want to be responsible for, for instance, holding up a standard for Respiratory tract humidifiers for medical use? Or a standard to reduce injury to children’s heads? I’m not sure if anyone really understands just how catastrophic the damage is that Microsoft has caused with its shenanigans but the ramifications are IMHO very worrying.

I have reported the matter to the office of Dr Neelie Kroes, to be considered in the light of the recent monopoly judgement against Microsoft. I must admit that I don’t quite know what CAN be done, but this act of wilful destruction must not go unnoticed. If you know any journalists, PLEASE mention it to them. Show them facts, not guesswork – there are enough. Get it public.

In my opinion, ISO needs to do some serious house cleaning. In the core organisation, rules must be strengthened and an arbitration panel must be installed to ensure an appropriate means is available to deal with any future abuse. Given the proven abuse of the mechanism, MSOOXML should be wholly removed from the ISO voting process until the effects of the vote rigging have been negated. The ficticuous P members that have joined but not voted must be removed on account of joining on false premises, their payment considered compensation for the harm they caused. Repeated non-voting must be set as a reason to lose membership status.

In the national bodies, several processes are ongoing already to establish how Microsoft managed to sway the committee leaderships. In countries like Switzerland formal complaints exist against the leadership, and in general there has been a global discovery that what was supposed to be a fully technical and logical process has emerged to be a human process that can be easily subverted by companies with ill intent. This too needs addressing but is much harder because the mechanism is not universal, it differs per country. I don’t think ISO can do much about that centrally.

I have been involved in cleaning up organisational messes before, but I must admit I’ve never seen anything on such grand a scale. This is not just unethical, it’s wanton destruction.

If Microsoft has ANY sense whatsoever it should start undoing the damage it has caused, starting Monday latest. If not I would hope everyone reading this will do their best to ensure that the full effects of what they have done are made clear to every press outfit on the planet.

This .really. has gone too far.

I don’t think Rob and Bob Sutor are particularly ‘attacking’ Microsoft. Well, only in the sense that a Coke salesman would ‘attack’ a Pepsi salesman. The corporations are competitors in this market segment, and are likely to remain so for ever.

It’s more that they are pointing out that IBM is relatively unlikely to come up with a competing independent implementation of DIS29500; a sort-of upgraded Lotus SmartSuite which could interoperate with Microsoft Office by exchanging the files that each product writes to disk in DIS29500 format. As far as I can tell, the investment required to do that is thought to be large and pointless.

So if the ‘powers that be’ are hoping that by ISO standardising on DIS29500 they will draw IBM in to build an independent product and compete with Microsoft on price, they’re probably going to be disappointed.

Whether any other business attempts to come in to compete would be up to them; but perhaps governments should look to see if there are any credible ones before casting their votes.

By all accounts, those who pay ‘full list price’ for Microsoft’s office solutions (typically small and medium business) will not see any price reductions consequent on ISO issuing a standard for DIS29500. It won’t achieve any additional competition.

IBM’s colours are firmly nailed to the mast with Lotus Notes; 120 million paying ‘seats’. And Lotus Symphony, no charge, which stands in the same relationship to Lotus Notes as a telephone handset stands to dial-tone. ISO26300 for both of those.

ATT gives away handsets to grow the market for dial-tone. Businesses distribute marketing novelties all the time, at a ‘retail price’ of $0; of course the ‘wholesale’ price is higher. IBM Lotus Symphony is an IBM marketing novelty. Get yours here http://symphony.lotus.com/ and give or sell them to your friends and customers too if you like.

Other segments are other businesses. IBM and Microsoft are locked together in the XBox360 business; IBM can’t sell XBox360 chips to anyone but Microsoft, and Microsoft can’t buy XBox360 chips from anyone but IBM. An uneasy truce, maybe, but what else would you have happen ?

Is it good for the world (producers and consumers) if we have common, interoperable web service specifications ? I think so. So the ‘battleships’ attempt to hammer it out.

This would comfort me more had I not witnessed the process leading up to the US NB vote. With the Secretary of Commerce being lobbied directly by the CEO of Microsoft and then pressuring the other Federal agencies to change their votes (contrary to their technical experts’ advice.)

It would be nice if we could have the process be less political, rather than more — but that may not be an option. Sometimes, I fear, Chairman Mao was right about the roots of power.

For the record, IBM currently participates in over 400 standards organizations worldwide. We employ many of the most talented and experienced standards professionals in the industry. If you can’t think of any standards that IBM is contributing to, then that probably just shows the thankless nature of standards development. When standards work well, you don’t read about them in the press.